After my first post on humanoid robots received a lot of positive feedback, I went into more detail. I later added my favorites in each sector.

In-depth analysis of the value chain, including shovel manufacturers and potential hidden champions

New category: Secondary Key Sectors (Sales, Marketing, Financing)

Additionally: Top 25 companies worldwide, as well as the Top 10 in Europe and the Top 10 in Asia

To help newcomers get up to speed, I’ve included a video link. This will give you an idea of just how far the development of humanoid robotics has come today.

https://www.stern.de/panorama/wissen/humanoider-roboter---wie-reagiert-er-auf-beleidigungen--35996156.html

Thank you for your attention and support 🙏

🌐 1. Humanoid Robot Value Chain (with hidden champions)

1. Research & Chip Design

$ARM (-3.26%) ARM (UK) – CPU IP, energy-efficient processors

$SNPS (+2.19%) Synopsys (US) – EDA software, chip design

$CDNS (+0.59%) Cadence (US) – EDA & Simulation

$PTC PTC (US) – Engineering software, CAD/PLM

$DSY (+0.14%) Dassault Systèmes (FR) – 3D design & digital twin

$SIE (+2.7%) Siemens (DE) – Industrial software & lifecycle management

$ADBE (+0.82%) Adobe (US) – Design, AR/UX

ANSYS (US) – Multiphysics Simulation – Acquired by Synopsys

Altair (US) – CAE, Simulation, Digital Twin – Acquired by Siemens

$HXGBY (+2.25%)
Hexagon (SE) – Measurement Technology & Simulation

$AWE Alphawave IP Group (UK) – High-speed chip IP for AI/robotics

1. Synopsis, 2. Siemens, and 3. Adobe are my top three picks in this sector

2. Manufacturing Technology & Equipment

$ASML (+0.68%) ASML (NL) – Lithography (EUV)

$AMAT (-0.12%) Applied Materials (US) – Semiconductor Equipment

$8035 (+3.44%) Tokyo Electron (JP) – Wafer manufacturing

$KEYS (+2.3%) Keysight Technologies (US) – Measurement Technology

$6857 (+4.21%) Advantest (JP) – Chip Test Systems

$TER (+0.74%) Teradyne (US) – Test systems + cobots

$6954 (+4.27%) Fanuc (JP) – Industrial robots, CNC

$CAT (+0.65%) Caterpillar (US) – Autonomous Machinery

$KU2G KUKA (DE) – Industrial Robots

Comau (IT) – Automation – Not publicly traded

$ROK Rockwell Automation (US) – Industrial automation

$JBL (+2.76%) Jabil (US) – Contract Manufacturing (EMS/ODM)

