Counting the Pieces to Assemble
Shop Talk
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
In the race to build the next generation of robots, AI giants are making an audacious bet: that their mastery of artificial intelligence will unlock the secrets of physical automation. OpenAI, Tesla, and NVIDIA aren’t just writing code - they’re creating virtual worlds where digital robots learn and fail millions of times before their physical counterparts take a single step. While these tech titans may have already claimed ownership of the ‘robot mind,’ a more pressing question emerges: who will forge their bodies?
Assembly Line
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
How Long Can Toyota Put Off Figuring Out EVs?
Toyota’s first global EV, the bZ4X, illustrates how traditional automotive manufacturing wisdom can become a barrier to innovation. While Toyota’s Production System excels at incremental improvements, exemplified by their steel cross-car beam refined over decades for ICE vehicles, EV leaders Tesla and BYD have reimagined components from scratch. Their plastic beam equivalent weighs just 14 pounds, costs less, and is simpler to install - a solution that emerged from thinking beyond traditional constraints.
This divide extends to broader manufacturing strategies. Tesla and BYD operate more modular facilities with increased in-house production, designing proprietary components for EVs that use roughly one-third the parts of conventional vehicles. Meanwhile, Toyota’s EV production requires compromises, like moving body frames off the main assembly line for battery installation - a workflow that manufacturing executive Susan Elkington acknowledges isn’t optimal but provides needed flexibility during the transition.
The situation highlights a crucial insight from former GM executive Terry Woychowski: “You cannot kaizen yourself from an ICE vehicle to a BEV.” For traditional automakers, the path to competitive EV manufacturing may require more revolutionary than evolutionary thinking.
Discover our two-stage process for more energy-efficient plastics recycling
⛏️ Industrial-scale sustainable rare earth mining enabled by electrokinetics
Owing to their irreplaceable role in several essential technologies, rare earth elements (REEs) are critical raw materials for the global economy. However, the supply of REEs raises serious sustainability concerns due to the large environmental footprint of conventional mining processes. We previously proposed an electrokinetic mining (EKM) technique that could enable green and selective extraction of REEs from ores. Here we further develop this technique to industrial scale by addressing challenges related to electrode reliability and flow leakage and evaluate its mining efficiency, environmental footprint and economic performance. Moreover, a voltage gradient barrier strategy based on electroosmosis is developed to facilitate electrokinetic REEs mining. As a result, we successfully achieved a high REE recovery efficiency of 95% on a 5,000-ton REEs ore. A rigorous environmental risk assessment revealed a 95% reduction of ammonia emissions, indicating a notably reduced environmental footprint. A comparative technoeconomic analysis between the conventional and the EKM techniques demonstrates the economic viability of the EKM technique. This work validates a new sustainable path for REEs mining, paving the way to a greener resources supply.
Shein: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling the fashion giant’s success
Mutual information and attention-based variable selection for soft sensing of industrial processes
This study introduces a novel method called mutual information (MI) and attention-based variable selection (MAVS) to address the challenges of irrelevant and redundant variables in industrial process soft sensing while providing interpretability in variable contribution analysis. First, irrelevant variables are eliminated based on low MI values with the quality variable. Second, attention scores are used to remove redundant variables, and the false discovery rate is used to determine the number of beneficial variables. Finally, this work provides an interpretable and accurate contribution of the selected variables by using kernelSHAP, a kernel-based Shapley analysis. Unlike traditional approaches, MAVS integrates MI with attention mechanisms to optimize variable selection dynamically and adaptively. MAVS obtains stronger robustness and higher accuracy than the existing state-of-the-art models through optimal variable selection. The former also obtains better superior generalization than the latter through adaptive adjustment of attention weights. The superiority of MAVS is demonstrated using two real-world datasets and one simulated dataset.
New Product Introduction
Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services
ABB Robotics introduces AppStudio no-code tool for robot interface programming
ABB launched AppStudioTM, an intuitive no-code software tool designed to empower users of all experience levels to quickly and easily create customized robotic user interfaces. With intuitive functionality and features including a collaborative cloud-based library enabling users to share application templates, AppStudio will reduce setup times by up to 80 percent. AppStudio is available as a free download from ABB’s website.
‘A viable business’: Rolls-Royce banking on success of small modular reactors
A new wave of nuclear technology is emerging as an alternative to massive projects like Hinkley Point C. Small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be factory-built and assembled on-site, are being pitched as a faster, more cost-effective path to nuclear power generation. Rolls-Royce, leveraging its submarine reactor expertise, is competing with three North American firms for UK government contracts.
The key innovation is modularity: these pressurized water reactors are manufactured in truck-sized components for on-site assembly, requiring just two hectares for Rolls-Royce’s design. This factory-based approach contrasts sharply with traditional nuclear projects’ complex on-site construction, potentially offering significant efficiency gains.
Business Transactions
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.
NEURA Robotics Secures €120 Million in Series B Funding to Propel Cognitive and Humanoid Robotics Vision
NEURA Robotics, cognitive robotics pioneer and the only humanoid robotics company in Germany, today announced it has raised €120 million in a Series B funding round. This substantial investment underscores NEURA Robotics’ key role in cognitive robotics, showing how it is uniquely positioned to lead the European robotics industry and become a major force in the global robotics landscape, alongside strong players in the US and China. The round was led by Lingotto Investment Management, with participation from BlueCrest Capital Management, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, InterAlpen Partners, Vsquared Ventures, HV Capital, Delta Electronics, C4 Ventures, L-Bank, founder David Reger, and others.
