Spirit AI, a Chinese startup, has proudly announced that its Spirit v1.5 model has claimed the top spot on the RoboChallenge real-world robotics benchmark, surpassing a prominent U.S. model. The Spirit v1.5 achieved an impressive total score of 66.09 and a task success rate of 50.33%, outperforming the pi0.5 model developed by U.S.-based Physical Intelligence. This notable achievement has placed Spirit AI at the forefront of embodied intelligence models.
RoboChallenge, known as a significant evaluation platform for robots, rigorously tests embodied intelligence models in physical environments through 30 tasks that simulate everyday operations like object placement, target recognition, and tool use. Spirit v1.5 not only secured the highest overall score on the platform but was also the sole model to achieve a success rate exceeding 50%, based on publicly available data.
Established in Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang Province in eastern China, Spirit AI is dedicated to research in embodied intelligence and robotics. In June 2025, the company unveiled its Moz1 humanoid robot, designed for enterprise applications including logistics and industrial scenarios. Qiu Jiefan, an associate professor at Zhejiang University of Technology, emphasized that the top-ranking of Spirit v1.5 underscores its exceptional capabilities in general robotics tasks and real-world implementation. He highlighted the significance of embodied intelligence in comprehending and executing various tasks and scenarios.
Han Fengtao, the founder and CEO of Spirit AI, explained that Spirit v1.5’s success can be attributed to its unified Vision-Language-Action (VLA) architecture, seamlessly integrating perception, reasoning, and action into a cohesive system, thereby reducing errors commonly associated with modular approaches. The company foresees a proliferation of service robots within the next two to three years as a result of this breakthrough. While large-scale deployment is not currently feasible, this achievement signifies a substantial advancement towards practical application.
Furthermore, Spirit AI has made its leading model and associated resources open-source, contributing to the broader research community. The company’s exceptional performance on the RoboChallenge platform underscores its commitment to advancing the field of embodied intelligence and robotics, positioning it as a key player in the industry’s ongoing innovation and development efforts.
About the Author
