Alibaba unit says 5-in-1 AI gives robots unified brain, body and limbs

Alibaba Group Holding’s mapping unit has unveiled an upgrade to what it calls the world’s first technology framework that unites a robot’s “feet, hands, brains, central nerves and motor nerves” into a single system.

With five new specialised foundation AI models working together, ABot aimed to address a systemic problem in the industry, according to Amap: the lack of a complete, self-evolving system.

“The industry has long focused on breakthroughs in single models – better navigation models, more powerful operation models and smarter reasoning models – but these models operate independently without shared data and experience,” it said in a social media post on Wednesday.

With its five models – ABot-N1, ABot-M0.5, ABot-ER, ABot-AgentOS, and ABot-C0 – working in concert, the Amap system sought to shatter those silos, according to the firm.

The ABot-N1 model employed an “eyes guiding feet” approach, enabling a robot to handle city-scale autonomous navigation with a 92.9 per cent outdoor success rate using only standard cameras and basic road networks, Amap said on Wednesday, adding that this bypassed the need for costly high-definition maps.

Meanwhile, ABot-M0.5 allowed a machine to “use hands and feet simultaneously”, divorcing movement functions from manipulation tasks so a robot could seamlessly grasp objects while walking, the company said.