This Silicon Valley City Is Quietly Becoming the New Robot Row

On a Thursday afternoon, about 70 folks gathered round an almost six-foot-tall humanoid robot outdoors an unassuming workplace constructing.

Staff, executives, and board members of Agility Robotics, together with native officers, had come to christen the humanoid startup’s new engineering hub: a 60,000-square-foot facility the place almost 200 present and new workers will work on the AI and expertise for its Digit bipedal robotic.

The ribbon-cutting did not happen in San Francisco, Palo Alto, or San Jose, the place some leading robotics companies have determined to cluster. Agility selected Fremont — an East Bay metropolis higher recognized for its industrial parks than for Silicon Valley startup mythology — to plant its new middle.

Agility is the newest robotics startup to have a foothold within the space. Over the previous 15 years, Fremont has seen corporations tied to robotics or autonomous autos arrange store within the metropolis.

Tesla, Meta, Zoox, Pony.ai, and DoorDash are among the many big-name gamers which have established a footprint in Fremont to assist their robotics ambitions.

At Agility’s new facility, engineers will train Digit new duties and enhance the talents it already has.

“That is going to be the robotic faculty,” Jonathan Hurst, Agility’s cofounder and chief robotic officer, instructed Enterprise Insider. “That is the place we train robotic expertise. It is actually going to be centered right here.”

The {hardware} facet of Silicon Valley

Fremont’s rise as a robotics middle builds on an industrial historical past that Mayor Raj Salwan stated the town intentionally preserved.

For greater than 25 years, the town was residence to New United Motor Manufacturing, or NUMMI, a three way partnership between Common Motors and Toyota. When the plant shut down in 2010, different cities might need transformed the location into workplace house or housing.

Salwan stated the town selected one other course.

“We doubled down on industrial,” the mayor instructed Enterprise Insider. “We preserved our industrial land, and we stated we’re all in on manufacturing.”

Tesla acquired the NUMMI plant that yr, preserving Fremont’s automotive ties and attracting a community of suppliers. In the meantime, the town courted different industries, comparable to semiconductor, biotech, and superior manufacturing corporations, Salwan stated.

Now, the manufacturing base is supporting Fremont’s newest transition.

Robotics corporations want a few of the similar issues which have attracted earlier {hardware} companies to the East Bay metropolis, particularly giant buildings, manufacturing experience, and sufficient open ground house for machines to maneuver round.

The town tried to make it simpler to open such giant amenities. Salwan stated Fremont streamlined laws, developed in-house experience, and altered some zoning guidelines to permit qualifying initiatives to maneuver ahead with out prolonged hearings.

“We inform you every little thing up entrance, after which we assist fast-track the method,” Salwan stated. “If you wish to construct issues, Fremont is the place.”

The lab meets the manufacturing unit ground

Massive ground house is just half the equation for robotics corporations. Additionally they want expertise.

Fremont would not precisely sit within the coronary heart of the analysis and enterprise capital ecosystem discovered close to Stanford College and Sand Hill Road. However it’s shut sufficient to faucet into the identical pool of engineers, traders, and enterprise companions.

The town is roughly 15 miles east of Palo Alto, throughout the Dumbarton Bridge. The proximity retains corporations like DoorDash and Zoox near the expertise, their headquarters, and their manufacturing hubs all through the Bay Space.

DoorDash, which is headquartered in San Francisco, designs and builds its delivery bot, Dot, in Fremont by a partnership with Sonic Manufacturing. The partnership permits engineers from DoorDash Labs, the corporate’s robotics arm, to work “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Sonic workers, a DoorDash spokesperson stated.

“In some conditions, going from designing the road to rolling out our first robotic may take months and even years,” the spokesperson stated. “Because of the collaboration between the staff working at Sonic and our Labs amenities, it solely took a matter of weeks.”

Anyware Robotics, a small startup based in 2023 that builds cellular warehouse robots, matches its whole operation inside one 11,000 square-foot Fremont facility.

Torsten Schreiber, Anyware cofounder and VP of go-to-market and product, stated every little thing from software program improvement to robotic testing occurs in the identical constructing, permitting the startup to iterate shortly.

“Fremont sits on the intersection of Silicon Valley software program expertise and the East Bay’s {hardware} and manufacturing,” he stated. “It is a mixture that’s exhausting to search out wherever else.”

Schreiber stated the situation additionally places his firm close to its clients’ warehouses and distribution operations.

Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi enterprise, additionally planted its manufacturing operations in Fremont and the neighboring metropolis of Hayward. Its Fremont web site retrofits check autos and configures sensor pods, whereas the Hayward facility assembles the purpose-built robotaxi.

Zoox stated the places are shut sufficient to its headquarters in Foster Metropolis to permit each day collaboration between the engineering and manufacturing groups. A Zoox spokesperson stated the corporate is hiring for a number of positions supporting the 2 websites.

Bodily AI wants bodily house

In 2022, Meta expanded operations not removed from its Menlo Park headquarters with a Fremont campus. Right this moment, that campus is closely centered on {hardware} analysis and improvement, particularly robotics and virtual- and augmented-reality gadgets, a Meta spokesperson stated.

Throughout the road is Agility’s new hub.

Fremont just isn’t about to interchange San Francisco or the Peninsula because the Bay Space’s startup and enterprise capital facilities. As an alternative, the town’s function has confirmed to be extra bodily, enabling corporations to broaden their robotics ambitions and place engineers close to the manufacturing unit ground.

Tesla earlier this yr stated its first large-scale Optimus humanoid production line would change the Mannequin S and Mannequin X strains at its Fremont plant.

Agility, in the meantime, will proceed to fabricate its Digit humanoid in Salem, the place the startup is headquartered, whereas increasing its engineering pool within the Bay Space, Hurst, the cofounder, stated.

In Fremont, Digit will bear in depth testing as engineers train the humanoid new expertise.

Because the robotics race heats up, traders are hungry to see robots work past a demo video. Hurst stated that Agility’s new Fremont presence may also give clients and traders already passing by the Bay Space an opportunity to see Digit in motion.

“It is not acceptable to point out only a demo or a video of a robotic doing a factor,” Hurst stated, including that the Fremont location saves guests from making a visit to Agility’s Salem HQ.

“Having this right here so folks can swing by is absolutely handy.”