Together with
The Future. Agility Robotics announced that it’s opening “the world’s first purpose-built humanoid robot factory” in Salem, Oregon, to mass-produce its Digit robot. Amazon is already beginning to integrate the robots into its warehouse operations, so the looming robot worker human replacement debate is no longer in the realm of science fiction. Robot supervisors might just become the hot new career path in middle management.
Building the workforce
Agility is on a quest to pump out a lot of its Digit robots over the coming years at its RoboFab facility.
- The factory, which opens sometime early next year, plans to build 10,000 Digits annually — although the first couple of years will likely only produce “in the hundreds,” according to CEO Damion Shelton.
- The robots are built specifically for warehouse work, with the 5’9’, 140-pound bipedal robot able to haul, lift, and move any number of heavy items.
- Companies that are part of Agility’s Partner Program (like Amazon) will get their first shipments in 2024, while everyone else will start receiving orders in 2025.
The factory represents a huge expansion of Agility’s capabilities. Since 2016, the firm has only built about 100 Digits, and Amazon is still testing the robot. You could say that the whole endeavor is still in beta… but that hasn’t stopped orders from coming in. So, Agility feels like it needs to scale fast to meet demand.
And with competition coming from both buzzy American-founded brands (Tesla and Boston Dynamics) and rival firms in China (Xiaomi), the robot race is very much on.
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