OpenAI RoboticsOpenAI 机器人组
LatestN/A (internal unit, no independent funding)
N/A (internal OpenAI business unit, no independent valuation)
OpenAI, Inc. (Robotics & Consumer Hardware Division)
OpenAI's relaunched robotics and consumer hardware division, aiming to build general, adaptive, multi-purpose robots with in-house custom sensors and compute; short-term focus on helping skilled workers build infrastructure, and long-term on giving everyone their own robot
数据截至2026-08-24
About
OpenAI Robotics is OpenAI's internal robotics and consumer hardware division relaunched in 2024 (its predecessor, formed in 2018 for humanoid robot hand research, was disbanded in 2021 due to insufficient training data, when the company pivoted to generative AI). In November 2024, Caitlin Kalinowski - formerly of Apple MacBook hardware design and head of Meta's Orion AR glasses program - joined to lead the business. In January 2025 the team publicly posted roles (electronic sensing engineers, robot mechanical design engineers, technical program managers, with salaries up to $440K) to develop general, adaptive, multi-purpose robots that operate in dynamic real worlds with human-like intelligence, with in-house custom sensors and compute powered by OpenAI's own models; the same month OpenAI filed a trademark application covering user-programmable humanoid robots. In 2025 the company expanded its San Francisco lab, with over a hundred contractors working shifts to collect everyday household task data via Franka robot arms and the low-cost GELLO teleoperation controller, and planned a second California site. On March 7, 2026, Kalinowski resigned over objections to OpenAI's controversial US Department of Defense agreement (she joined Anthropic in August of the same year); CEO Sam Altman said the company is still hiring full-stack hardware, operations, systems, and machine learning engineers, with the robotics business focused short-term on helping skilled workers build infrastructure and long-term on giving everyone their own robot. On the investment side, since 2023 OpenAI has invested in Figure AI, 1X, Physical Intelligence, and other embodied AI companies, running in-house development and ecosystem positioning in parallel.
Technical Approach
The technical route centers on in-house models plus custom hardware: robots powered by OpenAI's own AI models, with sensors and compute developed in-house; on the data side, it builds a training loop using teleoperation, Franka arms with the low-cost GELLO controller, and NVIDIA Isaac simulation, focused on real-scenario data such as everyday household tasks. Strategically, it targets infrastructure-construction assistance in the near term and personal consumer robots in the long term; it also positions externally through investments in Figure AI, 1X, and Physical Intelligence, with Altman viewing interaction with the physical world as a key link in achieving AGI.
Commercialization（3）
- Since 2023 invested in Figure AI, 1X, Physical Intelligence, and other embodied AI companies; in-house development and ecosystem positioning in parallel
- In 2025 its San Francisco data collection lab ran over a hundred contractors in shifts, focused on everyday household task data
- Still in early R&D as of 2026; no public information on mass production of its own humanoid robots
Position & Strengths（3）
- Backed by OpenAI's in-house foundation models and abundant capital, with salaries up to $440K
- An in-house custom sensor and compute hardware route deeply coupled with model capability
- An external ecosystem via investments in Figure AI, 1X, and Physical Intelligence, positioning on both tracks of embodied AI