Apptronik unveils 90,000 sq ft Austin facility for teleoperation data collection with Google DeepMind
The humanoid robotics company's new "Robot Park" will generate real-world training data for AI models using its Apollo 2 robots
Apptronik just opened what might be the most expensive data farm you’ve never heard of. The Austin-based humanoid robotics company unveiled Robot Park, a roughly 90,000-square-foot facility purpose-built for one thing: getting robots to do stuff while cameras and sensors record every movement, every failure, every success.
The data collected there feeds directly into Google DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics models.
What Robot Park actually does
The facility operates as a large-scale teleoperation hub. Human operators remotely control Apptronik’s Apollo 2 humanoid robots through real-world tasks spanning logistics, manufacturing, and retail scenarios. Every action generates what the industry calls “embodied data,” the kind of high-quality, physically grounded information that AI models desperately need to learn how bodies move through real spaces.
The Apollo 2 robots themselves operate in both bipedal and wheeled configurations. Data generated at Robot Park flows into DeepMind’s Gemini Robotics platform, which serves as the AI backbone for training increasingly capable robotic systems. The partnership between the two companies was first announced in December 2024, combining Apptronik’s hardware with DeepMind’s AI research muscle.
A $5 billion bet on humanoid robots
Apptronik has raised more than $935 million in Series A funding, including a $520 million extension completed in February 2026. That capital push vaulted the company’s valuation past the $5 billion mark.
The investor list includes Google and Mercedes-Benz. The German automaker has been running commercial pilots with Apptronik since 2024, testing how humanoid robots might eventually slot into automotive manufacturing workflows.
The company also teased plans for an Apollo 3 robot, signaling that the hardware roadmap extends well beyond the current generation.
From university lab to robot factory
Apptronik’s origin story starts at the University of Texas at Austin’s Human-Centered Robotics Lab. The company was spun out of that academic program with a focus on building humanoids that could safely operate around people, not just in caged-off industrial zones.