The Texas startup Persona AI is training its heavy-duty humanoid robot for welding work at shipyards.
The Houston-based robotics firm just shared footage it describes as a real welding test inside an industrial fabrication shop. The Gen 1 humanoid is guided through teleoperation to collect real-world welding data to train its AI brain for future autonomous work.
Persona AI has secured deployments with HD Hyundai, which operates five major shipyards across South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea, HD Hyundai builds cargo ships, tankers, gas carriers, and naval vessels for companies and governments worldwide. In 2025, it won a contract to overhaul the USNS Alan Shepard, a Navy cargo and ammunition ship.
The work Persona AI is targeting requires mobility and flexibility that fixed welding robots on production lines can’t provide. Shipbuilders are increasingly looking to automation as they say it’s difficult to find humans willing to do the physically demanding and hazardous work. Robotics firms like Persona AI view the bipedal humanoids as ideal for the work because it requires walking across uneven floors, crouching, kneeling, reaching overhead, twisting the body, and holding welding tools steadily in tight spaces.
The idea has been out of the question until recently, but rapid improvements in robotic locomotion, dexterity, durability, and artificial intelligence are making humanoid shipyard welders more practical. Beyond the welding itself, the heat, sparks, smoke, dust, vibrations, and rough shipyard terrain remains a major challenge. That’s why Persona AI is working with Under Armour on protective performance gear for the harsh conditions.
The work Persona AI is targeting requires mobility and flexibility that fixed welding robots on production lines can’t provide. It’s scaling production with at least $27 million in funding raised to date.
Persona AI is led by Nic Radford, the former lead of NASA’s Valkyrie space humanoid program and founder of Nauticus Robotics, which makes autonomous underwater robots and control software. He launched the firm in 2024 with former Figure AI CTO Jerry Pratt and former Nauticus Engineering VP Jide Akinyode.
The company has licensed dexterous hand technology from NASA that originated with the space agency’s Robonaut 2, which became the first humanoid robot to reach the International Space Station in 2011. Radford served as chief engineer and deputy project manager for that project in collaboration with General Motors.
The second-generation Robonaut’s hand was far ahead of its time when it debuted in 2010. It packed humanlike dexterity, force sensing, tendon-driven fingers and 12 degrees of freedom (DoF) into the end effector engineered to use ordinary human tools.
The startup is not alone in pursuing autonomous humanoid welding for shipyards. The recently launched Italian firm, Generative Bionics, is also developing an industrial humanoid for welding. The IIT spinout is partnering with the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri on a four-year project to develop the AI-powered robot to work alongside human workers. Onsite testing is expected to begin by the end of 2026 at Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente shipyard in Genoa.
Back in the US, the Ohio-based startup Path Robotics introduced a robotic dog welder to help build next-gen warships. The robotic dog, named Rove, is being piloted at a Louisiana shipyard where Saronic Technologies is scaling production of autonomous naval vessels. According to Path, the robodog and its other welding automation systems can metal parts, identify where welds are needed, and execute with consistent quality when parts aren’t perfectly aligned.
The more robots take on welding jobs, the more pushback will likely grow over concerns about automation replacing workers. While critics agree there’s a labor shortage, they argue it’s because of low pay and weak benefits. In 2025 Congressional testimony, experts said wages were the biggest obstacle in recruiting shipyard workers. Proponents of shipyard automation say better wages won’t make up for an aging workforce and years of lost training.