Robots Building Robots: Figure, Apptronik, and the $9.8 Billion Race to Scale Physical AI

The humanoid robotics industry crossed a threshold this month that separates research curiosity from industrial reality. At NVIDIA’s GTC 2026 keynote on March 18, CEO Jensen Huang declared that “physical AI has arrived” and that “every industrial company will become a robotics company.” That statement, once hyperbolic, now sits against a backdrop of bil…