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 announced a $350 million Series A financing spherical geared 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 TechCrunch 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 unit ground, this new deal additionally finds Florida-based Jabil and Apptronik changing into manufacturing companions. As soon as Apollo is set to be commercially viable, Jabil will start producing the robotic in its personal factories. Which means ought to all the pieces go in keeping with plan, the humanoid robotic will finally be put to work constructing itself.
Given the humanoid trade’s deal with manufacturing, such offers seem to be an inevitability. The prospect of humanoids constructing humanoids continues to be a methods off for Apptronik, nevertheless. The robotics startup lately advised TechCrunch that it’s focusing on 2026 to start manufacturing industrial items.
In the intervening time, the Jabil deal will discover an undisclosed variety of Apollo methods performing a variety of “easy, repetitive intralogistics and manufacturing duties,” together with issues like sorting and transporting elements. The true-world validation is a key step towards scaling the robotic for manufacturing. The higher Apollo performs on the Jabil manufacturing unit ground, the nearer it turns into to slotting right into a manufacturing line that may finally embody Apollo itself.
Apptronik is one in all numerous corporations 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 numerous parts working in its favor. Along with a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands in funding, the College of Texas spinoff has a decade of expertise engaged on humanoids, together with NASA’s Valkyrie robotic. Last December, Apptronik introduced a partnership with Google DeepMind to develop AI for its humanoid methods.
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