Foundation Future Industries, a startup founded in 2024, aims to harness humanoid robots for military and industrial work, rather than household chores and the service sector.
Future Industries Foundation
As Silicon Valley races to build humanoid robots that can fold laundry and pour a latte, at least one startup sees a very different use for the technology: war or other potentially dangerous and deadly jobs.
Meet Foundation Future Industries, a San Francisco-based robotics company with ties to the Trump family that is developing “dual-use” autonomous humanoid robots for heavy industrial environments and military applications.
Although the robots sound like something out of a Terminator-style sci-fi movie, they are getting closer to reality, with the first iterations undergoing testing in Ukraine for potential use in kyiv’s war against Russia.
At the heart of the company’s mission is the belief that humanoid robotics should be geared toward humanity’s greatest challenges rather than household chores and service roles, Foundation CEO Sankaet Pathak told CNBC.
“I’m convinced that technology is reaching a level where it can replace dangerous jobs for humans, and if you can do that, that’s the highest net good you can create from all the applications of robotics,” Pathak said.
Sankaet Pathak, CEO and founder of Foundation, a company that builds a Phantom-01 humanoid robot, poses for a photo during an interview with Reuters at his company’s factory in San Francisco, California, United States, February 4, 2026.
Alexander Michalska | Reuters
Although the Foundation operates in an increasingly crowded humanoid domain, its explicit embrace of the potential military uses of its technology sets it apart.
But the startup has set ambitious goals, with Pathak planning to increase production to thousands of units this year and begin front-line testing with the U.S. military within the next 18 months.
These projects and the company’s growing ties to Washington represent another example of how artificial intelligence and robotics are beginning to transform modern warfare and become a national security objective.
From Silicon Valley to UkrainePathak is best known for running Synapse, a company controversial fintech platform which declared bankruptcy in 2024. Shortly after, he created Foundation with Arjun Sethi, former CEO of Tribe Capital and Mike LeBlanc, co-founder of Cobalt Robotics.
Pathak’s latest venture also attracted some scrutiny after the company suggested it had close ties to General Motors and could receive investments from the automaker, claims GM later denied.
The Foundation finally gained greater global recognition earlier this year when it sent two of its Phantom MK-1 units to Ukraine for a pilot demonstration, marking what the company described as the first known deployment of humanoid robots in a combat theater.
The ongoing tests, supported by the U.S. government and conducted with Ukrainian officials, have focused on logistics in dangerous areas.
Foundation Future Industries, a startup founded in 2024, aims to harness humanoid robots for military and industrial work, rather than household chores and the service sector.
Future Industries Foundation
Ukraine was a natural start, as its ongoing conflict with Russia has already become a major testbed for combat robotics and AI. The war, now in its fifth year, has seen the use of ground robots to deliver supplies to the front line, as well as autonomous and AI-enhanced drones for precision strikes and reconnaissance.
According to Pathak, tests of the MK-1 in Ukraine have already proven the robot’s potential to carry out supply collections, which often exposes soldiers to danger.
But even though the MK-1s help demonstrate the utility of the basic technology, they are far from super soldiers, carrying only a payload of about 44 pounds, and lacking waterproofing and sufficient battery life to be deployed on a large scale.
The Foundation aims to send new, improved robots to Ukraine this year in the form of its Phantom 2, which Pathak says will have “superhuman abilities” and double the payload capacity of the Phantom 1.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the matter, while the U.S. Defense Department did not respond to an inquiry.
Alignment with WashingtonThe Foundation hopes its testing in Ukraine will inform its future work with the U.S. military. The startup has already received government research contracts totaling $24 million for feasibility testing of weapons inspection, logistics and handling within the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Pathak said conversations with government officials have shifted from research to how to expand the use of robots. The CEO hopes Foundation will deploy its technology to the U.S. military and, if necessary, to the front lines of conflict over the next 12 to 18 months.
This will be achieved notably with Eric Trump, the second son of the sitting president, who recently joined the company as chief strategic advisor – a move that scrutiny from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who claimed the company’s government contracts were “corruption in plain sight.”
A Foundation spokesperson told CNBC that Eric Trump had been an investor in the company before stepping in as an advisor, with both parties having a shared vision for the return of manufacturing to the United States.
Phantom-01, a humanoid robot developed by San Francisco-based startup Foundation for military purposes, sits at the company’s factory in San Francisco, California, United States, February 4, 2026.
Alexander Michalska | Reuters
Foundation has strongly aligned itself with Washington’s interests, emphasizing the importance of its technology in the broader geopolitical competition between the United States and China. The goal is to provide “the best robots we can build” to the U.S. military – better than anything China has,” Pathak said.
While several US companies are working with the US government to deploy autonomous robots for military purposes, the Pentagon has yet to disclose the deployment of a humanoid robot for such purposes.
China, which has a number of major humanoid robot companies, has also publicly funded and supported initiatives for the technology, primarily focused on industrial and economic applications. Although Chinese military researchers have published reports on the potential of humanoid robots in the military, the extent of their testing remains unclear.
The Chinese military has already demonstrated the first iterations of AI-powered robotic dogs for combat, as well as motion-controlled humanoid robot soldiers.
The Age of Autonomous Warfare Proponents of humanoid technology in the military and industrial fields argue that human-like robots are generally better suited than other forms of robotics to navigating real-world construction sites, logistics centers and war zones.
Kateryna Bondar, a senior researcher at CSIS’s Wadhwani AI Center, told CNBC that humanoid robots could theoretically offer some advantages on the battlefield due to their autonomy and human-like dexterity.
“Modern urban battlespaces – where there are stairwells, ladders, basements and narrow corridors – were created for human movement, which could give humanoid systems an advantage over tracked or quadrupedal robots in certain scenarios,” Bondar said.
However, questions remain about the complexity and manufacturing costs of humanoids compared to other systems.
As humanoid robots move toward the battlefield, this technology raises ethical concerns, particularly regarding the reliance on autonomous decision-making in combat when human lives are at stake.
Although most militarized uses of Phantom robots will retain some human confirmation in the decision loop, Pathak said Foundation robots will need to make fully autonomous decisions in some critical scenarios.
Foundation Future Industries, a startup founded in 2024, aims to harness humanoid robots for military and industrial work, rather than household chores and the service sector.
Future Industries Foundation
However, the US military has already shown its willingness to adopt AI models, with technology would have been used to inform strikes and decision-making in its ongoing conflict with Iran.
A bigger hurdle for companies like Foundation may be proving that their human-like robots can be more practical and cost-effective for military applications than other alternatives on the market — something many experts doubt.
“Making robots look like humans is a complex and expensive engineering challenge, and what Ukraine has taught us is the opposite: We need the ability to adapt quickly and manufacture quickly and cheaply,” said Melanie Sisson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Foreign Policy Program.
What experts seem to agree on is that, whatever shape or size, the era of wartime AI robots is nigh.
“I expect tracked, flying and underwater robots to replace human forces,” said Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the University of New South Wales’ AI Institute.
However, it might be a “science fiction trope to expect humanoid terminator-type robots,” he said.
