Most AI at NYU Shanghai currently reads and writes: text in, text out. Embodied AI is the part that has to touch something. We have just acquired a robotic arm so that this work can start here rather than stay a reading topic.

AgileX Piper X

A 6-degree-of-freedom manipulator built for manipulation research rather than factory duty — small enough to sit on a bench, precise enough to be worth measuring.

Where this is honest about itself

What it could be used for

These are directions we think are plausible, not services we currently run:

• Vision-to-action work — connecting a camera and a model to a physical grasp.
• Teaching manipulation, kinematics, and control against real hardware instead of a simulator.
• Recording demonstration data for imitation-learning experiments.
• Repeatable bench setups for research that needs the same motion performed identically many times.
• Interactive installations and student projects that need something to move.

Propose the first project

If any of the above is close to what you already do — or if you have something better in mind — write to shanghai.genai@nyu.edu. Tell us what you would want the arm to do and what you would need alongside it; there is no form and no deadline, and a half-formed idea is a fine place to start.

For the rest of the equipment RITS lends out, see Devices & Equipment under Emerging Technologies. For the compute side of AI work, see The RITS AI Stack.