Founded in 2019, NEURA Robotics has quickly become a global leader in cognitive and humanoid robotics, creating robots designed to work seamlessly with humans in industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare. With its unique sensor technology and AI integration, NEURA Robotics has the world’s first cognitive cobot in the market and is now leading the way in the development of market-ready humanoid robots. In the last year alone the NEURA team doubled its number of employees to over 300 people and achieved a remarkable 10x revenue growth. Under the leadership of founder and CEO David Reger, NEURA Robotics has already secured an impressive €1 billion order book.
Shippeo Raises $30m Strategic Round Led by Woven Capital to Accelerate US and APAC Expansion
Shippeo, a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, today announced a $30 million strategic funding round led by Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund, with participation from existing investors: Battery Ventures, Partech, NGP Capital, Bpifrance Digital Venture, LFX Venture Partners, Shift4Good, and Yamaha Motor Ventures. This new funding will support Shippeo’s accelerated expansion across North America and APAC while driving enhancements to its industry-leading Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platform. With this round, Shippeo’s total funding exceeds $140 million.
Shippeo offers real-time shipment tracking across all transport modes, helping companies create sustainable, resilient supply chains. Its platform enables users to reduce logistics-related carbon emissions by making informed trade-offs between modes and carriers based on carbon footprint data. In response to years of global supply chain disruptions, Shippeo has prioritized transportation risk management as a core capability, with a strong emphasis on data quality and customer-focused innovation that distinguishes its solutions.
Amogy Raises $56 Million to Bolster Commercialization of Pioneering Ammonia-to-Power Solutions
Amogy, a provider of mature, scalable, and efficient ammonia-to-power solutions, today announced that it raised $56 million in venture financing, bringing total raised since inception to more than $270 million. The round was co-led by existing investor Aramco Ventures and new investor SV Investment. Additional new investors participating in the round include Samsung Heavy Industries, BHP Ventures, Hanwha Investment & Securities, AFW Partners, Quantum Ventures Korea, Kibo Invest, and Seoul IP, along with existing investors Temasek, MOL Switch, Yanmar Ventures, AP Ventures, and Marunouchi Innovation Partners.
This financing follows the latest successful demonstration of Amogy’s ammonia-to-electrical power system where it sailed the world’s first carbon-free, ammonia-powered maritime vessel in September 2024. In earlier demonstrations, the company successfully used its technology to power an aerial drone, commercial farm tractor, and semi-truck. Amogy’s patented ammonia-powered system splits, or “cracks,” ammonia into its base elements of hydrogen and nitrogen. The hydrogen is then funneled into a hydrogen-to-power system, either an integrated fuel cell or hydrogen engine, generating high-performance power with zero carbon emissions.
XtremeX Mining Technology Announces Plans for First Deployment of Its Revolutionary Mineral Drilling Rig with Ivanhoe Electric Following an $11M Series-A Financing Led by GoGreen Partners
XtremeX Mining Technology Inc. (XMT), a leader in innovative drilling solutions, is excited to announce its cutting-edge AC-electric automated coiled tubing and electric top-drive diamond core drilling rig. This state-of-the-art technology will perform a funded field trial with Ivanhoe Electric (NYSE: IE ; TSX: IE) at the Santa Cruz copper project in Arizona, targeting depths of up to 2,000 meters by twinning historic holes. Under the agreement, Ivanhoe Electric secures exclusivity on three XMT rigs for contracts lasting up to five years.
The XMT rig adapts proven oil and gas technology for the mining sector, enabling faster, safer, and more sustainable drilling. This patented hybrid drilling system builds on the success of an earlier prototype developed by the XMT team, offering a revolutionary approach to identifying critical minerals. By improving drilling speed, core recovery, and producing anticipated high-fidelity drill chips, the XMT rig is designed to deliver a versatile and efficient solution that surpasses conventional methods.
The XMT Series-A funding of $11M will drive the development and field deployment of the first hybrid rig at Santa Cruz. To support the successful manufacture and launch of this rig, GoGreen Partners have assembled a consortium of companies to collaborate, including Precision Drilling (TSX: PD ; NYSE: PDS), preferred supplier Baker Hughes and other strategic partners including the Mines Venture Fund 1, LP.
Symbotic to Acquire Walmart’s Advanced Systems and Robotics Business
Symbotic Inc. (Nasdaq: SYM), a leader in A.I.-enabled robotics technology for the supply chain, announced it has agreed to acquire the Advanced Systems and Robotics business from Walmart (NYSE: WMT). This transaction expands the long-standing relationship between Walmart and Symbotic with the aim of developing an integrated automated supply chain.
Walmart has chosen Symbotic to develop, build and deploy an advanced solution leveraging Symbotic’s A.I.-enabled robotics platform to offer Walmart customers greater shopping convenience through accelerated online pickup and delivery options at stores. Symbotic will engage in a development program funded by Walmart to enhance current online pickup and delivery fulfillment systems as well as to design new systems to meet the needs of current and future customers. If performance criteria are achieved, Walmart is committed to purchasing and deploying systems for 400 APDs at stores over a multi-year period, with Walmart’s option to add additional APDs in the coming years. Associated with the development program, Walmart will pay Symbotic a total of $520 million, including $230 million at closing.