BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 21, 2026--
Bear Robotics today announced KINO-2, its robot-learning platform for turning task demonstrations into deployable manipulation skills on KR1, Bear’s humanoid robot. KINO-2 extends Bear’s capabilities from moving goods to handling them, helping customers automate more of an established process.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261021776819/en/
Bear has deployed over 16,000 robots, mostly service robots, at over 5,000 customer locations. Through those deployments, Bear has built navigation, fleet coordination and operational infrastructure, along with practical knowledge of how robots work alongside people in commercial environments.
Many customer workflows require both movement and manipulation. A crate must be packed before it can be transported, a machine must be loaded before it can run, and returned products must be sorted before they can move on. KINO-2 addresses these tasks by connecting learned manipulation skills with Bear’s industrially proven navigation, control and workflow systems.
With KINO-2, Bear collects task demonstrations, uses them to train and refine models, and evaluates the resulting skills on KR1 before deployment in a customer pilot. The platform supports Bear’s in-house models and external foundation models through shared training, evaluation and deployment tools. Because Bear develops the robot’s hardware, software and AI together, its engineers can adapt both the learned behavior and the surrounding system to the customer’s requirements.
Bear is developing these capabilities through active manipulation pilots, including supermarket returns and warehouse crate handling. Its broader fleet strategy combines specialized mobile robots for transport with KR1 for manipulation, supported by shared fleet management and workflow infrastructure.
Designing KINO-2 with NVIDIA Isaac OS at the core of its perception runtime
As Bear expands into diverse customer workflows, KINO-2 must generalize across different objects, layouts and operating conditions. This increases the need to run larger, more capable foundation models efficiently onboard KR1. Bear designs its hardware and software together to meet that challenge, with NVIDIA Isaac OS serving as the backbone of its perception runtime.
Early access to NVIDIA technologies and direct engagement with NVIDIA engineering teams enable Bear to rapidly iterate on its own hardware and software as the technologies evolve. Bear builds and evaluates these systems using customer data and testing in real operating environments, providing NVIDIA with practical engineering feedback throughout development.
Isaac OS, NVIDIA’s robotics edge runtime stack incorporating NVIDIA Holoscan SDK (HSDK) 5.0, connects perception processing and model inference on NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor. Using NVIDIA Isaac ROS Bridge, Bear seamlessly integrated the runtime with its existing robotics stack. This allowed Bear to retain its established software while integrating KINO-2’s in-house models and open foundation models, including NVIDIA Isaac GR00T, into a broader system spanning navigation and SLAM, fleet management and workflow coordination.
Using the NVIDIA Isaac OS runtime alongside NVIDIA TensorRT and model quantization, Bear reduced GR00T inference time from approximately 500 milliseconds in its initial unoptimized deployment to around 60 milliseconds—roughly an 8× speedup in internal measurements. Bear’s in-house model also achieved a 4.2× inference speedup, reducing inference time from 72.3 to 17.2 milliseconds.
KINO-2 launches at NVIDIA GTC Berlin
Bear is launching KINO-2 at NVIDIA GTC Berlin, alongside NVIDIA’s introduction of the first public beta of Isaac OS and general availability of Holoscan SDK (HSDK) 5.0, part of the Isaac OS runtime.
At NVIDIA’s invitation, Bear is demonstrating KINO-2 powering KR1 at the NVIDIA booth. Working from a warehouse management system order, KR1 picks and crates bottles, delivers the crate to a drop-off point, and returns with an empty one, combining learned manipulation with Bear’s navigation, control, and workflow systems.
About Bear Robotics
Founded in Silicon Valley in 2017, Bear Robotics builds robots and software that automate everyday physical work, with over 16,000 robots in commercial service across North America, Europe and Asia. Its 2026 acquisition of Kinisi Robotics added the KR1 humanoid and Kino robot-learning program. Visit bearrobotics.ai.
KR1 humanoid robot picks up a beer bottle and places it in a crate.
Russia on Wednesday freed an American who had been jailed for more than four years on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, in a deal completed during a visit by a top U.S. envoy and at a time when President Donald Trump has taken a series of actions meant to benefit Moscow.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call last week to free Stephen Hubbard, and that, unlike previous releases, the U.S. did not have to give up anyone in return.
