🌐 The Industrial Transition, June 2024
Hi all, hope you’re well. We have another packed edition!
📢 PSAs:
I will be in Berlin June 3rd - 6th, to speak at the TOA Conference. HMU if you’re around
I’m hosting the next instalment of the RealTech Conference in London on September 20th. We have some awesome speakers lined up to be announced - founders, leading policy thinkers and investors. If you’d like to apply to attend, please do so here.
🦾 Manufacturing and Robotics
🤗 Hugging Face releases LeRobot library - an open-source dataset, model and simulation PyTorch library aimed at further democratising ML in robotics. They have implemented and real-world tested 31 datasets and sim environments from academia allowing roboticists to build and test without a physical robot. We previously covered Hugging Face’s push into open-source robotics, hiring ex-Tesla Optimus staff scientist Remi Cadene to lead their efforts. Hugging Face’s explicit goal is to make “LeRobot [..] to robotics what the Transformers library is to NLP”
🦾NVIDIA robotics research - the new research group, Generalist Embodied Agent Research (GEAR), led by Dr Jim Fan continues to release interesting work:
Language guided sim-to-real (NVIDIA). DrEureka uses LLMs to write code to automate reward design and domain randomisation in sim-to-real world transfer, streamlining the effectiveness of policy training for robotic tasks. The approach allows robust and adaptive robot policies that can perform well in diverse real-world conditions without extensive manual fine-tuning. The results are impressive, in this example a simulation wouldn’t be able to predict the bouncing of the ball accurately:
RoboCasa, making household tasks trainable to robots (NVIDIA) - RoboCasa is a large-scale simulation framework designed to train robots on household tasks. They use generative AI to create diverse and realistic 3D assets and environment textures. RoboCasa includes over 2,500 high-quality 3D objects across 150 categories and 120 kitchen scenes. We’re seeing more efforts in academia and commercial labs to train robots on common household chores - notable ex-Cruise CEO, Kyle Vogt just announced his new startup, Bot Company, to tackle this problem space (LinkedIn announcement).
☁️ Cloud vendors continue to push aggressively into supply chain and manufacturing companies. These industries constitute 20% of GDP and currently have <20% cloud penetration, a greenfield market for cloud vendors such as Azure, GCP, and AWS. In our annual review, we covered hyperscalers’ massive push into industrial automation.
“Today, we are witnessing the manufacturing industry enter a transformative era, fueled by AI [..]. This AI-driven shift is prompting many organizations to fundamentally alter their business models and re-evaluate how to address industry-wide challenges like data siloes from disparate data estates and legacy products, supply chain visibility issues, labor shortages, and the need for upskilling employees, among others” - Microsoft
Microsoft has been pushing aggressively to win market share, this last month announcing a multitude of new products and partnerships from cloud to edge computing on the shop floor; partnering with Bright Machines to bring software-defined manufacturing across the product lifecycle to Azure customers, Jumpstart Agora for Manufacturing - a cloud to edge applications repository for manufacturers, Microsoft Fabric an AI co-pilot for factory operations, a new co-pilot for Field Services 365 to enable front line workers and SIGMA an open-source mixed reality headset for physical tasks.
OpenAI is restarting its robotics research group - the company previously disbanded its robotics team in July 2021 (pre-GPT3) - the team had put out impressive work in dextrous manipulation (video below). A team that spun out of the original research group went on to found Covariant, a warehouse automation company that recently released its own foundation model, RFM-1 (previously covered here).
Today, many robotics companies are using OpenAI’s GPT APIs to enhance model capabilities and bridge human<>machine interactions. Based on OpenAI’s job listings for Research Engineers, they will focus on “building large multi-modal models for robotics and collaborating with the robotics industry”.
🇲🇦Nearshoring manufacturing, European edition - Morocco has emerged as a hub for automotive manufacturing - buoyed by government investment, cheap labour, proximity to Europe and strong diplomatic relationships with France especially. Morocco did not export a single car 15 years ago, though today houses over 250 automotive manufacturers generating $15bn of exports annually (22% of GDP). The local government are providing subsidies of up to 35% and permitting in just a few months for new factory builds.
⛓Insecure supply chains, renews interest in 3D printing. Amid persistently challenging global supply chains, large automotive and aerospace companies are shifting capacity to 3D printers. Finnair are upgrading parts in their fleet of A320s, through AM Craft an EASA-licensed additive manufacturer. Similarly, BMW 3D printed over 300,000 parts in-house in 2023. The benefits of 3D printing are the ability to produce lightweight parts just-in-time, minimising inventory costs and supply chain risks.
✈️The US’ Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) approves large drone for flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight - American Aerospace Technologies’ (AATI) large drone has been approved to fly BVLOS. The drone has a 5-metre wingspan and 99kg take-off weight with a 34kg payload and will be used to inspect critical infrastructure. Amazon’s Prime Air have been quick to react, and has also now received FAA authorisation for BVLOS drone delivery. This will likely change the landscape of supply chain and logistics in the US.
🌍 Climate Tech
Open sourcing AI for climate progress. Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) and Georgia Tech have released OpenDAC, a dataset and challenge aimed at finding new sorbents for Direct Air Capture (DAC) using computational chemistry. DAC captures and sequesters CO2 from ambient air. With current implementations suffering from very high capture costs, due to sorbent inefficiencies. Current DAC costs are $550 per ton, with the industry aiming for <$150 per ton. The OpenDAC project contains reaction data for 8,400 different materials and nearly 40 million quantum mechanics calculations - the largest and most robust dataset of its kind. Providing this open dataset to materials discovery researchers aims to speed up the implementation of negative carbon technologies such as DAC.
