A pair of swivelling, human-like robotic arms, built for physical artificial intelligence research, mirror the motions of an operator in a VR headset twirling his hands like a magician.

With enough practice, arms like these can complete everyday tasks alone, says Tokyo company Enactic, which is developing humanoid robots to wash dishes and do laundry in short-staffed Japanese care homes.

Welcome to the future of AI as it starts to infiltrate the material world in the form of smart robots, self-driving cars and other autonomous machines.

“The next wave of AI is physical AI,” Jensen Huang, head of US chip giant Nvidia, said last year.

That’s “AI that understands the laws of physics, AI that can work among us” and understands “how to perceive the world”, Huang added.

Tech firms are pouri

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