According to media reports on December 25 (Editor: Song Ziqiao), OpenAI has repeatedly hinted at rekindling enthusiasm for robotics projects over the past year: investing in startups developing robot Hardware and Software, such as Figure and Physical Intelligence, and restarting the internal robot software team that was disbanded four years ago.

Now, OpenAI may elevate this interest to a new level. According to two individuals directly aware of the discussions, the company has recently considered developing a humanoid robot.

A humanoid robot is typically referred to as a robot designed and manufactured to mimic human form, structure, and behavioral characteristics.

OpenAI's biggest advantage may lie in its powerful large models and strong computing power support.

Reports indicate that if this plan is realized, OpenAI's entry into the robotics field may benefit from its rumored ongoing development of custom AI chips. Recent reports suggest that the company is collaborating with Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor to develop an inference processor. Theoretically, OpenAI could leverage these partnerships to commission a custom chip optimized for its humanoid robot's onboard AI software. Typically, custom processors can provide better performance than commercial chips.

However, there are still few details about this potential project, and it remains unclear when OpenAI plans to launch its humanoid robot and its target application scenarios.

Moreover, one informed individual indicated that the robotics project is not OpenAI's top priority and is ranked lower than many other technologies and products. Currently, OpenAI's focus remains on strengthening advanced reasoning models and developing AI assistants.

OpenAI's robotics team once trained robotic arms capable of solving Rubik's cubes and also open-sourced Roboschool, a simulation tool for developing robots. The team was disbanded in 2021 for various reasons, with OpenAI citing a "lack of data necessary to train robots to move and reason using AI."

Since last year, there have been continuous reports about restarting the OpenAI team. "We are very interested and have struggled with this, hoping that one day we can resume research in robotics," said OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman when mentioning robotics research in June 2023.

It is worth noting that even though internal robotics research has been interrupted, OpenAI has not given up on laying out a plan in the robotics field. In recent years, OpenAI has actively invested in several companies focusing on developing humanoid robot technology through its internal venture fund, including the robot manufacturer Figure AI, 1X Technologies, and the universal model developer Physical Intelligence. The advanced vision, intelligent voice, and graphic neural network systems used by these three companies are provided by OpenAI's GPT series models.

Among them, Figure AI's latest humanoid robot, Figure 02, uses an AI model developed in collaboration with OpenAI to process voice commands from warehouse workers and has "joined" the BMW factory to handle Metal parts; 1X is currently promoting the humanoid robot NEO Beta, which was launched in August this year, a humanoid robot prototype designed specifically for home use, and has unlocked kitchen scenarios.

OpenAI's Vice President and former robotics team member Peter Welinder once stated, "We always planned to return to the robotics field, and our collaboration with Figure AI has pointed us towards a path to explore the outstanding achievements humanoid robots can achieve under the drive of high-performance multimodal models."