OpenAI-backed 1X Technologies just acquired Kind Humanoid.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Kind Humanoid’s website already redirects to 1X.tech.
Christoph Kohstall, a former Google robotics researcher, founded Kind Humanoid out of a small garage in Palo Alto. In 2024, Kind Humanoid teamed up with industrial design firm fuseproject to create an AI-powered robot for versatile tasks in healthcare and homes.
They drew inspiration from Rene Magritte, a 20th century artist known for painting everyday objects in unusual contexts. Instead of a human-like face, the Kind Humanoid features a visor displaying animations of clouds and skies, with floating eyes to express intent and emotion.
Norway-based 1X is testing a limited number of its Neo humanoid robots at homes. They’re aiming to manufacture hundreds of the robots in 2025, and potentially scale to a million by 2028.
To get there, 1X is building out a facility in Moss Norway for actuator manufacturing and robot assembly.