Figure AI, Inc. is a United States-based robotics company specializing in the development of AI-powered humanoid robots.[1] It was founded in 2022, by Brett Adcock, the founder of Archer Aviation and Vettery.[2] Figure AI's team is composed of experts from robotics, artificial intelligence, sensing, perception, and navigation, blending experiences from notable companies like Boston Dynamics and Tesla.[2]
 | |
| Industry | Information technology |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 |
| Founders | Brett Adcock |
| Headquarters | Sunnyvale, California, U.S. |
| Products | Figure 01 Figure 02 |
Number of employees | 130 |
| Website | www |
History
editIn 2022, the company introduced its prototype, Figure 01, a bipedal robot designed for manual labor, initially targeting the logistics and warehousing sectors.[3]
In May 2023 the company raised $70 million from investors led by Parkway Venture Capital.[4]
On January 18 2024 Figure announced a partnership with BMW to deploy humanoid robots in automotive manufacturing facilities.[5]
In February 2024, Figure AI secured $675 million in venture capital funding from a consortium that includes Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, and the startup-funding divisions of Amazon and OpenAI.[1][6][7] The funding valued the company at $2.6 billion.[1] It also announced a partnership with OpenAI. The collaboration includes OpenAI building specialized AI models for Figure's humanoid robots, allowing them to accelerate Figure's development timeline by enabling its robots to "process and reason from language".[7]
Products
editFigure 02
editOn August 6, 2024, Figure AI unveiled the next generation of its humanoid robot, named Figure 02. Described by the company as the next step deploying humanoids for industrial use. Figure 02 features a sleaker and slimmer design compared to its predecesor, with integrated cabling in its limbs. The battery capacity has increased by 50% over the previous generation. Additionally, the robot is equipped with 6 RGB cameras paired with an onboard vision language model. Powered by NVIDIA RTX GPU-based modules, its inference capabilities provide 3x of the computing power of the previous model.[8] It is also equipped with microphones and speakers combined with a custom AI model, developed with Open AI, to facilitate conversational capabilities with humans. The redesigned five-fingred robotic hands have 16 degrees of freedom (DoF) and the ability to carry objects up to 25kg. Figure 02 robots are currently deployed to a BMW plant in South Carolina for testing and to collect training data for AI models. [9][10]
References
edit- ^ a b c Palmer, Annie (2024-02-29). "Humanoid robot startup Figure AI valued at $2.6 billion as Bezos, OpenAI, Nvidia join funding". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-03-15.
- ^ a b Kingson, Jennifer A. (Mar 17, 2023). "Humanoid robots are coming". Axios.
- ^ Berg, Nate (February 3, 2023). "The race to build AI-powered humanoids is heating up". Fast Company.
- ^ Hu, Krystal (May 24, 2023). "AI startup Figure raises $70 million to build humanoid robots". Reuters.
- ^ "Figure announces commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing to bring general purpose robots into automotive production". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 2024-04-03.
- ^ Singh, Jaspreet (February 24, 2024). "Bezos, Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup, Bloomberg reports". Reuters.
- ^ a b O'Brien, Matt (March 3, 2024). "Humanoid robot-maker Figure gets funding from OpenAI, Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and other tech giants". Fast Company.
- ^ Martin, Scott (2024-08-08). "Figure Unveils Next-Gen Conversational Humanoid Robot With 3x AI Computing for Fully Autonomous Tasks". NVIDIA Blog. Retrieved 2024-10-28.
- ^ Heater, Brian (2024-09-12). "Face to face with Figure's new humanoid robot". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-10-28.
- ^ Oitzman, Mike (2024-08-06). "Figure 02 humanoid robot is ready to get to work". The Robot Report. Retrieved 2024-10-28.
