Apptronik, an Austin-based maker of humanoid robots, on Tuesday introduced a brand new pilot partnership with American provide chain/manufacturing stalwart, Jabil. The deal arrives two weeks after Apptronik introduced a $350 million Sequence A financing spherical aimed toward scaling up manufacturing of its Apollo robotic.
The Jabil deal is the second main pilot introduced by Apptronik. It follows a March 2024 partnership that put Apollo to work on the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing ground. Whereas the corporate tells iinfoai that its partnership with the automaker is ongoing, it has but to graduate past the pilot stage.
Along with take a look at operating the humanoid robotic on its manufacturing facility ground, this new deal additionally finds Florida-based Jabil and Apptronik changing into manufacturing companions. As soon as Apollo is decided to be commercially viable, Jabil will start producing the robotic in its personal factories. Which means ought to every part go in keeping with plan, the humanoid robotic will finally be put to work constructing itself.
Given the humanoid trade’s give attention to manufacturing, such offers appear to be an inevitability. The prospect of humanoids constructing humanoids continues to be a methods off for Apptronik, nonetheless. The robotics startup just lately instructed iinfoai that it’s focusing on 2026 to start manufacturing business models.
In the interim, the Jabil deal will discover an undisclosed variety of Apollo techniques performing a variety of “easy, repetitive intralogistics and manufacturing duties,” together with issues like sorting and transporting components. The actual-world validation is a key step towards scaling the robotic for manufacturing. The higher Apollo performs on the Jabil manufacturing facility ground, the nearer it turns into to slotting right into a manufacturing line that can finally embrace Apollo itself.
Apptronik is one in all various firms constructing humanoid robots for industrial purposes, together with Agility, Boston Dynamics, Determine, and Tesla. Of those, solely Agility has introduced that its robots have been deployed past an preliminary pilot part.
Competitors could also be stiff for the nascent class, however Apptronik has various parts working in its favor. Along with a whole bunch of tens of millions in funding, the College of Texas spinoff has a decade of expertise engaged on humanoids, together with NASA’s Valkyrie robotic. Final December, Apptronik introduced a partnership with Google DeepMind to develop AI for its humanoid techniques.
