AGX

What Is a Humanoid Foundation Model? An Introduction to GR00T N1 - Annika & Aastha

Jul 28, 2025 · 17:47

NVIDIA's Annika Brundyn and Aastha Jhunjhunwala introduce GR00T N1, an open-source Vision-Language-Action foundation model for humanoid robots. They argue that physical AI is key to addressing labor shortages in industries like healthcare and manufacturing, and that humanoid forms are needed because the world is built for humans. The model uses a data pyramid strategy combining limited real-world teleoperation data, synthetic simulation data, and internet video, with DreamGen for data multiplication. Its dual-system architecture, inspired by Kahneman's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', has a System 2 planner for high-level reasoning and a System 1 for fast motor control at 120 Hz. The model is trained end-to-end via imitation learning and reinforcement learning, and features a generalist action decoder that enables cross-embodiment fine-tuning.

Your Personal Open-Source Humanoid Robot for $8,999 — JX Mo, K-Scale Labs

Jul 2, 2025 · 19:26

Jingxiang Mo, founding engineer at K-Scale Labs, introduces their open-source humanoid robots: the 5-foot K-Bot (pre-order for $8,999, delivered by October) and the 1.5-foot Z-Bot, both fully open-source from hardware to ML models. The K-Bot uses MIT CHiTA actuators, provides up to 250 TOPS compute, runs an RL-based whole-body controller trained with MJX in 1-2 hours, and offers a Python/Rust SDK (pip install kos) with a digital twin simulator for rapid development. Mo emphasizes modularity—swappable end-effectors and upgradable heads—and positions K-Scale as the first US consumer humanoid robotics company, targeting developers and households. The robots are significantly cheaper than competitors (Tesla Optimus at ~60K, Unitree at 40K) and include VR teleoperation, OTA software updates, and a bimonthly hackathon community.