META acquires a startup building AI models for humanoid robots
Meta just acquired humanoid startup Assured Robot Intelligence for undisclosed terms, bringing two elite roboticists into its Superintelligence Labs to build foundation models for whole-body humanoid control.
Meta bought San Diego-based ARI, a 20-person startup that focuses on foundation models enabling humanoids to handle household tasks.
The founders: Lerrel Pinto, an NYU professor who co-founded Fauna Robotics (acquired by Amazon), and Xiaolong Wang, a former Nvidia researcher.
The deal folds ARI into Meta’s Superintelligence Labs division and comes days after Meta raised its 2026 AI infra capex to $125–145B.
A leaked 2025 internal memo revealed Meta is developing consumer humanoid hardware, though the company has not confirmed the plan yet.
Meta’s acquisition positions it to compete with Tesla, Figure AI, and Boston Dynamics in commercializing humanoids — if it wants to. But regardless, many AI researchers believe that achieving AGI requires training models through physical interaction, making embodied AI a strategy beyond large language models.