$KIT (+1.19%) Kitron (NO) – European EMS/ODM manufacturer

$AIXA (+1.44%) Aixtron (DE) – Deposition systems for compound semiconductors

$LRCX (-0.48%)
Lam Research (US) – Etching/deposition systems

$MKSI (+1.66%)
MKS Instruments (US) – Plasma/vacuum technology

$ASM (-0.03%)
ASM International (NL) – Deposition systems

1. ASML, 2. Keysight Technologies, 3. Fanuc are my top 3 in this sector

3. Chip Manufacturing (Foundries)

$TSM (-0.98%) TSMC (TW) – leading foundry

$SMSN Samsung Electronics (KR) – foundry + memory

$GFS (-2.47%) GlobalFoundries (US) – specialty chips

$INTC (-2.46%)
Intel Foundry Services (US) – new Western foundry player

$981
SMIC (CN) – Largest Chinese foundry

$UMC
UMC (TW) – Power, RF, and embedded chips

1. TSMC, 2. Intel, 3. Samsung Electronics are my top 3 in this sector

4. Computing & control unit (“brain”)

$NVDA (-0.56%) Nvidia (US) – GPUs, AI chips

$INTC (-2.46%) Intel (US) – CPUs, FPGAs

$AMD (-2.18%) AMD (US) – CPUs, GPUs

$MRVL (+0.28%) Marvell (US) – network chips

$MU (-0.85%) Micron (US) – Memory

$DELL (+1.99%) Dell Technologies (US) – Edge & Infrastructure

Graphcore (UK) – AI chips (IPU) – not a publicly traded company

Cerebras (US) – Wafer-Scale Engine – not a publicly traded company

SiPearl (FR) – European HPC chip – not a publicly traded company

1. Nvidia, 2. Marvell, 3. Micron are my top 3 in this sector

5. Sensors (“Senses”)

$6758 (+0.87%) Sony (JP) – Image sensors

$6861 (+2.54%) Keyence (JP) – industrial sensors

$STM (-1.06%) STMicroelectronics (FR/IT) – Sensors, MCUs

$TDY Teledyne (US) – optical/infrared sensors

$CGNX (+3.39%) Cognex (US) – Machine Vision

$HON (+0.43%) Honeywell (US) – Sensors, Security

ANYbotics (CH) – Autonomous sensor fusion – not a publicly traded company

$AMBA (+6.72%) Ambarella (US) – Video & computer vision SoCs for real-time image recognition

$OUST
Velodyne Lidar (US) – Lidar sensors – acquired by Ouster

$AMS (-6.33%)
OSRAM (AT/DE) – optical sensors

1. Teledyne, 2. Keyence, 3. Ouster are my top 3 in this sector

6. Actuators & Power Electronics (“Muscles”)

$IFX (+0.79%) Infineon (DE) – Power Electronics

$ON (-1.71%) onsemi (US) – Power & Sensors

$TXN (-1.53%) Texas Instruments (US) – mixed-signal chips

$ADI (+0.26%) Analog Devices (US) – Signal Processing

$PH Parker-Hannifin (US) – Hydraulics/Pneumatics

$MP (-0.12%) MP Materials (US) – Magnets

$APH (+1.89%) Amphenol (US) – Connectors

$6481 (+3.27%) THK (JP) – Linear guides & actuators

$6324 (+3.49%)
Harmonic Drive (JP) – Precision gearboxes & servo drives for robotics

$6594 (-5.71%)
Nidec (JP) – Electric motors

$6506 (+3.75%)
Yaskawa (JP) – Drives & Robotics

$SU (+2.44%)
Schneider Electric (FR) – Energy & Control Solutions

$ZIL2 (+0.68%)
ElringKlinger (DE) – Battery & Fuel Cell Technology, Lightweight Construction

1. Parker-Hannifin, 2. MP Materials, 3. Infineon are my top 3 in this sector

7. Communications & Networking (“Nerves”)

$QCOM (-0.25%) Qualcomm (US) – Mobile Communications, Edge AI

$ANET (+2.45%) Arista Networks (US) – Networks

$CSCO (+2.89%) Cisco (US) – Networks, Security

$EQIX (+1.55%) Equinix (US) – Data centers

NTT Docomo (JP) – 5G/6G carrier – not a publicly traded company

$VZ Verizon (US) – Telecommunications

$SFTBY SoftBank (JP) – Carrier + Robotics

$ERIC B (+0.35%)
Ericsson (SE) – 5G/IoT infrastructure

$NOKIA (+2.37%)
Nokia (FI) – 5G/6G for Industry

$HPE (+3.84%)
Juniper Networks (US) – Networking – Acquired by HP

1. Arista Networks, 2. SoftBank, 3. Cisco are my top 3 in this sector

8. Energy

$3750 (+0.88%) CATL (CN) – Batteries

$6752 (-0.68%) Panasonic (JP) – Batteries

$373220 LG Energy (KR) – Batteries

$ALB (-0.01%) Albemarle (US) – Lithium

$LYC (+2.23%) Lynas (AU) – Rare Earths

$UMICY (+1.96%) Umicore (BE) – Recycling

WiTricity (US) – Inductive charging – not a publicly traded company

$ABBN (+1.32%) Charging (CH) – Charging infrastructure

$SLDP
Solid Power (US) – Solid-state batteries

Northvolt (SE) – European batteries – not a publicly traded company

$PLUG
Plug Power (US) – Fuel cells

$KULR (-1.33%)
KULR Technology (US) – Thermal management & battery safety for mobile systems

1. Albemarle, 2. CATL, 3. Panasonic are my top 3 in this sector

9. Cloud & Infrastructure

$AMZN (+3.14%) Amazon AWS (US) – Cloud, AI

$MSFT (+2.41%) Microsoft Azure (US) – Cloud, AI

$GOOG (+0.81%) Alphabet Google Cloud (US) – Cloud, ML

$VRT
Vertiv Holdings (US) – Data Center Infrastructure (UPS, Cooling, Edge)

