As excitement builds around humanoid robots, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) partner Ouster, Inc. (NASDAQ:OUST) says investors may be overlooking one important piece of the opportunity: how much sensing hardware each robot could require.

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In an exclusive email interview with Benzinga, Ouster CEO and co-founder Angus Pacala said the company’s Stereolabs business is seeing demand accelerate as Physical AI adoption gains momentum.

“We’re in the early days of the growth cycle in Physical AI,” Pacala said, noting that robotics — including manipulation systems, autonomous industrial platforms, drones and humanoids — is “scaling faster than anything we’ve seen in the last decade.”

More Than Just One Robot, One Sensor

Pacala said customers are deploying “as many as six to 12 cameras for humanoids” and are “increasingly layering in lidar for safety and navigation,” creating what he described as “a massive, durable unit volume opportunity.”

His comments suggest the investment opportunity may depend not only on how many humanoid robots eventually reach the market, but also on the amount of perception hardware each machine requires to operate safely. If future humanoids rely on multiple cameras alongside lidar, suppliers of those technologies could see demand scale with every robot deployed.

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