ProCESsing Tomorrow: Big Bets Reshaping Industry

This week: CES 2025 announcements from NVIDIA and Siemens, autonomous forklifts, worker safety, electrical hardware for AI sensing, laser machining, paper batteries, green hydrogen, reverse logistics.

Jan 12, 2025

Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

Others echo the call for ambition. “Successful companies make big bets,” said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), whose district includes Boeing’s factory in Renton. “There’s an upfront cost but they do it.”

From “Can Boeing Be Fixed? Aerospace Leaders Offer a Repair Manual”

Boeing’s illustrious history is marked by numerous big bets. The Boeing 777 was the first commercial aircraft to be developed using an entirely computer-aided design (CAD) process, and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the first major commercial aircraft to use carbon fiber composite materials as its primary airframe material. To endure, today’s industrial companies and their suppliers must embrace similar levels of ambition across digitalization, sustainability, and advanced manufacturing.

Exponential Industry tracks these industrial big bets on technology before they become common. However, they don’t all fit into the digest. So, I’ve launched a paid tier for you to go deeper. If you are tracking a specific industrial technology or capital flows or just want to support the publication, I invite you to sign up for the paid tier. A preview of the paid tier bonus analysis and a bonus board of curated media will land in your inbox later today.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

NVIDIA Unveils ‘Mega’ Omniverse Blueprint for Building Industrial Robot Fleet Digital Twins

✍️ Author: Madison Huang

NVIDIA at CES announced “Mega,” an Omniverse Blueprint for developing, testing and optimizing physical AI and robot fleets at scale in a digital twin before deployment into real-world facilities. Advanced warehouses and factories use fleets of hundreds of autonomous mobile robots, robotic arm manipulators and humanoids working alongside people. With implementations of increasingly complex systems of sensor and robot autonomy, it requires coordinated training in simulation to optimize operations, help ensure safety and avoid disruptions.

Supply chain solutions company KION Group is collaborating with Accenture and NVIDIA as the first to adopt Mega for optimizing operations in retail, consumer packaged goods, parcel services and more. KION can capture and digitalize a warehouse digital twin in Omniverse by using computer-aided design files, video, lidar, image and AI-generated data. KION uses the Omniverse digital twin as a virtual training and testing environment for its industrial AI’s robot brains, powered by NVIDIA Isaac, tapping into smart cameras, forklifts, robotic equipment and digital humans. Integrating the Omniverse digital twin, KION’s warehouse management software can create and assign missions for robot brains, like moving a load from one place to another.

Forklifts Hurt Thousands of Workers Each Year. Factories Are Seeking Alternatives.

✍️ Author: John Keilman

Plastic-pipe manufacturer Ipex designed its new factory in North Carolina to minimize the use of forklifts, relying instead on overhead cranes and hand-pushed electric pallet jacks. That made the plant, which opened in 2023, a safer, quieter and less stressful workplace, said Johnny Drummond, the company’s director of manufacturing.

Mercedes-Benz has been trying to reduce forklifts in its U.S. plants since 2018, replacing some with autonomous vehicles. Tesla is making a similar effort, using push carts and trailer-hauling “tuggers” inside its factories to cut down on traffic and injuries, a person familiar with the matter said. Whirlpool’s washing-machine factory in Clyde, Ohio, has eliminated forklifts from its production area, and uses robotic tuggers to deliver parts to assembly-line workers. Other company plants are following suit, said Kristin Day, Whirlpool’s vice president of U.S. manufacturing operations.

Inside Rivian's Electrical Hardware Lab with Vidya Rajagopalan

🧠 Sensing AI:

Dr. Niels Syassen: SICK’s AI Strategy [The Industrial AI Podcast]
Aerodynamic sensors could speed up autonomous vehicles [Popular Science]
Trimble and Qualcomm Deliver Precise Positioning Solutions for Automotive OEMs and Tier 1 Suppliers [PR Newswire]

New 3D printing platform relies on IaaS and a flexible subscription model

Hamburg-based start-up 3Dock has presented a new type of platform for 3D printing solutions based on the “Infrastructure as a Service” (XaaS) concept. With a flexible subscription model, the platform offers companies the opportunity to use advanced 3D printing processes such as FDM, SLA and SLS without the need for large investments. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular should benefit from this approach, as they do not need their own equipment or specialized personnel.

