Q4 2025 Special Section - Robotics: A New Electrification Cycle
- Christian Cornwell
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
Robotics as an idea is far from new, it has lived in our imagination for centuries. Mechanical helpers appeared in the 18th-century, most famously in Jacques de Vaucanson’s automata: hand-built self-playing instruments that blurred the line between machine and performer. Fast-forward to 1961, when the first industrial robot, Unimate, rolled onto a GM assembly line. That moment marked the beginning of modern automation and the decades-long rise of industrial robotics. Automotive robotization accelerated through the 1980s and reached its first major peak in the late 1990s-early 2000s.
As the portfolio of industrial robots broadened, many companies began adopting these solutions for manufacturing. The last decade has seen logistics and warehousing rapidly expand efforts in automation. Now mining, construction, and heavy machinery are following this trend as well. However, all these categories still mostly automate machines, not people. Humanoids are changing that. They unlock automation for nearly every workflow and workforce on earth. In our view, the next wave will dwarf all the previous ones and has the potential to reshape the energy transition itself.
Why are we interested in robots and humanoids?
Humanoids are highly relevant to the energy transition because their mass adoption will create a powerful new driver of global electricity demand. As robots become more capable of performing human workflows, humanoids could reshape global power consumption far beyond the impact of data centres. Some forecasts are suggesting their direct electricity use could exceed today’s AI demand by 2034. Their scale-up would also accelerate AI computing demand, as each unit requires continuous perception, motion planning, and cloud-based learning.
Adoption scenarios vary, but Elon Musk’s upper-bound estimate of 40 billion humanoids implies nearly 10 TW of additional load, about eight times current U.S. electricity demand. Beyond generation, humanoids will transform demand for key materials and components, potentially adding up to 50% to global rare-earth demand by 2035 and more than doubling demand for key motion control components.
While adoption remains early, cost deflation and production scale, led by China and the U.S, are setting the stage for faster adoption. The remaining constraint is data: a larger humanoid fleet is needed to unlock the “ChatGPT moment,” but we believe that point is rapidly approaching.
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