Alphabet’s Intrinsic to help bring robots to Foxconn’s U.S. factories

“Foxconn has huge manufacturing experience,” said Wendy Tan White, CEO of Intrinsic. luck In an interview. Foxconn, perhaps best known for its work assembling Apple’s iPhones, will know which parts of the manufacturing process can best be improved through artificial intelligence, she added.

Intrinsic is a graduate of Alphabet’s Moonshot program, which focuses on developing new and innovative technologies. Developers have been working on ways to make industrial robots easier and cheaper to use; Alphabet first launched the company as a separate company in 2021.

In particular, Intrinsic focuses on flexible manufacturing, or developing automated systems that can respond to new data, self-optimize, and adapt the way they operate. Currently, industrial robots are best applied to pre-defined tasks, which is difficult– And expensive – to change the way it works. For this reason, human labor is still, in many cases, a better option for manufacturers who need flexibility.

White says Intrinsic and Foxconn have been in talks for “maybe a year or two now,” and that it was “inevitable” that the electronics manufacturing giant would want to collaborate with Intrinsic on software development and artificial intelligence.

“By working with Intrinsic, we are able to leverage their deep expertise in AI-driven robotics,” Yong Liu, president of Foxconn, said in a statement. “This synergy complements our global manufacturing leadership, enabling us to collaboratively unlock the factory of the future.”

In late October, Foxconn, whose official name is Hon Hai Technology Group, announced it would deploy robots at its new Houston factory that produces Nvidia server racks. Foxconn is also working with Nvidia to create medical robots for Taiwan hospitals.

The Taiwanese company also cooperates with robotics companies from mainland China. In January, a Foxconn executive announced that the company would deploy robots from Shenzhen-based UBTech in its factories in mainland China.

White declined to reveal how much money Intrinsic or Foxconn had contributed to the joint venture, but stressed that the initiative was “not experimental.”

Asian robots

Initiatives like Intrinsic’s new joint venture are part of a growing shift in interest in “physical AI,” or AI models applied in the real world rather than the purely digital world of software.

White suggested that some of the interest in robotics is a result of supply shocks in the coronavirus era and companies recognizing that they need to manufacture more. However, the loss of manufacturing expertise in advanced economies means that factories are unable to scale up production easily.

Robots can help solve the problem of a shrinking manufacturing workforce in more ways than one. “What is interesting and encouraging is that suppliers within industrial supply chains, such as machine shops, are finding that bringing AI and robotics back into the conversation is bringing young people back into those industries as well,” White suggested.

With its combination of technical expertise and manufacturing footprint, Asia is leading the way in industrial robotics. Other companies are interested in this area. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has described South Korea as a future hub for this new technology.

“Korea can make robots, which then work in factories to create more robots, which work in more factories,” Hwang told reporters in late October, right after the U.S. chipmaker announced it would ship tens of thousands of GPUs to Korean companies like Hyundai and Samsung.

However, the biggest player in this field is China, which manufactures more than half of the world’s industrial robots. Companies like Hangzhou-based Unitree are now rapidly developing new humanoid robots.

“They have the skills and experience, because they’ve been producing for a long time,” White said. “I won’t ignore that.”