Humanoid robots take center stage at Silicon Valley summit, but scepticism remains

A man records a humanoid robot inside the exhibition room at the Humanoids Summit on Dec 11, 2025, in Mountain View, California. — AP

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California: Robots have long been seen as a bad bet for Silicon Valley investors – too complicated, capital-intensive and "boring, honestly”, says venture capitalist Modar Alaoui.

But the commercial boom in artificial intelligencehas lit a spark under long-simmering visions to build humanoidrobots that can move their mechanical bodies like humans and do things that people do.