Neura's RoboGym Trains Humanoids 24/7 as Europe Chases China

Neura Robotics has a gym, and the members never sleep. Inside a facility on the edge of Munich Airport, as many as 100 humanoids and other robots run a 24-7 training shift, learning to grab car parts, stack boxes and carry out chores by copying human trainers who guide them remotely. Founder David Reger, 38, opened the so-called RoboGym to a journalist for the first time, dressed head to toe in black. One robot spent the morning practising its grip on a glass, working out how to hold steady once water goes in.

The clever part is the hive mind. When a single robot masters a new skill, the data flows into a cloud-based platform Neura calls a shared brain, and the whole fleet levels up at once. Dozens of automotive, logistics and pharmaceutical companies have already signed up to run their own training there, and more than 2600 have applied for space, according to Neura's chief. The centre was built with the Technical University of Munich, and Neura wants five gyms running worldwide by year's end — one already opened in Hangzhou, China — with ten more to follow.

The money is serious. Neura raised as much as $US1.4 billion ($1.99 billion) in June, with existing partners Nvidia and Amazon among the backers. Crypto firm Tether, valued at more than $US180 billion and no stranger to regulatory scrutiny, led the round; Neura said part of the cash is tied to milestones it expects to hit. Reger has since been invited to meet the leaders of Europe's three biggest economies, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Prime Minister Andy Burnham of Britain and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Europe is still chasing, though. China has rolled out 2.3 million industrial robots — nearly half the global fleet — and is building most of the pools where physical AI learns to swim. More than 90 humanoid data collection centres are running across China with at least 50 more in development, while Europe has fewer than 10 facilities, according to consulting firm Interact Analysis. Chinese machines have also been stealing headlines: one broke Usain Bolt's 100-metre record in August, dozens ran a half-marathon in Beijing, and Agibot robots danced to Dua Lipa at the Paris Motor Show.

Arnaud Robert, president of Swiss firm Hexagon Robotics, reckons that showmanship leaves room for Europe. Much of China's humanoid buzz is entertainment rather than industrial, he said, and Hexagon is running a pilot with BMW at the carmaker's Leipzig plant. Robots are expected to hit production at that site by the first quarter of next year. Munich's Agile Robots is working with partners including Google DeepMind, and another outfit, Humanoid, aims to get robots into German supplier Schaeffler's operations by the end of the year.

Neura isn't waiting on factories alone. It is teaming up with Bosch and others to fit more than 1000 workers with sensor suits that record their movements and other data during ordinary shifts. Barclays researcher Zornitsa Todorova expects the number of humanoids deployed worldwide, sitting at 15,000 last year, to reach 1 million by 2030 if costs drop and regulators don't get in the way. Her verdict: the next decade belongs to the robot, and right now it looks like it might belong to China. Europe's edge, she said, is safety and hardware know-how. Reger's ambition is simpler to state than to pull off — become Europe's largest taxpayer by building an economic engine bigger than the car industry.