Unchained How Virtuals' New AI Accelerator Will Bring Humanoid Robots to the Real World
Feb 23, 2026
Jansen Teng, CEO and co-founder of Virtuals Protocol, builds tokenized AI agents and agentic commerce. He unveils Eastworld Labs, an accelerator helping teams deploy humanoid robots with funding, data and a Kuala Lumpur lab. Topics covered include teleoperation-first use cases, robotic fleet data collection, real-world deployments in retail/hospitality, tokenization for robot projects, and strategies to scale agent-to-agent commerce.
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Teleoperation Enables Immediate Commercial Use Cases
- Teleoperation is a near-term commercial strategy: remotely operated humanoids capture wage-arbitrage by placing operators in lower-cost countries.
- Jansen estimates current cost savings at 40–60% for services like plumbing, security, retail, and HVAC before full autonomy.
Keep A Local Ops Team To Manage Robot Fleets
- Plan for on-the-ground operations and maintenance when deploying humanoids; expect a local ops team for repairs, repositioning, and oversight.
- Jansen predicts human fetch/servicing roles will persist during early commercialization and security incidents.
First G1 Tests In WeWork Showed Surprising Physical Power
- Early testing of a G1 in a cramped WeWork produced unexpected strength: the robot flipped tables and knocked equipment during kung-fu style motions.
- The episode convinced Jansen the hardware has forceful actuators that deter casual tampering.