$ORCL (+4.72%)
Oracle Cloud (US) – ERP + Cloud

$IBM (+0.6%)
IBM Cloud (US) – Hybrid Cloud + AI

$OVH (+0.23%)
OVHcloud (FR) – European Cloud

1. Alphabet, 2. Microsoft, 3. Oracle are my top 3 in this sector

10. Software & Data Platforms

$PLTR (+4.97%) Palantir (US) – Data Integration

$DDOG (+7.06%) Datadog (US) – Monitoring

$SNOW (+7.51%) Snowflake (US) – Data cloud

$ORCL (+4.72%) Oracle (US) – Databases, ERP

$SAP (+1.41%) SAP (Germany) – ERP systems

$SPGI S&P Global (US) – Financial/Market Data

ROS2 Foundation – Robotics Middleware – Not publicly traded

$NVDA (-0.56%) NVIDIA Isaac (US) – Robotics development – part of NVIDIA

$INOD (+1.64%) Innodata (US) – Data annotation & AI training data

$PATH (+1.86%)
UiPath (RO/US) – Robotic Process Automation

$AI (+2.21%)
C3.ai (US) – AI platform

$ESTC (+3.78%)
(NL/US) – Search & Data Analytics

1. S&P Global, 2. Palantir, 3. Datadog are my top 3 in this sector

11. End-user applications / Robots

$ABBN (+1.32%) ABB (CH/SE) – Industrial robots

$6954 (+4.27%) Fanuc (JP) – Industrial Robots

$TSLA (+2.03%) Tesla Optimus (US) – humanoid robot

$9618 (+0.86%) JD.com (CN) – Logistics robots

$AAPL (-1.19%) Apple (US) – Platform & UX

$700 (+3%) Tencent (CN) – Platform & AI

$9988 (+4.71%) Alibaba (CN) – Logistics & Platform

PAL Robotics (ES) – humanoid robots - not a publicly traded company

Neura Robotics (DE) – cognitive humanoid robots - not a publicly traded company

$TER (+0.74%) Universal Robots (DK) – cobots - part of Teradyne Corporation

Engineered Arts (UK) – humanoid robots – not a publicly traded company

$ISRG (+2.41%) Intuitive Surgical (US) – surgical robotics

$GMED (+1.88%)
Globus Medical (US) – surgical robotics (ExcelsiusGPS platform)

$7012 (-0.58%) Kawasaki Heavy Industries (JP) – industrial robots, automation

$CPNG (+2.84%) Coupang (KR) – logistics end-users

$IRBT
iRobot (US) – consumer robotics (e.g., Roomba); not humanoid, but features navigation and sensor fusion

Boston Dynamics (US) – humanoid & mobile robots—not a publicly traded company

Hanson Robotics (HK) – humanoid robots (Sophia)—not a publicly traded company

Agility Robotics (US) – “Digit” humanoid robot—not a publicly traded company

1. Apple, 2. Tencent, 3. Alibaba are my top 3 in this sector

🛠 2. Cross-sector enablers (shovel manufacturers) – featuring hidden champions

Raw Materials & Battery Materials

Albemarle · Lynas · Umicore

$SQM
SQM (CL) – Lithium

$ILU (+0.21%)
Iluka Resources (AU) – Rare Earths

$ARR (+2.11%)
American Rare Earths (US/AU) – New supply chains

My top pick in the sector is Albemarle

Manufacturing Technology

ASML · Applied Materials · Tokyo Electron

$LRCX (-0.48%)
Lam Research (US) – Plasma/etching processes

$ASM (-0.03%)
ASM International (NL) – ALD equipment

$MKSI (+1.66%)
MKS Instruments (US) – Plasma/vacuum technology

My top pick in the sector is ASML

Quality Assurance

Keysight · Advantest · Teradyne

$EMR (+1.83%)
National Instruments (US) – Measurement technology – from Emerson Electric Acquired

