OpenAI announced today that it has hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw — an open-source robotics manipulation framework used by researchers and companies worldwide. Alongside the hiring, OpenAI is launching the OpenAI Robotics Foundation, a $50 million initiative to advance embodied AI research and make robotics more accessible through open-source tooling.
Who Is Peter Steinberger?
Peter Steinberger is a robotics engineer and researcher best known for creating OpenClaw, a modular, open-source software framework for robotic manipulation and grasping. OpenClaw has been adopted by over 300 research labs and robotics startups worldwide since its release in 2023.
OpenClaw's Impact:
- 12,000+ GitHub stars with 2,000+ contributors and 8,000+ Discord community members
- 92% grasp success rate on novel objects vs 78% for baseline methods
- Deployed in production at Amazon Robotics, BMW Manufacturing, and stealth robotics startups
Before OpenClaw, Steinberger worked at Google's Robotics division and DeepMind. He holds a PhD from ETH Zurich. His hiring marks OpenAI's strategic shift toward embodied AI — competing directly with Tesla (Optimus), Boston Dynamics, and Figure AI.
What Is OpenClaw?
OpenClaw is an open-source framework for robotic grasping and manipulation. Key features include:
Physics Simulation
Real-to-sim transfer with less than 5% performance degradation (industry standard is 15-20%). Built on MuJoCo and PyBullet.
Pre-Trained Models
Neural networks trained on 10+ million grasp attempts for object detection, pose estimation, and grasp quality prediction.
Hardware Abstraction
Works with 20+ robotic grippers out-of-the-box. Write code once, deploy across Universal Robots, ABB, KUKA, Franka Emika Panda.
Vision-Language Integration
Integrates with GPT-4V and Claude for natural language commands. Used in 40+ humanoid robot projects.
Why OpenAI Made This Move
OpenAI's hiring of Steinberger signals a major push into embodied AI — robots that can see, manipulate, and act in the physical world.
- Embodied AI is the next frontier: Language models have saturated. The next paradigm shift is robots that interact with physical environments.
- Competition with Tesla and Figure: Tesla's Optimus and Figure AI's Figure 01 are gaining traction. OpenAI needs robotics expertise to compete.
- Ecosystem capture: By hiring Steinberger, OpenAI gains influence over the open-source robotics community and OpenClaw's user base.
Steinberger will lead OpenAI's new Robotics Research Group with a mandate to integrate GPT-5's multimodal capabilities into robotic control systems. His team is expected to grow to 50+ researchers by year-end.
The OpenAI Robotics Foundation: $50M Initiative
OpenAI announced the OpenAI Robotics Foundation — a $50 million fund to support open-source robotics research, dataset creation, and community infrastructure.
Foundation Priorities:
Open Robotics Datasets
$20M to collect 100M+ robot trajectories by 2027
Research Grants
$15M for university labs working on embodied AI
Hardware Subsidies
$10M for robotic hardware in developing countries
Community Infrastructure
$5M for conferences, hackathons, documentation
The foundation will operate independently with its own governance board. "We believe robotics should be accessible to everyone," Steinberger said. "The foundation will ensure that embodied AI research is open, transparent, and benefits humanity broadly."
What's Next for OpenAI Robotics
While OpenAI hasn't disclosed specific timelines, industry observers expect:
- GPT-5 Robotics API: Video input → robot control commands for natural language programming
- Open Manipulation Dataset: 50M+ real-world trajectories released for research
- Humanoid partnerships: Integrations with Figure AI, 1X Technologies, or Sanctuary AI
- Robot foundation models: Pre-trained models that control any robot with minimal fine-tuning
The Bottom Line
The hiring of Peter Steinberger and the launch of the OpenAI Robotics Foundation mark a pivotal moment in AI history. OpenAI is positioning itself to lead the next wave: agents that can see, think, and act in the physical world.
If successful, this could trigger a "ChatGPT moment" for robotics — a sudden leap in capabilities that makes robots far more useful across manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and domestic services. With Steinberger's expertise and $50M in funding, OpenAI is making a significant bet that embodied AI will define the next decade.