“Welcome home, Stephen, it’s great to have you back,” Trump said.
Hubbard, a 74-year-old former teacher from Michigan, was on his way home following a visit to St. Petersburg by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who also held talks with Putin about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.
Hubbard was sentenced in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison following a closed trial. Prosecutors said he had signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, and that he fought alongside Kyiv's forces until being captured two months later. The U.S. government under the Biden administration designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained.
Witkoff, a key Trump administration figure who has tried without success to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement to end a war that will hit the five-year mark in February 2027, thanked Putin for releasing Hubbard, telling him, “Because of you, he's going home to his family.”
“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media on Wednesday that Hubbard’s release was “raised by the American side for a certain time,” and Putin decided to free the man out of “humanitarian considerations.”
He added that general contacts "continue on a regular basis between the intelligence services.”
Speaking to reporters after the talks, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said the Kremlin leader had pardoned Hubbard, who upon his release was taken to the St. Petersburg airport, Pulkovo, for Witkoff to bring him home to the United States.
Video showed Witkoff and Hubbard shaking hands, with the newly released American thanking the envoy.
Witkoff introduced Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Hubbard and described him as someone “who had a lot to do with this happening.”
“We just met President Putin, he sends you blessings and wishes you good things,” Witkoff added.
The release occurred at a dynamic moment in relations between the United States, Ukraine and Russia, with the Washington-Kyiv relationship being roiled by fresh tensions at the same time that the Trump administration has advanced policies that aid Putin.
Those include Trump's move last week to waive sanctions on Russia imposed by a bill that Congress overwhelmingly passed to support Ukraine. Named after the late South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the legislation targeted the flow of financial resources fueling Moscow’s war. That decision followed Trump’s announcement of a deal to import Russian diesel fuel in a long-shot effort to curb high gas prices ahead of next month's U.S. midterm elections.
Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Norway on Tuesday. He was expected to exchange ideas from that meeting, as well as proposals from European and American colleagues, in his talks Wednesday with Russian leaders in St. Petersburg.
Hubbard is the second American freed by Russia in roughly two months, following the release in August of Marine veteran Robert Gilman, who had been gravely ill and was imprisoned on disputed charges of assaulting a police officer.
Other Americans, including some with serious illnesses, remain jailed in Russia. Hubbard was the last remaining American designated as wrongfully detained, although advocates say that label should be applied to other prisoners.
Global Reach, an advocacy group that works to free Americans detained abroad and currently represents five Americans held in Russia, praised the release but called for the other prisoners to come home as well.
“We are grateful to the Trump Administration for reuniting Stephen Hubbard with his family, but at the same time, we know that there are five other families of Americans held in Russia who are going to have a hard time understanding why their loved one was not included in the deal,” Eric Lebson, the group's chief strategy officer, said in a statement.
Hubbard had been imprisoned since 2022 on charges that Hostage Aid Worldwide, a hostage advocacy group, has called bogus.
The organization earlier this year posted a letter to Trump that it said was written by Patricia Hubbard Fox, Hubbard’s sister, in which she offered praise for Trump but also said her brother had been subjected to “constant beatings, torture and starvation” while in custody.
“Even so, everything that you’re doing isn’t going to matter to my kidnapped, American Veteran brother, Stephen James Hubbard (soon to be 74) if Putin won’t cave and let him come home and he dies up there in a Nazi prison (crying),” the letter said.
Russia reported more arrests of foreigners in recent days. The FSB security service said Wednesday it detained a German national suspected of mercenary activities and last week announced arrests of a Swedish national suspected of sabotage and a Japanese journalist accused of espionage.
Tucker reported from Washington; Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff speaks during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Konstantin Palace in Strelnya, outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (Kristina Solovyova, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, left, holds a paper while speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Konstantin Palace in Strelnya, outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - In this photo taken from video released by the Moscow City Court Press Service, Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia stands in a glass cage during a court session in the Moscow City court in Moscow, Russia, Oct. 7, 2024. (Moscow City Court Press Service via AP, File)
FILE - Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine against Russia shows up in a video link as he stands in a glass cage during a court session in the Moscow City court in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, right, greets U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff at the international airport outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (TASS Photo via AP)
