A rumour about the potential acquisition of Physical Intelligence by Anthropic has stirred Silicon Valley. The robotics startup, backed by OpenAI, reportedly held talks with Anthropic during the spring, according to sources close to the matter.
The race to dominate artificial intelligence has unleashed a new front: robotics. Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the most valued companies in the sector, have become embroiled in a rumour regarding the possible purchase of Physical Intelligence, a startup that has raised over $1 billion and whose robotic model π0.5 is one of the most widely used in research.
The rumour began circulating last weekend following a post by investor Robert Scoble. Although the CEO of Physical Intelligence, Karol Hausman, publicly denied the operation through an internal message with a GIF, the speculation has not faded. According to TechCrunch, Anthropic and Physical Intelligence did indeed hold acquisition talks during the spring, as reported by The Information.
Physical Intelligence was founded about two years ago by Lachy Groom, a prominent investor in Silicon Valley, along with former Google researchers and professors from Stanford and Berkeley. The company has attracted over $1 billion and, as reported in the spring, was considering a new round of $1 billion with a valuation of $11 billion.
Anthropic's interest in robotics is not coincidental. The company, which has made four acquisitions this year, filed for an IPO on June 1. OpenAI, for its part, has acquired at least 17 companies since 2023 and registered its IPO a week later. Both are looking to expand their capabilities beyond software.
OpenAI is an investor in Physical Intelligence, which gives it information or preference rights in the event of a potential sale. The company had already closed its robotics group in 2021 but returned to the field in 2024 with a secret humanoid robotics lab in San Francisco. Sam Altman, its CEO, made that effort public at the end of May, aiming to develop robots for infrastructure and, in the long term, a personal robot.
Anthropic has not announced a comparable hardware lab, although it has published internal research on frontier capabilities, such as Project Fetch, focused on assessing the assistance of its model Claude for programming a robot dog. The potential acquisition of Physical Intelligence would give it access to an expert robotics team and a model that connects AI with the physical world.
The dispute reflects an increasingly widespread thesis: advanced AI systems need to understand the physical world, as texts on the internet cannot replace direct experience with objects and movements. For investors, robotics is shaping up to be the next technological battleground.
So far, neither Anthropic nor Physical Intelligence have confirmed the operation. Lachy Groom did not respond to requests for comment. However, speculation remains alive in a sector where pre-IPO acquisitions are common.
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