A humanoid company backed by Eric Trump is preparing its robots for war

You want some companies Their robots fold your clothes. Others want them In the workplace. Sanket Pathak and his startup Foundation Future Industries have a slightly different goal: producing a fully American robotic soldier.

Pathak, the foundation’s CEO, says his company plans to start giving humans their lethal abilities soon, though he declined to share details. “We have some kinetic things we’re exploring,” he told WIRED. (meaning weapons systems). “We will probably unveil something in the next couple of months,” he adds. Besides combat, the company says its robots could be useful for logistics, reconnaissance and inspection.

The US military has a long-standing interest in human beings. The Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency funded major humanoid competitions between 2012 and 2015, and the Army has a program called xTechHumanoids that funds the development of technologies related to “military human capabilities.” Militaries around the world are rapidly exploring and adopting new autonomous or semi-autonomous systems, including drones, small ships, and compact vehicles. Legged systems can traverse more difficult terrain, and the hope is that humanoid robots can take on many of the tasks now performed by human soldiers. The war in Ukraine served as a laboratory for developing and testing many of these systems. The organization says it tested the Phantom MK1 robot with Ukrainian forces.

It is unique in targeting the military market, and has been profitable so far. The company has multimillion-dollar government contracts and high-profile backers to spread its message: Eric Trump, the president’s son, is a key investor and strategic advisor to the company. “People don’t realize he’s actually an engineer, so he does a lot of milling and things like that at his house,” Pathak says.

During an interview with Fox Business on April 23, Trump bragged about the company’s robots. “When you walk up and you interact with these robots, and they fist-pump you, they hit you with five-fingers, and they follow your commands,” he said. “Bringing AI autonomy, it will change industry, it will change military applications, it will change hospitality. The uses are limitless, and I think it’s a very beautiful thing.”

The foundation was founded in 2024. A few months later, it acquired a company called Boardwalk Robotics, which worked closely with the Institute for Human Cognition and Machinery (IHMC), a non-profit research institute in Florida known for its work on humanoid robots.

During Trump’s segment on Fox, the host touted a “$24 million contract with the Pentagon” that the company had won, though that seemed a bit vague: When WIRED asked for more information about the organization’s contracts, the company shared details of two contracts it inherited from Boardwalk and three that came through IHMC. The company does not appear to have independently obtained new funds from the government.

However, some people think it is a promising niche. “If I wear a military hat, it makes a lot of sense, because that’s where soldiers still die — the first one through the door,” says one roboticist familiar with the Foundation, who requested anonymity so as not to impact working relationships. “If you look at Fallujah, the first Gulf War, there were several thousand insurgents hiding in 10,000 buildings and (US forces) were going door to door.”

“I think it’s very close to possible,” they add, “and I’m surprised they haven’t already gotten involved.”

However, like other human-powered companies, the organization often depicts its robots performing tasks autonomously — and other experts say fully autonomous robot soldiers are a pipe dream at best.

“Right now, it’s difficult to separate the current state of the art from the potential of state-of-the-art humanoid robotics,” says Robert Griffin, a senior research scientist working on robotics at IHMC, who led one of the projects involving Boardwalk and was a technical advisor to the company. “There are a number of challenges, including a whole series of robots, to the idea of ​​building a real human soldier,” Griffin says.