On April 30, 1X Technologies launched full-scale production at its NEO Factory in Hayward, California — the first vertically integrated humanoid robot manufacturing facility in the United States. The company is producing NEO, a general-purpose humanoid designed to operate safely alongside people in home environments.
1X was founded in 2014 by Norwegian roboticist Bernt Øivind Børnich, originally as Halodi Robotics. The company is now headquartered in Palo Alto, with manufacturing in Hayward and additional operations in Moss, Norway. Its investors include OpenAI. While 1X attracts less media attention than Tesla or Figure AI, it has quietly built one of the most self-contained production pipelines in the industry.
The 58,000-square-foot factory employs over 200 people. Its defining feature is full vertical integration: motors, batteries, structural components, transmission systems, copper coils, and sensors are all manufactured in-house. This is a deliberate strategy to reduce dependency on external suppliers — primarily Chinese — and accelerate iteration cycles. Year-one capacity is 10,000 robots, with a target of 100,000 by the end of 2027. A second facility in San Carlos is already in the pipeline.
Every NEO is powered by an NVIDIA Jetson Thor processor as its onboard brain (NEO Cortex), enabling real-time AI inference without cloud dependency. Training is conducted in NVIDIA Isaac Lab using parallel GPU-based reinforcement learning. The robot’s exterior uses soft, fabric-like materials for safe human contact, and its noise level is lower than that of a modern refrigerator.
Preorders, which opened in October 2025, sold out within five days. Early access is priced at $20,000 with priority delivery in 2026; an alternative subscription model is available at $499 per month. Consumer shipments to American homes are planned before the end of 2026. A notable detail: NEO robots are already working inside the factory itself, handling logistics and stocking parts for human assembly technicians — a closed loop where the production floor doubles as a live AI training environment.
Source: 1X Technologies / GlobeNewswire. Photo: 1x.tech