Arda debuts at $1.5B; Eka raises $150M; AGCO signs Agility for Digit pilot
Arda, a startup from former OpenAI executive Bob McGrew, came out of stealth with a $160M Series A at a $1.5B valuation.
Eka Robotics raised $150 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz and F-Prime.
AGCO and Agility Robotics signed a commercial agreement for a Digit humanoid pilot at Hesston, Kan.
Factory floor
Audi tests mobile humanoids for parts sequencing at Ingolstadt
Agile Robots, Audi, Dassault Systèmes and NVIDIA announced a proof-of-concept to automate parts sequencing at Audi's Ingolstadt plant. Around one million picks a day supply the right parts to the right workstation in sequence. A virtual twin built in DELMIA is used before the robots are deployed.
Siemens and NVIDIA target 85% less engineering effort in PCB inspection prep
Siemens says its collaboration with NVIDIA combines Teamcenter and Process Preparation X with NVIDIA Cosmos to prepare automated optical inspection before physical production. Project targets include up to 85 percent less manual engineering effort and more than 40 percent fewer false calls. The solution is being demonstrated at Siemens Electronics Factory Erlangen.
Fermilab uses a cobot to align couplers on accelerator cavities in a clean room
Fermilab's PIP-II team is using a collaborative robot to automate assembly of superconducting cavities, aiming to reduce the risk of errors and contamination in a clean room. This year a cobot autonomously aligned a coupler on an SRF cavity. PIP-II is building a 215-meter-long linear accelerator.
Army pilots AI-assisted maintenance platform that digitizes technical manuals
The Army's CECOM is piloting the Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Maintenance (AIAM) program. AIAM has digitized between 200 and 250 technical manuals, and roughly 4,000 users have provided feedback. Soldiers can query it for repair references and check parts inventory.
Robotics
AGCO signs Agility Robotics to pilot Digit humanoid in Kansas plant
AGCO and Agility Robotics signed a commercial agreement to deploy the Digit humanoid at AGCO's production site in Hesston, Kan. The pilot is expected to begin in 2027. Agility lists Toyota, GXO Logistics and Schaeffler among its other Digit customers.
Teradyne Robotics partners with Sereact on physical AI for returns and picking
Teradyne Robotics and Sereact say they have already shipped hundreds of Universal Robots arms in dual-arm systems to live customer sites across Europe. At Zalando's fulfillment centers in Germany and Poland, the system processes returned fashion items. The companies announced the partnership at NVIDIA GTC Berlin 2026.
Energy & process industries
Schneider Electric, Nvidia and HPE announce AI agents that run at the plant edge
The three companies announced Industrial AI Agents at the Edge, aimed at process plants. The agents run on premises and target OT monitoring, cybersecurity and energy optimization. The companies say people remain in control of critical actions.
S-OIL completes rollout of its AI manufacturing management system at Shaheen
S-OIL announced it completed deployment of S-imoms, which consolidates production, facilities, maintenance, inspection and safety data. Eight modules were added to its process safety system, and the job safety analysis module uses generative AI drawing on about 2,800 standard work risk assessments. The Shaheen project is a 9.26 trillion won development in Ulsan.
Deals & funding
Arda emerges from stealth with $160M Series A at $1.5B valuation
Former OpenAI Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew launched Arda on Oct. 20, and its software derives assembly processes from design files. Anduril, its first design partner and customer, says basic assembly instructions now take 15 minutes to produce, down from 10 hours.
Eka Robotics raises $150M Series A for vision-force-action robot model
Eka Robotics said it raised $150 million in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz and F-Prime. The Cambridge, Mass. company says robots using its model can pick a wide variety of objects at roughly 1,500 operations per hour. The funding will help scale its technology and customer deployments.
From the tracker
- Siemens: 7 named customer deployments in our tracker, 3 in production; latest: PepsiCo (pilot).
- Universal Robots: 8 named customer deployments in our tracker, 8 in production; latest: Oliva Torras (production).
- Agility Robotics: 4 named customer deployments in our tracker, 1 in production; latest: Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (announced).
How this issue was made: a script collects items from trade press and news searches, drops duplicates and press-release wires, and keeps the last 7 days. AI picks and summarizes under a fixed rulebook; a second script checks every link and name before publishing. Full method.