Meta is reported to increase investment in humanoid robots: collaborating with companies to focus on the home market and provide basic AI

Social media giant Meta plans to make significant investments in AI-driven humanoid robots.

Recently, according to foreign media reports, Meta plans to make a large investment in humanoid robots and establish a new team within the company’s Reality Labs to be responsible for the work. The team may recruit 100 engineers this year.

According to informed sources, Meta will develop humanoid robot hardware on its own, initially focusing on the home market, with the ultimate goal of providing basic AI, sensors, and software for robots. Currently, Meta has started discussions with robot companies including Yushu Technology and Figure AI for related cooperation. Meta currently does not have a plan to launch a self-developed robot brand like Tesla, but may do so in the future.

On February 14, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth confirmed the addition of a new team in an email to employees, writing: “The core technologies we invest in and build in the Reality Lab and AI can drive the advancement of robotics technology… We believe that expanding our investment portfolio in the field of humanoid robots will add value to Meta’s AI, MR (mixed reality) and AR (augmented reality) projects.”

According to the introduction, Meta believes that although humanoid robot manufacturers have made many breakthroughs in hardware, Meta’s AI technology and information collected through projects such as VR can accelerate the development of this field. Humanoid robots still have difficulty in performing basic household tasks such as folding clothes and holding water cups, which are important selling points for consumers. Meta will also develop a series of robot safety tools to deal with potential dangerous situations,

Meta’s ultimate goal is to build the foundation for the humanoid robot market, similar to Google’s Android operating system or the mobile chips supplied by Qualcomm. Marc Whitten, former CEO of Cruise’s autonomous driving department at General Motors, will lead the new team based in the Reality Lab, reporting directly to Bosworth.

The Reality Lab is mainly responsible for Meta’s AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) business, and has been operating at a loss since its establishment. In the fourth quarter of the 2024 fiscal year ending December 31, 2024, the department’s revenue increased by 1% year-on-year to $10.83 billion, but still incurred a huge loss of $4.97 billion, with the loss expanding by 7% year-on-year.

Meta may want to create more future revenue opportunities for the Reality Labs through investment in robotics, while also increasing the sales force of its smart glasses. Bosworth wrote in an email that Meta has hired former CEO of luxury goods trading website The RealReal, John Koryl, as its retail vice president.

On the 14th, Meta (Nasdaq: META) rose by 1.11% to close at $736.67 per share, with a total market value of $1.87 trillion. Since January 17th, Meta’s stock price has risen for 20 consecutive trading days, breaking its own record of 11 consecutive trading days set in September 2015, and also breaking the record for consecutive rises of all component stocks of the Nasdaq 100 Index. It has risen by more than 25% since the beginning of this year.

For the continuous rise in Meta’s stock price before and after the financial report release, some analysts pointed out that compared to other tech giants, Meta’s AI returns are more easily recognized by the market, and Meta has indeed improved the advertising placement of its social platforms Instagram and Facebook with AI. In addition, DeepSeek, a Chinese company, released the latest large-scale model R1, which caused a stir in the industry and is considered a victory for open-source large models.

Previously, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta plans to invest over $60 billion in AI by 2025.

Recently, as predicted in the January teaser, Meta has started a wave of layoffs affecting around 5% of the total number of employees, impacting over 3600 positions. Meta’s Vice President of Commercial Engineering, Peng Fan, posted on an internal forum that the company ‘needs to hire many engineers by 2025,’ leading employees to speculate that Meta is accelerating the pace of ‘changing blood’.

(Source: The Paper)

Source: Eastmoney.com

Author: The Paper News