Matt Moore

X Square just beat Figure’s package-sorting pace by ~45%—without a humanoid. In a 1-hour autonomous livestream, two WALL-B-powered 6-axis arms handled 1,816 mixed parcels at 98%+ accuracy. Figure’s 200-hour humanoid run averaged 1,248/hour. That’s 1.98 seconds per parcel vs. 2.88 seconds for Figure. Nearly a full second faster on every package. China processed nearly 199B express parcels in 2025. At that scale, every fraction of a second adds up. Figure is betting on the general-purpose humanoid: one body, eventually many jobs. X Square builds humanoids too, but went pragmatic here—pairing WALL-B with purpose-built arms and grippers for a faster, simpler, more economical logistics system. RobotEra made a similar choice. Its M7 at China Post skips the legs too, using an upper-body humanoid at the sorting line. This is one big difference I keep seeing between U.S. and Chinese robotics: U.S. teams like Figure are making a massive bet on the universal humanoid. Chinese teams are often more willing to change the body if it makes the economics work today. Back in June, I called logistics sorting the right first job for humanoids. X Square is making me rethink the “humanoid” part. If the job doesn’t need legs—or five fingers—why pay for them?