iStock; Tyler Le/BI
On a Thursday afternoon, about 70 people gathered around a nearly six-foot-tall humanoid robot outside an unassuming office building.Employees, executives, and board members of Agility Robotics, along with local officials, had come to christen the humanoid startup's new engineering hub: a 60,000-square-foot facility where nearly 200 existing and new employees will work on the AI and skills for its Digit bipedal robot.The ribbon-cutting didn't take place in San Francisco, Palo Alto, or San Jose, where some leading robotics companies have decided to cluster. Agility chose Fremont — an East Bay city better known for its industrial parks than for Silicon Valley startup mythology — to plant its new center.
Agility Robotics held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open its new R&D hub in Fremont.
Lloyd Lee/BI
Agility is the latest robotics startup to have a foothold in the area. Over the past 15 years, Fremont has seen companies tied to robotics or autonomous vehicles set up shop in the city.Tesla, Meta, Zoox, Pony.ai, and DoorDash are among the big-name players that have established a footprint in Fremont to support their robotics ambitions.At Agility's new facility, engineers will teach Digit new tasks and improve the skills it already has."This is going to be the robot school," Jonathan Hurst, Agility's cofounder and chief robot officer, told Business Insider. "This is where we teach robot skills. It's really going to be centered here."
