March 16 (Reuters) - Skild AI's artificial intelligence model will power robots manning Foxconn's assembly lines in Houston, where Nvidia's Blackwell GPU server racks are built, in what the companies described as an early commercial deployment of generalized physical AI.
The startup, backed by Nvidia and SoftBank, said on Monday that it would also partner with ABB Robotics and Universal Robots to embed its software across industrial robots, aiming to supply what it calls a general-purpose "brain".
Skild AI said its generalized AI model addresses a key limitation of current robotics systems, which are typically programmed for a single repetitive task and require extensive engineering to adapt to new processes.
"If we partner with robotic OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that already have hundreds of thousands of robots deployed, it gives us a path to extreme scalability and establishes the data flywheel," Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak told Reuters.
Partnerships with ABB and Teradyne's Universal Robots are intended to expand the data available to train the system by integrating the software into robots.
The announcements come amid the United States' accelerated efforts to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity.
New U.S. production investments worth about $1.2 trillion, led by electronics, pharmaceutical and semiconductor manufacturers, were announced in 2025. Industry executives, however, say large-scale reshoring of advanced manufacturing will depend heavily on automation.
Last year, Nvidia, whose chips power much of the current artificial intelligence boom, had said it plans to produce AI supercomputers entirely in the United States.
"We are building half a trillion dollars' worth of infrastructure in the next three to four years in the United States. For that to happen, these factories need to be more autonomous," Deepu Talla, Nvidia's vice president of Robotics and Edge AI, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, SoftBank in October said it would acquire ABB's robotics business for $5.38 billion, a deal expected to close mid-to-late 2026. Earlier this year, Skild AI raised $1.4 billion in a funding round led by Nvidia and SoftBank, valuing the firm at over $14 billion.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Diti Pujara)
