Nvidia Drive Thor to Power Next-Gen Nuro
Bear Robotics closes $60M round, McDonald's suffers digital outage, grocers digitize
New partnerships, new funding, and a new… system outage? This week we’ve got all sorts of automation news; read on, and see you at Curbivore in a week and a half!
Nuro Picks Nvidia Drive
Autonomous delivery vanguard Nuro has selected Nvidia to power its next-generation, AI-first L4 Nuro Driver platform. Nuro has specifically picked the Nvidia Drive Thor compute platform, which delivers up to 1,000 teraflops of computing power. Thor integrates into Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture, designed for transformer, LLM, and generative AI workloads.
Bear Robotics Closes Series C, Led by LG
Indoor tray-serving robot provider Bear Robotics just closed a $60 million Series C, led by LG Electronics. While the Redwood City, CA-based startup has secured capital from Softbank in previous rounds, there’s no word yet of who else has ponied up this time, nor at what valuation. "Our partnership with LG goes beyond funding; it’s a strategic alliance that boosts our mission to enhance efficiency and productivity in sectors ripe for innovation," stated John Ha, CEO of Bear Robotics. "Capitalizing on our success in the hospitality sector, we are now expanding our technology's horizon, customizing our solutions to meet the unique demands of smart warehousing and supply chain automation, and setting new benchmarks for what our robots can achieve in diverse environments."
McDonald’s Suffers Kiosk Outage in Asia
McDonald’s self-ordering kiosk system suffered a major outage in Hong Kong, Jordan, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and the U.K. During the hours-long outage, customers had to order from overwhelmed clerks, as the company has cut back on human-powered cash registers over the past few years. While McDonald’s has been lauded for its march towards digital ordering, let this be a reminder of the importance of redundancy when designing automated systems.
Grocers Need to Continue Push Towards Digitization
New data shows that 72% of grocers will increase their investment in personalization over the next 12 months; 81% of grocers say personalization is very important or important for them to be competitive; and 86% of shoppers expect a personalized digital shopping experience.
Deliver the Future at Curbivore — March 28 & 29
The worlds of delivery, mobility and restaurant/retail tech come together in a week and a half! Check out all of Curbivore’s amazing partners that are moving the industry forward — better yet, join them! Tickets are still available, but prices jump later this week. Register now.
In Other News
Waymo rolls out robotaxi service to LA, plans Austin launch. Zoox expands footprint in Las Vegas. NYC order pizzerias to cut pizza bake-system pollutants by 75%, might this be a prime opportunity for automated pizza systems to swoop in and replace older ovens?