Chinese startup Spirit AI believes humanoid robot intelligence could reach a major breakthrough by mid-2027, with the company’s founder comparing the potential impact to the role GPT-3 played in the development of large language models. However, the founder estimates that widespread adoption of humanoid robots in homes remains at least eight years away.
Spirit AI says the main challenge is currently not hardware but the lack of high-quality training data for robots. To address this, the company has hired around 1,000 people to collect data from real-world human movements and activities.
The data-collection effort covers everyday physical tasks, including opening refrigerators and safes and chopping vegetables. The goal is to give robots enough examples of human movements and interactions to learn how to perform these tasks in real-world environments.
The company’s approach highlights the importance of training data in advancing physical AI. While improvements in hardware can expand what humanoid robots are physically capable of doing, Spirit AI’s view is that teaching robots how to reliably use those capabilities remains a major bottleneck.
Founded in 2024, Spirit AI has raised more than $670 million to date and is valued at approximately $2.9 billion. If the company’s projected intelligence breakthrough materializes, the next challenge will be translating improved robot capabilities into reliable systems suitable for widespread household use.
