Sanctuary Expands General Purpose Robot Footprint in Automotive Manufacturing Industry
Vancouver, BC, Canada, April 11, 2024: Sanctuary, a company on a mission to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general purpose robots, has announced a strategic partnership with global mobility technology company Magna.
Vancouver, BC, Canada, April 11, 2024: Sanctuary, a company on a mission to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general purpose robots, has announced a strategic partnership with global mobility technology company Magna. This collaboration features: Sanctuary’s development of general purpose AI robots for deployment in Magna’s manufacturing operations; 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.
Magna, one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world and a significant buyer of industrial robots, aims to leverage Sanctuary AI robots’ unique capabilities across multiple applications within automotive manufacturing processes. The partnership aims to catalyze the scaling of Sanctuary AI’s robots while maturing the technology for use in challenging manufacturing environments for Magna and other industrial and automotive customers.
“We founded Sanctuary with the goal to become the first organization in the world to create human-like AI,” said Geordie Rose, CEO and Co-founder of Sanctuary. “World-changing goals like these require world-changing partners. Magna’s position as a world leader in the use of robots today makes this partnership an essential advancement for our mission. We’re privileged to be working with Magna, and believe they will be a key element in the successful global deployment of our machines.”
Sanctuary has developed a number of cutting-edge technologies with the potential to transform the manufacturing industry and beyond. This includes its industry-leading dexterous human-like hands, developed for its humanoid general purpose robot, Phoenix, and their pioneering AI control system, Carbon. With essential patents covering visual and tactile servoing, integration of language models, and AI training, Sanctuary AI paves the way for commercializing humanoid general purpose robots capable of performing hundreds of diverse tasks.
“Magna is excited to partner with Sanctuary in our shared mission to advance the future of manufacturing,” said Todd Deaville, Vice President, Advanced Manufacturing Innovation at Magna. “By integrating general purpose AI robots into our manufacturing facilities for specific tasks, we can enhance our capabilities to deliver high-quality products to our customers.”
Magna has been an investor in Sanctuary since 2021.
About Sanctuary
Founded in 2018, Sanctuary is a multi-award-winning company based in Vancouver, Canada. Sanctuary 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'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.
Sanctuary Acquires Key IP Assets Related to Touch and Grasping, Vital to Building Truly General Purpose Robots
Vancouver, BC, December 20, 2023 – Sanctuary AI, a company on a mission to create the world's-first human-like intelligence in general purpose robots, today announced that it has acquired and is accumulating key IP assets related to touch and grasping which are vital to building truly general purpose robots.
Vancouver, BC, December 20, 2023 – Sanctuary AI, a company on a mission to create the world's-first human-like intelligence in general purpose robots, today announced that it has acquired and is accumulating key IP assets related to touch and grasping which are vital to building truly general purpose robots. The coordination between touch sensors, that provide tactile feedback, and vision systems is critical to enabling embodied AGI. Sanctuary AI holds patents on several key technologies in this space, originating from a combination of internal filings and external acquisitions.
The field of AI is rapidly advancing and beginning to enable robots (both humanoid and non-humanoid) to become much more capable at performing tasks. The next wave of AI will be “grounding” AI in the physical world, or “real world AI” that will support the development of embodied AGI systems.
Sanctuary AI’s growing patent portfolio already protects several key grasping technologies for both non-humanoid and humanoid robots, including: visual servoing, real-time simulation of the grasping process, and mapping between visual and haptic data. All of these are key to enabling any kind of robot that must interact with and manipulate objects in unstructured or dynamic environments.
“Replicating human-like touch is potentially more important than vision when it comes to grasping and manipulation in unstructured environments,” said Jeremy Fishel, Principal Researcher, Sanctuary AI and Founder, Tangible Research. “It has been an effort many years in the making to meet the complex blend of performance, features, and durability to achieve general purpose dexterity.”
“In dynamic and unstructured environments, coordination between touch and vision is an absolute necessity,” said Geordie Rose, CEO and co-founder of Sanctuary AI. “We spent over a year performing industry wide analysis before acquiring Jeremy’s team. Beyond the functional sensitivity, the technology is designed to be simulatable, enabling us to fast track our AI model development.”
