The deal positions Meta directly in a rapidly commercializing humanoid robotics sector, where big tech, automakers and well-funded startups are competing to deploy physical AI at scale.<\/p>\n
Founders With Deep Robotics Pedigree<\/p>\n
Co-founder Xiaolong Wang is an associate professor at UC San Diego and was previously a researcher at Nvidia (NASDAQ:<\/a>NVDA<\/a>).<\/p>\n Meta Superintelligence Labs head Alexandr Wang welcomed the ARI team on X, underscoring the division’s push into physical AI, an area Meta has been building toward for years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the potential to transform AI that can think and talk to AI that can do, assisting humans safely and reliably in the physical world,\u201d Pinto wrote on X. <\/p>\n Wang added the team aims to achieve \u201cphysical AGI,\u201d saying scaling \u201cwill come from learning directly from human experience, not teleoperation alone.\u201d<\/p>\n A Trillion-Dollar Race Takes Shape<\/p>\n The ARI and Fauna acquisitions reflect a broader industry push. <\/p>\n Figure AI, backed by Nvidia, OpenAI and Jeff Bezos, is targeting 100,000 humanoid robot deployments over four years<\/a>.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock<\/p>\n Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.<\/p>\n