A public research surface · updated continuously
The humanoid race will be won by whoever owns the chokepoints.
Strain-wave gears, RV reducers, ball screws, frameless motors, force-torque sensing, rare-earth magnets. Robot Bottlenecks maps the physical supply chain behind every humanoid and cobot — and the listed companies that own each choke. Own the strait, not the tanker.
50 names tracked · 10 chokepoints · free, no login
The chokepoints
I
Strain-wave gears & RV reducers
Every robot joint routes torque through a precision reducer — and two Japanese companies own the global installed base.
NCTKY · HSYDF · TKR · SOHVY
II
Ball screws, linear guides & bearings
Smooth linear motion is a metallurgy-and-grinding art owned by a handful of Japanese precision houses.
SFFLY · THKLY · NPSKY · TKR · RBC · GSA
III
Frameless motors & integrated actuators
Humanoids need dozens of compact high-torque-density actuators; the merchant motor bench is thin and the leaders are vertically integrating.
RRX · ALNT · MOG.A · NJDCY · HSYDF · TSLA
IV
Rare-earth magnets & motor materials
Every actuator is wound around NdFeB magnets — a China-controlled input the humanoid ramp multiplies by 40+ joints per robot.
MP · USAR · LYSCF · UUUU · NOVEON
V
Force-torque, tactile & vision sensing
Manipulation lives or dies on force and touch sensing; the merchant suppliers are few and mostly buried inside diversified names.
NOVT · TEL · ALGM · CGNX · STM · TSLA
VI
Robot brains & edge AI compute
A humanoid is a robot wrapped around an AI computer; the perception-and-policy silicon comes from one dominant vendor and a thin second tier.
NVDA · QCOM · AMBA · LSCC · KOID · FIGURE
VII
Batteries & power density
A humanoid shift is a battery problem: kWh-class packs, high discharge rates, and NDAA-clean supply for defense-adjacent buyers.
AMPX · ENVX · ULBI · ENS
VIII
Robot platforms & integrators
The visible layer: listed robot makers and integrators racing deployment numbers — tier by robots actually shipped and dollars actually booked.
SYM · TER · FANUY · YASKY · SERV · KSCP
IX
Simulation, training & robot software
Robots are trained in simulation before they ship; the sim-to-real toolchain concentrates in a few platforms.
NVDA · PTC · SNPS · U
X
Private giants & exposure vehicles
Figure, Boston Dynamics, Agility, 1X, Apptronik — the humanoid cap tables without tickers, and the listed paths into them.
005380.KS · ARKVX · HSYDF · NCTKY · NJDCY · GOOGL · NVDA · HUMN · FIGURE · BOSTONDYNAMICS · APPTRONIK · AGILITYROBOTICS
Latest brief · 2026-07-28
Robotics split with the semis — design-and-simulation software and the battery and rare-earth inputs caught a bid while edge-AI silicon and semi-test names fell with the trillion-dollar chip rout.
Enovix led the quotable basket, up 7.1% to $4.23, though — as in the drone tape — the move was a broad, newsless bid across the battery-power chokepoint (its Q2 lands August 12) rather than anything company-specific; Amprius rose 5.1% to $9.71 beside it. The more robotics-native strength was in simulation-and-design software: Unity gained 6.4% to $30.44, PTC 5.6% to $125.21 into its fiscal-Q3 print, and Synopsys 4.2% to $388.99 — the digital-twin and design chokepoint upstream of every humanoid program, bid on a day the physical-compute layer sold off.
Nvidia was the laggard, down 5.0% to $196.51, dragging the edge-AI-compute chokepoint — the perception silicon inside humanoids — as part of the broad semiconductor selloff that erased over $1 trillion on AI-capex fears. The read-through hit the test-and-integration layer: Teradyne, which owns Universal Robots and MiR, fell 4.3% to $334.77 into its Q2 report today, and Lattice slid 4.3% to $122.91. Teradyne's robotics unit has been growing but has flagged deferred cobot orders on macro uncertainty — the same capex hesitation the chip tape was pricing.
The rare-earth-magnet chokepoint — the neodymium-iron-boron under every actuator — was firmly bid: USA Rare Earth rose 5.5% to $14.93 and MP Materials 4.4% to $43.13 on the domestic-supply theme. STMicro added 3.7% to $53.45 and TE Connectivity 2.3% to $207.58 on the sensing-and-touch side, and warehouse-automation leader Symbotic gained 3.3% to $41.49. The overseas precision-mechanics names were weakest, tracking Asia's chip contagion — Nabtesco's ADR fell 9.2% and Hyundai, Boston Dynamics' parent, dropped 9.7% in Tuesday's Seoul session — but both are thin or foreign lines rather than clean US-session signals.
The robotics calendar is dense. Teradyne reports today (July 28); PTC, TE Connectivity and Tesla — watch for Optimus cadence — on July 29; Nabtesco's half-year on July 31. Tesla's Optimus Gen-3 reveal and low-volume production start are targeted for around August 1, the vertical's hardest dated humanoid catalyst. Cognex (August 5), Symbotic (August 6) and Enovix (August 12) follow, before Nvidia's Q2 (August 26) retests the edge-AI-compute chokepoint that led Monday's decline.