Sanctuary AI Is Moving Around the Humanoid Bottleneck
Sanctuary demonstrated a 2.54-second wire-insertion task using existing industrial robot hardware.
Sanctuary AI, the Vancouver-based robotics company founded in 2018, says its Physical AI software achieved a 99.5%+ success rate at a 2.54-second cycle time on a plug-insertion task for a global Tier 1 automotive supplier, manipulating a flexible wire that shifts dynamically while moving on a conveyor.
The system matched the throughput of the customer's live production line although the customer has not been named. Sanctuary's release shows the task running on two industrial robotic arms, not on Phoenix, its own humanoid platform.
Sanctuary is deploying its robotics software on existing commercial platforms while developing it for industrial humanoids. Its earlier work centred on Phoenix, which reached its seventh and eighth generations in 2023 and 2024.
The company's industrial product line integrates its Physical AI with FANUC and Universal Robots arms, paired with custom or off-the-shelf end effectors. Sanctuary positions this as the faster commercial path: traditional fixed automation is too rigid for dynamic, dexterous work, while industrial humanoids are still years from enterprise reliability by the company's own estimate. For this specific wire plug-insertion task, Sanctuary says the policy reached its 99.5%+ performance level using 5.5 hours of teleoperation data.
Sanctuary’s Carbon control system and Microsoft collaboration develop AI models from behavioral data for general-purpose robots. The company is applying that work to third-party industrial arms as well as Phoenix.
Sanctuary's other major technical investment is in its own hydraulic hands, a distinct path compared to most humanoid hand approaches, which tend to favour electromechanical actuation since hydraulics typically add weight, complexity, and leak risk. Sanctuary has argued the tradeoff is worth it for power density and force control in fine manipulation. The company has also shown the hands mounted on industrial arms rather than only on Phoenix. Co-founder and CTO Olivia Norton has described the hands, with up to 21 degrees of freedom in the latest generation, as achieving in-hand manipulation through reinforcement learning and sim-to-real transfer, with tactile sensors added for richer touch feedback.
Sanctuary had existing enterprise relationships ahead of this release, including ties to Magna, Accenture, and Microsoft, and had raised more than $140M in total investment by mid-2024 from backers including BDC Capital and InBC.
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