$300567
ATE Test Systems (CN) – Test systems

$FORM (+1.94%)
FormFactor (US) – Wafer probing

My number one in the sector is Keysight

Motion & Drive

Parker-Hannifin

Festo (Germany) – Pneumatics, Soft Robotics - not a publicly traded company

Bosch Rexroth (DE) – Drives, Controls - not a publicly traded company

$6481 (+3.27%)
THK (JP) – Linear guides

My top choice in the sector is Parker-Hannifin

Sensors/Imaging

$TDY Teledyne

$BSL (-0.22%) Basler (DE) – Industrial cameras

FLIR (US) – Thermal imaging sensors – Acquired by Teledyne

ISRA Vision (DE) – Machine vision – not a publicly traded company

My top pick in the sector is Teledyne

Magnets & Materials

MP Materials

$6501 (+3.82%)
Hitachi Metals (JP) – Magnetic Materials

VacuumSchmelze (DE) – Magnetic materials – not a publicly traded company

$4063 (-0.29%)
Shin-Etsu Chemical (JP) – Specialty materials

My top pick in the sector is MP Materials

Chip Design & Simulation

Synopsys · Cadence · ARM

$SIE (+2.7%)
Siemens EDA (DE/US)– Mentor Graphics—a strategic business unit of Siemens AG

Imagination Tech (UK) – GPU IP – not a publicly traded company

$CEVA (-0.66%)
CEVA (IL) – Signal processor IP

My top pick in the sector is Synopsys

Engineering & Lifecycle

PTC · Dassault · Siemens

Altair (US) – Simulation – no longer a publicly traded company

$HXGBY (+2.25%)
Hexagon (SE) – Measurement Technology

$SNPS (+2.19%)
ANSYS (US) – Simulation – Acquired by Synopsys

My top pick in the sector is Siemens

Networks & Data Centers

Arista · Cisco · Equinix

$HPE (+3.84%)
Juniper (US) – Networks – Acquisition by HPE

$DTE (-7.51%)
T-Systems (DE) – Industrial Cloud

$OVH (+0.23%)
OVHcloud (FR) – European cloud

My top pick in the sector is Arista

Cloud Infrastructure

AWS · Azure · Google Cloud

$ORCL (+4.72%)
Oracle Cloud (US) – ERP & Databases

$IBM (+0.6%)
IBM Cloud (US) – Hybrid Cloud

$9988 (+4.71%)
Alibaba Cloud (CN) – Asian cloud

$VRT
Vertiv Holdings (US) – Cloud/Infrastructure

My top pick in the sector is Alphabet (Google)

Financial/Information Infrastructure

S&P Global

$MCO (+2.35%)
Moody’s (US) – Ratings

$MSCI (+0.7%)
MSCI (US) – Indices

$MORN
Morningstar (US) – Investment Research

My top pick in the sector is S&P Global

Creative/Experience Infrastructure

Adobe

$ADSK (+0.83%)
Autodesk (US) – CAD & Design

$U
Unity (US) – 3D/AR Simulation

Epic Games (US) – Unreal Engine – not a publicly traded company

My top pick in the sector is Adobe

Platform & Ecosystem

Apple · Tencent · Alibaba

$META (-0.3%)
Meta (US) – AR/VR, Social Robotics

ByteDance (CN) – AI & Platforms – not a publicly traded company

$9888 (+1.77%)
Baidu (CN) – AI & Cloud

My top pick in the sector is Tencent

Infrastructure/Edge

Dell

$HPE (+3.84%)
HPE (US) – Edge Computing

$SMCI
Supermicro (US) – AI Servers

$6702 (+3.19%)
Fujitsu (JP) – Edge & HPC

My top pick in this sector is Dell

Storage Solutions

Micron

$HY9H
SK Hynix (KR) – Memory

$285A (+2.18%)
Kioxia (JP) – NAND

$WDC
Western Digital (US) – Storage solutions

My top pick in the sector is Micron

🏛 3. Secondary Key Sectors with Hidden Champions

Financing & Capital

$GS (+1.65%) Goldman Sachs (US) – Investment bank; ECM/DCM, M&A, growth financing

$MS Morgan Stanley (US) – Investment bank; tech banking, capital markets

$BLK (+0.71%) BlackRock (US) – Asset manager; capital allocation, ETFs/index funds

$9984 (+0.98%) SoftBank Vision Fund (JP) – Mega-VC; growth equity in robotics/AI

Sequoia Capital (US) – Venture capital; early-stage/growth in AI/robotics – This is a classic venture capital fund

