CES 2025 has been a combined bag for humanoid robots. The shape issue had a watershed second, as pictures of the highest gamers flanked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang throughout his Monday keynote.
Of those, Agility’s Digit additionally confirmed up alongside a miniature conveyer belt at a closed entry NVIDIA sales space. It was a pleasant return for the bipedal robotic, an older type of which appeared at CES 2020 as a part of Ford’s showcase.
Past this, humanoid illustration has largely been restricted to smaller firms, except for Apptronik. The Austin agency’s Apollo robotic made an look as a part of Texas Devices’ presence on the present. The humanoid makes use of a few of the Dallas-based semi-conductor big’s modules internally.
After a number of close to misses, this was the primary time I’ve seen Apollo in-person. When Apptronik confirmed TechCrunch the first footage of the robotic in 2023, I needed to double verify that it wasn’t an animated render. There’s one thing different worldly in regards to the robotic. It’s truthfully refreshing, as a lot of the competitors has supplied comparable aesthetic visions for humanoids: darkish, sterile, even apocalyptic.
Apollo is shiny and nearly cartoony, with a pair of massive eyes and a head form that brings again heat reminiscences of early iMacs. Like different first-gen humanoids, Apollo will largely deal with manufacturing facility work, however simply because it’s destined for an industrial setting doesn’t imply it must be unwelcoming and chilly.
Apollo’s actions had been easy, and the robotic even hammed it up for the digicam as I snapped some photographs. It needs to be famous, nevertheless, that this was an especially restricted pick-and-place demo that exists for demonstration functions solely. This was not the clever, autonomous model of the robotic set to be deployed in factories.
Notably, Apptronik started manufacturing facility pilots with Mercedes in March, following the announcement of comparable offers between Determine and BMW and Agility and Amazon.
