Apptronik launches robot training hub, unveils Apollo 2 humanoid robot
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By Akash Sriram
June 30 (Reuters) - Google-backed Apptronik unveiled a new robot training facility on Tuesday, betting that large-scale real-world data collection will accelerate the commercialization of humanoid robots.
The Austin-based startup said the facility, developed with Google GOOGL.O DeepMind, is designed to move robots from pilot projects to production deployments.
The nearly 90,000-square-foot facility, Robot Park, in Austin houses fleets of humanoid robots performing logistics, manufacturing and retail tasks to generate training data for AI models.
The company also introduced Apollo 2, its latest humanoid robot, available in both bipedal and wheeled configurations, which has operated for more than a year as the company's data collection platform.
Robot Park supplies data to Gemini Robotics, Google's robotics AI model, under Apptronik's research partnership with Google DeepMind.
"We have a factory that produces robots, we also have a factory that produces data," CEO Jeff Cardenas said, describing Robot Park as the engine for building production-grade AI models.
Cardenas said Apptronik has built "hundreds" of Apollo 2 robots but declined to disclose deployment numbers.
"We'll continue to pilot through this year, and then we'll start to see real production versions ... in 2027 and beyond," Cardenas said.
Apptronik raised $520 million in a funding round announced in February that valued the company at about $5 billion.