DARPA (US) – government R&D funding (robotics/defense) – independent research and development agency

EU Horizon (EU) – research funding/grants for DeepTech – Innovative Europe pillar

China State Funds (CN) – Government Industry/Technology Funds

Lux Capital (US) – VC for DeepTech - Uptake (US) – AI-based predictive maintenance

DCVC (US) – Focus on robotics and AI – Invests exclusively through VC fund investments

Speedinvest (AT) – EU VC for robotics – Investment is only available through fund participations

My number one in the sector is SoftBank

Maintenance & Service

$SIE (+2.7%) Siemens (DE) – Industrial Services, Lifecycle & Retrofit

$ABBN (+1.32%) ABB (CH/SE) – Robotics services, spare parts, field support

$GEHC (+2.69%) GE Healthcare (US) – Medtech services, including robotic systems

Uptake (US) – AI-based predictive maintenance – not a publicly traded company

Augury (US/IL) – Condition monitoring, condition diagnostics – not a publicly traded company

$KU2 KUKA Service (DE) – Robotics maintenance

$6954 (+4.27%) Fanuc Service (JP) – Global service network

Boston Dynamics AI Institute (US) – Robotics Longevity – funded by Hyundai Motor Group

My top pick in the sector is Siemens

Marketing & Advertising

$WPP (+1.79%) WPP (UK) – global advertising group; branding/communications

$OMC Omnicom (US) – marketing/PR network

$PUB (+1.71%) Publicis (FR) – communications/advertising group

$META (-0.3%) Meta (US) – digital ads (Facebook/Instagram)

$GOOG (+0.81%) Google Ads (US) – Search & Display Advertising

TikTok / ByteDance (CN) – Social Ads & Distribution - not a publicly traded company

$AAPL (-1.19%) Apple (US) – branding/UX; adoption & platform marketing

$WPP (+1.79%)
AKQA (UK/US) – Tech branding – Since 2012, majority-owned by the WPP Group, but continues to operate as autonomous operating unit

R/GA (US) – Innovation Marketing – not a publicly traded company

Serviceplan (DE) – Largest independent EU agency – not a publicly traded company

My number one in the sector is Meta

Law, Regulation & Ethics

ISO (CH) – international standards, robotics standards

TÜV (DE) – certification & safety testing

UL (US) – safety/conformity testing

EU AI Act (EU) – legal framework for AI & robotics

UNESCO AI Ethics (UN) – global ethical guidelines

Fraunhofer IPA (DE) – Robotics safety standards

ANSI (US) – Standards

IEC (CH) – Electrical Engineering Standards

Education & Talent

MIT (US) – Robotics/AI Research & Education

ETH Zurich (CH) – Autonomous Systems & Robotics

Stanford (US) – AI/Robotics Labs & Spin-offs

Tsinghua University (CN) – Robotics/AI in Asia

CMU (US) – Robotics Institute

EPFL (CH) – Robotics Research

TU Munich (DE) – “Roboy” humanoid robot

🌍 Top 25 Companies in Humanoid Robotics

These companies are crucial to the development and production of humanoid robots, because without them, crucial parts of the chain would be missing:

Chips & computing power (the robots’ brains)

$NVDA (-0.56%) Nvidia (US) – AI GPUs & Isaac platform, the foundation for robotics AI

$2330 TSMC (TW) – the world’s leading foundry, produces AI chips

$ASML (+0.68%) ASML (NL) – EUV lithography, indispensable for chip manufacturing

$005930 Samsung Electronics (KR) – memory, logic, foundry

$HY9H SK Hynix (KR) – DRAM & NAND memory for AI

$MU (-0.85%) Micron (US) – memory solutions for AI workloads

My top pick in the sector is ASML

Sensors & Perception (Robots’ Senses)

$SONY Sony (JP) – Image sensors, market leader

$6861 (+2.54%) Keyence (JP) – Industrial Sensors & Vision Systems

$CGNX (+3.39%) Cognex (US) – Machine vision, precise image processing

My top pick in this sector is Keyence

Actuators & Motion (Robot Muscles)

