OpenAI enters humanoid robotics as Nscale commits $3.5B to Figure

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that the company is developing humanoid robots in addition to other form factors. Altman emphasized the importance of creating the “brain” that drives physical AI, noting that a human shape is ideal because the world is currently designed for human interaction, such as opening doors and using computers.

In a related development in the robotics sector, UK-based AI cloud provider Nscale has committed at least $3.5 billion in computing power to the humanoid robotics startup Figure. The partnership includes a strategic investment from Nscale and aims to deploy massive GPU clusters in Barstow, Texas, starting in the second half of 2027. The deal may scale to over $6 billion and involves the acquisition of up to 100,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs to support the dense AI workloads required for training embodied intelligence.