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Sanctuary AIannounced that it will be delivering its humanoid robot to a Magna manufacture facility . base in Canada , with auto manufacturing facility in Austria , Magna manufactures and assemble cars for a numeral of Europe ’s top automakers , including Mercedes , Jaguar and BMW . As is often the nature of these deals , the party have not let out how many of Sanctuary AI ’s automaton will be deployed .

The news follows similar deals announced by Figure and Apptronik , which are piloting their own humanoid systems with BMW and Mercedes , severally . Agility also denote a passel with Ford at CES in January 2020 , though that understanding find the American carmaker exploring the usance of Digit whole for last - mile deliveries . lightness has since put that functionality on the back burner , focalize on storage warehouse deployment through partners like Amazon .

For its part , Magna invested in Sanctuary AI back in 2021 — right on around the time Elon Musk announced plan to build a humanoid automaton to work in Tesla factories . The companionship would later dub the system “ Optimus . ” Vancouver - base Sanctuary unveiled its own system , Phoenix , back in May of last twelvemonth . The organization stands 5’7 ” ( a jolly standard top for these machines ) and press 155 pound .

Phoenix is n’t Sanctuary ’s first humanoid ( an early model had been deployed at a Canadian retail merchant ) , but it is the first to take the air on legs — this is in spite of the fact that most uncommitted videos only highlight the system ’s torso . The ship’s company has also focused some of its efforts on creating dexterous hands — an of import addition if the organisation is bear to lucubrate functionality beyond moving around totes .

Sanctuary calls the pilot , “ a multi - disciplinary assessment of improving monetary value and scalability of robot using Magna ’s automotive product portfolio , engineering and manufacturing capabilities ; and a strategic equity investment by Magna . ”

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As ever , these agreements should be taken as what they are : fender . They ’re not incisively establishment of the kind factor and systems — that descend later , if Magna receive what it ’s look for with the mint . That arrive down to three crowing letter : ROI .

The company is n’t reveal specifics with regard to the issue of robots , the length of the pilot or even the specific manufacturing plant where they will be deployed .