Meta acquires robot software startup Assured Robot Intelligence

Meta Platforms Inc. has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence Inc., a provider of artificial intelligence software for robots.

The social media giant announced the deal today without disclosing the financial terms. However, it did specify that the acquisition is designed to advance its efforts to develop humanoid robots. 

Assured Robot Intelligence’s single-page website doesn’t provide information about its AI software. The San Diego-based company was founded by prominent AI researchers Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang. Pinto previously co-founded Fauna Robotics Inc., a humanoid robot startup that was acquired by Amazon.com Inc. in March. Wang, in turn, is a former Nvidia Corp. researcher and an associate professor at UC San Diego.

Last year, Wang gave an academic talk about a humanoid robot control system developed by his team. The system enables users to view footage from a robot’s cameras through a virtual reality headset. When the direction of the wearable changes with the turn of the user’s head, the robot repositions its cameras accordingly.

That technology may have been a factor behind Meta’s decision to swoop in. Last year, the company launched a pair of smart glasses called the Meta Ray-Ban Display. Meta may be looking to develop humanoid robots that users can control remotely using smart glasses.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display features a built-in screen that can theoretically show footage from a robot’s cameras. Furthermore, the device ships with a wristband called the Neural Band that enables users to control it with hand gestures. Future versions of the accessory could be theoretically repurposed to control a humanoid robot’s arms.

The Assured Robot Intelligence team will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, the business unit that leads the Facebook parent’s AI development efforts. The group trained the Muse Spark large language model that the company debuted last month. Additionally, it includes the Meta Robotics Studio, the team that leads Meta’s humanoid robot initiative.

Last year, Bloomberg reported that the company doesn’t plan to launch its own humanoid robot. Instead, it hopes to supply components and software to other market players. The report compared the role that Meta hopes to play to Qualcomm Inc.’s position in the mobile ecosystem. The latter company supplies chips to many Android handset makers.

The MIA500 machine learning chip that Meta debuted last month may be part of its plan for the robotics market. It’s an inference accelerator that can provide 10 petaflops of performance when processing FP8 data. In theory, Meta could develop a power-efficient version of the chip optimized for humanoid robots and sell it to other companies.

The social media giant stated that Assured Robot Intelligence will help its engineers develop robot control systems and AI model architectures. Additionally, the startup’s team will explore new self-learning techniques. Self-learning is an AI training approach that teaches neural networks to perform new tasks through trial and error.

Image: Meta