Not to add more of the "me too" threads... but this is happening to me as well. BRAND NEW Macbook Pro 16. Finally got it to restore a backup from my old macbook via Time Machine and boot up normally. That was a challenge and took a lot more time than I thought it would (no big deal though) As soon as it booted, it asked me to update to Big Sur... Wish I did my research before doing this! I went ahead to update it and it got stuck somewhere around 50-70% (hard to tell)... So, like all of us here, I did a Google search and found few options for a possible solution(most are listed here). Shutting it down (hard shut down) and then turning it back on... Didn't work. Tried to reset NVRAM... that got stuck halfway through the loading bar (apple logo)... had to do another hard shut down... tried to reset it again... stuck again. I tried using the recovery mode (online - command+option+R) to reinstall... but it only shows Catalina and not Big Sur... but if I go into the local recovery mode (command+R) and I go to reinstall, it does show Big Sur but then says it has to be online in order to do this... Now I'm just frustrated! Brand new MacBook Pro 16, over $3500 and I still can't use it! (I know the computer itself isn't the problem, but this is still unacceptable!) Has anyone else gotten this experience? Thank you all!