Foxconn has more than 10 humanoids working in its Texas plants — and a new OpenAI deal in the works
Foxconn is putting its own wheeled humanoids to work in Houston, and a new OpenAI collaboration is in the works, its chairman says.
Foxconn has deployed more than 10 humanoid robots at its facilities in Texas for internal use and plans to extend the deployment beyond the state, an executive told Reuters on Friday. The disclosure came on the same day chairman Young Liu said Foxconn is discussing a new collaboration with OpenAI.
The robots are the work of Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII), the group's listed industrial-AI unit. Its chairman, Brand Cheng, told Reuters the machines are already working inside the Texas plants. According to presentation materials seen by Reuters, FII introduced two wheeled models in October — one that lifts things vertically and one that can bend at the waist for assembly as well as loading and unloading. The unit is developing the robots' AI models on Nvidia's GR00T foundation model.
The Texas site is Foxconn's Houston complex, where it runs six factory buildings manufacturing AI servers for Nvidia. Liu said the company sees a need for further expansion there. Foxconn, formally Hon Hai Precision Industry, is Nvidia's biggest AI server maker; its cloud and networking segment, which includes AI servers, accounted for 51% of second-quarter revenue, passing 50% for the first time.
The OpenAI talks build on an agreement the two companies struck in November 2025 to jointly design and engineer data-center racks, components and other AI hardware. Liu, speaking at Foxconn's annual Hon Hai Tech Day in Taipei, said he had met OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman earlier on Friday and that an announcement would follow once details were confirmed. He did not say what the new collaboration covers. The earlier agreement carried no purchase commitment from OpenAI.
Put together, the two disclosures sketch Foxconn's next act: the world's largest contract manufacturer is no longer just building other companies' AI hardware — it is automating its own factories with humanoids trained on Nvidia's foundation models, while deepening its ties with the company whose models run the AI boom. Liu dismissed talk of an AI bubble, saying Foxconn expects double-digit growth next year. The open question is whether the Houston deployment scales from a dozen robots to a production line — and whether the OpenAI talks produce hardware, software, or both.