Three roles in the partnership

Sanctuary AI said its Magna collaboration combined three elements: developing general-purpose AI robots for Magna’s manufacturing operations, assessing robot cost and scalability with Magna’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities, and an equity investment from Magna.

Magna had invested in Sanctuary AI since 2021. Sanctuary also planned to hire Magna to manufacture Phoenix robots under contract. Magna said it expected the robots to automate a range of tasks and improve quality and efficiency in its manufacturing and logistics operations.

What the reported pilot covered

Reporting at the time said Magna expected to begin testing Sanctuary AI humanoids within a few months. The first Phoenix pilot was scheduled for that fiscal quarter, while the companies declined to identify the plant or number of robots.

Phoenix had previously completed brief tests at Mark’s and Sport Chek locations. Sanctuary AI co-founder Geordie Rose said the planned pilot would be the robot’s first at a Magna facility.

Magna described the trial as a teleoperated “pilot mode”: a person using wearable controls would move the robot’s hands rather than Phoenix operating fully autonomously. Rose said the initial work would address performance issues and assess costs and scalability with a view to manufacturing the robot. He expected later Magna deployments to grow in size and scope.

The Phoenix and data roadmaps

The Robot Report described Phoenix as using human-like dexterous hands and arms. It said Sanctuary AI had invested in manipulation, perception and AI-model development since the platform’s May 2023 launch.

Rose outlined a roadmap in which Phoenix production runs would work in Magna manufacturing environments and collect task data. He said Sanctuary AI intended to use data from the commercial setting to generate autonomous robot behaviours.

In a separate company update, Sanctuary AI said its seventh Phoenix generation used the Carbon control system and had reduced the time required to automate a new task from weeks to less than 24 hours. That was Sanctuary AI’s stated development result, not an independent factory benchmark.

Sources

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