VANCOUVER, BC, May 1, 2024
/CNW/ - Sanctuary AI, a company on a mission to create the
world's first human-like intelligence in general purpose robots, is
collaborating with Microsoft on the development of AI models for
general purpose humanoid robots, including Sanctuary AI's
Phoenix™. Sanctuary AI and
Microsoft will work together to bolster AI research and development
and Sanctuary AI will leverage Microsoft's Azure cloud resources
for their AI workloads.
Building on the foundation of Large Language Models (LLMs),
Sanctuary AI is making progress towards "Large Behavior Models"
(LBMs) that ground AI in the physical world by enabling systems to
understand and learn from real world experience. Sanctuary AI is
taking advantage of these models for Carbon™, the AI control system for its
Phoenix robots. Carbon is designed to enable the robot it
controls to do complex tasks, due to its foundation of high quality
behavioral data. Sanctuary AI will take advantage of Microsoft
Azure infrastructure for training, inference, networking, and
storage.
"Creating systems that think like, and understand us, is one of
the biggest civilization-level technical problems and opportunities
that we will ever face," said Geordie Rose, CEO and Co-founder
of Sanctuary AI. "A challenge like this requires the best
global minds to work together. We're excited to be working with
Microsoft to unlock the next generation of AI models that will
power-general purpose robots."
Sanctuary AI brings deep technical expertise to the
collaboration. The Sanctuary AI leadership team includes founders
of D-Wave, the world's first commercial supplier of quantum
computers, Kindred AI, the first company to use reinforcement
learning in a production robot, and Softbank Robotics. Sanctuary AI
was also the first company to deploy humanoid general-purpose
robots in a commercial setting in early 2023. The robots were
deployed in conjunction with one of the largest retailers in
Canada, working both
front-of-house and on logistics and warehouse-style tasks. The
dexterous capabilities of Sanctuary AI's robots have been tested
across 400 customer-defined tasks across 15 different industries,
with a focus on automotive, manufacturing, and logistics.
The collaboration announcement builds on the work the companies
have done together to help unlock remote physical
work. Sanctuary AI has several breakthroughs in the AI and
robotics industries and notably has built industry leading robotic
hands with a broad set of precision, tactile, and payload
capabilities. It also takes a considered and responsible approach
to development. The name 'Sanctuary' represents, in part, a
controlled, secure environment to develop AI prior to commercial
deployment.
"We're excited to be working with Sanctuary AI to accelerate AI
model innovation and embodied AI research in areas like reasoning,
planning, and human-agent collaboration," says Ashley Llorens
Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, Microsoft
Research. "Through our collaboration, Sanctuary AI will have
access to Microsoft Azure infrastructure and services as they
explore the future of general-purpose robots that can assist across
various use cases and industries."
About Sanctuary AI
Founded in 2018, Sanctuary AI is a multi-award-winning company
based in Vancouver, Canada.
Sanctuary AI is on a mission to create the world's first human-like
intelligence in general purpose robots that will help us work more
safely, efficiently, and sustainably, helping to address the labor
challenges facing many organizations today. Sanctuary AI's growing
list of customers and investors represents a wide variety of
industries across Canada, the US,
and other countries around the world.
Members of the Sanctuary team founded D-Wave (a pioneer in the
quantum computing industry), Kindred (first use of reinforcement
learning in a production robot), and the Creative Destruction Lab
(pioneered a revolutionary method for the commercialization of
science for the betterment of humankind). With experience at
startups and technology leaders such as Amazon, Microsoft, and
Softbank Robotics, the team has experience launching
market-defining innovations rooted in previously unsolved and deep
scientific problems.
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SOURCE Sanctuary AI