$IFX (+0.79%) Infineon (DE) – Power Electronics, Motor Control

$6594 (-5.71%) Nidec (JP) – Global market leader in electric motors

$PH Parker-Hannifin (US) – Hydraulics/Pneumatics, Motion Control

$6481 (+3.27%) THK (JP) – Linear guides & actuators

My top pick in this sector is Parker-Hannifin

Communications, Cloud & Infrastructure (Nerves & Data Flow)

$QCOM (-0.25%) Qualcomm (US) – Mobile & edge chips

$AMZN (+3.14%) Amazon AWS (US) – Cloud & AI infrastructure

$MSFT (+2.41%) Microsoft Azure (US) – Cloud, AI services

$CSCO (+2.89%) Cisco (US) – Networks & Security

$VRT Vertiv Holdings (US) – Data Center Infrastructure

My top pick in this sector is Microsoft

End-User Applications & Platforms (Robots Themselves)

$TSLA (+2.03%) Tesla (US) – humanoid robots Optimus

$ABBN (+1.32%) ABB (CH/SE) – Robotics & Automation

$6954 (+4.27%) Fanuc (JP) – industrial robots & CNC systems

$7012 (-0.58%) Kawasaki Heavy Industries (JP) – industrial robots

PAL Robotics (ES) – humanoid robots (TALOS, ARI, TIAGo) – not a publicly traded company

Neura Robotics (DE) – cognitive humanoid robots – not a publicly traded company

Universal Robots (DK) – cobots

My top pick in the sector is Tesla

🇪🇺 Top 10 European Key Companies in Humanoid Robotics

$ASML (+0.68%)
ASML (NL)

Global market leader in EUV lithography – without ASML, there would be no modern chips for AI & robotics.

$IFX (+0.79%) Infineon (DE)

A leader in power electronics and motor control—crucial for the actuators of humanoid robots.

$STM (-1.06%)
STMicroelectronics (FR/IT)

Sensors, microcontrollers, and power chips—the foundation for control and perception.

$SAP (+1.41%)
SAP (DE)

ERP & data platforms, essential for integrating humanoid robots into industrial processes.

$SIE (+2.7%)
Siemens (DE)

Industrial software, automation, Digital Twin—key to engineering and lifecycle management.

$KU2 KUKA (DE)

Robotics pioneer, industrial robots & automation—expertise in humanoid motion mechanics.

PAL Robotics (ES) - not a publicly traded company

Specialist in humanoid robots (TALOS, ARI, TIAGo), used internationally in research and service.

Neura Robotics (DE) - not a publicly traded company

Young high-tech company developing cognitive humanoid robots with advanced AI (4NE-1).

Universal Robots (DK) - not a publicly traded company

Market leader in cobots—a platform for safe human-robot collaboration.

Engineered Arts (UK) - not a publicly traded company

Develops humanoid robots such as Ameca, known for realistic facial expressions and gestures—important for HRI (Human-Robot Interaction)

🌏 Top 10 Key Asian Companies in Humanoid Robotics

$2330
TSMC (Taiwan)

The world’s largest semiconductor foundry, producing high-end chips (e.g., Nvidia, AMD, Apple)—without TSMC, there would be no AI hardware.

$005930
Samsung Electronics (South Korea)

Foundry, memory, logic chips, image sensors—extremely broad portfolio of robotics components.

$HY9H
SK Hynix (South Korea) – Memory

$SONY
Sony (Japan)

Market leader in CMOS image sensors, essential for robotic vision and perception.

$6861 (+2.54%)
Keyence (Japan)

Sensors and machine vision for industrial automation, widely used in robotics.

$6954 (+4.27%)
Fanuc (Japan)

Industrial robots and CNC systems; one of the world’s leading manufacturers of robotics hardware.

$6506 (+3.75%)
Yaskawa Electric (Japan)

Drives, motion control, and robotic arms—relevant for humanoid motion control.

$6594 (-5.71%)
Nidec (Japan)

Global market leader in electric motors (ranging from mini motors to high-performance drives).

$7012 (-0.58%)
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (JP) – Industrial robots

$9618 (+0.86%)
JD.com (China)

A driving force in robotics for e-commerce and logistics; invests in humanoid robotics applications

Evening all. Is there anyone here who has dealt with the subject of rare earths? I find the two Pennystocky ($LRS ) and American Rare Earths ($ARR (+2.11%) ) quite interesting.