According to the World Health Organization (WHO), healthcare workers are in short supply all over the world, with 4.5 million nurses shortage by 2030.
The nurse is already under pressure. Around a third of nurses worldwide experience burnout, like emotional fatigue, and occupations have a high turnover rate.
That's where Nurabot comes in. Autonomous, AI-powered nursing robots are designed to assist nurses with repeated or physically demanding tasks, such as supplying medication around the ward or teaching patients.
Humanoids can reduce nurse workloads by up to 30%, according to Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational company behind Nurabot.
“This isn't just a nurse's successor, it's like completing a mission together,” says Alice Lin, director of user design at Foxconn, also known as Taiwan's Hon Hai Technology Group.
By taking on repetitive tasks, Nurabot “frees nurses with the tasks they really need, such as caring for patients and determining their condition based on professional experience.
Nurabot, which took just 10 months to develop, has been undergoing testing at a Taiwanese hospital since April 2025. The company is currently preparing a robot for commercial launch early next year. Foxconn currently has no retail price estimates.
Foxconn has partnered with Japanese robotics company Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build the hardware for Nurabot.
The company has adopted Kawasaki's “Nyokkey” service robot model. It features multiple cameras and sensors that move autonomously on the wheels, and use two robotic arms to lift and hold items, and help them recognize their surroundings.
Based on that The first study of nurses' daily routines, including nurses' daily routines and long distance walking across the ward to deliver samples, added features such as spaces to safely store bottles and vials.
The robot uses Foxconn's large Chinese language model for communication, while US Tech Giant Nvidia provided Nurabot's core AI and robot infrastructure. Nvidia combines multiple unique AI platforms to create programming for Nurabot, allowing bots to navigate hospitals independently, schedule tasks, and respond to verbal and physical clues.
The AI was also used to train and test robots in virtual versions of hospitals, but Foxconn said it helped speedy development.
ai David Niewolny, Nvidia's Director of Business Development for Healthcare and Medical Care at Nvidia, allows Nurabot to “perceive, reason and act in a more human-like way” and allows them to adapt their actions “based on a particular patient, context, and situation.”
Lack of staffing is not the only problem facing the healthcare sector.
The world's According to the WHO, the elderly population is growing rapidly. The number of people over the age of 60 is expected to increase by 40% by 2030 compared to 2019. By the mid-2030s, the United Nations predicts that the number of individuals over the age of 80 will exceed infants.
Over the past decade, the number of healthcare workers has steadily increased, but not fast enough to beat population growth and aging. Southeast Asia is expected to become one of the worst regions due to a shortage of healthcare workers.
Professor Rick Kwan, Associate Dean of Tung Wah College in Hong Kong, said that AI-Enhanced Systems can offer time and cost savings on a large scale as these imminent stressors extend to the healthcare system.
“AI-assisted robots can really replace some repetitive tasks and save a lot of talent,” says Kwan.
However, there are challenges. KWAN emphasizes patient preferences for human interaction and the need for changes in hospital infrastructure.
“You can see hospitals in Hong Kong. They are very crowded and very narrow everywhere, so robots cannot travel,” says Kwan. Hospitals are designed around human needs and systems, and if robots become the center of workflows, this will need to be rethinked in future hospital designs, he adds.
According to Kwan, safety is also paramount. Not only does it reduce physical risks, it also has the development of ethical and data protection protocols. It also encourages a slow and careful approach that allows for rigorous testing and evaluation.
Robots are nothing new to healthcare. Surgical robots like Davinci have been around for decades and can help improve accuracy during surgery.
But increasingly, humanoids are helping hospital staff and patients.
In Singapore, Changi General Hospital currently has over 80 robots, with doctors and nurses helping everything from administrative work to medical delivery.
In the United States, nearly 100 “Moxi” autonomous health care bots can carry medicines, samples and supplies to hospitals, built by hardworking robots based in Texas with NVIDIA's AI platform.
But the judges are still out on how useful they are The robot is staff. Although recent reviews of robots in nursing have revealed awareness among nurses; Due to increased efficiency and reduced workload, there is a lack of empirical evidence to confirm this – and technical malfunctions, communication difficulties, and the need for continuous training all illustrate challenges.
High-tech companies invest heavily in healthcare: In addition to Nvidia, Amazon and Google are both looking for new opportunities in the $9.8 trillion healthcare market.
The Smart Hospital Sector is a small but rapidly expanding component of this. The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing market, estimated at $722.4 billion in 2025, according to market research firm Mordor Intelligence.
Nurabot is currently being piloted in a ward at Taiwan's Veterans General Hospital, which treats lung, face and neck-related illnesses, including lung cancer and asthma.
During this experimental phase, the robots are restricted to access the hospital's data system, and Foxconn is “stress-testing” functionality in the ward. This includes tracking metrics such as reduced walking distance for nurses and delivery accuracy, as well as qualitative feedback from patients and nurses. According to Foxconn, early results show that Nurabot reduces daily nursing workload by around 20-30%.
Taihin Veterans General Hospital declined to comment on the story about Nurabot.
According to Lin, Nurabot will be officially integrated into the daily nursing business later this year, including connecting to hospital information systems and performing tasks autonomously ahead of its commercial debut in early 2026.
While Nurabot doesn't solve the shortage of nurses, Lin says it will help alleviate the problems caused by aging society and hospitals that lose talent.
