BMW heads for humanoid robots in partnership with Figure

Automaker BMW today signed an agreement with robotics company Figure to develop and deploy humanoid robots for its manufacturing facilities.

Founded in 2022, Figure is an AI Robotics company that develops autonomous general-purpose humanoid robots. These bots are designed for the workforce for difficult and unsafe scenarios or supply chains as well as manufacturing.

Both parties agree to form a milestone-based partnership. In the first phase, Figure will inspect the requirements at BMW’s production facility. After phase one, the robotics company will deploy robots at the manufacturing factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Figure AI Robot (image source – Figure)

Other than robots, BMW and Figure will also explore future collaboration opportunities in AI, robot control, manufacturing virtualization, and robot integration.

“The use of general-purpose robot solutions has the potential to make productivity more efficient, to support the growing demands of our consumers, and to enable our team to focus on the transformation ahead of us,” said Dr. Robert Engelhorn, President and CEO of BMW Manufacturing.

Tesla, a leading electric vehicle (EV) maker, is one of the first to develop a robot called Optimus, the company has entered the second generation development of this humanoid shape bot.

Also, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota are pursuing their projects to develop humanoid robots for production and other general purposes.

(source – Figure)