Index
Robot brains
The AI foundation models, VLAs, world models, frameworks, and OS-layers that animate robots in the registry. A brain is the cognitive identity of a robot, distinct from the body that runs it.
Maturity stages apply DEPLOY's ladder (research / pilot / commercial / production), not source-list labels. "Released and in use" is usually research or commercial, not production.
- 1X World ModelWorld model · Commercial
1X Technologies' generative world model plus VLA stack powering NEO, the consumer-home humanoid shipping via preorder. The world model enables learning by predicting outcomes versus exhaustive pre-programming. Combined with VLA control for action generation. Important verified-vs-claimed flag: NEO home capabilities are teleoperated-assisted; the autonomy-vs-teleoperation distinction is the load-bearing consumer verification point.
- Atlas-GeminiFoundation model · Pilot
The hybrid brain powering Boston Dynamics' all-electric Atlas. Combines Boston Dynamics' Atlas control stack (including Orbit skill-sharing) with Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics foundation models for higher-level reasoning and learning. Partnership announced at CES January 2026; Atlas 2026 production is committed to Hyundai plus DeepMind, with the Robotics Metaplant Application Center (RMAC) at Hyundai Metaplant America serving as a supervised-training data factory.
- CarbonFoundation model · Commercial
Sanctuary AI's Carbon cognitive AI control system. A cognitive hybrid that translates natural language into precise physical actions, with emphasis on human-like hand dexterity. Powers Phoenix, Sanctuary's humanoid known for fine manipulation tasks such as buttoning shirts and handling fragile lab tools. Framed by Sanctuary as 'a brain for work.'
- DYNA-1Foundation model · Commercial
Dyna Robotics' dexterous robot foundation model for sustained autonomous operation. The first dexterous robot foundation model deployed commercially. Runs 24/7 on the Dynasaur stationary dual-arm system in factories, restaurants, and laundromats. Verified results include 24+ hours of autonomous napkin folding with zero intervention, 99.4% success at 24/7 operation, and 99.9% success at 8-hour conference demos.
- Gemini RoboticsFoundation model · Research
Google DeepMind's robotics VLA family. Gemini Robotics builds on Gemini 2.0 with physical actions as an output modality and adds an intermediate reasoning layer for spatial analysis and safety. Gemini Robotics-ER is an embodied-reasoning VLM companion. Gemini Robotics On-Device runs locally, network-independent, and is fine-tunable with 50-100 demonstrations. Gemini Robotics 1.5 introduced 'think before acting'.
- GR00T N1 (Isaac GR00T)Foundation model · Research · Open
NVIDIA's open humanoid foundation model and the first of its kind to be released openly. A dual-system VLA: System 2 uses NVIDIA-Eagle plus SmolLM-1.7B as the VLM at roughly 10 Hz; System 1 is a diffusion transformer producing real-time motor actions. Jointly trained end-to-end on real-robot trajectories, human videos, and synthetic data. Part of the broader Isaac GR00T platform that includes Isaac Lab, Omniverse, and Cosmos.
- Grok (xAI)Foundation model · Pilot
xAI's Grok large language model serves as the System 2 conversational and reasoning layer in Tesla Optimus's dual-brain architecture. Grok handles natural-language understanding and high-level instruction reasoning (the "what should I do next" layer), while Tesla's FSD-derived neural networks handle the System 1 visuomotor layer (the "actually doing it" layer). The same Grok-reasoning-plus-Tesla-compute pattern is reused in the "Digital Optimus" (Macrohard) software-agent project announced March 2026.
- Helix (and Helix-02)Foundation model · Commercial
Figure AI's onboard dual-system VLA. System 2 is an internet-pretrained VLM (7B params, 7-9 Hz) handling scene and language understanding; System 1 is a fast reactive visuomotor policy (80M params, 200 Hz). Helix-02 (January 27, 2026) extended to full-body control via System 0, a 1 kHz neural prior trained on 1,000+ hours of human motion data that replaced roughly 109,504 lines of hand-engineered C++. The first VLA to control a full humanoid upper body including individual fingers from one set of weights, and the first to run two robots from one set of weights.
