Figure debuts Figure 02 humanoid with 3x compute and 16-DoF hands

Silicon Valley humanoid startup Figure just unveiled Figure 02, arriving only ten months after its first-generation robot, and it looks much closer to an actual factory worker than a tech demo.

Founder and CEO Brett Adcock outlined major hardware and compute overhauls aimed at taking the machine straight onto real-world assembly lines.

Built like an airplane to work double shifts

Figure 02 ditches the exposed wires for an aircraft-inspired exoskeleton chassis, boosting overall structural stiffness and hiding all wiring internally for better durability.

Powering the machine is a custom 2.25 kWh battery pack designed to run for over 20 hours a day, which is practically long enough to handle back-to-back industrial shifts.

Its manipulation capabilities also got a massive upgrade with fourth-generation human-scale hands featuring 16 degrees of freedom. Paired with an onboard vision network of six RGB cameras, the robot can now execute delicate pick-and-place operations needed in smart manufacturing.

Triple the compute and a test run at BMW

To run fully autonomous AI tasks on-device, Figure added a second onboard module powered by Nvidia RTX GPUs, driving a 3x boost in inference performance compared to the original model.

Figure, which recently raised $675 million from backers including Nvidia, uses OpenAI-developed custom speech models trained on H100s for real-time conversation. For simulation and perception, the startup leaned heavily on synthetic data generated inside Nvidia Isaac Sim and Omniverse.

Critically, Figure is not just testing this in a lab. The company recently deployed Figure 02 to BMW Group's production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for use-case validation and training data collection.

Why it matters

Figure is making all the right engineering trade-offs here. Instead of chasing viral parkour videos, Figure 02 is obsessing over industrial reliability: rigid structures, no exposed cables, dexterous hands, and enough battery life to outlast a workday.

For the robotics industry, this rapid 10-month cadence puts immense pressure on rivals like Tesla's Optimus and Boston Dynamics. Taking the bot into an active BMW manufacturing facility shows Figure wants to bypass prolonged pilot limbo and push straight toward commercial deployment.

Still, massive hurdles remain. Having 3x local compute is impressive, but factory automation demands near-zero error rates. A missed pick-and-place movement on a high-speed line can halt production, so while industrial enterprises should keep a close eye on these trials, broad commercial adoption is still a marathon.