Figure Launches Advanced Humanoid Robot Leveraging NVIDIA AI for Autonomous Tasks

Silicon
Valley-based
Figure
has
unveiled
its
next-generation
Figure
02
humanoid
robot,
which
leverages
NVIDIA
Omniverse
and
NVIDIA
GPUs
to
perform
fully
autonomous
tasks.
According
to
the

NVIDIA
Blog,
the
Figure
02
model
has
been
tested
for
data
collection
and
use-case
training
at
BMW
Group’s
Spartanburg
production
line
in
South
Carolina.

Technological
Advancements

Figure
02
is
a
significant
upgrade
from
the
initial
version
launched
just
ten
months
ago.
The
new
model
incorporates
a
second
NVIDIA
RTX
GPU-based
module,
delivering
three
times
the
inference
gains
compared
to
its
predecessor.
This
advancement
facilitates
handling
fully
autonomous
real-world
AI
tasks.
The
company
utilized
NVIDIA
Isaac
Sim,
a
reference
application
built
on
the
NVIDIA
Omniverse
platform,
to
design,
train,
and
test
AI-based
robots
using
synthetic
data.

Industry
Applications

Figure
aims
to
commercialize
industrial
humanoid
robots
to
address
labor
shortages
across
various
sectors.
The
company
also
plans
to
produce
consumer
versions.
Brett
Adcock,
CEO
of
Figure,
emphasized
the
rapid
progress
in
speech,
vision,
dexterity,
and
computational
power,
which
brings
them
closer
to
delivering
humanoid
robots
for
multiple
industries.

Partnerships
and
Funding

Founded
in
2022,
Figure
has
partnered
with
OpenAI
to
develop
custom
AI
models
trained
on
NVIDIA
H100
GPUs.
These
models
enhance
the
robots’
conversational
AI
capabilities.
The
startup
recently
secured
$675
million
in
funding
from
leading
technology
companies,
including
NVIDIA.

Deepu
Talla,
vice
president
of
robotics
and
edge
computing
at
NVIDIA,
highlighted
the
importance
of
the
NVIDIA
robotics
stack,
from
edge
to
cloud,
in
driving
innovation
in
humanoid
robotics.
“Developing
autonomous
humanoid
robots
requires
the
fusion
of
three
computers:
NVIDIA
DGX
for
AI
training,
NVIDIA
Omniverse
for
simulation,
and
NVIDIA
Jetson
in
the
robot,”
Talla
stated.

Robotic
Hands
Capable
of
Handling
Real-World
Tasks

Figure
02
features
new
human-scale
hands,
six
RGB
cameras,
and
perception
AI
models
trained
with
synthetic
data
generated
in
Isaac
Sim.
These
capabilities
enable
the
robot
to
perform
high-precision
pick-and-place
tasks
necessary
for
smart
manufacturing
applications.

Figure
is
among
the
initial
members
to
join
the
new
NVIDIA
Humanoid
Robot
Developer
Program,
which
offers
early
access
to
the
latest
tools
and
computing
technologies
for
humanoid
robot
development.
This
includes
the
latest
releases
of
NVIDIA
Isaac
Sim,
Isaac
Lab,
NIM
microservices
(RoboCasa
and
MimicGen),
OSMO,
Jetson
Thor,
and
Project
GR00T
general-purpose
humanoid
foundation
models.

Image
source:
Shutterstock