Seven-Eleven Japan and Telexistence to Deploy Humanoid Robots by 2029

• Telexistence and Seven-Eleven Japan will jointly build “Astra,” a humanoid robot using a Vision-Language-Action model.
• The robots will automate store tasks, with testing and rollout planned across real retail environments.

Seven-Eleven Japan and Telexistence have partnered to develop and deploy humanoid robots powered by generative AI, with a target launch date of 2029. The robot, named Astra, is based on a Vision-Language-Action (VLA) foundation model.

The partnership will focus on three main goals: identifying which retail tasks can be automated and testing their effectiveness; developing humanoid robots designed for actual store environments; and collecting large-scale operation data to train and deploy the VLA model. These efforts are supported by the AI Robot Association, which comprises academic and corporate partners, including Waseda University, the University of Tokyo, Toyota, and Telexistence.

Telexistence will use motion data from its Ghost robot, which restocks beverages in stores, to support VLA model training. By tapping into Seven-Eleven Japan’s network of over 20,000 locations, the companies plan to build one of the largest real-world datasets for robotics. This will help accelerate the development of systems that combine perception, planning, and control.

🌀 Tom’s Take:

Seven-Eleven Japan is signaling that automation through robotics is the future of retail. This partnership carves out a path to deployment by giving AI the data it needs to make humanoid automation possible.

Source: Business Wire / Telexistence