This announcement comes on the heels of a busy year for Sanctuary AI. The company unveiled its sixth-generation general purpose robots, named Phoenix™, powered by its pioneering AI control system, Carbon™ in May of 2023. You can see Phoenix do things like placing items in a plastic bag, stacking blocks, and more as part of Sanctuary AI’s “Robots Doing Stuff” series on its YouTube channel. The growing team moved into a state-of-the-art office and lab space while also receiving recognition from LinkedIn as a Top Startup along with its technology being recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023.
To learn more about Sanctuary’s mission, Carbon, Phoenix, and the team — which includes world-renowned experts in AI, machine learning, and robotics — visit the official company website: https://sanctuary.ai
About Sanctuary
Founded in 2018, Sanctuary 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, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Samsung, the team has experience launching market-defining innovations rooted in previously unsolved and deep scientific problems.
Sanctuary AI Deploys First Humanoid General-Purpose Robot Commercially
VANCOUVER, BC, Canada, March 7, 2023 – Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation (Sanctuary AI), a company on a mission to create the world’s-first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots, today announced that it has successfully completed the first ever deployment of a unique system designed to deliver the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots at a customer commercial facility through its partnership with Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC).
Deployment brings Sanctuary AI one step closer to delivering innovative labor solutions with the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots
VANCOUVER, BC, Canada, March 7, 2023 – Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation (Sanctuary AI), a company on a mission to create the world’s-first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots, today announced that it has successfully completed the first ever deployment of a unique system designed to deliver the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots at a customer commercial facility through its partnership with Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC).
The first deployment of its kind in a commercial environment took place at a Mark’s retail store in Langley, BC, Canada. The week-long pilot at the CTC-owned store successfully tested the general-purpose robot in a ‘real-life’ store environment with 110 retail-related tasks completed correctly, including front and back-of-store activities such as picking and packing merchandise, cleaning, tagging, labelling, folding, and more. The tested tasks had previously only been performed in Sanctuary AI's labs, which accurately mirrored the commercial setting to ensure a seamless technology implementation.
“Many organizations are facing labor challenges. Our population is aging, birth rates are declining, and workers have more choice for what they do and where they work than ever in history,” said Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO, Sanctuary AI. “Through our partnership with Canadian Tire Corporation, we worked on analyzing how their work was done and what work people like and don’t like doing, in both their retail and distribution center environments. In January we deployed a general-purpose robot to a retail store to attempt to perform many necessary but rudimentary tasks that people note finding unsatisfying or unfavorable. The results were spectacular. We are ecstatic to have accomplished this with Canadian Tire Corporation, one of Canada’s leading companies.”
“Working with Sanctuary AI has enabled Canadian Tire Corporation to further explore cutting-edge innovations and accelerate operational efficiency. With the Mark’s pilot, we were able to focus human resources on higher-value and more meaningful work, like customer service and engagement,” said Cari Covent, VP, Data, Analytics and AI. “By making strategic investments and working with partners like Sanctuary AI, we are furthering our customer understanding, customer experience, and operational efficiencies to drive our Better Connected strategy.”
Sanctuary AI is at the forefront of a digital transformation that will help its customers operate more safely, efficiently, and sustainably. At the same time, the company is building an ecosystem of external relationships that will usher in this new paradigm and solidify Sanctuary AI as the leader and pioneer of human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots. “Sanctuary AI is strategically positioned as a powerful systems-level company that constantly evolves to integrate best-in-class hardware and AI approaches,” said Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO, Sanctuary AI. “We have created a technology platform that has a solid balance of Sanctuary AI-made components and third-party components we have sourced from outstanding companies, many of whom we have exclusivity agreements with. Our approach is built around the philosophy of always working with the best people, organizations, and technologies available.”
A human-like AI controlling Sanctuary AI general-purpose robots should be able to perform physical labor across virtually every industry. Sanctuary AI has created a strong ecosystem in a brand new category that, according to Goldman Sachs, has the potential to be a market of up to US$154 billion by 2035.
