Anthropic and Physical Intelligence held acquisition talks this spring, though reports of a final deal appear to be false.
The rumor that started it all
Major AI acquisitions have become so common that they no longer register with the market. Anthropic and OpenAI have both engaged in aggressive buying sprees, snapping up developer tools and service shops to convert model capabilities into enterprise revenue. This background made a weekend rumor about Anthropic acquiring robotics startup Physical Intelligence stand out. It spread quickly, even after the company’s CEO issued a denial.
Physical Intelligence is not an obscure operation. Co-founder Lachy Groom has risen as an investor-operator in Silicon Valley. The firm has raised more than $1 billion and was reportedly in talks this spring for another $1 billion round at an $11 billion valuation. Its π0.5 model is apparently among the most widely used robot brains in robotics research.
The rumor was not entirely baseless. According to The Information, Anthropic and Physical Intelligence did discuss a purchase earlier this year. Robert Scoble, a tech blogger who posted on X over the weekend and set off the frenzy, may have got the specifics wrong without being incorrect that negotiations had taken place.
Physical Intelligence’s response was not vigorous. CEO Karol Hausman told employees the reports were untrue via a Slack message containing a gif of a character from “The Office” shaking her head no. Groom did not respond to a request for comment sent Monday night.
Context matters here. Anthropic has made four known acquisitions this year. OpenAI has been more aggressive, acquiring at least 17 companies since 2023. Both firms are now preparing to go public. Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO on June 1, followed by OpenAI a week later. This setup could lead to two of the largest US stock debuts in history.
Why robotics now
The likeliest explanation is that physical-world understanding may be a prerequisite for superintelligent systems. No amount of internet text can substitute for it.
OpenAI’s history on this point is instructive. It built an early robotic hand that could solve a Rubik’s Cube, then shut the entire robotics group down in 2021. Co-founder Wojciech Zaremba later said the approach was missing pieces needed for real superintelligence. The team returned in 2024, quietly building a humanoid robotics lab in San Francisco. CEO Sam Altman made it official in late May, announcing “OpenAI Robotics” was hiring and describing a near-term focus on robots for infrastructure work, with a personal robot for everyone as the long-term goal.
Anthropic has not built anything resembling OpenAI’s hardware lab. Instead, it has published research pieces through its internal group that stress-test frontier capabilities for safety. This included Project Fetch last November, where Anthropic staff tested how much Claude could help non-experts program a robot dog. A second phase in June found a newer model completed the same tasks roughly 20 times faster than the best human-plus-Claude team from the year before.
Buying an existing team with robotics expertise would let Anthropic skip years of work. There is a possible complication, though. Physical Intelligence was founded in San Francisco roughly two years ago by Groom, former Google researchers, and professors from Stanford and Berkeley. Its early investor base looks a lot like OpenAI’s own, including Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital. Founders Fund — also a major OpenAI investor — was reportedly involved in Physical Intelligence’s newest funding round earlier this year.
In fact, OpenAI is itself an investor in Physical Intelligence. It is not just a peripheral player; it is a stakeholder in a company that its chief rival was reportedly in talks to buy very recently.
This raises questions around whether OpenAI’s early investment came with any information rights, or a right of first refusal over a sale to a competitor. These are the kind of protective provisions that strategic investors sometimes negotiate for precisely this scenario.
That leaves open the possibility that if Physical Intelligence is actually in play, OpenAI — already a shareholder, already close to Groom, already trying to ensure it bests Anthropic in robotics — may have the more obvious claim to it than Anthropic does. We asked OpenAI these questions earlier today and the company did not respond.
What it means
For makers and builders, the noise suggests that the race is moving beyond text generation into hardware and physical interaction. The fact that OpenAI already holds a stake in Physical Intelligence adds a layer of complexity to any future market moves. If Anthropic proceeds with a buyout, it would be navigating a conflict of interest with its own investor. Until OpenAI clarifies its position, the market remains divided on who actually controls the next wave of robotics development.