Zero carbon cement recycling - cement contributes to 7.5% of GHGs, it is one of the most abundant made-man materials. Researchers at Cambridge University have created, Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC), a company which has developed a means of recycling cement. Making cement requires clinker, which is made by heating a mix of raw materials, including limestone and clay, to 1450°c. CEC utilises used cement, which has a similar chemistry to lime-flux in steel recycling. This new cement production process eliminates emissions, saves raw materials, and reduces lime-flux production emissions.
Recycling for fashion textiles - Swedish holding company Vargas, best known for incubating Northvolt and H2 Green Steel, announced their latest company. Syre, is a textile-to-textile recycling company. They collect used garments and use a novel depolymerisation process to produce circular polyester. The quality is claimed to be on par with virgin polyester but with superior sustainability performance, reducing CO2e by up to 85% compared to the production of oil-based virgin polyester. Synthetic fibres like polyester can take up to 200 years to decompose and fast fashion contributes directly to up to 10% of GHGs.
🌐Tech Geopolitics and Defence
🇪🇺 €1bn for European defence-industrial investments - The EU has approved €1bn of funding for 54 defence R&D projects, through the European Defence Fund (EDF). The projects will fill technology gaps in existing domains (land, sea, air, cyber). It would be a great next step to see these budgets allocated to the future of defensive capabilities in EM spectrum, drone autonomy, sub-sea and space.
Defensive capabilities are ushering in a new era of aerospace innovation. This also coincides with increased distrust for fallen aerospace giant Boeing, after a string of accidents.
DARPA has chosen 6 firms for its Advanced Aircraft Infrastructure-Less Launch and Recovery (ANCILLARY) program, which looks to develop drones that can take off and land vertically from ships. These drones will carry cargo (>30kg), and conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions (100 miles range, 20 hours of flight time) - importantly they must do so without mechanical launchers or landing and recovery equipment.
Aurora Flight Sciences announced their 'fan in wing’ concept, as part of DARPA’s Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) program - the aircraft can “cruise at speeds from 400 to 450 knots at relevant altitudes and hover in austere environments from unprepared surfaces."
Airbus reveals ‘Racer’ a half-plane, half-helicopter. The aircraft has both a traditional overhead heli rotor and two fixed forward-facing propellors. Dubbed the ‘Racer’, it’s designed for vertical take-off and speed, which in search and rescue missions is crucial. Other manufacturers such as Leonardo and Bell are working on tilt-rotor technology, and are vying for NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) program.
Market forces are maintaining Boeing and Airbus’s oligopolistic positions - today there is an order backlog of over 15,000 aircraft. I hope this is an opening for a new generation of aircraft manufacturers, such as Swedish clean sheet hybrid electric powertrain manufacturer Heart Aerospace - who just announced opening an R&D hub in Los Angeles.
Anduril launched Pulsar, a family of modular, multi-mission-capable electromagnetic warfare (EW) systems that use edge AI to identify and defeat threats across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Palantir’s $480m computer vision Navy contract - I previously posited that Palantir is the first US software defence prime, which now seems irrefutable. The Army has contracted Palantir to build the MAVEN Smart System (MSS), used by Central Command. MAVEN fuses data from various Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to identify areas of interest.
🍟The European Chips Act trickles down - Imec has been awarded €2.5bn to build a 2nm semiconductor test line in Leuven, Belgium. The EU’s €43bn Chips Act, announced in 2023, is being allocated towards ensuring Europe’s semiconductor and in turn AI sovereignty, long way to go though.
The US’ Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), published its annual report. The report gives insights into the future direction of defensive technologies. The report touches on a few big themes;
Adopt commercial tech, accelerating the government's use of commercial technologies
New defence domains: prioritising advancements in AI, drone-based autonomy, cybersecurity and electronic warfare (EW), energy resilience and space
Strengthen collaborations with the commercial technology sector
👭From the community
Infrastructure is remaking geopolitics (Foreign Affairs)
💰Notable Funding Rounds
Wayve ($1.05bn Series C) the London-based autonomous vehicle company raised $1bn led by Softbank
Verkor (€1.3bn debt) the French battery production company raised from a consortium of 19 banks
Bolt (€220m debt) the Estonian shared mobility business raised a debt facility ahead of a potential IPO
Bot Company ($150m seed), led by ex-Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, Bot are planning to build robots for household chores. The round was led by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross
Syre ($100m Series A), the Swedish textile recycling company is the latest out of Vargas Holdings (Northvolt, H2 Green Steel, Aira). The round was led by Vargas, TPG Rise Climate, with participation from Giant Ventures and Norskken
Aerodome ($21m Series A) a US drone-as-first-responder company raised from CRV and a16z
Oklo (SPAC merger, NYSE:OKLO), the San Jose, CA company that builds and deploys fission reactors merged with the NYSE listed AltC Acquisition Corp
Cylib (€55m Series A) the Achen, Germany-based company provides battery recycling, the round was led by World Fund and Porsche Ventures
Li Industries ($36m Series B) the company recycles lithium-ion batteries. The round was co-led by Bosch, Khosla and LG Technologies
Neros ($10m seed) is an autonomous drone company, led by the former FPV racing world champion. The round was led by Sequoia
Ndustrial ($18.5m Series B) is an energy optimisation platform for industrials and utilities, the round was led by ABB and GS Energy
CoLab Software ($21m Series B) provides software to improve CAD design review for mechanical engineers, the round was led by Insight
OrcaAI ($23m) the company provides autonomy for shipping, the round was led by OCV Partners and Mizmaa Ventures
Pascal ($8m seed) is a Boston based climate-friendly HVAC company, the round was led by Khosla and The Engine
Lucid Bot ($9m Series A) have built drones to clean public areas, such as buildings and sidewalks. The round was led by Cubit Capital
Rollup ($5m seed) is a hardware engineer platform focused on requirements and design review, the round was led by a16z