Sanctuary co-founder Geordie Rose is departing the robotics startup. Mr. Rose is pictured here in 2018 with Thormang, one of several robots at Sanctuary's Vancouver headquarters.Sean Silcoff/Sean Silcoff
Geordie Rose, the co-founder of robotics company Sanctuary AI and one B.C’s best-known technology entrepreneurs, is leaving his role as chief executive officer, marking the second high-profile leadership change this year at the Vancouver-based startup.
Sanctuary AI said in a blog post Monday that Mr. Rose is exiting his position “after much consideration.” The board tapped chief commercial officer James Wells to step in as interim CEO.
“Geordie is a pioneering force and visionary in the development of human-like intelligence and humanoid robotics, a category he created,” the company said in its blog post.
It did not explain the reasons for Mr. Rose’s departure. Neither he nor anyone at Sanctuary AI immediately replied to requests for comment.
Co-founder Suzanne Gildert also left the company in April.
Mr. Rose and Ms. Gildert started Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corp. in 2018, and Mr. Rose has described its mission as building “billions of AGI-enabled humanoid robots to do the world’s work.” AGI refers to artificial general intelligence, meaning extremely advanced AI systems that are as smart or smarter than human beings. While some in the field consider AGI to be the Holy Grail of technological progress, others dismiss the concept as science fiction.
So far, the company has applied its technology to the kind of manual labour that is typical for robotics firms. Sanctuary AI has focused heavily on the manual dexterity of its robot, dubbed Phoenix, which is powered by a learning system called Carbon.
The company announced a partnership earlier this year with Magna International to deploy the robot in factories operated by the auto-parts manufacturer. It has also tested its robots with the clothing retailer Mark’s, which is owned by Canadian Tire Corp.
Both Magna and Canadian Tire are investors, along with Export Development Canada, BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund and the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund. The company has raised $140-million, to date.
Mr. Rose has a history as a serial entrepreneur and started quantum computing company D-Wave Systems Inc. in 1999. Along with Ms. Gildert, he launched robotics firm Kindred Systems Inc. in 2014. The quest for AGI was a component at Kindred, as well, and the company spun out Sanctuary as a standalone AGI entity in 2018.
Mr. Rose had already been withdrawing from Kindred’s commercial operations, The Globe and Mail reported in 2018. “I was extremely clear to anybody who asks that the only reason I do these things is to create AGI,” he said at the time. “Being a CEO of a company that develops warehouse robots – that’s just not me.”
Kindred followed the path of more conventional robotics companies and was eventually acquired by online grocer Ocado Group in 2020.
In August, Mr. Rose announced he had started another venture called Snowdrop Quantum Applications Corp., which aims to find and demonstrate real-world uses for quantum computing. Ms. Gildert, meanwhile, runs Nirvanic Consciousness Technologies in Vancouver, whose goal is to “enable a new type of artificial consciousness in AI.”
A number of other companies are developing humanoid robots alongside Sanctuary AI, including Tesla Inc.