Figure's founder invests $100 million in "personal AI": Former Apple iPhone Air designer joins team to create a series of AI hardware.

According to 1M AI News, Figure CEO Brett Adcock announced the creation of a new AI lab, Hark, aiming to build "the world's most advanced personal intelligence." Hark will deeply integrate self-developed multimodal models with customized hardware to create a universal interface for interaction between humans and machines. Hark has been operating secretly for eight months, launched with a $100 million personal investment from Adcock, whose net worth is estimated at $19.1 billion by Forbes. Adcock told Bloomberg that Hark is developing "a range of AI devices, both for personal and home use," with forms distinct from existing smartphones, wearables, and smart glasses. The first AI models are planned for release this summer, followed by hardware. On the team side, former Apple industrial designer Abidur Chowdhury will serve as head of design. He worked at Apple for seven years, participating in the design of the iPhone and Mac product lines, including the recent iPhone Air. The hardware team has also brought in veteran Apple employees David Narajowski and Dave Wilkes. The AI research team has recruited several senior researchers from Meta's Superintelligence Lab. The team currently has about 45 members and is expected to expand to 100 in the first half of the year. Members also come from Google, Amazon, and Tesla. Hark has reached a computing power agreement with NVIDIA, and thousands of GPUs will be deployed next month for model training. Adcock is a serial entrepreneur. His company, Figure, founded in 2022, recently had a valuation of $39 billion. He previously founded the recruitment platform Vettery (which exited for $100 million), the electric vertical takeoff and landing (EVA) company Archer (NYSE: ACHR), and the weapons testing company Cover. Figure will remain an independent entity.