Meta’s first humanoid, Max, was built in Shanghai in three months. Max 2 is already underway

Meta has spent most of this fall in our Bot HQ coverage as a software company, the maker of Muse, the agent that passed 10 million sign-ups and mostly gets used to shop. Now there is a hardware chapter. According to a report from The Information on October 31, Meta has built a working humanoid prototype with Shanghai robot maker Fourier, and the two companies started on a second version in September.

What Max is, on paper

The robot is called Max inside Meta. It reportedly stands about 1.5 meters tall, a little under five feet, and weighs around 48 kilograms, or 106 pounds. Its face is a screen that shows expressions, it has speakers in its chest, and its five-fingered hands are built to pick up small things like bottles and toys. The compute is Nvidia’s Jetson Thor, the robotics platform Nvidia introduced in August 2025, with a developer kit priced at $3,499.

The most telling details are Meta’s requirements, which are about people rather than payloads. Max was meant to recognize a voice from five meters away, read a wave or a gesture from three meters, hold eye contact, and show whether it is listening, thinking, speaking or unsure. Those are design goals in the report, not test results, but they say a lot about what Meta wants a robot to be.

Built fast, and built in China

The partners reportedly put Max together in about three months. Li-Chen Miller, Meta’s vice president of product for robotics, spent close to two months at Fourier’s Shanghai factory during the build, and Meta showed the robot to some employees at an internal robotics summit in late August. The Information described Max as a custom machine that draws on three generations of Fourier hardware, with new proportions, a new head, display and cameras, rather than a relabeled Fourier model.

Max 2 is the next step. Planned changes include a redesigned torso, better hands, a built-in projector and extra sensors to help it handle stairs. The report also points to robotics hiring in Shanghai and Shenzhen, including roles tied to preparing for production at scale.

Meta is careful about how far this goes. “This effort with Fourier is focused on internal research and experimentation, and we have no plans to sell these units,” a Meta spokesperson told The Information. There is no launch date for any Meta humanoid product.

Why Fourier

Fourier is not a household name in the US, but it has been building humanoids for years. It started out in rehabilitation robotics, launched the GR-1 (you can find it on our humanoids page), and in August 2025 showed GR-3, a 165-centimeter robot it calls a care-bot, designed as a companion for settings such as caring for older adults. That focus on gentle, social robots fits Meta’s list of requirements far better than a factory arm would.

It also highlights a point the whole industry is dealing with. Many of the motors, hands and other parts that humanoids need are made in China, and a Meta spokesperson acknowledged that sourcing hard-to-get parts is a reality for every company in the field. For a US tech giant, that means working closely with a Chinese partner, at least for now.

Muse gets a body

The bigger story is what Max is for. According to the report, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has described humanoids internally as a physical form for Muse, with the goal of helping with household tasks. That is a different bet from most of the companies we track. Tesla’s Optimus and Agility Robotics are aimed at factories and warehouses first. The home is where Figure, 1X and Sunday Robotics are competing, and Figure has already shown its Helix 2.5 model doing chores in homes it had never seen.

Meta’s edge is the other half of the problem. It already has an agent that millions of people talk to, and a robot that can recognize a voice across a room and look you in the eye is a natural way to bring that agent off the phone. The weak spot is the same one every home robot faces: we have not seen Max do real chores, and no one outside Meta has tested it.

Our take

Going from a blank page to a working prototype in front of staff in about three months shows how quickly humanoid hardware can now be put together with the right partner. That should worry the startups that have spent years building their own bodies. It is still a research robot with no price and no date, so treat Max as a signal of where Meta is headed rather than something you can order. We will keep tracking it next to Muse on Bot HQ, and you can see who is hiring for robotics roles on our jobs board.