Peter H. Diamandis talks with 1X Technologies founder and CEO Bernt Børnich and investor Dave Blundin at 1X’s Palo Alto facility about building humanoid robots for homes, learning through real-world use, and the manufacturing and safety challenges ahead.
Børnich says household tasks offer more varied data than repetitive factory work. He says 1X’s earlier Eve robots plateaued after roughly 20 to 40 hours on specific tasks, and describes the company’s aim as using robotics to build more general intelligence. Blundin connects that goal to abundance, which he describes as combining intelligence with labor, goods, and services.
Børnich says 1X’s design principles are safety, capability, and affordability, supported by a lightweight build with few parts. He describes Neo Gamma as about 66 pounds, able to lift around 150 pounds and carry about 50, with roughly four hours of battery life. He also emphasizes quiet operation and a soft exterior as important for living alongside people.
Børnich argues that intelligence depends on spatial and temporal understanding, not language alone. Robots can learn through actions and their results, while internet videos mostly provide observations without showing a person’s goals or attempted actions. He says 1X combines autonomy with guided teleoperation, and shares validated model improvements across robots; for privacy, he describes encrypted data review that requires customer approval.
Børnich says early customer robots will avoid risky activities such as handling boiling water, and that world models can help evaluate behavior and safety before new models are deployed. He gives a target factory run rate above 20,000 robots annually by the end of 2026, with hundreds of thousands a year as a possible run rate before the decade ends. He argues that humanoid form helps robots work in human environments and learn from human demonstrations, while noting that specialized robots may emerge later.
Børnich envisions abundant labor supporting sustainable living and difficult scientific work, including experiments in biotech labs and construction of large research infrastructure. He says humanoids could help build specialized automation systems and infrastructure such as data centers, chip fabs, and energy capacity. The conversation also highlights manufacturing constraints, including labor, materials, magnets, and semiconductor capacity.
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