Generalist AI raises $400M at $2B valuation to scale general intelligence for robotics

Nvidia, Fei Fei Li back Generalist's $400m round to scale AI robotics

Generalist hopes to make 'general-purpose' robotics a reality. US AI robotics company Generalist has raised $400m at a reported $2bn valuation to accelerate its plans towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). The round was led by Radical Ventures, with participation from Nvidia's venture arm NVentures, Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, World Labs founder and leading AI expert Fei-Fei Li, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. Other participants include 8VC, Union Square Ventures, Hanabi Capital, Norwest, Boldstart Ventures, Spark Capital, NFDG and serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant. Peopled by a team of AI and robotics experts from across Big Tech, Generalist hopes to make "general-purpose" robotics a reality. The company was founded in 2024 by former DeepMind scientists Pete Florence, Andy Zheng, and Harvard machine learning scientist Andrew Barry. Generalist launched its Gen-0 class of AI models last November, which, it said, was trained on an "unprecedented" scale of real world data. The company said the model proved that physical experience and larger models could predictably produce more capable systems. In April, it launched Gen-1, which showed commercial viability, it added. Gen-1 was three-times faster than similar state-of-the-art models, showcasing 99pc reliability on diverse tasks and demonstrated the ability to learn new and complex physical skills, it said. "Scaling robot learning creates better models, better models can do more useful physical work, and data from real businesses drives the next generation of more capable models," the company said in a statement. The exact definition of AGI is difficult to pin down. According to Google, AGI refers to the hypothetical intelligence of a machine that allows it to "understand" or "learn" intellectual tasks that humans can. While IBM calls it the "abstract goal of AI development", where human intelligence can be replicated by machines or software. New funding will allow Generalist to scale robot learning, including building new models, scaling its physical data engine, expanding compute and training infrastructure and working with industries for commercialisation. The robotics industry has gained renewed energy in recent years, fuelled by AI. For the world's biggest chipmaker Nvidia, robotics represents the biggest market for potential growth after AI. Last month, Meta acquired US start-up Assured Robot Intelligence to reportedly pursue its plans for humanoid robotic hardware to help with household chores, and Amazon, made its own robotics-related acquisition with Fauna Robotics in March. Meanwhile, Alphabet's robotics software R&D company Intrinsic joined Google to work in close proximity with DeepMind, as well as tap into Google's Gemini AI models and cloud services. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Generalist AI raises $400M at $2B valuation to build general intelligence for robotics

Generalist AI raises $400M at $2B valuation to build general intelligence for robotics Artificial intelligence startup Generalist AI Inc., a startup building embodied robotics intelligence, said today it has raised $400 million in new funding, bringing the company's valuation to $2 billion. Radical Ventures led the round. Additional investors included 8VC, Union Square Ventures and Hanabi Capital, with existing supporters Nvidia Corp. and Bezos Expeditions joining the round as well. Nvidia's participation reflects the company's continued interest in robotics and the physical infrastructure of artificial intelligence, which it claims will be the next trillion-dollar industry. The company was founded by Pete Florence, a former DeepMind senior scientist who helped create RT-2, a robotic control system for vision-language-action models that transfers knowledge from real-world actions, and PaLM-E, an early AI model for robotics that provides a framework for AI-powered vision- and language-based instruction. On the founding team, Florence is joined by Chief Scientist Andy Zeng and Chief Technology Officer Andrew Barry, formerly a roboticist from Boston Dynamics Inc. Generalist AI's most recent contribution to that industry is GEN-1, released in April, a highly capable AI foundation model for robot learning showing mastery of physical tasks. Physical AI is the layer of artificial intelligence that operates and interacts with the physical world by combining AI models with sensors, actuators and control systems. At the ground level, this is robotics, autonomous cars, drones and other systems that derive intelligence-to-action. This can also include smart buildings, cameras that operate inside retail stores and on campuses that track people, lock and unlock doors, operate environmental systems, electrical distribution and other machinery. GEN-1 exists in a trend that is rapidly growing in robotics, the ability to translate physical human skills from the real world into robotic arms and other appendages and do them with speed and intelligence. Numerous robotic intelligence companies have attempted to tackle this capability, including models from Physical Intelligence, with pi-0, which GEN-1 exceeded by doing tasks even faster. Generalist AI's models go a step further than the current robotics models by layering in additional adaptivity. Sometimes when a robotic arm is working, objects don't always grip the same way; a part might deform because it's soft, or it could spring away from a gripper; it might not fit correctly in a hole; lighting might change abruptly; a box misses its mark. In all of these cases, a human would simply adjust and try again - a robot with a rigid set of rules would malfunction, but an AI system with adaptive intelligence, such as GEN-1, can work from a learning system to adapt and retry. The go-to example is folding a shirt, which doesn't always follow go the direction we expect when someone grabs it. The same thing might happen with a box, or a small part or anything else in a warehouse or a factory setting. Building smarter, more adaptable AI models for industrial, retail and domestic settings that operate quickly, Generalist AI is paving the way for robotics that can work alongside humans.

Generalist AI valuation hits $2 billion on $400M funding - Bloomberg By Investing.com

Investing.com - Generalist AI, a robotics startup backed by Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), raised $400 million in a funding round set to be announced on Thursday that values the company at $2 billion including the new capital, according to reporting from Bloomberg. Radical Ventures led the financing with participation from 8VC, Union Square Ventures and Hanabi Capital, as well as existing investors Nvidia and Bezos Expeditions. The funds will be used to develop more sophisticated artificial intelligence models designed to help robots handle increasingly complex tasks. Tech executives including Zoom Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:ZM) Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan, Xiaomi Corp. co-founder Lin Bin and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li also participated in the round. Generalist AI is among a growing group of companies applying AI advances to robotics. The startup's latest model, called GEN-1, is designed to help robots learn and complete more basic physical tasks. "It starts to cross in a general way into commercial viability for very simple tasks," said Pete Florence, Generalist's co-founder and CEO. The funding comes as venture capital firms increase investments in companies combining artificial intelligence with robotics applications. Generalist AI develops AI models intended to enable robots to perform a wider range of physical operations. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.