On a metallic door in San Francisco’s Mission District, a single character—“π”—offers a cryptic clue as to the virtuous circle of labor tak

Inside the Billion-Dollar Startup Bringing AI Into the Physical World

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2024-11-15 14:30:06

On a metallic door in San Francisco’s Mission District, a single character—“π”—offers a cryptic clue as to the virtuous circle of labor taking place beyond.

The door opens to reveal furious activity involving both humans and machines. A woman uses two joysticks to operate a pair of tabletop robotic arms that carefully lift and fold T-shirts into a neat pile. Several larger robots move pantry items from one cluttered box to another. In one corner of the room a man operates a plastic pincer that fits over his wrist and has a webcam on top. Robot parts litter the room.

The warehouse is home of Physical Intelligence, also known as PI or π (hence the symbol on the front door), a startup that aims to give robots a profound artificial intelligence upgrade. Such is the excitement and expectation around the company’s dream that investors are betting hundreds of millions that it will make the next earth-shaking breakthrough in the field of AI. Physical Intelligence last week announced it had raised $400 million from investors that include OpenAI and Jeff Bezos, at a valuation of over $2 billion.

Inside a glass-walled conference room on the second floor of the building, the startup's CEO, Karol Hausman, a tall man with a soft German accent and a few days of stubble, lays out the vision.