TL;DR: Figure AI just unveiled the Figure 03. They ditched OpenAI to build their own “Helix” system in-house, aiming to pump out 12,000 bots a year.
You don’t just dump the biggest AI company in the world unless you’ve got something better cooking.
Figure AI did exactly that. They walked away from their OpenAI partnership to build “Helix”, a completely in-house brain for their latest humanoid.
The result is the Figure 03. It’s a total hardware and software rewrite. They doubled the frame rate, widened the field of view by 60%, and baked cameras right into the palms.
And they aren’t treating this like a science project. Figure’s new BotQ facility is built to churn out 12,000 units a year (scaling to 100,000 down the line).
Building your own AI stack gives you total control. They can push over-the-air updates without waiting on a partner. If you want to put 100,000 robots into BMW factories, owning the brain is non-negotiable.
We’re watching the transition from cool tech demos to mass production right in front of us.