Meet the Singapore Startup Behind Nvidia's First Open Humanoid Robot

A Singapore robotics startup that spent most of last year turning away investors and telling buyers it was out of stock was named today as the maker of the hands inside Nvidia's first open humanoid robot, after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the partnership at the COMPUTEX conference in Taipei on June 1.

The robot, called the NVIDIA Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot, has a body from Chinese company Unitree, chips and software from Nvidia, and a pair of five-fingered robotic hands from Sharpa, headquartered in Singapore. Nvidia's vice president of physical AI simulation, Rev Lebaredian, said it goes on sale in October and "anyone can buy it." Stanford Robotics Center, ETH Zurich, Ai2, and UC San Diego have already signed on to use it.

Who is Sharpa and why hasn't anyone heard of them?

Sharpa was founded at the end of 2024 by the three co-founders of Hesai Technology, the world's largest supplier of automotive LiDAR sensors. Those founders are CEO Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing, and Chief Scientist Sun Kai. Hesai, listed on the Nasdaq, makes the laser sensors used in self-driving cars. The team registered Sharpa in Singapore, with manufacturing and research based in Shanghai, and grew to over 100 employees while barely making a sound publicly.

For most of 2025, the industry did not know who was behind it. "The product was jaw-dropping," one investor told 36Kr, a leading Chinese technology publication. "I reached out as early as August, but they weren't keen to meet. To this day, I don't even know who's in charge."