Sanctuary

Sanctuary AI, a company based in Vancouver, Canada, was founded in 2018 by Geordie Rose, Suzanne Gildert, Ajay Agrawal, and Olivia Norton. The founding team possesses significant experience in related fields; Geordie Rose previously founded quantum computing company D-Wave and robotics firm Kindred AI, where Suzanne Gildert also pioneered methods for training robots. Their collective expertise underpins the company's mission to create human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots to address global labor shortages.

Sanctuary AI operates in the robotics and artificial intelligence market, targeting sectors like automotive, manufacturing, retail, and logistics. The company is focused on deploying humanoid robots to perform tasks that are dangerous, repetitive, or where there are insufficient human workers. Its business model appears to center on selling these advanced robotic systems to businesses and providing the associated training and integration to work alongside human teams. The company has secured significant capital to fund its research and commercialization, raising a total of $140 million from investors including BDC Capital, Bell, Verizon Ventures, and Accenture.

The company's core product is a humanoid general-purpose robot named Phoenix, currently in its seventh generation. Phoenix stands 5'7" tall, weighs 155 lbs, and is designed to handle a payload of up to 55 lbs. A key differentiator is the robot's proprietary AI control system, Carbon™, which mimics cognitive functions like memory and touch to enable learning and task execution. This system allows Phoenix to be trained via teleoperation, where a human pilot performs a task that the AI then learns to replicate autonomously. The robot's physical design emphasizes dexterity, featuring industry-leading hydraulic hands with 20 degrees of freedom and advanced haptic sensors that allow for a human-like sense of touch, which is critical for complex manipulation and for functioning when visual sensors are occluded.

Keywords: humanoid robots, general-purpose robotics, artificial intelligence, labor automation, machine learning, dexterous manipulation, AI control system, haptic sensors, workforce solutions, embodied AI