Apptronik has opened an expanded Robot Park facility in Austin, Texas, where fleets of Apollo 2 humanoid robots are collecting real-world data to train artificial intelligence models in partnership with Google DeepMind. The nearly 90,000-square-foot facility anchors a growing global network of Robot Parks at customer and partner sites, marking a shift in how the robotics industry approaches robot development: instead of perfecting machines in labs, companies are now deploying them to learn on actual job sites.

Why Is Real-World Data Collection So Critical for Humanoid Robots?

Humanoid robots need massive amounts of real-world data to develop the embodied artificial intelligence (AI) models that enable them to operate independently in unpredictable environments. Robot Park serves as the primary engine for generating this training data. Inside the facility, Apollo 2 robots in both bipedal and wheeled configurations perform tasks across logistics, manufacturing, retail, and other customer-driven activities. Through a combination of teleoperation (remote control by humans) and autonomous execution, these robots continuously generate high-quality training data that feeds into Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics foundational AI models.

"The industry has spent years showing what robots can do in demos. We're focused on what they can do every day on the job," said Jeff Cardenas, Apptronik CEO and co-founder. "What we're building is a continuous learning loop with the Google DeepMind Robotics team: robots working, collecting data, and improving with every cycle, in real environments, on real tasks."

Jeff Cardenas, CEO and co-founder at Apptronik

This approach represents a fundamental shift in robotics development. Rather than treating robots as finished products that ship from the factory, Apptronik is treating them as data-collection machines that improve continuously. The company has already deployed operational fleets of Apollo 2 robots across Robot Park and at key customer and partner sites worldwide, including Mercedes-Benz and GXO, a global leader in high-tech, high-volume logistics.

How Does Apollo 2's Modular Design Enable Faster Deployment?

Apollo 2 is designed as a modular platform, meaning it can be configured in different ways depending on the task and environment. The company offers two primary configurations: a wheeled-base version and a bipedal version. The wheeled configuration is engineered to conform with existing industrial safety standards for mobile robots, allowing it to integrate seamlessly into current customer operations without requiring new safety protocols. The bipedal configuration, by contrast, provides maximum adaptability for complex environments where a humanoid form factor offers advantages.

• Wheeled Configuration: Designed to meet existing industrial safety standards, allowing faster integration into current manufacturing and logistics operations without requiring new safety infrastructure.
• Bipedal Configuration: Provides maximum adaptability for complex environments, allowing Apptronik to continuously refine the safety and reliability of its walking platform in real-world scenarios.
• Data Collection Across Environments: By deploying the same core humanoid technology in different configurations, Apptronik can optimize data collection across a wide variety of operational environments and customer use cases.

"For truly useful humanoid robots, safety and reliability have to advance alongside capability," stated Barry Phillips, Chief Commercial Officer at Apptronik. "The modular design of Apollo is a direct response to customer demand for adaptable automation. By developing Apollo as a modular platform, we're able to deploy the same core humanoid technology across different configurations, including wheeled robots that align with current industrial safety standards, and bipedal robots for maximum adaptability."

Barry Phillips, Chief Commercial Officer at Apptronik

This modularity addresses a practical challenge in robotics: different customers have different needs, and deploying a one-size-fits-all humanoid robot often means waiting for new safety certifications or custom engineering. By offering both wheeled and bipedal versions of the same underlying technology, Apptronik can serve customers immediately while continuing to refine its bipedal walking capabilities in real-world conditions.

What Role Does Google DeepMind Play in This Partnership?

The partnership between Apptronik and Google DeepMind is central to the entire Robot Park strategy. Apptronik collects high-quality data through its fleet of Apollo 2 robots, and that data is used to train and refine Gemini Robotics, Google DeepMind's foundational AI models for robotics. This creates a feedback loop: robots work and collect data, that data improves the AI models, and improved models make the robots more capable. The company also uses state-of-the-art teleoperation systems and high-fidelity physics simulations to accelerate both hardware design and algorithmic development, allowing robots to learn from a wider variety of experiences without requiring every scenario to be physically tested.

Everything Apptronik learns through Apollo 2 is directly powering the development of its next-generation commercial product, Apollo 3. By leveraging the massive data streams generated by Apollo 2 in partnership with Google DeepMind, the upcoming commercial fleet is expected to debut with unprecedented out-of-the-box embodied intelligence, meaning the robots will arrive at customer sites already trained on a vast range of real-world scenarios.

How to Understand Apptronik's Path From Research to Commercial Deployment

• Data Collection Phase: Apollo 2 robots work across Robot Park locations and customer sites, continuously generating high-quality training data through teleoperation and autonomous execution.
• AI Model Training: The collected data feeds into Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics foundational models, which are refined and improved with each new dataset.
• Commercial Product Development: Insights and learnings from Apollo 2 directly inform the design and capabilities of Apollo 3, the next-generation commercial humanoid robot expected to launch with advanced embodied intelligence.
• Global Expansion: Apptronik plans to open new Robot Park locations in more cities, expanding the geographic diversity of data collection and accelerating the pace of robot development.

The Robot Park announcement represents a significant milestone in the humanoid robotics industry. For years, robotics companies have demonstrated impressive capabilities in controlled lab environments, but translating those capabilities to real-world, everyday work has proven far more difficult. Apptronik's approach treats this challenge directly by building a system where robots learn continuously on actual jobs, with that learning feeding back into improved AI models and hardware designs. By anchoring this effort in a flagship facility in Austin and expanding to customer sites and partner locations globally, the company is betting that the path to truly deployable humanoid robots runs through real work, not perfect demos.