Anthropic-Physical Intelligence Acquisition Rumors Swirl After Denial

Over the weekend, rumors swept social media that AI company Anthropic is interested in acquiring robotics startup Physical Intelligence. Physical Intelligence CEO Karol Hausman denied the rumors to employees via a Slack message containing a GIF from "The Office," but the denial was not particularly forceful. According to The Information, Anthropic and Physical Intelligence did hold acquisition talks this spring.

Physical Intelligence is a San Francisco-based robotics startup co-founded by Lachy Groom, former Google researchers, and professors from Stanford and UC Berkeley. It has raised over $1 billion and was reportedly valued at $11 billion as of this spring. Its π0.5 model is one of the more widely used robot brains in robotics research.

Anthropic has made four known acquisitions this year, while OpenAI has acquired at least 17 companies since 2023. Both are preparing for IPOs: Anthropic confidentially filed on June 1, followed by OpenAI a week later.

Why robotics now? Understanding the physical world may be a prerequisite for superintelligent systems, and internet text alone cannot substitute for it. OpenAI itself built a robotic hand that could solve a Rubik's Cube but shut down its robotics group in 2021. It restarted in 2024 with a humanoid robotics lab in San Francisco and officially announced "OpenAI Robotics" in May, focusing initially on infrastructure robots.

Physical Intelligence's investors include Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Founders Fund — all also investors in OpenAI. OpenAI itself is an investor in Physical Intelligence, which raises questions about potential rights of first refusal or information access in the event of a sale to a competitor. TechCrunch asked both Anthropic and OpenAI for comment but received no response.