Sanctuary AI is backed by a number of investors that add even greater strength to their ecosystem. The Sanctuary AI investor list includes: Bell, Canadian Tire Corporation, Evok Innovations, Export Development Canada, Magna, SE Health, Verizon Ventures, and Workday Ventures. Sanctuary AI has now received more than C$100 million in funding since its founding in Vancouver, Canada in 2018, and is active in its next funding round to fuel its mission. Interested parties can learn more at the official Sanctuary website: https://sanctuary.ai
About Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation
Founded in 2018, Sanctuary AI is a Vancouver, Canada-based company. 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, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Samsung, the team has experience launching market-defining innovations rooted in previously unsolved and deep scientific problems.
The World's Smartest Robot is Living in Vancouver
It was super exciting to see the way Sanctuary showed up on Bloomberg's Hello World. Sharing the quarterly update I sent to employees as I believe it does a really good job of articulating the progress we are making towards creating human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.
It was super exciting to see the way Sanctuary showed up on Bloomberg's Hello World. Sharing the quarterly update I sent to employees as I believe it does a really good job of articulating the progress we are making towards creating human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.
It’s an exciting time to be at Sanctuary as we make progress toward our mission to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots that will help us work more safely, efficiently, and sustainably. The world is just beginning to learn about our exciting work, and other companies are reinforcing our leadership position further validating the market.
As some of you are aware, Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance visited our headquarters in Vancouver a couple of months ago and produced a 20-minute video feature. The segment highlights the tremendous progress we’ve made toward creating the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots. It shows how much progress we'd made two months ago, now think about how much further along we are today! Our hardware development and AI training are paying off!
The timing of Ashlee’s spotlight on us couldn’t be better. As many of you know, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, recently announced that he may unveil a new prototype robot this fall. He has been quoted as saying that the robot business will eclipse their automotive business, which is a big deal, especially given they are a car company. Tesla’s predictions validate our own estimates of the size of the market for intelligent humanoid robots. When we are successful in achieving our mission, not only will we help people work more safely, efficiently, and sustainably, but we’ll also create new jobs, make it possible for anyone to do any job from anywhere, and bring new hope and opportunity to those that might be less capable of physical work.
There are several companies, such as Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Boston Dynamics, that have successfully demonstrated robots walking around like people. While this is important, it’s just one of the many capabilities that are needed to address the labor shortages around the world. In the US alone, there are more than 11 million unfilled job vacancies. With declining birth rates and aging populations, labor shortages are only going to get worse. That’s where our technology will help!
We continue to make significant advancements in the autonomy of our robots, the systems they use to sense and understand the world around them, and the dexterity of their hands. This is important as the world around us is messy, and we know that 98.6% of jobs require the dexterity of human hands and fine manipulation with the fingers. Given the steady progress we have made in matching the performance of a person’s hand, our general-purpose robotic hands were recently referred to as “the world’s best hands” by one of our customers!
I am fortunate to work alongside all of you, some of the most talented people in this emerging area of technology, and we want to attract more of the world’s best talent to Sanctuary. We’re a leader in this space. We have already demonstrated that our general-purpose technology can perform a wide array of tasks. NVIDIA highlighted our technology in the opening “I AM AI” video they used to kick off their annual GTC event earlier this year (jump to 3:42 in the keynote video to see us in a section entitled “I am a helper”), a video that has received more than 10 million views! They followed up the week after with a blog post providing more detail on what was shown. And while others may follow our footsteps, we are leading the way in turning science fiction into science fact, so now it’s just a simple matter of engineering. We are engaged with numerous customers across many different sectors and I’m excited to see the positive impact our technology will have on our customers’ operations. I’ll have more to share about this in my next employee quarterly update.
I am so proud of the amazing work and culture being built at Sanctuary. If you know people who are the best in the world at what they do and who want to work for a company with a bold and meaningful vision for the future, then please refer them to Sanctuary. Spread the word: We’re hiring!