Stone Tao Joins Physical Intelligence to Focus on Robotics Simulation
svlevine · x · 2026-07-31
UCLA PhD student Stone Tao announced he is ending his studies early to join Physical Intelligence (Pi) full-time, focusing on simulation research.
In his blog post, he shared his reasons for choosing Pi:
- Research Trend Setting: Pi's team has massive influence in shifting robotics research towards VLA (Vision-Language-Action) models and teleoperation.
- Simulation Potential: Despite outside perceptions, Pi provides a highly favorable environment for simulation research to accelerate general robot development.
- Open Culture & Talent Density: Pi offers an open research culture and high talent density, effectively integrating open-source community resources to drive model deployment.
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