1X Technologies

1X Technologies builds humanoid robots meant to work in ordinary homes. Its main product, NEO, is a two-legged robot about the size of a person, designed to tidy up, fetch things and help with chores. The company started in Norway in 2014 under another name. Its website now describes it as "an AI and robotics company based in Palo Alto, California," and it builds robots at a factory it opened in Hayward in 2026.

Home humanoids are one of the most watched and most debated areas of AI. This profile sticks to dates from 1X's own announcements, reporting by major outlets and a summary of its history on Wikipedia. Claims about what the robot can do are the company's own unless stated otherwise.

What 1X makes

1X has built two robot lines.

• EVE, released in 2018, is a humanoid upper body on wheels. It was designed for work in logistics, security and health care settings and served as a test bed for 1X's motors, sensing and control.
• NEO is a bipedal humanoid for the home. It is slim, covered in soft fabric and designed to move around furniture and people.

The company's approach is to design key parts itself. Its factory story says it makes motors, batteries, structures, transmissions, soft goods and sensors in-house. In July 2026 it announced new hands for NEO with 25 degrees of freedom, driven by tendons, which it says approach human dexterity and strength.

Software is the other half. 1X trains AI models that let NEO understand requests and plan movements. In June 2026 it launched a World Model Lab to develop models that predict how the physical world responds to a robot's actions. Sam Sinha was named to lead it.

Founding in Norway and the move to Palo Alto

Bernt Øivind Børnich, a Norwegian roboticist, founded the company in 2014 as Halodi Robotics. Early work focused on safe motors and whole-body control for robots that would work near people in industry and health care. EVE came out of that work in 2018.

In 2022 the company renamed itself 1X Technologies and turned toward household robots. Over the next few years it set up its headquarters in Palo Alto. Manufacturing stayed split between California and Norway: Wikipedia lists main manufacturing in Hayward with additional manufacturing in Moss, Norway.

The company has added executives as it has grown. In 2026 it announced Tom Sanocki as vice president of engineering in June and Bill Nash as chief financial officer in July. In January 2025 it announced it had acquired Kind Humanoid, another humanoid robot startup.

Funding as reported

1. March 2023. A $23.5 million Series A2 round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, with Tiger Global, Sandwater, Alliance Ventures and Skagerak Capital.
2. January 2024. A $100 million Series B led by EQT Ventures, with Samsung NEXT, Nistad Group and existing investors.
3. September 2025. Reports said 1X was seeking to raise up to $1 billion more. We could not confirm the outcome for this page.

OpenAI's early investment drew attention because it tied a leading AI lab to a hardware company. Our guide to AI investors on the Peninsula and our page on corporate venture capital explain how strategic investors like these work.

NEO: from beta to preorders

NEO has gone through public versions in quick succession.

At preorder, 1X said NEO would ship in 2026 in tan, gray and dark brown. The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern reported in October 2025 that most tasks she saw were done by a remote human operator using a virtual reality headset. That raised privacy questions. 1X has said owners can book sessions in which an operator handles chores the robot cannot yet do on its own. Børnich said data from early homes was needed to make NEO more autonomous. Check 1X's site for current delivery timing; we could not confirm how many robots had reached customers by November 2026.

The Hayward factory

On April 30, 2026, 1X published a look inside what it calls the NEO Factory in Hayward, across the bay from Palo Alto. By the company's account:

• The factory covers 58,000 square feet and employs more than 200 people.
• It was stood up in about three months after final permits arrived in January 2026.
• With a San Carlos facility due later in 2026, 1X said it would have capacity for up to 10,000 NEOs a year.
• The company said it planned more automation to move toward 100,000 or more units a year by the end of 2027.

Those are the company's own plans and figures. Manufacturing at that scale would be new for home robots. Outside observers will judge it by deliveries.

The home robot debate

Home humanoids raise questions that factory robots do not. A robot in a living room shares space with children, pets and guests. It sees and hears a great deal. When a remote operator can take control, owners need to know who is watching and when. Reporting on NEO's launch focused on exactly those points.

1X's answer, as described in coverage of the preorder, is that owners decide when remote sessions happen and that early teleoperation is how the robot learns. Readers weighing a purchase should read the company's privacy terms, ask how video and audio are stored and check what tasks the robot can do without help on the day it arrives. Price matters too. The $20,000 preorder price is close to the sticker price of a small new car.

Ties to Palo Alto and Stanford

1X joined a cluster of robotics and AI groups within a few miles of downtown Palo Alto. Toyota Research Institute in Los Altos works on robots that learn from demonstration. Stanford's robotics labs train many of the engineers these companies hire. The university's AI work goes back to the 1960s. Our page on Stanford and the history of AI covers SAIL and the SRI robot Shakey, an early robot that planned its own path.

The robotics history is easy to see in person. Shakey is on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Our research labs guide maps the other labs nearby.

Visiting and practical notes

Frequently asked questions