After investing in augmented reality and artificial intelligence, the goal identified its next big bet: humanoid robots with artificial intelligence.
The company is making a significant investment in this category – futuristic robots who can act as humans and help with physical tasks – and are forming a new team within their hardware LABS hardware division to conduct the work, according to sources along with the subject .
The goal plans to develop its own humanoid robot hardware, with an initial focus on housework. Its greatest ambition is to create artificial intelligence, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a number of companies, the sources said, which asked not to be identified because the initiative has not yet been announced.
The goal began to discuss its plan with robotics companies, including Unite Robotics and Figure Ai. At least initially, she doesn’t plan to build a goal -brand robot – something that could rival Tesla’s Optimus – but she can consider doing it in the future, the sources added.
The effort in creating humanoid robots reflects projects from other major technology companies, including Apple and Alphabet Google Deepmind division. A goal spokesman refused to comment.
The goal confirmed the creation of the new team to employees on Friday (14), informing that it will be led by Marc Whitten, who resigned as CEO of General Motors Autonomous Car Division earlier this month. He was previously executive of the game company Unity Software and Amazon.com.
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“The fundamental technologies in which we have already invested and built in reality labs and AI are complementary to the development of the necessary advances for robotics,” wrote Andrew Bosworth, CTO da Meta, in a memorandum revised by Bloomberg News. He mentioned the company’s advances in hand tracking, low bandwidth computing and always linked sensors.
Goal executives believe that while humanoid robotics have advanced in hardware, advances in artificial intelligence, and data collected from augmented and virtual reality devices could accelerate progress in the nascent industry. Current humanoids are not yet useful enough to fold clothes, carry a glass of water, put dishes on a cleaning support or perform other household chores that could attract consumers to the category.
“We believe that expanding our portfolio to invest in this field will only bring value to the AI goal and our mixed and increased reality programs,” wrote Bosworth. Whitten, who will report to Bosworth, will have the ability to hire about 100 engineers this year, said one of the sources.
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The goal of the goal is to provide what Google’s Android operating system and Qualcomm’s chips have done by the phones, building a base for the rest of the market.
The software, sensors and computing packages that the goal is already developing for its devices are the same technologies necessary to feed humanoids, according to one of the people involved in the project.
The goal has invested billions of dollars for years in its hardware division reality labs, which sells products such as the VR Quest headset and the increasingly popular Ray-Ban smart glasses. The goal plans to spend $ 65 billion this year on similar products, including artificial intelligence infrastructure and new work with robots.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company’s Optimus robot will be sold in the future to consumers and can cost about $ 30,000. Tesla will begin a limited production this year. Other companies also advanced. Boston Dynamics, for example, has already brought products to the market for automation in warehouses. Some companies are focused on selling to business and manufacturers, while the goal’s intention is to sell to homes.
Humanoids are an evolution of work that companies have done on autonomous vehicles. They use similar technologies and require large amounts of data and AI processing. But while the safety risks are smaller – circulating in a person’s house instead of traveling at 50 miles per hour on an open road – goal executives believe that humanoids are more challenging because each house has a different layout, while The city streets are quite standardized.
The goal will build part of its own hardware, use ready components and work with existing manufacturers as soon as you can, the sources said of the project. They added that building prototypes and hardware is critical for testing before deploying a platform, even if the goal does not throw a brand product at the end.
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The company is presenting its work as the robot development platform, one of the sources said, adding that the goal was to make the goal software a base for robotics researchers worldwide.
The goal will also seek to develop robot safety tools, addressing possible dangers, such as the hand of a person being trapped in one actuator or another part of a humanoid robot. There are also issues related to energy safety, such as a robot off or to work in the middle of a task if it runs out of power.
Although the official impetus for humanoid robots is new to the goal, the company’s Fair Group, or Fundação Ai Research Group, from the company, has explored and published articles on robotics works for months. Apple also began publishing AI articles related to robotics work recently.
A person with knowledge of the project said the goal believes that humanoids are still a few years old to be widely available – and it can take years until the company’s platform is ready to support third party products. But this will become an important focus on the goal and the broader technology industry, the person said.
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