By Aishwarya Jain
July 23 (Reuters) - Eric Trump-backed Foundation Future Industries said on Thursday it is partnering with AMD to use its chips to co-develop autonomous humanoid robots for military and industrial use.
The son of U.S. President Donald Trump has been an investor in the start-up since early this year and serves as chief strategy advisor, the company said.
The Trump family's investments in several companies have drawn scrutiny, particularly its stakes in defense firms that regularly compete
for government contracts, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
Eric Trump and his brother, Donald Trump Jr., have also backed Israeli drone-maker XTEND, Unusual Machines and Powerus.
Under the deal, whose value was not disclosed, Foundation plans to use AMD Ryzen AI Embedded X100 Series processors — introduced by the chipmaker in January this year — to build the second version of its robot, Phantom MK-2.
The start-up, founded in 2024, said it has deployed its Phantom MK-1 robots to contribute in building more than 24,000 cars in 2025.
In October, the company will open a factory capable of building 5,000 Phantom robots annually, with plans to start building another facility early next year with an annual capacity of 50,000 robots, CEO Sankaet Pathak told Reuters.
Each industrial-use robots, leased to customers, cost about $100,000 per year, Pathak said.
On the defense side, the company is developing robots for materials handling and reconnaissance, which are sold to the government at $300,000 a unit, he added.
(Reporting by Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
