On August 6th Eastern Time, the world's most highly anticipated humanoid robot company, "Figure AI," made a sensational release of its second-generation humanoid robot, Figure 02.

However, this heavyweight product did not have the usual press conference, but was officially announced through the official account and a tweet by the company's CEO. Despite this, the long-awaited update still attracted global attention.

"Figure AI" officially announced on its Twitter account.

Compared with the previous generation product, Figure 01, the new product's biggest feature is that it is gradually approaching the ideal humanoid robot in human imagination. Therefore, it has become more generalized and more useful.

Close to humans, surpassing humans

This humanoid robot, known as the strongest landmark, is 1.70 meters tall and weighs 70 kilograms. To make the robot more perfect, the Figure team deliberately adopted a more modern overall exoskeleton design.

As a result, the feeling of the two generations of products is that the previous generation is more like a laboratory demo, while this generation is more like a new technology product that can be taken to the street.

In addition, the Figure team also improved the robot's wiring method, such as hiding some exposed wires of the previous generation and concentrating the interfaces on the robot's limbs. The more intensive design can also facilitate the robot to work in factories in the future, and will not be easily tripped.

Advertisement

Comparison of two generations of Figure AI productsAccording to the official introduction from "Figure AI," in order to make Figure 02 more perfect, their team has almost completely restructured this product, starting from aspects such as the robot's eyes, brain, and limbs. As a result, this product now has more powerful vision, perception, and interaction capabilities.

Official announcement video shows Figure 02 steadily advancing within a factory.

Firstly, Figure 02 has hands as flexible and free as human hands—his palms and wrists have a total of 16 degrees of freedom, possessing a strength comparable to that of human hands, capable of performing a series of movements.

From the demonstration video, it can be seen that Figure 02 can grasp objects and then perform actions such as flipping the wrist like a human.

Details of Figure 02's hands

Figure 02 is equipped with a total of six RGB cameras, located on the robot's head, front torso, and rear torso. These "eyes" help the robot build a comprehensive AI vision system to better perceive the physical world.

Of course, it's not enough for the robot to see; it also needs to think and analyze this information. This time, Figure 02 also has a smarter brain, equipped with a large AI model trained in collaboration with OpenAI.

Figure 02's visual system and voice interaction

A most notable advancement is that, with the support of the brain, this robot can now directly communicate with humans through built-in speakers and microphones. The visual language model (VLM) behind the robot's brain can also perform semantic understanding and common-sense visual reasoning on the information collected by the aforementioned visual system.

Figure had a stunning moment before—when you say to the robot, "Give me something to eat," the robot will give you an apple in front of the table. This means that the robot can not only understand what you say but also recognize that there is an apple on the table in front of it, and it knows that these apples can be eaten and can satisfy human cravings.The various capabilities mentioned earlier are essentially to make Figure 02 closer to the abilities of humans themselves, to see the world, analyze the world, and respond to the world. However, this robot also has some strengths that surpass humans, such as a significant improvement in both physical and mental aspects.

According to the introduction, Figure 02 is equipped with a 2.25 kWh battery, which can make it work continuously for more than 20 hours a day, an increase of 50% compared to the previous generation, and humanoid robots have bid farewell to the "three shifts".

This robot also uses a more powerful CPU and GPU, with an upgraded brain. Official information suggests that Figure 02's computing and reasoning capabilities are already three times that of the previous generation of robots, Figure 01!

Humanoid robots, entering the factory is just the first step.

In the past, humanoid robots were more like a pursuit of advanced technology by humans, and they were far from being implemented, basically only seen in cool technology videos or some universities and research institutes.

But now, humanoid robots are also landing strongly.

The first stop, everyone chooses the factory. However, Figure's strategy for landing humanoid robots is similar to Tesla's Optimus, both starting from the labor-intensive, young people are most unwilling to go to the car factory scene.

As early as January 18th of this year, Figure had already announced a cooperation with BMW, and the Figure 01 at that time had already claimed to be able to complete tasks in the real world independently.

Preliminary cooperation between Figure 02 and BMWIn the Figure 02 trailer, further elaboration is also provided. For instance, Figure 02 can walk steadily in the factory and move freely to transport car parts.

However, the factory is not the ultimate destination for humanoid robots. Figure founder Brett excitedly stated that entering the factory is just a preliminary application, and Figure 02 is "still paving the way for the application of humanoid robots in the workplace and home."

Another out-of-the-box application is that Figure 01 once took 10 hours to learn how to brew coffee, demonstrating human-like accuracy in its interaction with the surrounding environment during work.

It can be said that ToC applications are the vast universe for humanoid robots.

Figure 02 working in the factory

The "Figure AI" that Silicon Valley bigwigs are scrambling for

Finally, I have to mention the big boss behind Figure 02 - the startup "Figure AI" that has attracted half of Silicon Valley to compete for investment.

The general-purpose humanoid robot "Figure AI" was founded in 2022. "Figure AI" founder and CEO Brett Adcock is deeply involved in the fields of technology and venture capital. As a serial entrepreneur, he was also the founder of Archer ($2.7 billion IPO) and Vettery ($100 million exit).

When founding "Figure AI," Brett Adcock hoped to invest time and resources over the next thirty years to maximize the impact on human utility. In just two short years, two products have been successfully deployed.The initial application scenarios envisioned by this company include warehouse management, logistics and distribution, healthcare, and other areas, starting from daily life to replace the tedious work of humans.

Driven by such a mission, "Figure AI" has been sprinting forward. From the official announcement this time, it can also be seen that their team members have gradually grown to 120 people.

Ambitious "Figure AI" has naturally attracted the attention of many bigwigs in Silicon Valley and is currently the humanoid robot company with the most financing in the world - to date, "Figure AI" has completed a total of 730 million US dollars in financing.

The backers behind "Figure AI" are quite luxurious.

"Figure AI" recently completed its Series B round of financing at the beginning of this year, receiving a joint investment of about 675 million US dollars from Intel, OpenAI, Amazon, Nvidia, Bezos, "Wood Sister" Ark Investment, Parkway Venture Capital, and Align Ventures.

After this round of financing, the company valuation of "Figure AI" once soared to 2.6 billion US dollars.

It is worth noting that Open AI is not only the investor of "Figure AI" but also a deep partner. "Figure AI" has almost clarified the cooperation with Open AI at the beginning of its establishment, jointly building a general-purpose humanoid robot. The combination of the two can be called the strongest brain and the strongest body.

When the most concentrated hot money in Silicon Valley and the most advanced AI technology converge on humanoid robots, humans are gradually getting closer to the cyber era.

From the world's most advanced humanoid robots standing at this year's Nvidia GTC, to the dazzling robot matrix at this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference, and now to the new products of Figure AI, Huang Renxun's prophecy at the beginning of this year is gradually coming true - "The era of robots has come, and embodied intelligence is the next wave of artificial intelligence."Translation of the provided text into English:

36Kr Charting

end