No half-marathon or viral video: this humanoid robot moves bins in a factory, on wheels, for eight hours straight. The real breakthrough is nothing spectacular.
Siemens, Nvidia and British startup Humanoid have announced a factory deployment of humanoid robots at the 2026 Hannover Messe. HMND 01 Alphaa model on wheels with a humanoid torso, worked autonomously for more than eight hours. The test took place at the electronics factory in Erlangen, Germany. Siemens presents itself as its own first customer.
Also read: 50 minutes and 26 seconds – a humanoid robot shatters the human world record in the half marathon
What the robot really did for eight hours
The HMND 01 Alpha unstacked storage bins, transported them to conveyors and deposited them at collection points. All to supply human operators at the end of the chain. Pace : 60 trips per hourwith a success rate greater than 90%. The test lasted two weeks in January 2026, in a real production environment. The robot operated alongside humans and other automated systems. The integration involved the Siemens Xcelerator platform: digital twin, automaton-robot interfaces and fleet management.
On the hardware side, the robot embeds the chip Nvidia Jetson Thor for embedded computing. Training took place in simulation before physical deployment. Humanoid, founded in 2024 by Artem Sokolov, claims a compressed development cycle of 18-24 months to around seven months. This figure has not been independently verified.
Humanoid also makes a bipedal version of the HMND 01, with 29 degrees of freedom. However, it is the model on wheels that Siemens chose for Erlangen.
Why Siemens chose wheels, not legs
Tesla is moving forward with Optimus, Figure AI continues bipedal demonstrations. Siemens, for its part, retained a robot incapable of climbing stairs. Its advantage: it moves reliably on the flat floor of a factory.
The 90% success rate is still worth paying attention to. Out of 480 movements in eight hours, this represents around fifty errors. Industrial robotic arms or automated guided vehicles commonly exceed 99%. The HMND 01 Alpha does not replace them: it targets tasks that are too variable for traditional automation.
Also read: A robot used a deep fryer – why this may be a turning point in AI
Siemens claims to be “zero customer”, but also sells Xcelerator, the platform which was used for the integration. Nvidia provides the software stack and chips. Humanoid, a startup of 200 engineers founded two years ago, obtains its first major industrial validation. All three partners had a direct interest in communicating in Hannover. No commercial roadmap has been announced. In industry, real change moves on wheels and without a delivery schedule.
👉🏻 Follow tech news in real time: add 01net to your sources on Google, and subscribe to our WhatsApp channel.
Source :
Humanoid
