Shaping Tomorrow, Starting Today: Why Robotics is the Future of Innovation

The future is continually shaped by today’s innovations. When we look forward, the two major technological waves on the horizon are undoubtedly biology and robotics. In this post, we’ll double down on robotics—why we believe its time is now and why we are investing in its transformative potential.

Lessons from the AI Wave: A Data-Driven Future for Robotics

The trajectory of robotics today mirrors, in many ways, the journey AI has taken over the last few decades. AI research, much like robotics, had long seemed like a distant dream with few tangible outcomes. Just a few years ago, when I was in Computer Engineering school, AI was the course that seemed to lack practical applications. Neural networks were relegated to an elective course that few students chose, viewing it as overly theoretical.

For years, the AI field faced skepticism—until a convergence of factors like increased computational power (thanks to GPUs), improved algorithms, and vast datasets brought AI to the mainstream, triggering exponential advancements.

Now, robotics stands at a similar inflection point. However, robotics presents an inherently more complex challenge. While text-based AI models rely on relatively structured data, robots must interact with the physical world—a world governed by far more complex and variable forces. Capturing and processing high-quality data in real-world environments is exponentially more difficult, but it is this very complexity that presents the next big opportunity.

The player who can acquire and train robot models with the highest quality, real-world data will be in prime position to lead the next wave of this technological revolution.

Robotics and AI: Unlocking Real-World Potential

Combining robotics with AI is an intriguing, game-changing development that opens up enormous possibilities. Historically, robots have been confined to well-defined, repetitive tasks—like pick and place, palletizing, and packaging. But when AI is integrated into robotics, the machines can move beyond these limited roles, learning to perform complex, real-world tasks such as robotic assembly tasks. Robots trained on real-world data—much like large language models are trained on text—could one day be capable of executing intricate and dexterous human tasks.

What excites us about this combination is that robots are no longer seen as simple mechanical tools; they’re evolving into intelligent systems capable of adapting to dynamic, unpredictable environments. By leveraging real-world data for training, robots can expand their capabilities beyond traditional functions to perform advanced industrial tasks requiring human-like dexterity.

The Robotics Revolution: Riding the Hype Cycle

Right now, robotics is at the peak of the hype cycle. There’s a lot of excitement, but also a fair amount of overhyped expectations. Venture capitalists are pouring money into startups, hoping to catch the next big wave in automation. Some sectors, like palletizing or pick-and-place operations, are now red oceans, having seen particularly intense investment as these tasks are relatively straightforward to automate. But as with any rapidly growing sector, we can expect to see many startups fall short of the mark, sparking a potential backlash with claims that “robotics is dead.”

However, the truth is that robotics is far from dead—it’s just reaching a critical turning point. The future success stories will come from companies that can not only generate excitement but also solve real-world problems at scale. Automation is in high demand across industries, especially for tasks deemed too complex to automate until now. Solutions that tackle the “impossible” tasks with real scalability and efficiency will be the ones that succeed in the long run.

Our Investment in Acumino: Tackling the Impossible Today

This leads to our latest investment in Acumino, a company tackling these exact challenges head-on. Acumino is focused on solving the most complex robotics problems today, led by a world-class team. The company’s technical leadership includes Prof. Minas Liarokapis, formerly head of one of the world’s largest research labs in dexterous manipulation. Together with a top-tier team of bright PhDs, their expertise is now driving Acumino’s mission to crack some of the most difficult problems in robotics.

With offices in Seattle, Athens, and Auckland, Acumino is the world leader in the acquisition of real-world, high-quality data of robot interactions that is used to train next-generation AI-based robotic models. This approach is critical because, as we’ve learned from AI, the best data leads to the best models, and that ultimately drives success. In addition, they are solving real customer pains, today, with unmatched reliability. The customer cases Acumino is working on are truly groundbreaking—offering a glimpse into a future where robots handle tasks that were once thought impossible to automate.

Conclusion: The Future of Robotics is Now

Robotics is here to stay. We believe that the big companies of tomorrow will be the ones tackling the impossible problems of today. And while there will be hurdles ahead, the combination of AI, real-world data, and cutting-edge robotics technology is setting the stage for an exciting future. Our investment in Acumino reflects this belief, and we’re excited to be part of this revolution as it unfolds. The time for robotics is now, and we are eager to see how these innovations will shape tomorrow’s world.