Fully Funded PhD: Physical AI for Real-World Robotics

Durham University; North East; On-site; GBP 18,000 - 22,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Covers Home tuition fees

Tax-free stipend

Job summary

Durham University invites applications for a fully funded PhD supervised by Intel. The project develops Physical AI for real robots, integrating perception, reasoning, learning and action with cutting-edge models and robotics hardware.

Co-supervision from Durham academics and Intel engineers supports a broad, publication-focused approach. Applicants should hold a relevant degree, show strong programming and interest in ML, CV, robotics, embodied AI, and foundation models.

Qualifications

• Applicants need a relevant undergraduate or master’s degree (computer science, AI, engineering, mathematics, physics or related).
• Strong programming ability and interest in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, embodied AI, foundation models or autonomous systems.
• Motivation to research and publish; ability to link theory, implementation and evaluation; Durham English language requirements.
• Experience in robotics, reinforcement learning, foundation or vision-language models, efficient inference or embedded AI is useful, not essential.

Responsibilities

• Develop capable, efficient, deployable Physical AI for real robots.
• Explore topics such as robot vision-language-action models and real-time planning.
• Pursue data-efficient learning with demonstrations and interaction; train and evaluate models.
• Collaborate with Durham and Intel supervisors; contribute to research publications.

Skills

Strong programming

Machine learning

Computer vision

Robotics

Reinforcement learning

Embodied AI

Foundation models

Autonomous systems

Education

Undergraduate or Master’s degree

Tools

GPU clusters

Job description

Durham University invites applications for a fully funded PhD supervised by Intel. The project develops Physical AI for real robots, integrating perception, reasoning, learning and action with cutting-edge models and robotics hardware.

Co-supervision from Durham academics and Intel engineers supports a broad, publication-focused approach. Applicants should hold a relevant degree, show strong programming and interest in ML, CV, robotics, embodied AI, and foundation models.