1X opens NEO Factory in Hayward, California

1X has opened its NEO Factory in Hayward, California, commencing full-scale production of NEO, its general-purpose home humanoid robot. The 58,000-square-foot facility employs more than 200 people and is designed for an initial capacity of 10,000 units annually, with a second facility in San Carlos planned to bring online later in 2026. The factory was stood up in three months from the date permits were received in January.

1X was founded in 2014 by Bernt Børnich in Norway under the name Halodi Robotics, initially building safe actuators and full-body control systems for industrial and healthcare robotics. Børnich developed an interest in electromechanics from childhood and studied robotics at the University of Oslo before spending years in embedded software development across space, defence, and offshore applications. The company's core hardware contribution was Revo1, the world's highest torque-to-weight drive servo motor, designed for low gear-ratio robotics and flexible mechanics inspired by human tendon actuation.

In 2018, 1X released EVE, a wheeled humanoid for logistics, security, and medical environments, deploying it with enterprise customers globally. The EVE programme was a data collection strategy. Børnich has said that deploying EVE at commercial scale gave the company a unique understanding of challenges the broader robotics community had not yet addressed, and that robots needed to experience the real world to learn from it. That operational foundation informed the decision to build NEO rather than iterate on a wheeled platform.

In 2022, 1X rebranded and pivoted to domestic robotics. That summer, Børnich contacted OpenAI, before ChatGPT had been released, to discuss what AI could do for humanoids. Børnich later described those conversations with Sam Altman as happening at a moment when most people did not believe AI could be used for androids, and when there were no real successes in robotics to point to. OpenAI led 1X's $23.5 million Series A2 in March 2023, followed by a $100 million Series B led by EQT Ventures in January 2024, with Samsung NEXT and Nistad Group also participating.

NEO was designed specifically for home use, with bipedal legs chosen not for walking but for manipulation reach. Børnich has said the company does not care much about walking; the hard problem is manipulation, and two legs matter in the home because robots need to operate across a wide range of heights and positions from a small footprint, such as reaching over furniture to access wall sockets. NEO is soft-skinned and designed not to take risks such as lifting heavy objects near people.

Preorders opened in October 2025 at $20,000 per unit; the entire first-year capacity of 10,000 units sold out within five days. Orders are refundable. At launch, most NEO tasks were handled through teleoperation by a human using a VR headset rather than autonomous operation, a detail Børnich acknowledged directly; he said early adopter data was needed to improve autonomy over time and that the company plans an app allowing users to schedule sessions during which a remote operator assists with tasks.

Inside the Hayward factory, early NEO units are already working on the floor; they handle internal logistics and stock parts for human assembly technicians as part of what 1X calls its robots building robots initiative. Components including motors, batteries, transmission systems, copper coils, and sensors are manufactured in-house; copper coils are spun on automated lines to create custom motors, and hardware is subjected to more than 20 million cycles of stress testing before shipping. Børnich has said the humanoid problem is not a robotics problem but a manufacturing problem, and the Hayward facility is the most direct expression of that thesis.

Source: 1X

First customer shipments are planned for 2026. NEO's autonomy at consumer launch will depend on the training data 1X collects through early deployments; no timeline for moving from teleoperation-assisted to fully autonomous home operation has been disclosed.

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