DePAI Digest: March 2025

March was a breakout month for robotics. If it felt like news was dropping daily—it’s because it was. 

Taken together, these developments show a maturing industry. Hardware platforms are improving. Foundation models are being trained on real-world tasks, and manufacturers are investing in scale. 

Here’s a round-up of the most important moves across the robotics ecosystem.

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1. 1X’s Neo Gamma Heads to Real Homes in 2025

1X announced that its Neo Gamma robot will be placed in hundreds of homes in 2025. However, these deployments won’t be fully autonomous. Human teleoperators will oversee early behavior as the robots continue to learn from real-world environments.

This hybrid deployment model—teleoperation combined with in-situ learning—is becoming a standard approach for general-purpose humanoids. It allows systems to adapt safely while collecting valuable training data.

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2. Dexterity Raises $95M, Focuses on Human-Like Motion

Dexterity Robotics secured $95 million in new funding at a $1.65 billion valuation. The company’s work centers on systems that can handle logistics tasks with human-level dexterity.

Rather than merely focusing on movement, Dexterity prioritizes nuanced handling—critical in fulfillment operations where precision and adaptability define performance.

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3. Dobot Unveils Atom, a Humanoid for Unstructured Environments

Dobot Robotics entered the humanoid field with Atom, a robot built to operate in dynamic spaces. Atom can handle deformable objects and navigate non-standard environments, powered by a skill model Dobot calls ROM-1.

Strategically, this move aligns with China’s industrial roadmap as humanoids like Atom are positioned to support both labor replacement and elder care—critical priorities for China’s aging population and rising labor costs.

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4. Figure Launches the First Humanoid Robot Factory

Figure opened BotQ—the first facility specifically designed to mass-produce humanoid robots. Initial capacity is 12,000 units per year, with plans to scale toward 100,000.

This is not a research lab, it’s scaled manufacturing. If humanoids are to exit prototypes and enter real-world deployments such as logistics, retail, domestic work—production needs to catch up. Figure is laying the industrial groundwork.

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5. Apptronik Partners with DeepMind

Apptronik and Google DeepMind announced a partnership to integrate DeepMind’s AI models with Apptronik’s robotics platform. The collaboration aims to build safe, general-purpose humanoids capable of operating in human environments.

Pairing modular robotics hardware with adaptable cognitive systems isn’t novel—but DeepMind’s inclusion signals serious intent. The result could be a platform with both breadth and safety at its core.

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6. Boston Dynamics Pushes Motion Learning with Atlas

Boston Dynamics released a new demonstration of Atlas performing dynamic movements—breakdancing, army crawling, and cartwheeling. Behind the choreography is reinforcement learning and motion capture data from humans.

But this isn't just performative art. The goal is to enable robots to move with control, flexibility, and balance in unstructured physical environments.

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7. Nvidia Introduces Groot N1: A Foundation Model for Robots

Nvidia revealed Groot N1, a foundation model designed for robotics. Groot enables systems to reason, plan, and execute physical tasks by integrating perception and action into a unified model.

This is Nvidia’s move toward creating a general-purpose control layer for intelligent machines—compatible with a range of hardware and environments.

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