Humanoids are steadily becoming a reality, moving beyond static frames and semi- or fully controlled machines guided by humans. Apptronik, one of the leaders in AI-powered humanoid robotics, recently announced an exciting new partnership with Google DeepMind’s robotics team to create truly intelligent and autonomous robots.
The partnership aims to advance the development of humanoid robots designed to operate in dynamic environments and assist humans in a variety of tasks.
“By combining Apptronik’s robotics platform with the unparalleled AI expertise of the Google DeepMind robotics team, we are creating an intelligent, versatile platform that transforms industries and improves lives,” said Jeffrey Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Apptronik. “We are developing a robot that is both versatile and safe.”
Apptronik, the robotics company known for its Apollo and Astra robots, has partnered directly with Google DeepMind.
Of course, DeepMind is the AI giant behind AlphaFold, which saved an estimated 1 billion years of research time in protein folding, and GenCast is exactly… https://t.co/8PvrvoZSOI pic.twitter.com/HsnATkTxqW
— AI Veteran (@TheAIVeteran) December 19, 2024
Through this partnership, the two companies aim to build robots that can perform a wide range of tasks in environments designed for humans, improving productivity and safety in a variety of fields.
Commenting on this, Keerthana Gopalakrishnan, a researcher at Google DeepMind, said, “Few implementations offer a frontier that advances AI as a humanoid toward human-level capabilities in the physical world, and envisions the difficult problems of AGI in robotics.” ”.
Apptronik was founded in 2016 out of the University of Texas at Austin’s Human-Centered Robotics Lab and has developed 15 robot prototypes, including NASA’s Valkyrie robot. The company’s flagship humanoid robot, Apollo, is designed for physically demanding tasks in industrial settings. At 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds, Apollo balances functionality and safety for human collaboration.
Google DeepMind’s robotics team focuses on AI-powered systems capable of reasoning and real-world actions. Their work revolves around advances in machine learning, engineering, and robotics, leveraging cutting-edge AI models like Gemini.
This partnership follows recent partnerships with the likes of GXO and Mercedes-Benz, among others, as Apptronik continues to expand its industry footprint.
Meanwhile, Ram Ahluwalia, CEO and founder of Lumida, speculated on X that the partnership could lead to Google’s acquisition of Figure.
This collaboration further escalated in March of this year when Apptronix partnered with NVIDIA. Apollo’s core computing systems, including onboard NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin NX modules, originate from the partnership.
This allows AI-powered robots to efficiently utilize cutting-edge models such as the GR00T. The bot can perform a variety of tasks, and its humanoid shape allowed it to learn from human demonstrations.
Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking
“2025 is going to be a very interesting year, and Google wants to get a hold of it,” said Linus Belyunas, director of revenue at Zerohash.
Google DeepMind recently integrated Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an advanced inference model with capabilities to significantly enhance robotics applications. Its spatial reasoning abilities are being actively tested in robotics, enabling improved navigation and task execution in human-centered environments.
It also supports multimodal inputs such as images, video, and audio, and outputs such as text, generated images, and multilingual speech, making this model versatile and suitable for dynamic real-world robot tasks. It’s perfect.
The integration of ChatGPT into robotics highlights another major milestone in the combination of conversational AI and physical robots. Apptronik’s partnership with Google DeepMind could lead to similar breakthroughs, allowing robots to reason intelligently and interact with their environments.
With all the buzz following AGI, there are many questions about whether robotics is the path to AGI and whether Google Deepmind can stay ahead of the race in which all the big tech companies are investing. There is no doubt about that.
While Optimus advances, the joint expertise of Apptronik and Google DeepMind has the potential to set new standards and foster intelligent, versatile robots that transform industries.
Rise of the Humanoid Planet
This collaboration comes amid notable milestones in robotics this year. Companies like Meta and NVIDIA are shifting their focus to developing advanced robotic systems.
Additionally, China’s Agibot has started mass production of humanoids as Figure AI ships its first AI robot. Interestingly, in November last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which oversees China’s industrial sector, announced that it would achieve mass production of humanoid robots by 2025. Well, that prediction now seems to have some basis.
For example, Meta has pivoted from the Metaverse to robotics, exploring innovations in touch recognition and human-robot interaction. These efforts aim to enhance robots’ dexterity and decision-making abilities.
NVIDIA introduces HOVER, a 1.5 million parameter neural network optimized for humanoid robot locomotion and manipulation. Earlier this year, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said humanoid robots would soon be available for $10,000 to $20,000.
Tesla’s Optimus also saw significant progress this year, contributing to a significant increase in investment and adoption of robots.
In retrospect, OpenAI’s investment in Figure reinforces the company’s interest in automating blue-collar jobs, alongside major companies such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Bezos Expeditions. This development posed a direct threat to Musk’s Optimus.
“We have always planned to return to robotics, and we see a path forward with the development of Figure, which leverages sophisticated multimodal models to explore what humanoid robots can accomplish.” said Peter Welinder, Vice President of Products and Partnerships at OpenAI.
Furthermore, Brett Adcock, founder of FigureAI Robots, also suggested that robots will become a widespread necessity in the future.
“In the future, every human being will own a robot, similar to owning a car or a cell phone today,” Adcock said.
Earlier this year, Google DeepMind released three robotic research systems: AutoRT, SARA-RT, and RT-Trajectory. These help robots make faster decisions and better understand and navigate their environments. The model also aided in data collection, speed, and generalization.
Additionally, insights from UBTECH’s Walker S1 indicate increased competition in areas such as balance, accuracy, and real-world task execution. While Tesla’s Optimus occasionally makes headlines on the internet, UBTECH’s Walker S1’s understated design and less flashy features have led to its lack of visibility in popular media.
Recently, the bot was integrated into EV manufacturer NIO’s advanced manufacturing plant base F2 and successfully performed several quality and inspection tests at the production level.
