Meta Betting on AI-Powered Humanoid Robots

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Meta Betting on AI-Powered Humanoid Robots

PCMag editors select and review products

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Meta is betting big on humanoid AI-powered robots,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The company has reportedly formed a new division within its Reality Labs unit, which developed the Meta Quest VR headset, which will initially focus on developing hardware for robots that can assist with physical tasks like household chores.

The unnamed new division will be led by Marc Whitten, former CEO of General Motors’ self-driving car division Cruise, and it will look to hire 100 engineers in 2025. The company has reportedly already begun talks with robotics companies like ******** firm Unitree Robotics and US startup Figure AI.

But rather than directly launching a branded robot,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, Meta plans to develop AI systems, sensors, and software for robots that will then be manufactured and sold by a range of companies, much like how smartphone manufacturers all over the world use

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

’s Android operating system. Meta is allegedly aiming for its upcoming LLaMA language model to become “a foundation for robotics researchers around the world.”

Though Meta isn’t aiming squarely at the consumer market, Bloomberg reports that Meta still plans on building hardware, using existing components, and will build prototypes for testing purposes. However, the sources said that Meta hasn’t ruled out the option of one day launching a consumer-facing robot.

Rather than working separately from its AR and VR projects, Meta executives reportedly hope that the division will be able to leverage data collected from the firm’s augmented and virtual reality devices to spur advances in robotics. This shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise, Meta has been open about its plans to use data collected from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to improve its products.

But robotics aficionados shouldn’t get their hopes up, at least in the short term. A source with knowledge of the project told Bloomberg that it “could be years” before Meta’s platform is ready to power third-party robotics.

It’s not just Meta turning its eye toward humanoid robotics. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

the iPhone maker is “exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robots for its future smart home ecosystem, though the products are still early proof-of-concept (POC) stage internally.”

Meanwhile, Nvidia has also been bullish on the future of robotics and physical AI. At CES 2025 last month, CEO Jensen Huang

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

the market for humanoid robotics could soon hit $38 billion in the coming decades, saying that “the ChatGPT moment for general robotics is just around the corner.”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Meta #Betting #AIPowered #Humanoid #Robots

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up