The humanoid baggage handler has landed

PLUS: SoftBank's $100B robotics startup

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Jennifer Mossalgue, Joey Liu, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma & Zach Mink
April 30, 2026

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Japan Airlines is about to let Chinese humanoids loose on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, one of the world’s busiest.

Beginning in May, Unitree’s G1 and UBTECH’s Walker E will be put to work hauling luggage and loading cargo near aircraft stands, in an early test of whether bipedal machines can survive the chaotic reality of airport ground ops.

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Humanoids handle baggage at Tokyo airport

  • SoftBank launches $100B robotics company

  • Harvard’s ant bots rewrite swarm logic

  • China freezes all robotaxi permits

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

JAPAN AIRLINES

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Japan’s largest carrier is deploying Chinese-made humanoids as bag handlers at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport — one of the world’s busiest airports — in a two-year trial that doubles as a stress test for the entire sector.

The details:

  • Japan Airlines will start testing the robots as bag handlers from early May, in a trial to modernize ground operations and tackle staff shortages.

  • The robots — Unitree’s G1 and UBTECH’s Walker E — will assist with cargo loading and unloading near aircraft stands, slotting into existing infrastructure.

  • JAL chose humanoids so they can operate in tight spaces around planes and plug into existing conveyors, gates, and service areas without a major overhaul.

  • Each robot can work for around two to three hours at a time before recharging, and humans will continue to supervise traffic management around aircraft.

Why it matters: The trial could expand well beyond baggage, eventually testing humanoids on aircraft cabin cleaning and ground support equipment. Humanoids have already begun pilot programs in automotive factories and warehouses, but international airports represent a far more challenging, higher-stakes proving ground.

SOFTBANK

Image source: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg / Getty Images / Reve AI

The Rundown: SoftBank is assembling a new company called Roze AI that would deploy fleets of autonomous robots to build data centers in the U.S., making AI infrastructure faster and cheaper to construct, the Financial Times reports.

The details:

  • The venture’s focus is on making AI data-center construction more efficient and scalable, with fleets of robots handling repetitive and hazardous tasks.

  • SoftBank is already preparing Roze for a U.S. IPO, with some execs pushing for a listing as early as the second half of 2026.

  • The target valuation: at a staggering $100B — though insiders have raised doubts about both that figure and the proposed timeline.

  • CEO Masayoshi Son has committed tens of billions to AI infrastructure, including a high-profile $41B investment in OpenAI.

Why it matters: Son has committed billions to AI infrastructure, and Roze extends that to the physical layer of construction itself. But given his track record has been uneven (he sank hundreds of millions into Zume, a failed AI pizza startup), insiders are already questioning whether a pricey new robotics spinout is worth the risk.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Image source: L. Mahadevan / Harvard SEAS

The Rundown: Harvard researchers just built a swarm of ant-inspired robots — dubbed “RAnts” — that can collectively construct and dismantle structures with no central command, blueprints, or pre-programmed coordination.

The details:

  • Instead of pheromones, the robots communicate via light fields, with each bot responding to environmental changes triggered by its neighbors.

  • Intelligence, rather than being embedded in hardware, emerges from the interaction between agents and their environment.

  • Flipping just two parameters — cooperation strength and material deposition rate — switches the entire swarm from construction mode to demolition mode.

  • Published in PRX Life, the research points toward applications in hazardous-zone construction or even planetary exploration.

Why it matters: Harvard’s RAnts show that complex, adaptive behavior doesn’t require complex robots, a finding that reframes how engineers think about autonomy at scale. MIT and EPFL are also exploring decentralized coordination of swarm bots, with implications for everything from disaster response to off-world construction.

ROBOTAXIS

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: China froze new permits for autonomous vehicles after more than 100 Baidu Apollo Go robotaxis abruptly stopped mid-traffic in Wuhan last month, stranding passengers on highways and triggering a national safety review.

The details:

  • In March, more than 100 Baidu Apollo Go robotaxis stalled simultaneously in Wuhan, trapping passengers inside for up to two hours and disrupting traffic.

  • China suspended all new autonomous vehicle permits nationwide, blocking companies from expanding fleets, launching pilots, or entering new cities.

  • Regulators also convened emergency meetings with officials from cities running robotaxi programs, ordering comprehensive safety inspections.

  • Baidu’s Wuhan operations — its largest hub with 400 fully driverless vehicles — remain suspended, while rivals WeRide and Pony have seen their shares drop.

Why it matters: Baidu’s Wuhan operations are suspended entirely while a broader freeze bars all operators from expanding fleets, launching new tests, or entering new cities — with no timeline for resumption. It’s the second such halt in under two years; the last one, triggered by job-displacement protests, took months to lift.

QUICK HITS

MIT and DeepMind veterans just brought Eka Robotics out of stealth, with a simulation‑trained foundation model that aims to give robots high‑speed dexterity.

Medra AI opened Medra Lab 001 in San Francisco, a 38K-square-foot facility with 100+ robots running 24/7 experiments for biotech and drug discovery.

China’s State Grid is investing nearly $1B to roll out 8,500 AI robots to take over inspection and maintenance of its power grid.

Shenzhen‑based startup Kinetix AI unveiled KAI, an ultra‑high‑DoF humanoid aimed at the top end of dexterity and tactile sensing in the current humanoid wave.

REK is opening what it calls the first “humanoid store” in the U.S., a REK Shop in San Francisco that will sell, service, and showcase its VR‑piloted fighting robots.

France-based SquareMind raised $18M for Swan, an AI robotic platform that automates full-body skin imaging to help dermatologists detect skin cancer.

MIT researchers 3D-printed soft microscopic “magno-bots” whose moving parts can be remotely actuated by an ordinary magnet for tasks like gripping or drug delivery.

Amazon-owned Zoox started testing autonomous robotaxi rides for employees to and from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

Researchers at the University of Turku developed a stretchable, transparent, eco-friendly electronic “skin” that gives a robotic hand pressure-sensitive touch.

Germany is building tele‑operated robotic excavators and arms to safely remove 126K corroding nuclear waste barrels from the unstable Asse II salt mine.

A French Navy-operated deep-sea robot retrieved delicate 16th‑century artifacts from a merchant shipwreck more than 1.5 miles beneath the Mediterranean.

The US Navy and Boeing completed the first two-hour test flight of the operational MQ-25A Stingray unmanned carrier-based refueling drone.

EPFL researchers built a “kinematic intelligence” control method that lets robots share and reuse human-taught skills without jamming their joints.

California approved regulations allowing manufacturers to test and deploy heavy-duty autonomous trucks, weighing over 10K pounds, on public roads.

COMMUNITY

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Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — The Rundown’s editorial team