Sanctuary AI, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, develops industrial-grade humanoid robots designed to address labor challenges in manufacturing, logistics, and automotive sectors. The company focuses on embodied AI systems that model human movement and cognitive processes, enabling robots to learn from and interact with physical environments in human-like ways. Sanctuary AI ranks third globally in humanoid robotics patents, reflecting substantial technical development in the field.
The company's flagship product, Phoenix, is positioned as a general-purpose humanoid robot built for industrial deployment. Phoenix features human-like dexterity, tactile feedback systems, and fine manipulation capabilities, enabled by a proprietary AI control system. The robot is designed for collaborative operation alongside human workers in automotive plants, manufacturing facilities, and logistics operations, with particular emphasis on tasks characterized as dull, dirty, or dangerous.
Sanctuary AI's technical approach centers on several core domains: robotic dexterity and tactile sensing for fine manipulation tasks, proprietary AI control architectures for autonomous operation, and systems designed to achieve general-purpose utility across multiple industrial environments. The company's engineering efforts focus on creating robots that can perform varied tasks within existing industrial infrastructure, rather than requiring specialized environments or fixed automation sequences. Under CEO James Wells, the team develops solutions intended to scale across multiple industry verticals while maintaining industrial-grade reliability standards.