Spirit AI Co-Founder: The breakthrough for robotic brains is expected as early as next year

According to a report by Reuters, Gao Yang, co-founder and chief scientist of the Chinese humanoid robot startup Spirit AI, stated that humanoid robots could complete most general tasks based on verbal instructions as early as next year, but it will take at least 8 more years to enter households. He mentioned that the brain is the weakest link in the entire robotics technology stack, and it is expected to reach a milestone similar to GPT-3.0 by mid-2027, allowing users to speak to robots in natural language and have them perform a series of reasonable physical actions to attempt to complete tasks.

Spirit AI was founded in 2024, has about 300 employees, and raised $670 million in funding within two years, with a valuation of $2.9 billion. The company employs about 1,000 contractors who wear data collection devices at home or in factories, primarily relying on real-world data for training. The success rate for simple tasks in a structured living room environment is 90%. Currently, dozens of Moz1 wheeled humanoid robots are deployed on production lines at CATL and JD.com.

Gao Yang stated that the next 1-2 years represent the initial window for industrial applications, and after two years, they can enter commercial service scenarios to perform simple tasks, but entering households will be more challenging. In terms of safety, full-body force control is implemented, and the robots will automatically engage emergency braking when encountering significant interaction forces. High-quality data is the main bottleneck for training the robot's brain.