OpenAI is rapidly expanding its presence in the robotics industry, increasing the number of open positions from 11 to 27 in the past six months. Led by Sora creator Aditya Ramesh, a team is being assembled to design the hardware, develop embedded systems and collect unique data to train general-purpose machines.
Sam Altman has publicly announced plans to build humanoid robots and other form factors, with the long-term goal of giving everyone a personal assistant. In the context of billions of dollars of investment in “physical artificial intelligence”, OpenAI faces direct competitive risks from Tesla and Figure AI, a new startup previously invested by the company’s venture capital.