Sharpa Aims to "Manufacture Time" via Its CraftNet VTLA Model, and Stuns CES 2026 with Live Autonomous Demos for Fine Manipulation

SINGAPORE, Jan. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Sharpa's newly debuted full body robot, North, played fully autonomous ping-pong rallies with human opponents, drawing crowds that cheered as the volleys continued. For four straight days—eight hours a day—Sharpa opted for a live game rather than a scripted showcase. Sharpa also introduced CraftNet, an end-to-end hierarchical VTLA (vision–tactile–language–action) model designed to advance fine manipulation. Together, these milestones underscore Sharpa's integrated hardware, software, and AI capabilities. For Sharpa, AI robotics is a mission to return people's time back to us, as they put:

"We manufacture time by making robots useful."

In May 2025, Sharpa introduced Wave, a dexterous robotic hand with 22 active degrees of freedom, 1:1 human scale and a proprietary dynamic tactile array. Wave entered mass production and began shipping in October 2025. At CES, North demonstrated advanced fine manipulation capabilities powered by Wave, completed four fully autonomous demonstrations: robot photography, ping-pong rallying, windmill assembly, and card dealing, showcasing precise and consistent performance.

Throughout the show, Sharpa ran live sessions for eight hours each day and maintained strong on-site engagement. North captured more than 2,000 instant photos and assembled more than 300 windmills. The windmill task, in particular, stood out for its long-horizon autonomy, requiring more than 30 consecutive successful steps to complete. This is one of the longest-horizon tasks ever demonstrated for fully autonomous manipulation. The demonstrations quickly spread across social media and drew huge attention from robotics practitioners. Sharpa expects to release the production version of North in mid-2026.

"Robots can already dance and backflip, but manipulation remains the real bottleneck for useful, autonomous robots," said Alicia Veneziani, Sharpa's Global VP of GTM and President of Europe. "At Sharpa, we focus on productivity from day one, which is why we started with the hardest part, the hand."

"Tactileless is the new blindness"

Sharpa also introduced CraftNet. Built on Sharpa's multi-system manipulation architecture, which mimics the human system of reflexes and higher functions, CraftNet combines two complementary layers for reliable fine manipulation: System 0, the Interaction Brain, and System 1, the Motion Brain, to optimize "last-millimeter" interaction. It quickly became a standout topic, because it is critical to whether a robot can move from impressive demos to reliable work. Sharpa will share updates on CraftNet in phases.

"Last millimeter is 90% of the challenge"

Collectively, both CraftNet and North reflect Sharpa's integrated hardware-and-software approach to scalable autonomous manipulation, which is a breakthrough for real-world deployment. Sharpa sees expanding opportunities across retail, restaurants, and hotels, and ultimately the home, where robots can move beyond novelty and begin taking on meaningful work in everyday settings. By enabling robots powered by CraftNet to take on repetitive, tedious, and sometimes dangerous work, every manual task they assume becomes a deposit into humanity's "time bank." In this way, Sharpa fulfills its mission as a manufacturer of time—by making robots truly useful.

Sharpa was co-founded by Shaoqing Xiang, David Li, and Kai Sun. The company employs more than 100 people globally, with backgrounds spanning leading AI, autonomous driving, and robotics companies.

About Sharpa

Founded in 2024, Sharpa is an AI robotics company focused on building ultra-high-performance robots and core components for future general-purpose robotic applications. Sharpa's mission is to manufacture time by making robots useful.

Sharpa's global headquarters and R&D are based in Singapore, with a business operation center in Mountain View, USA, and its manufacturing R&D center in Shanghai, China.

SOURCE Sharpa