Hardware-Software Co-Design Enables Dexterity

Dexterity is likely to become a hardware problem before it becomes a pure model problem. Figure is already redesigning its robot around Helix, adding palm cameras, tactile sensors, and a new hand system so the model gets close range visual and touch feedback during grasps, while 1X is building tendon driven actuators, soft coverings, and integrated tactile sensing into NEO. That points to a world where the best robot policies are trained around very specific sensors, hand geometry, and motor behavior, not just around generic robot APIs.

• Figure is making the co design logic explicit. Figure 03 was built around Helix with a redesigned sensory suite and hand system, and Helix 02 ties vision, touch, proprioception, and every actuator into one control loop. That is exactly the kind of stack where better manipulation comes from changing the robot, not only the model.
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• 1X is following the same playbook from a different angle. NEO combines in house motor manufacturing, tendon driven actuators, on board compute, stereo cameras, and tactile sensing embedded through its soft outer layer. That means the data the model learns from is inseparable from the body that generates it.
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• Cross embodiment model companies still have a real advantage, just at a different layer. Physical Intelligence has shown multi robot policies can transfer across embodiments, but the hardest small object tasks still improve when the robot has richer local sensing and hand specific feedback. Generalist is strongest where customers want one intelligence layer across many robots, not the absolute frontier of one hand design.
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The market is heading toward a split. One lane will be vertically integrated robot companies that win headline demos and the hardest manipulation tasks by tuning sensors, hands, and control together. The other lane will be model companies that win distribution by working across arms, mobile bases, and future form factors. As robots move into real homes and factories, both lanes can grow, but the very best dexterity will likely stay tied to custom bodies for longer than the software only story suggests.