In late August, Meta employees at an internal robotics summit watched a roughly 106-pound machine called Max take its first steps. The robot was not assembled in Menlo Park. It was built in Shanghai, in about three months, by Meta engineers working alongside Chinese humanoid startup Fourier, according to a report by The Information.
Max stands about 1.5 meters tall, runs on Nvidia's Jetson Thor chip, and carries a display capable of showing facial expressions, along with built-in speakers and five-fingered hands designed to pick up small objects. Meta's vice president of product for robotics, Li-Chen Miller, spent nearly two months at Fourier's Shanghai facility overseeing the build. A second prototype, Max 2, entered development in September with a redesigned torso, upgraded hands, an integrated projector and added sensors for navigating stairs.
Why Meta Wants a Body for Its AI
Meta has framed Max as a physical extension of Muse, its AI agent software, rather than a standalone consumer product. The company told The Information that the Fourier collaboration is confined to internal research and experimentation, and that it has no current plans to sell the units it builds.
That framing matters. Meta has spent heavily on generative AI models over the past three years, and robotics gives the company a way to test whether those models can perceive and act in physical space, not just generate text and images. Meta also acquired Assured Robot Intelligence in May, a startup building AI models for human-robot interaction, signaling that Max is one piece of a broader hardware and software buildout rather than an isolated side project.
Turning to Fourier rather than building a humanoid chassis from scratch let Meta compress development time sharply. Fourier already manufactures and sells its own GR-series humanoids commercially, with production lines in Shanghai, giving Meta a working hardware base and supply chain instead of starting from blank sheets of metal.
A Crowded Race for the Household Robot
Meta joins a field that already includes Tesla's Optimus, Figure AI's humanoid line, Agility Robotics' Digit, and 1X Technologies' Neo, all chasing some version of a general-purpose humanoid that can eventually work in homes as well as warehouses. Most of those efforts remain focused on industrial or logistics tasks first, with household deployment treated as a multi-year goal rather than a near-term product.
Meta's approach is distinct in leaning on a Chinese manufacturing partner for hardware while keeping AI model development in-house, a split that mirrors how smartphone makers outsource assembly while guarding software. It also raises questions about supply chain exposure, given ongoing trade tensions between the US and China over advanced hardware components and chips like the Jetson Thor powering Max.
No launch date, price or product name has been set for either Max or Max 2. For now, Meta's humanoid effort remains a research program measured in prototypes built per quarter, not units shipped, with the company explicitly declining to commit to a commercial timeline.