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OpenMind Opens Pre-Orders for "BrainPack," Betting on a Universal Nervous System for Robots
Silicon Valley, CA – Three months after securing a $20 million Series A led by Pantera Capital to build a "shared intelligence network," OpenMind has revealed the hardware vehicle for that vision.
The company announced this week that it is opening pre-orders for the "BrainPack," a modular hardware-software system designed to retrofit existing robots with high-level autonomy. While the company has been active for some time, this launch marks the transition from protocol development to shipping physical products.
The Hardware: A "Sidecar" for Intelligence
The BrainPack is effectively a high-powered, backpack-sized computer and sensor suite intended to strap onto third-party robots. At its core is NVIDIA’s Jetson Thor, a computing platform built specifically for transformer models and generative AI in robotics.
OpenMind positions the device as a plug-and-play solution that adds a sophisticated "cortex" to robots that might otherwise rely on more basic internal compute. Key specifications and features include:
- Perception: 3D spatial mapping and real-time scene reconstruction.
- Privacy: Native, automated face detection and blurring to anonymize humans in the robot's field of view—a feature likely aimed at soothing privacy concerns for deployments in public spaces.
- Autonomy: Auto-labeling of objects for semantic understanding and self-docking capabilities for charging.
The system is launching with explicit compatibility for platforms from Unitree Robotics, specifically the G1 humanoid and the Go2 quadruped. This strategic alignment leverages Unitree's growing dominance in affordable hardware.
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Beyond the Backpack: OM1 and FABRIC
While the hardware provides the eyes and ears, OpenMind’s broader play remains software infrastructure. The BrainPack runs on OM1, the company's hardware-agnostic operating system.
CEO Jan Liphardt, a Stanford professor who has been advocating for open systems in biology and AI, argues that the current robotics landscape is fractured. "Today’s robots are trapped in single-vendor ecosystems that limit collaboration," Liphardt noted in August.
To bridge these islands, the BrainPack utilizes FABRIC, a protocol designed to let robots verify their identity and share context trustlessly. In theory, this would allow a robot from one manufacturer to coordinate with a robot from another, creating what Liphardt calls a "connective tissue" or nervous system for physical AI.
The Wait for "Accountable Intelligence"
Despite the "launching today" messaging on social media, the physical reality is still on the horizon. OpenMind is accepting pre-orders with a $999 deposit, but full units—which can be bundled with a Unitree robot—are not scheduled to ship until 2026.
With $20 million in the bank and backing from crypto-native investors like Pantera and Coinbase Ventures, OpenMind is betting that the industry will value a neutral, decentralized layer for robot coordination over proprietary walled gardens.
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