- LeRobotFramework · Production · Open
Hugging Face's open-source robot-learning framework. LeRobot is a framework, not a brain that powers robots directly: it HOSTS other models (pi0, pi0.5, GR00T N1.5) and provides datasets, simulation environments, training tooling, and a multi-GPU + plugin runtime. v0.4.0 added Datasets v3.0, LIBERO and Meta-World simulators, and the Robot Learning Course.
- Mind CognitiveFoundation model · Research
Mind Robotics' cognitive architecture. Limited public disclosure as of this pass. Entity created with a verified-vs-claimed depth note; firm developer attribution and primary sources at next pass.
- Neuraverse Cognitive StackOS-layer · Pilot
NEURA Robotics' hybrid neural plus symbolic multimodal cognitive stack. Neuraverse is a shared OS and learning platform connecting robots so that one robot's learned skill propagates to others. Positioned by NEURA as 'invisible OS for the World of Things.' At CES 2026, NEURA's robots are powered by NVIDIA Isaac GR00T XX, with Neuraverse acting as the orchestration layer atop GR00T.
- OpenVLAResearch model · Research · Open
An academic open-source vision-language-action model at 7B parameters. Multi-developer collaboration across Stanford, UC Berkeley, Toyota Research Institute, and Google DeepMind. Listed here as a research-model entity; architectural details should be firmed against the OpenVLA paper at build.
- pi0 (and pi0.5)Foundation model · Research · Open
Physical Intelligence's open VLA flow model. A roughly 3B-parameter VLM backbone produces motor commands at up to 50 Hz across multiple robot platforms. Trained on internet-scale vision-language data, Open X-Embodiment, and Physical Intelligence's dexterous-manipulation dataset. The first robotics foundation model ported to Hugging Face LeRobot. pi0.5 (September 2025) added open-world generalization.
- RoboForce FMFoundation model · Pilot
RoboForce's robot foundation model. Lighter public disclosure as of this pass. Entity created with a verified-vs-claimed depth note; firm primary sources at next pass.
- RT-2 / RT-XResearch model · Research
Google DeepMind's foundational 2023 research VLA. RT-2 is a transformer VLA trained on web text and images that directly outputs robot actions. Instantiations on PaLM-E and PaLI-X. RT-2-X is a 55B-parameter variant. Chain-of-thought reasoning for long-horizon planning. Superseded by Gemini Robotics for commercial paths, but conceptually ancestral to GR00T, Helix, pi0, and the broader dual-system descendants.
- Skild BrainFoundation model · Commercial
Skild AI's unified omni-bodied foundation model. Designed to control any robot without prior knowledge of body form (quadrupeds, humanoids, tabletop arms, mobile manipulators). Trained on online human videos and physics simulations across thousands of form factors. Built-in force-limiting safety constraints. Skild AI builds the robot brain, not hardware; platform strategy is to power other companies' robots.
- Tesla FSD-BotFoundation model · Pilot
Tesla's neural-net brain derived from the FSD vehicle stack plus Dojo training infrastructure. V3 runs on the Tesla AI5 chip with roughly 5x the memory bandwidth of the predecessor. On-device, vision-based, sharing architecture with Tesla vehicles. The Tesla AI-silicon advantage (FSD plus Dojo) is a real engineering edge. Less specified than Figure 03's stack was at the equivalent stage; full V3 specs are unknown as of mid-2026, with a summer 2026 unveil expected. Verified-vs-claimed: FSD-as-precedent is mixed; 'almost done' for nearly a decade.
- VLT (XPENG VLA / VLA 2.0)Foundation model · Pilot · Open
Xpeng Robotics' vision-centric VLA (Tesla-FSD-style, vision-only) shared across Xpeng EVs, robotaxis, and the IRON humanoid. Trained on a 30,000+ GPU cloud cluster. Runs on the Xpeng Turing AI chip. Announced for open-sourcing to global partners, with Volkswagen as the launch partner. VLA 2.0 rolled to Xpeng Ultra vehicles in Q1 2026; IRON humanoid mass production is targeted for end-2026.
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