Open Navigation

IEEE.org IEEE Xplore Digital Library IEEE Standards IEEE Spectrum More Sites

IEEE Transmitter Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn

Open Search
Open Navigation
Open Search

March 18, 2025

Humanoid robotics is one of the hottest topics in tech, with dozens of startup companies around the world, and billions in new investment.

But investors are still looking for the perfect application, the place where advancements in robotics meets the economic needs of the wider market. 

“There is a big gap, and when I think about deployability, I also think about the cost,” said IEEE Senior Member Ayanna Howard. 

Howard made these comments on the Wall Street Journal’s Bold Names podcast, where Host and Technology Columnist Christopher Mims noted that “Howard has the ears of some of the most powerful people in the U.S. making decisions about the future of AI.”

It is a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion that touches on the major advances in the field, the integration of robotics with generative AI, and the current limitations of the technology, including the lack of digital infrastructure to support widespread robotics deployment.

“If you’re connected around an AI in a virtual environment and you don’t have great bandwidth. You just wait a few seconds and your answer comes,” Howard said. “In a robotics world, if you are losing a second of information, you have a robot that falls or hurts someone. And so I think that disconnect of ‘do we have the infrastructure for doing this in orders of less than milliseconds, nanoseconds, and not losing any connectivity, we haven’t really addressed that yet.”

You can listen to or read the full transcript of the podcast here. 

Interested in becoming an IEEE member?

Ayanna Howard headshot

Ayanna Howard

IEEE Senior Member, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society

SEE MORE FROM THIS IMPACT CREATOR

Related Stories

Read more about What AI Can Tell Us About Happiness

Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 3 weeks ago

What AI Can Tell Us About Happiness

IEEE-Header-Trash-plastics-dump-under-water-2025-1800x650

Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 2 months ago

Swimming Robots? Yes, to Clean the Oceans

IEEE-Header-View-of-dam-2025-1800x650

Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 2 months ago

Inspecting Dams: How Satellites and Drones Help Avoid Catastrophes

IEEE-Header-Digital-Human-Head-Concept-For-AI-2025-1800x650

Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 2 months ago

What Is Agentic AI?

INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES

Close Navigation