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Senior executives from NVIDIA, Siemens and Teradyne Robotics gathered in Odense, Denmark this week to celebrate the launch of Teradyne Robotics’ new headquarters and discuss developments in the robotics industry.
Odense, one of Denmark’s oldest cities and known as the ‘City of Robots’, is home to more than 160 robotics companies employing 3,700 people, contributing to the development of the robotics industry.
Teradyne Robotics’ new hub includes Universal Robots (UR), a leader in collaborative robotics, and Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) company. The company said it will help maximize employee collaboration, foster innovation and provide an environment for innovation in advanced robotics and autonomous machines.
The grand opening showcased the latest AI robotics applications and featured a panel discussion on the future of advanced robotics. Speakers included Ujjwal Kumar, Group President, Teradyne Robotics; Rainer Brehm, CEO of Siemens Factory Automation; and Deepu Talla, Vice President of Robotics and Edge Computing at NVIDIA.
“The emergence of generative AI combined with simulation and digital twin technologies is currently at a tipping point, and this combination will change the trajectory of robotics,” Talla said.
Panelists emphasize the power of partnerships.
This event occurred as the global robot market continues to grow rapidly. According to Statzon, the cobot market in Europe was valued at $286 million in 2022 and is expected to reach $6.7 billion by 2032, growing at an annual growth rate of more than 37%.
Panelists discussed why team building is key to innovation in any company, whether startup or enterprise. They also talked about how physical AI is being used across business and the workplace, and highlighted the game-changing impact of advanced robotics.
The partnership between NVIDIA and Teradyne Robotics, which includes an AI-based intralogistics system with Siemens, demonstrates the strength of collaboration across the ecosystem. As a provider of physical AI hardware, NVIDIA says its primary role is to power the cobot and AMR sectors through accelerated computing, and that its collaboration with Siemens is transforming industrial automation.
“NVIDIA provides all the core AI capabilities that are integrated into the robotics platform and hundreds of thousands of companies building robots, so our approach is 100% collaborative,” Talla said.
“What’s most exciting about AI and robotics is that collaboration is key to solving customer problems,” Kumar added. “No one company has all the technology needed to solve these problems, so we have to work together to understand and solve them at a very rapid pace.”
From left: Fleur Nielsen, head of communications at Universal Robots; Deepu Talla, head of robotics at NVIDIA; Rainer Brehm, CEO of Siemens Factory Automation; and Ujjwal Kumar, President of Teradyne Robotics. | Source: NVIDIA, Steffen Stamp
AI accelerates innovation
NVIDIA, Teradyne, and Siemens say AI has already made great strides across industries and is playing a critical role in advancing advanced robotics. AI, which leverages machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing, gives robots the cognitive capabilities to understand, learn, and make decisions.
“For humans, we have sense, but for robots, it’s not easy, so we need to build AI capabilities for autonomous driving,” Talla said. “NVIDIA’s Isaac platform advances autonomy in robotics through rapid advances in simulation, generative AI, foundational models, and optimized edge computing.”
NVIDIA is working closely with Universal Robots to bring AI to UR’s robotics software. For AMR, which moves things from point A to point B to point C, it’s all about operating in an unstructured environment and navigating autonomously, Talla said.
Brehm emphasized the need to industrialize AI to scale and make it easily accessible on the shop floor through automated deployment, inference, and monitoring of models. He talked about how he helps customers easily leverage AI without requiring AI expertise.
“Our goal is to advance automation and move toward a system that leverages technology-based automation in the future,” Brehm said.
Teradyne, a leading robotics company with the largest installed base of cobots and AMRs, has identified a diverse list of industry challenges and is working with NVIDIA to solve them.
“I use the term ‘physical AI’ rather than ‘digital AI’ because we are taking AI to a whole new level by applying it to the physical world,” said Kumar, who gave a keynote speech at the Robotics Summit & Expo earlier this year. month. “We see this benefiting our customers in three ways: adding new capabilities to robots, making robots smarter through advanced path planning and navigation, and further improving the safety and reliability of collaborative robots.”
Teradyne, NVIDIA and Siemens say robotics has real-world impact.
Autonomous machines, or AI robots, are already bringing about noticeable changes in the real world, from industry to people’s daily lives. Industries such as manufacturing are using advanced robotics to improve efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.
Companies want to produce goods closer to where they are consumed, with sustainability becoming a key driver, the speakers said. But this often means setting up shop in high-cost countries. The challenge is twofold. It’s about producing at competitive prices and dealing with a shrinking and aging workforce.
“The problem for large manufacturers is the same variability that small and medium-sized manufacturers have always faced,” Kumar said. “High-volume industrial robots are not suitable for applications that require continuous design adjustments. Collaborative robots combined with AI provide solutions to problems that small and medium-sized customers have had to deal with for years and new challenges that large manufacturers are currently facing.”
Automation isn’t just about speeding things up. This also makes the most of human resources, Teradyne Robotics, NVIDIA and Siemens explained. In manufacturing, automation can enable smoother processes, increase safety, save time, and ease the burden on employees.
“Automation is critical to solving problems, and AI is a game-changer to achieve this,” said Brehm. “If you don’t have people who want to work in the factory and program the automation, you won’t have the flexibility to automate what you need in the future. And that’s what drives our customers.”
Panelists said AI and computing technologies will redefine the robotics landscape, transforming robots from simple tools into intelligent partners with autonomy and adaptability across industries.
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About the author
Gerard Andrews is a Senior Product Marketing Manager focused on the robotics developer community. Prior to joining NVIDIA, he served as Director of Product Marketing at Cadence, where he was responsible for product planning, marketing, and business development for licensed processor IP. Andrews earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Southern Methodist University.
