Google’s Intrinsic and Siemens collaborate on AI-based robotics and automation

Intrinsic, an Alphabet/Google company, and Siemens have teamed up to explore integrations and interfaces between Intrinsic’s robotics software, which is designed for easy use of AI-based capabilities, and Siemens Digital Industries with their open and interoperable portfolio for automating and operating industrial production.

Intrinsic has a world-class team of robotics and AI experts with a strong footprint in advanced perception, machine learning and reinforcement learning.

Siemens’ automation engineers and software developers have industry-leading domain know-how in automation technology in the industrial space.

Currently, the development and runtime environments for AI-based robotics and automation components differ significantly in their development paradigms and make integration cumbersome.

For example, deploying advanced robotic capabilities such as pose estimation, robot manipulation or automated path planning are complex processes that typically require teams of domain experts to operationalize.

The two companies intend to investigate new methods to seamlessly bridge the gaps between robotics, automation engineering and IT development.

Bridging both worlds will speed up the development process of flexible, AI-enabled robot work cells and facilitate their seamless operation.

This will make industrial robotics more accessible and usable for more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers – particularly for new market segments like small and medium-sized companies.

Wendy Tan White, CEO at Intrinsic, says: “Intrinsic’s mission is to democratize access to robotics. However, robotics is rarely decoupled from the production environment, where the most value is created today.

“That’s why working with Siemens Digital Industries, an industry leading automation expert, is an exciting opportunity to bring joint solutions to the market in the future, so many more businesses can benefit from the value that robotics and automation can offer.”

Rainer Brehm, CEO of factory automation at Siemens, says: “Siemens is dedicated to bringing IT and OT closer together – the key principle of our Industrial Operations X portfolio.

“We are impressed by Intrinsic’s open approach to industrial robotics and we are excited to explore with Intrinsic how coupling of AI-based robots and automation technology can be further accelerated.”