Meta has teamed up with Fourier, a Shanghai-based humanoid robot company, to build a humanoid prototype known internally as Max. The Information reported the project on October 31, citing people familiar with it.
According to the report, Max stands about 1.5 meters (roughly 5 feet) tall and weighs about 106 pounds (around 48 kg). It runs on an Nvidia Jetson Thor chip and has a display that simulates facial expressions, a built-in speaker, and five-fingered dexterous hands that can pick up small objects. The two companies took roughly three months to build it, and at the end of August Meta showed it to some employees at an internal robotics summit.
Max 2 is on the way
Work on a second-generation prototype, Max 2, began in September. The report says the new version will have a redesigned torso, improved hands for handling objects, and added hardware including a projector and sensors to help it climb and descend stairs.
While the project was under way, Meta's robotics team traveled to China to work with Fourier. Li-Chen Miller, the Meta vice president in charge of robotics products, spent nearly two months at Fourier's Shanghai factory.
Meta told The Information that the collaboration with Fourier is focused on internal research and experimentation and that it has no plans to sell the robots. Neither company has given a launch date for a product. Fourier has not responded publicly for now, and the report does not say when Max 2 will be finished.
Finding a body for Muse
Meta sees humanoid robots as an extension of its Muse AI agent into the physical world. Mark Zuckerberg has called them Muse's "physical embodiment," and the long-term goal is for machines to help with household chores.
Meta has been laying groundwork for some time. In May it acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup that builds AI models that let robots understand and adapt to human behavior. Its co-founders joined Meta Superintelligence Labs, where the team is focused on whole-body humanoid motion. Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Meta was building a robotics team inside Reality Labs and prioritizing household humanoid robots.
Build the whole machine, or hire someone to build it
Set against its peers, Meta's approach leans toward making the models in-house and outsourcing the body.
Tesla's Optimus is designed in-house from the structure to the actuators, and its pace follows Tesla's own factories. By handing the hardware to Fourier, Meta got a prototype that could be demonstrated at an internal summit in three months, but the trade-off is weaker control over its hardware roadmap. Another route is Nvidia's reference design for humanoid robots, where the chipmaker standardizes the hardware skeleton and robot makers differentiate on top of it. The Jetson Thor in Max comes from that same ecosystem.
Fourier started out in rehabilitation robotics and has previously released its GR series of humanoid robots. Working closely with a large US platform company on a prototype is a form of endorsement for Fourier, but whether the partnership carries over to mass production depends on whether Meta eventually decides to turn its robots into a product. For now, Meta says it will not sell them.
One gap remains: the first-generation Max was refined at Fourier's Shanghai factory, but neither the report nor the two companies say whether Fourier will build Max 2 or where it will be assembled.
Sources: The Information, Investing.com, CocoLoop, ITHome, Bloomberg. Height, weight, development timeline and Max 2 specifications follow The Information's reporting; Meta's statements follow its responses to the media.