Okay, before we get lost in another wave of GTC content, let’s look at what else has been happening in robotics.

And before we start, yes. I know. GTC is everywhere right now. You cannot scroll for five seconds without bumping into Jensen, AI, humanoids, or some version of the word trillion.

And look, fair enough. GTC matters. Super big time.

But robotics is not happening only on keynote stages. It is also happening in funding rounds, IPO plans, logistics moves, and very practical business decisions.

So, let’s deep to the robotic outside the San Jose ;)

On March 20, 2026, news came out that China’s Unitree Robotics is officially moving ahead with an IPO in Shanghai and wants to raise around 4.2 billion yuan, which is about $610 million.

And to me, this is not just another tech company trying to hit the market. It feels like a pretty strong signal that people are starting to take humanoid robots seriously.

Reuters reported that in 2025, the company grew its operating revenue by 335% to 1.708 billion yuan, while net profit jumped by 674%.

What really stands out, though, is that humanoids became the main growth engine of the company. From January to September 2025, humanoid sales made up 51.5% of its core business revenue, compared to 27.6% a year earlier. So this is no longer some side project. It is starting to become the heart of the business.

And this fits really well with what Jensen Huang said at GTC, when he talked about AI, autonomy, and robotics growing into something huge, and even said autonomous systems could become the first multi trillion dollar robotics industry.

Looking at moves like Unitree’s IPO, you can tell the market is starting to buy into that vision. Sure, from my industrial point of view, I still do not see a humanoid robot fitting every application on the factory floor. But let’s be honest, the world is not just aluminum chips and the smell of coolant.

There are plenty of environments outside traditional industry where this kind of robot might make a lot more sense than we think today.

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Amazon is moving deeper into delivery robotics

Amazon has acquired Swiss startup RIVR, a company building robots for doorstep delivery, meaning the part of the job between the delivery van and the customer’s front door.

What makes this interesting is that RIVR is not building the usual small sidewalk robot. They are working on four legged robots designed to handle the messy part of the real world.

To me, this is a really interesting move because it shows that automation is no longer stopping at the warehouse door. For years, most of the attention was on what happens inside logistics centers. Sorting, picking, internal transport, optimization. Now big players are clearly starting to push robotics into the most difficult and chaotic part of the process, which is the last few meters of delivery.

And this is exactly the hard part. Inside a warehouse, you can control a lot. Outside, it is a different story. Stairs, rain, uneven ground, doors, people. That is where robotics really gets tested.

That is why I find this move interesting. This is not about building a robot that looks impressive in a demo. It is about going after one of the toughest and most expensive parts of delivery. And if that starts to work at scale, then this becomes a lot bigger than just one more robotics experiment.

KEWAZO is betting that heavy industry is ready for smarter lifting

KEWAZO has announced a new funding round, bringing its total funding to $35 million. The company is best known for LIFTBOT, a robot built for vertical material transport on industrial sites, especially in places like refineries, petrochemical plants, chemical facilities, and power sites. According to Robotics 24/7, the new round includes backing from Chevron Technology Ventures, Asahi Kasei, Benson Capital, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, Atlas Ventures, plus lead investor Schooner Capital and existing investors True Ventures and Cybernetix Ventures.

What makes this one interesting to me is that this is not another story about a robot trying to do everything. It is a company going after one very specific problem in a very demanding environment. And honestly, that usually makes a lot more sense. Heavy industry does not need more hype. It needs tools that solve real bottlenecks, save time, and make hard jobs less painful.

KEWAZO says LIFTBOT is already deployed at more than 20 industrial sites across North America and Europe. That matters, because it means this is not just a nice deck and a polished demo video. They are already out there in the field, in places where the environment is rough and the value of automation is easier to measure.

I also like what this says about where money is going in robotics right now. Yes, humanoids get most of the attention, but rounds like this remind you that investors still see value in robots that do one hard job really well. And in heavy industry, that can be enough. You do not always need a flashy machine. Sometimes you just need a system that helps move materials faster, safer, and with less manual effort. That is not the sexy side of robotics, but it is often the side that pays the bills.

RoboForce is not trying to be everywhere. It is going after labor gaps where the pain is already obvious

RoboForce has raised $52 million in a new round, bringing its total funding to $67 million. The round was led by YZi Labs, with participation from Jerry Yang and existing backers including Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University. The company says the money will go toward its next generation robot foundation model, manufacturing readiness, and commercial rollout.

What makes this one interesting is the angle. RoboForce is not pitching some vague robot future that could maybe fit everywhere one day. It is building TITAN for sectors where labor is already hard to find and the work is physically demanding, including solar, mining, logistics, and data centers. That gives the whole story a more grounded feel right away, because these are real industries with real pressure to keep operations moving.

There is also an early demand signal here that is hard to ignore. RoboForce says it has secured letters of intent for more than 11,000 robots, which suggests customers are at least willing to line up if the company can execute. That does not mean the rollout is done, of course, but it does show this is not just a concept floating around in pitch decks. There is already market interest behind it.

What I like about this story is that it feels very direct. The company is looking at jobs that are hard to staff, hard on the body, and often hard to scale with people alone. If a robot can step into that kind of gap and actually do useful work in the field, then the business case becomes pretty easy to understand. You do not need to oversell the vision when the problem itself is already clear.

That is why I think this one is worth watching. Not because it is the loudest robotics headline out there, but because it is aimed at a part of the market where demand is practical, not theoretical. And a lot of the time, that is where the serious robotics stories begin.

Bezos is thinking much bigger than one startup. He seems to be looking at the whole factory

Jeff Bezos is reportedly in early talks to raise $100 billion for a new fund focused on buying manufacturing companies and upgrading them with AI. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan is aimed at sectors like chipmaking, defense, and aerospace, and the fund could end up matching the size of SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Reuters also reported the same story, calling it an effort to acquire and revamp manufacturing firms with AI.

What makes this one stand out is the scale. This is not a startup raising money to build one robot, one platform, or one software layer. This is a bet on transforming industrial companies from the top down. And that changes the way I look at the story. It is less about one new piece of technology and more about whether AI and automation are becoming central to how major industrial assets will be run in the next decade.

I also think this matters because it pushes the conversation beyond the usual “cool robot” headline. If a fund like this really comes together, then robotics, AI, automation, vision, digital twins, and industrial software all become part of the same bigger play. Not as separate tools, but as pieces of one modernization strategy. That is a very different kind of signal than a normal VC round.

And honestly, this is why I find the story interesting. It suggests that the next wave of industrial change might not come only from robot makers or startup founders. It may also come from capital moving into old industry and asking a simple question: how much more productive can this business become if AI and automation are built into it properly? If that thinking starts spreading, then this story is not just about Bezos. It is about where industrial money may start flowing next.

So yeah, GTC was loud. Very loud.

But once the keynote ends and the internet calms down a little, the real question is still the same. Where is the money going, where is the value, and where are robots actually starting to matter?

That is what I wanted to look at today.

This was Ready for Tomorrow. Thanks for being here. And next time the whole internet is screaming GTC, maybe take one step back and check what the robots are doing off stage too.