Ashish Kumar, the former AI lead for Tesla’s Optimus program, has co-founded a new startup called Intelligent Machines. Based in San Francisco, the company focuses on developing specialized industrial robots for manufacturing and aerospace, moving away from the humanoid design favored by Tesla.
The startup is currently raising a seed funding round that could reach approximately $100 million. This amount is considered unusually high for a company at this stage of development. The firm has already hired several former members of the Tesla Optimus team.
Intelligent Machines utilizes reinforcement learning to train its robots for complex physical tasks. Kumar, who previously worked at Tesla and Meta, brings academic expertise in this field from UC Berkeley to the project.
Meanwhile, Tesla continues to develop its Optimus robots, currently producing hundreds of units per week. The company aims to increase production to over 1,000 units weekly by the end of 2026, though much of this output is currently dedicated to testing and data collection.
Tesla faces challenges with AI generalization, as its robots often require days to learn new tasks despite having access to over 500,000 hours of training data. Senior leadership, including VP Milan Kovac, has also left the program since June 2025.
