Companies

Skild AI is a robotics company founded in 2023 that builds a general-purpose robotic foundation model, intended to act as a single brain across many robot bodies and tasks such as manipulation, locomotion and navigation.

EnterpriseDeep learningFoundation models

SRI International is a non-profit research institute in Menlo Park, California, founded in 1946 as the Stanford Research Institute. Its AI Center built Shakey the robot, and its later work led to Siri.

Research historyRoboticsComputer vision

The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, started by John McCarthy in 1963, is associated with the Stanford arm robot design, the Stanley self-driving car and the SAIL programming language.

Research historyRoboticsComputer vision

Stanford University is a private research university in California, home to the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) and the Institute for Human-Centered AI, which publishes the AI Index.

Research historyDeep learningRobotics

Talen Energy is an independent power producer created in 2015 from the spinoff of PPL's competitive generation business, later taken private by Riverstone, restructured through bankruptcy, and now a nuclear power supplier to Amazon.

Hardware & computeCloudIndustrial automation

Tesla is the American company behind Optimus, a humanoid robot first shown as a concept at its 2021 AI Day; later reports describe pilot production lines, plans for volume manufacturing and a target unit cost below US$20,000.

EnterpriseProduct historyRobotics

Toyota Motor Corporation is an automaker that in 2015 announced the Toyota Research Institute, a separate company focused on artificial intelligence and robotics, backed by about $1 billion over five years.

EnterpriseRoboticsIndustrial automation

Tsinghua University's Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR) is an applied AI research institute set up under Zhang Yaqin, targeting the fourth industrial revolution through autonomous driving, AI plus IoT and brain-inspired intelligence.

Research historyChinaIndustrial automation

Uber ATG was Uber's self-driving unit. After a fatal 2018 crash with a pedestrian that the NTSB traced to a distracted safety operator and weak safety oversight, Uber sold the group to Aurora in December 2020.

Research historyRoboticsSafety & governance

UBTECH Robotics is a robot company founded in March 2012 that moved from small humanoid robots to full-size industrial humanoids, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023, and began mass production delivery of its Walker S2 robot in 2025.

ChinaEnterpriseRobotics

Unimation was the Connecticut company founded in 1961 by George C. Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger that built the first Unimate robot and later the PUMA series.

Research historyProduct historyRobotics

A Chinese robotics company established in Hangzhou in 2016 that designs and builds quadruped and humanoid robots, selling them at both low starting prices and industrial contract scale.

ChinaRoboticsHardware & compute

Verne is a Rimac Group company developing an electric two-seater robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals; with Pony.ai and Uber it launched a commercial driverless service in Zagreb in 2026.

Consumer appsRoboticsEurope

Waymo is Alphabet's self-driving technology company, spun out of Google's autonomous car project in December 2016. It builds the software and sensors that drive vehicles rather than the vehicles themselves.

EnterpriseProduct historyRobotics

WeRide is an autonomous driving company founded in Silicon Valley in 2017 by Tony Han, formerly chief scientist of Baidu's autonomous driving unit. Its WeRide One platform spans L2 to L4 autonomy, and its vehicles run in more than 60 cities.

ChinaEnterpriseRobotics

A Chinese consumer electronics and smart manufacturing company built around smartphones, smart hardware and its AIoT platform, listed in Hong Kong in 2018 and extending its engineering into quadruped and humanoid robots.

ChinaEnterpriseConsumer apps

XPENG is a Chinese maker of smart electric vehicles founded in 2014 and headquartered in Guangzhou, which has extended its in-house AI work to humanoid robots, new driving models and robotaxi plans.

ChinaEnterpriseConsumer apps

Zoox is an autonomous ride-hailing company founded in 2014 that builds its own zero-emissions robotaxis, with no steering wheel or pedals, and the software that drives them. It began carrying paying-concept service in Las Vegas after receiving the first commercial exemption for a purpose-built robotaxi.

Consumer appsRoboticsSafety & governance