The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a resolution directing the creation of a comprehensive permitting process for commercial humanoid robots. The proposed ordinance requires humanoid robots to be "supervised at all times by a trained, on-site human" and mandates economic impact assessments and potential retraining fees for displaced workers. Annual cost-recovery fees will fund specialized HazMat equipment for local first responders to mitigate thermal runaway fire risks, and strict hardware vetting will be required to ensure a clean manufacturer safety record.
Figure AI's CEO, Brett Adcock, asserts that the primary challenge in the humanoid sector is achieving high-level onboard AI, not hardware mass manufacturing. Early commercial partners are already achieving a return on investment due to severe labor shortages and annual turnover rates exceeding 100% in some sectors. Figure's focus has shifted from proving hardware works to solving critical labor shortages for enterprise clients.
LG is developing a next-generation humanoid robot powered by NVIDIA's Isaac GR00T foundation model and Jetson Thor compute platform, targeting a Q1 2027 public unveiling. The robot will utilize LG's internal supply chain resources, leveraging actuators, sensors, and batteries developed in-house. LG plans to deploy its CLOiD wheel-based robots at its Tennessee washing machine manufacturing plant to gather real-world training data, and will build an 80 MW AI factory in Cheonan, South Korea, by 2028 to process physical AI datasets.