Goldman Sachs has quadrupled its forecast for the humanoid robot market size, with e-commerce warehouses and automotive production lines being the fastest-growing applications.

Goldman Sachs has quadrupled its forecast for the humanoid robot market size, with e-commerce warehouses and automotive production lines being the fastest-growing applications.

Recently, Eric Sheridan, an internet and e-commerce equity analyst and managing director at Goldman Sachs, released an 80-page research report on "physical AI" to clients, raising his forecasts for the humanoid robot market across the board and predicting that warehousing and logistics will be the first battleground to see explosive growth.

"We are raising our humanoid robot market forecast," Sheridan wrote in the report. "The global market size is projected to reach approximately 890,000 units by 2030 and approximately 6.5 million units by 2035, representing a market opportunity of approximately $138 billion."

This adjustment is quite significant compared to previous forecasts: the baseline forecast for 2026 has been revised from 51,000 units to 75,000 units, for 2030 from 256,000 units to 890,000 units, and for 2035 from 1.4 million units to 6.5 million units. Each humanoid robot requires semiconductors costing between $3,000 and $6,000 or more, covering high-performance computing modules, analog/mixed-signal chips, and edge storage.

Warehousing and Logistics: The First Battlefield to Be Deployed

Sheridan explicitly pointed out that logistics and warehousing operations are the primary early adoption scenarios for general-purpose humanoid robots, with Amazon and Walmart leading the way in this transformation.

On the data front, Amazon has deployed more than 1 million robots across 300 sites; Walmart has automated its delivery services in 3,100 stores across the United States, with more than half of its e-commerce orders being processed through automated facilities.

Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2030, automated deployment could save Amazon approximately $72 billion in service costs and, in an optimistic scenario, boost EBIT margin by about 240 basis points, equivalent to a leverage effect of about 5.6% of Amazon's total service costs.

Automotive Industry: The Second Wave of Applications

After logistics, the automotive industry is seen as the next major battleground for humanoid robots.

Sheridan pointed out that while automotive body welding is highly automated, final assembly and parts sorting still rely heavily on manual labor. Major automakers are "actively exploring humanoid robots to address labor challenges."

Goldman Sachs' scenario analysis shows that if automakers purchase humanoid robots priced between $20,000 and $60,000 at a rate of 10% to 50%, it could lead to a 1% to 6% increase in gross margin (if some of the savings are passed on to consumers in the form of price reductions, the net effect may be lower than this range).

Software-defined factories: Challenges for traditional giants

The proliferation of humanoid robots is driving the migration of factory control systems from hardware-bound programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to software-defined virtual PLCs (vPLCs).

Sheridan predicts that the vPLC market will grow at a rate of 20% to 30% annually. This trend will pose a challenge to leading companies that traditionally use a hardware-software bundled model, such as Siemens, Rockwell Automation, and Schneider Electric.

Semiconductors: Chip demand of over $3,000 to $6,000 per robot

The widespread adoption of humanoid robots will bring structural growth to the semiconductor supply chain.

Sheridan estimates that the semiconductor addressable market (SAM) for each humanoid robot is worth between $3,000 and $6,000 or more , specifically comprising:

  • High-performance computing modules: $1,500 to over $4,000
  • Analog/Mixed-signal chips: $750 to $1050 and above
  • Edge storage: $600 to $800 and above

Based on the upward revision of the above forecast, Sheridan provided its clients with a list of companies that will benefit from the physical AI wave.

From a market dynamics perspective, global venture capital investment in the robotics sector began to accelerate at the end of 2024.

In the Chinese market, the Solactive China Humanoid Robot Index (BBG: SOLCHRBN), which tracks 20 listed Chinese humanoid robot and component companies, peaked in September 2025 and has since given back some of the gains since late summer 2024.

In addition, JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta visited Tesla's Fremont factory last week and briefed clients on the latest progress in converting the discontinued Model S and Model X production lines into Optimus humanoid robot production lines.

Enterprise survey: 40% of respondents expect to automate 10% of their workflows within 3 to 5 years.

Goldman Sachs also released the first results of its "Executive Perspectives" global survey, which focuses on the topic of robotics and physical AI.

The results showed that about 40% of the surveyed corporate executives expect that at least 10% of their workflows will be automated through general-purpose robots within the next 3 to 5 years.

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