Which platform has the best developer/research access if you wanted to build on top of it?

[dchen]

@mohammed64 That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. Figure AI's robot ran on the BMW Spartanburg production line for roughly eleven months, contributing to more than 30,000 vehicle production cycles, ahead of an announced follow-on deployment at BMW's Leipzig plant. Reminds me a bit of the early drone hobbyist scene, honestly.

[freya.smith]

Not to derail, but this reminds me of something adjacent: 1X's NEO platform is notable for explicitly targeting home use rather than only industrial deployment, which is a meaningfully different (and arguably harder) engineering and safety target than warehouse or factory-floor robots. AgiBot reportedly sold around 5,168 units, putting it roughly in the same commercial volume range as Unitree among Chinese manufacturers, and worth watching alongside the more internationally recognized Chinese players.

[forgesve15]

@freya.smith Counterpoint: Estimated total operational commercial humanoids worldwide sit around 7,000-8,000 units as of mid-2026, broken down roughly as Optimus Gen 3 (1,000+), Unitree (5,500+ cumulative), Agility Digit (~250), Apptronik Apollo (~80), and Figure (~150) - useful context for how early-stage 'commercial scale' still is industry-wide. Sanctuary AI has taken an approach more explicitly centered on teleoperation-driven data collection and cognitive architecture research, which is a meaningfully different bet than the manufacturing-scale-first playbook Tesla and Figure are running.

[kwameivanov]

From hands-on experience, XPeng's IRON humanoid debuted with a solid-state battery, part of a broader trend of Chinese entrants (alongside GAC's GoMate and EngineAI's T800) pushing energy-density and runtime claims that Western competitors haven't yet matched in announced specs.

[timothy.roberts2]

Speaking from personal experience here, Estimated total operational commercial humanoids worldwide sit around 7,000-8,000 units as of mid-2026, broken down roughly as Optimus Gen 3 (1,000+), Unitree (5,500+ cumulative), Agility Digit (~250), Apptronik Apollo (~80), and Figure (~150) - useful context for how early-stage 'commercial scale' still is industry-wide. Reminds me a bit of the early drone hobbyist scene, honestly.