AI · Robotics · Research to Production

Julian Ibarz

AI & robotics leader — from frontier research to the factory floor.

Senior Manager, Tesla AI · previously Google Brain

Portrait of Julian Ibarz

For 13+ years I've taken frontier AI into production. At Google Maps I led the AI work and defined its strategy — including the first neural network on Google's TPUs in production and worldwide map automation from Street View. I built the manipulation-focused robot learning team at Google Brain, then the Optimus AI team at Tesla, where AI demos help define the right hardware for production.

Now

Tesla AICurrent

Senior Manager · first leadership hire for Optimus AI · building the Optimus AI team and demos that shape hardware for production.

Previously

Google

Maps — led AI & defined strategy; first neural net on TPUs in production; map automation from Street View. Brain — built & led the manipulation-focused robot learning team (QT-Opt, RT-1).

Selected demos

  1. 2024 Human-interaction autonomy — handing snacks in the lab Oct 2024 · not teleoperated
  2. 2024 Factory battery sorting May 2024 · autonomous on the factory floor
  3. 2023 First end-to-end learned grasp on Optimus May 2023 · from human demonstrations

Talks

  1. 2019 Challenges of self-supervision via interaction in robotics IROS 2019 · Open-Ended Learning workshop · slides
  2. 2014 Multi-digit number recognition from Street View imagery ICLR 2014 · with Ian Goodfellow & Yaroslav Bulatov · video

Selected publications

28,500+ citations · h-index 28

  1. 2022 Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding language in robotic affordances (SayCan) 4,300+
  2. 2022 RT-1: Robotics Transformer for real-world control at scale 2,900+
  3. 2018 QT-Opt: Scalable deep reinforcement learning for vision-based robotic manipulation 2,200+
  4. 2017 In-datacenter performance analysis of a Tensor Processing Unit 7,500+
  5. 2017 Updating Google Maps with Deep Learning and Street View
  6. 2016 Learning hand-eye coordination for robotic grasping with deep learning 3,300+
  7. 2013 Multi-digit number recognition from Street View imagery using deep CNNs 1,000+
All publications on Google Scholar →