(Yicai) April 2 -- Chinese startup Agibot, also known as Zhiyuan Robotics, is teaming up with Physical Intelligence, an American developer of robotic brains, to create more sophisticated machines powered by artificial intelligence models.

Luo Jianlan, a leading scholar in embodied AI who recently joined Agibot as its chief scientist, will lead the collaboration, the Shanghai-based maker of humanoid robots announced on WeChat today. Embodied AI refers to systems designed to physically interact with their environment.

In addition to this latest hire, Agibot is actively recruiting AI talent to expand its technical workforce, the two-year-old company added.

The partnership has already produced results. The AI model developed by both companies can execute multiple tasks based on diverse commands and adapt to various types of hands and grips. The system supports several optical sensors, including fisheye and pinhole cameras.

Luo, who recently joined Agibot to lead the newly established Agibot Embodied Intelligence Research Center, will focus on developing cutting-edge algorithms and their industrial applications. Luo connects the two firms, having previously worked as a PhD student with Professor Sergey Levine, a co-founder of Physical Intelligence, at the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab. He also brings prior experience from Google X and Google DeepMind to Agibot.

Founded a year ago, Physical Intelligence has already developed advanced models, such as the Hierarchical Interactive Robot (Hi Robot) system, which performs human-like actions.

Editor: Emmi Laine