Descriptions:
Bloomberg Technology features a research analyst presenting new analysis forecasting that physical AI — spanning autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, advanced industrial automation, and drones — could reach a $1 trillion total addressable market by 2035, roughly ten times the sector’s current valuation. Autonomous vehicles are expected to contribute the largest single share, approximately $500 billion, given their decade-long development head start, the ability to leverage existing automotive supply chains, and access to real-world driving data collected from millions of vehicles already on the road.
Humanoid robots face a steeper near-term path, with the central bottleneck identified as the absence of physical AI training data. Unlike large language models trained on abundant internet text, robots require precise force, torque, and positional instructions for every physical task — and there is currently no database specifying parameters like how much force to apply when lifting a 50-pound box on a slippery surface. All of that data must be built from scratch before humanoid robots can operate reliably in unstructured real-world environments.
China’s current dominance is underscored throughout: of an estimated 15,000 humanoid robots deployed worldwide in 2025, 85% were installed in China. Industrial robot deployment shows a similar imbalance, with China accounting for 50-60% of global units compared to low single digits in the US. The analyst attributes this to China’s manufacturing scale, control over critical mineral and rare earth supply chains, and vertical integration across the robotics stack, while suggesting US and European adoption could accelerate meaningfully as the technology matures.
📺 Source: Bloomberg Technology · Published February 17, 2026
🏷️ Format: News Analysis
