Foundation Future Industries, a humanoid robotics startup founded in 2024, is aiming its machines at military work, including combat roles. CEO Sankaet Pathak told WIRED the company expects to show “kinetic” capabilities, meaning weapons systems, within months, though he did not describe the hardware or how it would be controlled.
The company says its Phantom humanoids could also be used for logistics, reconnaissance and inspection. That is the less cinematic part of the pitch, and probably the more plausible one: robots with legs can, in theory, move through terrain and buildings that wheeled machines handle badly. The hard part is making the machine reliable once the floor stops looking like a demo space.
Foundation has a conspicuous political backer. Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, is both an investor and the company’s chief strategy adviser, according to WIRED. On Fox Business on April 23, Trump promoted the company’s robots, saying they can fist-bump, high-five and follow commands, and argued that AI autonomy could affect industry, military uses and hospitality.
Government money, with caveats
The US military has been interested in humanoids for years. DARPA ran major humanoid robotics contests from 2012 to 2015, and the Army’s xTechHumanoids program funds technologies tied to what it calls “militarized humanoid capabilities.” Military forces are also testing and adopting drones, small autonomous boats and compact ground vehicles, with Ukraine serving as a proving ground for many systems. Foundation says its Phantom MK1 has been tested with Ukrainian forces.
Foundation’s government-contract story is less clean than the TV version. During the Fox Business segment, the host referred to a $24 million Pentagon contract. WIRED reported that when it asked Foundation for details, the company pointed to two contracts inherited from Boardwalk Robotics and three that came through the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a Florida nonprofit research institute known for humanoid robotics. WIRED said Foundation did not appear to have independently won new government funding.
Foundation acquired Boardwalk Robotics a few months after Foundation was created. Boardwalk had worked closely with IHMC, according to WIRED.
The robot soldier problem
A roboticist familiar with Foundation told WIRED, anonymously to avoid harming business relationships, that military humanoids could make sense for dangerous first-entry tasks, such as going through doors during urban combat. The same person said the technology seems close enough to fielding to be surprising that it is not already in use.
Other robotics experts were more restrained. Robert Griffin, a senior research scientist at IHMC who led a project involving Boardwalk and advised the company technically, told WIRED that it is difficult to separate what humanoids can do now from what the field might eventually deliver. He said building something that behaves like an actual soldier involves challenges across robotics.
The blockers are not mysterious. Humanoids have improved thanks to cheaper motors, better sensors and AI training methods that can teach dynamic movement. But unfamiliar terrain, perception, navigation and hand manipulation remain major problems. Picking up and using objects reliably, including a weapon, is still not a solved routine task.
Rodney Brooks, a robotics pioneer and MIT professor emeritus, told WIRED he expects reliable humanoid operation in complex, unfamiliar settings to take more than a decade. Even a lab-ready combat robot would need to cross varied terrain, handle damaged stairs, move through rubble and deal with blocked doors. Brooks said moving from a strong lab demo to initial deployment in robotics takes at least 10 years.
Pathak rejected fears about runaway humanoid robots in comments to WIRED and argued that robots could make war more precise and reduce collateral damage. For now, even Foundation’s next hardware step is more basic: Pathak said Phantom MK2 will be the company’s first model designed to resist water and dust.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
