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 flooring. 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 flooring, this new deal additionally finds Florida-based Jabil and Apptronik turning 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 based on plan, the humanoid robotic will ultimately be put to work constructing itself.
Given the humanoid business’s deal with manufacturing, such offers seem to be an inevitability. The prospect of humanoids constructing humanoids remains to be a methods off for Apptronik, nonetheless. The robotics startup just lately instructed TechCrunch that it’s focusing on 2026 to start manufacturing business models.
In the intervening time, the Jabil deal will discover an undisclosed variety of Apollo programs performing a spread of “easy, repetitive intralogistics and manufacturing duties,” together with issues like sorting and transporting components. The true-world validation is a key step towards scaling the robotic for manufacturing. The higher Apollo performs on the Jabil manufacturing unit flooring, the nearer it turns into to slotting right into a manufacturing line that can ultimately embrace Apollo itself.
Apptronik is considered one of quite a lot of firms constructing humanoid robots for industrial functions, together with Agility, Boston Dynamics, Determine, and Tesla. Of those, solely Agility has introduced that its robots have been deployed past an preliminary pilot section.
Competitors could also be stiff for the nascent class, however Apptronik has quite a lot of components working in its favor. Along with tons of of thousands and thousands 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 programs.
