Meta buys robotics startup to bolster its humanoid AI ambitions
Meta buys robotics startup to bolster its humanoid AI ambitions
Meta 收购机器人初创公司，以加强其人形 AI 雄心
Meta has acquired humanoid robotics startup Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) for an undisclosed sum, the social media giant said. “We acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the frontier of robotic intelligence designed to enable robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behaviors in complex and dynamic environments,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch in an emailed statement.
Meta 已收购人形机器人初创公司 Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI)，具体收购金额未披露。Meta 发言人在给 TechCrunch 的电子邮件声明中表示：“我们收购了 Assured Robot Intelligence，这是一家处于机器人智能前沿的公司，旨在使机器人能够在复杂和动态的环境中理解、预测并适应人类行为。”
ARI’s team, including its co-founders, will join Meta’s AI unit, the Superintelligence Labs research division. ARI had raised an undisclosed seed round from AI seed firm AIX Ventures. The startup was building foundation models for humanoid robots to perform all types of physical labor such as household chores.
ARI 的团队（包括其联合创始人）将加入 Meta 的 AI 部门——“超级智能实验室”（Superintelligence Labs）研究部门。ARI 此前曾获得 AI 种子基金公司 AIX Ventures 的种子轮投资，具体金额未披露。该初创公司一直在为人形机器人构建基础模型，以执行家务等各类体力劳动。
Co-founder Xiaolong Wang was previously a researcher at Nvidia, and an associate professor at UC San Diego, with a list of prestigious awards to his name. Co-founder Lerrel Pinto, who previously taught at NYU and co-founded the kid-size humanoid startup Fauna Robotics before Amazon snapped it up last month, has also won a string of prestigious awards.
联合创始人王小龙（Xiaolong Wang）曾是英伟达的研究员，也是加州大学圣地亚哥分校的副教授，曾获得多项著名奖项。另一位联合创始人 Lerrel Pinto 曾在纽约大学任教，并联合创立了儿童尺寸人形机器人初创公司 Fauna Robotics（该公司上个月被亚马逊收购），他也曾获得过一系列著名奖项。
ARI will help Meta with its humanoid ambitions. “This team, led by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang, will bring a deep expertise in how we can design our models and frontier capabilities for robot control and self-learning to whole-body humanoid control.”
ARI 将助力 Meta 实现其人形机器人雄心。“由 Lerrel Pinto 和王小龙领导的这支团队，将带来深厚的专业知识，帮助我们设计模型和前沿能力，从而实现机器人控制、自学习以及全身人形控制。”
Meta researchers have been working on humanoid robotics tech for years. A leaked memo from a year ago discussed Meta’s ambitions to build such a robot, including AI models and hardware, aimed at consumers. Even if Meta never releases a consumer humanoid product, many AI experts these days believe that the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI) — the theoretical point at which AI reaches or surpasses human-level intelligence across all domains — will require training AI models in the physical world, where robots learn through direct interaction rather than data alone.
Meta 的研究人员多年来一直致力于人形机器人技术。一年前泄露的一份备忘录讨论了 Meta 打造此类机器人的雄心，包括面向消费者的 AI 模型和硬件。即使 Meta 从未发布过消费级人形产品，许多 AI 专家如今也认为，通往通用人工智能（AGI，即 AI 在所有领域达到或超越人类智能的理论点）的道路，将需要通过物理世界来训练 AI 模型，让机器人通过直接交互而非仅仅依靠数据来进行学习。
The ARI and Fauna deals reflect a broader industry sprint — one where forecasts vary wildly, from Goldman Sachs’ projection of $38 billion by 2035 to Morgan Stanley’s estimate of $5 trillion by 2050 — a spread that reflects both the enormous potential and the uncertainty around tech that’s still finding its footing.
ARI 和 Fauna 的交易反映了整个行业正在进行的冲刺——各方预测差异巨大，从高盛预计到 2035 年市场规模将达到 380 亿美元，到摩根士丹利预计到 2050 年将达到 5 万亿美元。这种巨大的差异既反映了该技术的巨大潜力，也体现了这项尚处于起步阶段的技术所面临的不确定性。