Magna Will Start Using Sanctuary AI’s Humanoid Robot In Its Factory

Austrian automotive manufacturing giant Magna has announced that it will be using Sanctuary AI’s humanoid robot in its facilities, which assemble cars for BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes. This news follows Figure, which has been backed by Bill Gates, and Apptronik, which have also been piloting their humanoid systems with BMW and Mercedes.

Agility has also announced a deal with Ford at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. Agility, however, has pared back its initiatives and is focusing more on warehouse deployments with Amazon.

Magna invested in Sanctuary AI in 2021 around the time Elon Musk announced plans to create the Optimus Bot with Tesla. Tesla has also started testing Optimus, though Sanctuary AI seems ahead with its Phoenix system, which was launched last May. It is 5’7” in height, weighing around 70kg. Importantly, Phoenix is not the first system Sanctuary AI has deployed. It has also worked on devising dexterous hands.

Sanctuary AI says the pilot is “a multi-disciplinary assessment of improving cost and scalability of robots using Magna’s automotive product portfolio, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities; and a strategic equity investment by Magna.”

The number of robots operating in the facility hasn’t been revealed, nor has the length of the pilot been defined.