Humanoid robots are machines powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that physically resemble humans and can emulate human movements and communication. While many of us can still only dream of having a humanoid maid like Rosie from the futuristic Jetsons cartoon, helpful humanoid robots will be here sooner than many people realize.
This is the opinion of Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang, who led the company he co-founded in 1993 to become the world’s second largest company by market capitalization (behind Applebut not much).
Earlier this month, Huang gave the opening speech to kick off the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2025 and co-hosted a CES financial analyst conference. One of the most exciting things for Nvidia stock investors that he said was this remark: “Less than 10 years from now I’m sure humanoid robots will surprise everyone (with) how good they are.”
Image source: Getty Images.
The global humanoid robot market 2024 was worth around $1 billion to $2.5 billion in 2024, according to most estimates. Currently, the market consists largely of research and development of hardware and software for humanoid robots. Some companies are in the early stages of using humanoids internally, but no company has yet offered a humanoid robot – or “general purpose robot” – for sale to the public, to my knowledge, at least not in the United States. .
Market growth projections from reputable sources are almost universally very rosy and have increased significantly recently with the rapid advances in AI, namely the advent of Generative AI. Generative AI, which greatly increases the use cases for AI, arrived on the tech scene in late 2022 with OpenAI’s launch of its ChatGPT chatbot.
“The total addressable market for humanoid robots is expected to reach $38 billion by 2035, more than six times from a previous forecast of $6 billion.” Goldman Sachs he wrote in a report beginning in 2024. His previous projection was from just one year earlier! This is Goldman’s “base case” model that estimates unit shipments of 1.4 million by 2035. Along with accelerating progress in AI, the firm also cited investment in the growing sector faster than he had anticipated as a factor for his huge upward revision.
The company’s “bull case” projects shipments of humanoid robots to hit 1 million units by 2031, four years ahead of its previous forecast of 2035. And it has a “blue sky” scenario that is even rosier.
Keep in mind the Goldman report I mentioned is from the beginning of 2024. It seems likely that the firm will release another report soon and its market size projection for the base case seems ready to be revised upward from $38 billion by 2035.
Indeed, a January 17 press report by Technavio, a global technology research and advisory firm, predicts that the global market for humanoid robots will reach $59.2 billion by 2029, equivalent to a growth rate annual compound (CAGR) of bladders. about 70% by 2024.
Morgan Stanley is also very bullish on the growth prospects for humanoid robots. The investment banking firm predicts that there will be 40,000 humanoids working alongside humans in the United States by 2030, and that number will increase to 8 million by 2040 and 63 million by 2025.
Nvidia is the leader in providing chips – primarily graphics processing units (GPUs) – and related technology to enable AI capabilities. The company has been involved in robotics for years, as its technology has been used to train robots such as drones and warehouse robots and even used as AI-powered “brains” in these machines.
Starting in 2024, Nvidia has greatly increased its robotics offerings by pushing into the humanoid robotics space. This has only been possible due to the advent of generative AI.
In March 2024, Nvidia introduced its foundation model AI Project GR00T (Generalist Robot 00 Technology) for humanoid robots. The robots powered by GR00T “will be designed to understand natural language and emulate movements by observing human actions,” the company said in the press release. As part of this initiative, it also unveiled a new computer, Jetson Thor, for humanoid robots, and major updates to its Isaac robotics platform, including generative AI foundational models and tools for simulation.
At the time, Nvidia announced that it was “building a comprehensive AI platform for leading humanoid robot companies such as 1X Technologies, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, Fourier Intelligence, Sanctuary AI, Unitree Robotics and Xpeng Robotics . part of China XPeng Electric vehicle companies), among others”.
At CES 2025, Huang announced additional initiatives to develop AI-powered humanoid robots. Essentially, the company has created a full-stack offering of software, hardware and tools to enable companies to develop humanoid robots. This includes training, simulation and implementation.
All or almost all of the major players in the humanoid robotics space use Nvidia’s technology to develop their robots. In my view, this makes Nvidia the best way, at least currently, for people to invest in the market of humanoid robots, which is ready to be massive in size.
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Beth McKenna has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions and recommends Apple, Goldman Sachs Group and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
