Meta built a humanoid home robot prototype with China's Fourier

Meta has quietly built a prototype of a humanoid home robot together with the Chinese startup Fourier, and it is now working on a second version, according to sources familiar with the project.

The first robot, named Max, stands about 1.5 metres tall and weighs roughly 48 kg. It took just three months to build. Max runs on an Nvidia Jetson Thor chip and has five-fingered hands designed for handling small objects, along with built-in speakers and a display that can imitate facial expressions.

Built in Shanghai

To make Max, Meta's robotics team travelled to China. Li-Chen Miller, the company's vice president of robotics products, reportedly spent almost two months at Fourier's Shanghai facility. The prototype was shown to Meta employees at an internal robotics event in late August.

Work on Max 2 began in September. It is expected to get a redesigned body, improved hands, a projector and extra sensors that would let it climb stairs.

The AI link

Meta is exploring whether its Muse AI agent could be embodied in a humanoid robot. Over the long term, the company wants machines that help people with everyday chores. In May it acquired the startup Assured Robot Intelligence, which develops AI models that let robots understand human behaviour and adapt to it.

A Meta spokesperson said the Fourier collaboration is focused on internal research and experiments, and that the company does not plan to sell the prototypes built in the project.

For now, then, Max is a research platform rather than a product. But the speed of the build and the quick start on a successor show that Meta is investing seriously in putting its AI into physical form, in a market where several rivals are also racing to bring humanoids into homes and factories.