World’s First Humanoid Robot Factory Opens in Oregon – Are the Robots Taking Over?

Imagine walking into a factory and seeing a humanoid robot, five feet and nine inches tall, strolling around like it’s just another Tuesday at the office. This isn’t science fiction; it’s Oregon, 2024, where Agility Robotics is opening the doors to RoboFab—a factory with aspirations as big as its robotic workforce.

RoboFab isn’t just another manufacturing hub; it’s the factory that’s literally building our future. And by “building,” I mean producing more than 10,000 humanoid robots every year, each crafted to take on the dull, dirty, and repetitive work that we humans dread. These robots are called “Digit,” and they’re not just designed to look like us—they’re meant to move through our world, seamlessly navigating warehouse floors and carrying out tasks we’re too burned out or bored to bother with  .

The brains behind this audacious plan belong to Jonathan Hurst, an OSU professor with a vision to change the way we see robots. Hurst imagines a world where humans can finally “be more human” because robots like Digit handle the back-breaking labor. It’s a wild and idealistic idea, but then again, so was the internet once upon a time.

Agility Robotics didn’t just pop up overnight. It started in a modest 16,000-square-foot warehouse in Tangent, Oregon, before outgrowing the space and relocating to its current Salem site—a 70,000-square-foot testament to just how serious they are about mass production. And while Corvallis, Albany, and Tangent couldn’t host this monumental endeavor, Salem rose as the ideal choice, providing the space to scale up production and the talent pool to power this high-tech operation .

Salem is more than just a location on the map; it’s the pivot point where dreams of robots augmenting the human workforce take shape. In fact, Digit is already being tested by Amazon, putting to work in their Seattle facilities. And in an industry that can’t seem to hire humans fast enough for warehouse tasks like moving totes—tasks so mind-numbing they might as well be robotic—Digit might be the answer. Imagine working in a noisy, windowless warehouse, forbidden to even listen to music for safety reasons. That’s a job begging for a robot, and Digit is stepping up to fill those labor gaps.

As if all this weren’t ambitious enough, Agility’s COO, Aindrea Campbell, brings decades of experience from Ford and Apple to scale up operations. RoboFab isn’t just a manufacturing facility; it’s the dawn of an entirely new era in robotics, one where humans can focus on creativity and interaction, and robots do the heavy lifting—literally .

It’s hard not to marvel at this grand narrative of humanoid robots coming to life in the Pacific Northwest. What does it mean for the labor market? For technology? For humanity? It means a lot of change—and perhaps that’s the scariest and most exciting part all at once. You could argue that we’re at a historical crossroads, where the monotony of labor gets handed over to metal, wires, and software. Or you could say that Oregon, of all places, just became ground zero for a robotic revolution.

For more details, check out the official Agility Robotics press release  and the full article from the Salem Reporter .