It has now been announced that Munich-based RobCo GmbH will be part of the first cohort of the Physical AI Fellowship, a new funding programme initiated by Amazon Web Services (AWS), NVIDIA and MassRobotics. The programme supports start-ups that develop intelligent systems for use in the physical world and includes not only consulting services related to technology, market developments, software and hardware, but also access to a global robotics network.

With this funding, RobCo is moving closer to its goal of developing the next generation of modular, intelligent robots for manufacturing – autonomous ‘manufacturing agents’ that can perceive, adapt and act accordingly without manual programming. In the short term, RobCo is focusing on further developing applications where adaptability plays a crucial role, such as textile handling, bin picking and assembly.

Access to AWS cloud credits and experts, NVIDIA's hardware and software stack, and MassRobotics' testing environment and ecosystem will particularly help RobCo expand its simulation and reinforcement learning pipelines. This will enable the development of scalable solutions for various use cases in industrial automation. This is especially true for industries that have not yet had access to robotics due to their complexity.

‘We want to automate the ordinary so that people can do the extraordinary,’ explains Roman Hölzl, co-founder and CEO of RobCo, adding: "Reshoring initiatives and labour shortages are accelerating automation, and the convergence of physical technology and AI is opening up entirely new possibilities. By combining AWS's cloud infrastructure, NVIDIA's AI, simulation and accelerated computing technologies, and MassRobotics' testing environment, we can develop adaptable, autonomous and affordable robots."

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