en.Wedoany.com Reported - U.S.-based Meta Platforms completed its acquisition of robotics artificial intelligence startup Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) on May 1, 2026. Specific financial terms were not disclosed. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the deal via email to TechCrunch, stating: "We have acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a company at the forefront of robotic intelligence technology, dedicated to enabling robots to understand, predict, and adapt to human behavior in complex and dynamic environments."
The ARI team will join Meta's AI research division, the Super Intelligence Lab, as a whole and work closely with Meta Robotics Studio. Meta Robotics Studio is an internal department established by Meta in 2025, focusing on the research and development of underlying technologies for humanoid robots. The Meta spokesperson further noted that the team led by Lerrel Pinto and Xiaolong Wang will bring deep expertise to the company in the development of cutting-edge capability models, including robot control, autonomous learning, and full-body humanoid robot control.
ARI was co-founded by Xiaolong Wang and Lerrel Pinto, both of whom possess extensive backgrounds in robotics research. Xiaolong Wang previously served as a researcher at U.S.-based Nvidia and as an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego. Lerrel Pinto previously taught at New York University and co-founded Fauna Robotics, a child-sized humanoid robot company that was acquired by U.S.-based Amazon in March 2026. ARI had previously received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from AI seed fund AIX Ventures.
In terms of technical direction, ARI focuses on building foundation models for humanoid robots, enabling them to understand the physical world and perform various types of physical labor. Meta's involvement in the humanoid robot field has been ongoing for years. An internal memo leaked a year ago revealed the company's intention to develop humanoid robots for the consumer market, covering both AI models and hardware dimensions. The company's long-term goal is to provide a foundational platform for the humanoid robot industry, similar to what the Android operating system or Qualcomm chips represent for the mobile phone industry, for use by other companies.
This acquisition also reflects a deep industry consensus on the path to Artificial General Intelligence. Many AI experts believe that to achieve superhuman general intelligence, AI models must be trained in the physical world, allowing robots to learn through direct interaction, rather than relying solely on data. Alexandr Wang, head of Meta's Super Intelligence Lab, welcomed the ARI team on social platform X, emphasizing that the division is accelerating its push into physical AI.
Currently, the global humanoid robot sector continues to heat up, with industry giants like Tesla, Google, and Amazon all making significant investments. Through this acquisition, Meta has further completed its technological landscape in robot control and autonomous learning models, directly entering the industrial competition centered around embodied intelligence and physical AI.
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