Artificially intelligent robot "Sophia" created and programmed by Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based humanoid robotics company, is the first robot in the world to be recognised with a citizenship of Saudi Arabia.

Sophia’s face is made of a patented material called “Frubber” (a flesh rubber), a proprietary nano-tech skin that mimics real human musculature and skin, allowing her to simulate human-like facial features and expressions. Her “brain” runs on MindCloud, Hanson Robotics’ cloud-based artificially intelligence (AI), which enables large-scale cloud control and deep-learning data analytics for processing massive social data gathered from interactions. The AI and cognitive architecture that make up Sofia's neural network make her possible to hold eye contact, recognise faces and understand human speech.

Various control systems are run on Sophia, namely the Timeline Editor, Sophisticated Chat System and OpenCog. Timeline Editor is a straight scripting software, whereas the Sophisticated Chat System allows Sophia to pick up and respond to key words and phrases. The OpenCog grounds Sophia's answers in experience and reasoning.

The mission of Hanson Robotics devoting to AI robotics is to help solve problems in the world such as hunger and poverty with higher intelligence of AI robots. Currently, Sophia can work for certain job functions such as promoting products, guiding directions and providing customer services. In the far future, there is a possible vision that AI robots can be smarter and help on humans’ work even more.