Bringing dexterous robots to the world: Sharpa's founder on why Singapore is the launchpad for the future of embodied AI

Singapore has emerged as a growing hub for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled robotics, with companies like Sharpa choosing the city-state as a base to develop breakthrough technologies that could reshape how robots interact with the physical world. Founded in 2024, Sharpa has quickly established itself as a unicorn in the AI robotics space, developing general-purpose robots capable of highly dexterous manipulation through advanced tactile feedback systems.

The company's flagship robot, North, made headlines at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2026, demonstrating unprecedented eight-hour autonomous shifts on fine manipulation tasks. This achievement represents a significant leap forward in robotics capabilities, moving beyond the traditional focus on locomotion to solve what Sharpa calls "the manipulation bottleneck" – enabling robots to physically interact with objects and tools with human-level precision.

Sharpa's commitment to Singapore continues to deepen, with strategic partnerships announced at its AI Robotics Summit in April 2026, including collaborations with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), JTC Corporation (JTC), and Grab. Most recently, Sharpa unveiled its biggest collaboration to date with Nvidia and Unitree, to provide research teams with a comprehensive, integrated, and secure platform that will help them accelerate their robotics projects, from initial system integration to skills development and real-world validation. These partnerships position Singapore as both a dynamic testbed for real-world robot deployments and a hub for advancing the field of embodied AI on a global scale.

Hear from Sharpa’s founder David Li on why Singapore emerged as the ideal base for scaling a global robotics company, the innovations the company is bringing to market, and how Singapore's ecosystem is enabling the development of AI-powered robots.
 

Why did Singapore emerge as the right choice to scale Sharpa's global headquarters?

The rate of technology adoption in Singapore is world-leading – think about the digitalisation of government services, the software spending per capita, or the adoption of AI chatbots, which are among the highest in the world. It is driven by a government that does not just identify challenges, such as an ageing population leading to structural labour shortages in the workforce, but builds solutions to address them early on.

From a strategic standpoint, the country sits at an extraordinary intersection. Singapore provides strong global connectivity with deep integration into regional supply chains that can produce high-quality robotic components cost-effectively. For a hardware company like Sharpa, access to such connectivity and a vibrant ecosystem is invaluable.

Tell us more about Sharpa's priorities and what you’re focused on in Singapore?

Our mission is to manufacture time by enabling robots to take on repetitive, strenuous, and hazardous work so people can focus on higher-value and more meaningful work. We are not satisfied with lab demonstrations that succeed 90 per cent of the time. In January 2026 at CES, we demonstrated that our robot, North, can run autonomous, uninterrupted eight-hour shifts on fine manipulation tasks.

Building on that experience, our focus is now on accelerating commercial adoption. North will become available to enterprises by the end of 2026, and it will soon execute real-world shifts starting with the service industry. These deployments will help us gather the data, build the reliability, and earn the trust required for true general-purpose deployment.

Singapore is central to this journey. We are deploying pilot programmes with JTC and Grab on F&B and retail use cases in Punggol Digital District as proving grounds for solutions we will bring to the rest of the world.
 

What unique innovations or capabilities is Sharpa bringing into Singapore's robotics ecosystem?

The problem we are solving is what we call the “manipulation bottleneck”. The robotics industry has spent decades perfecting locomotion – how robots move through space. But until recently, no one had cracked the harder challenge: how robots physically interact with objects or tools at the level of precision that service, care, and home tasks demand.

Our answer begins with Wave, a dexterous robotic hand that mirrors the human hand in shape and size. It can perform the same range of movements as a human hand and can manipulate human tools. Its dexterity and reliability are powered by the sense of touch. We have developed ultra-sensitive tactile sensors that provide 1,000 pixels of tactile resolution per fingertip, enabling North to adjust its grip in real time.
 

Our robots are powered by CraftNet, our proprietary tactile-enabled AI architecture. What distinguishes CraftNet is how it integrates three systems: a reasoning brain that understands the goal of a task, a motion system that coordinates the body towards it, and a tactile feedback loop that activates the moment contact is made – adjusting in real time, with the sensitivity to distinguish a lightweight plastic cup from a heavy ceramic mug without crushing either.
 

What difference has Singapore's innovation and R&D ecosystem made to Sharpa’s mission?

We work with Singapore’s universities on embodied AI research, providing the Wave hands to academic teams advancing AI models for dexterous manipulation, and sometimes co-authoring papers. In a field evolving this rapidly, you want to be challenged and validated by the broader scientific community, not just working in isolation.

Equally important is the ability to deploy solutions in operational environments. Through partnerships with organisations such as A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research, we are exploring embodied AI applications for port operations – specifically twist-lock coning and de-coning for container handling – to assist with workers' tasks that are physically demanding, and sometimes performed in harsh conditions.

These partnerships provide access to real commercial environments, edge cases, and data that we simply cannot replicate in laboratory settings. This ability to bridge research and commercial deployment is one of Singapore’s key strengths.
 

How does Singapore's skilled talent pool enable Sharpa's ambitions?

The level of education here is genuinely high, and top universities like the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University have heavily invested in AI research. A strong and growing community has formed around Singapore's robotics and AI initiatives – A*STAR, the National Robotics Programme, IMDA, and others have been federating and activating this talent in ways that create real density.

For Sharpa, Singapore gives us access to AI scientists who can advance our foundation models, mechatronics engineers who can work at the intersection of hardware and intelligent systems, and solutions engineers who can partner with industrial clients to deploy, iterate, and improve our robots in the field. We are actively recruiting across all three profiles as we scale our operations here.
 

What are Sharpa's expansion plans and how will Singapore play a role?

As North enters the market, Singapore will serve as one of our operational environments, starting with service industry applications. The operational insights and reliability built here will help shape our expansion into other use cases and markets.

Singapore's role extends beyond being a testbed. The country's position as a gateway to Asia, combined with its strong regulatory framework and innovation partnerships, makes it the ideal hub for scaling our technology across the region. As we move toward our ultimate goal of general-purpose robots that can assist with domestic chores and a range of commercial use cases, Singapore will remain central to our research, development, and deployment strategy.