Super-resolution Laser Machining

✍️ Authors: Jiaxu Huang, Kang Xu, Shaolin Xu

Super-resolution laser machining represents a cutting-edge advancement in precision manufacturing, striving to approach or even exceed the optical diffraction limit to produce structures with exceptionally fine feature sizes, minimal heat-affected zones, and intricate freeform patterns. The present paper provides an overview of two principal approaches developed to achieve super-resolution: one is reducing the diffraction limit through the adoption of shorter laser wavelengths or advanced focusing techniques, and the other is surpassing the diffraction limit by advanced manipulation of the laser and its interactions with materials. It also highlights the prospects for super-resolution laser machining, emphasizing its potential to transform precision manufacturing across industries.

🔍 Directing energy where it matters:

🍖 Modernizing Meat Rendering With Direct Steam Injection Heating [Pumps & Systems]
🦾🍋 Chick-fil-A’s Lemon-Squeezing Robots Are Saving 10,000 Hours of Work [Bloomberg]
American lab is developing a BAT laser that could enable 'beyond EUV' lithography, provide 10X power efficiency boost [Tom’s Hardware]

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

🔋🧻 New paper batteries biodegrade in six weeks, offers safer energy storage

✍️ Author: Sujita Sinha
🔖 Topics: Sustainability

Flint, a Singapore-based company specializing in the development of sustainable energy solutions, is making waves in the world of battery technology with its cutting-edge paper batteries. These batteries promise to deliver impressive advantages over traditional energy storage options, thanks to their flexibility, lightweight design, safety, and eco-friendly features.

Flint’s paper batteries are a type of quasi-solid battery, utilizing an innovative hydrogel ring that acts as both a separator and an electrolyte within a piece of paper. This setup differentiates it from conventional lithium-ion batteries by replacing toxic and geopolitically sensitive materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, with safe and sustainable alternatives such as zinc and manganese. The hydrogel-based design also contributes to the battery’s ability to biodegrade completely within six weeks when buried in soil, leaving no harmful residues behind.

Read more at Interesting Engineering

🔌 Plugging into the grid:

How GM is using AI to expand America’s EV charging network [GM]
Xpeng, VW to Build China's Biggest Ultra-Fast Charging Network [Yicai]
One fix for the EV battery fire problem [Financial Times]
Altilium raises $5M to build UK’s largest EV battery recycling plant [TFN]
These EV ‘Battery Belt’ Towns Are Betting Trump Won’t Ditch Them [WSJ]

SPEE3D’S Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing Technology Successfully Prints Metal Parts In Sub-Zero Environments

SPEE3D, a leading metal additive manufacturing company, announced that their XSPEE3D system could successfully operate in a sub-zero environment and produce parts with comparable material properties to the same parts produced in a laboratory environment. SPEE3D was selected to participate in developing, demonstrating, and testing their Cold Spray Metal Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) equipment, along with partners from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) COMET Project and Philips Federal, as part of the Office of The Secretary of Defense Manufacturing Technology’s Point of Need Challenge (PON).

The PON project was managed by LIFT, the Detroit-based Department of Defense Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and it concluded that the XSPEE3D system is well-suited to support the DOD’s goal of expanding expeditionary manufacturing capabilities in extreme cold weather environments for battle damage repair and large metal component production.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

Inari Raises $144 Million, Paving Path to Long-Term Growth

Inari, the SEEDesign™ company, announced the completion of a $144 million fundraise fueled by the performance of its first-generation products and progress toward commercialization. With cumulative equity raised of more than $720 million, the new capital underpins the leading pure-play seed technology company’s financial strength and paves the way for long-term growth. The fundraise attracted significant support from new investors, who represented most of the capital raised in the round - including a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and a large financial investor collaborating on forthcoming agriculture projects. Existing investors including Hanwha Impact, NGS Super, the State of Michigan Retirement System and company founder Flagship Pioneering also contributed.

RoboForce Secures $10M Early Stage Funding for AI-Powered Robo-Labor

RoboForce, the world’s most advanced “Robo-Labor” provider, announced it has raised $10M early stage funding with support from investors such as Nobel Laureate Myron Scholes, co-founder of Softbank VC (SBVC) Gary Rieschel, and Carnegie Mellon University. With this funding, RoboForce is emerging from stealth as it prepares to deploy its Robo-Labor this year for early customers, for whom robots can fulfill labor shortages in harsh outdoor conditions, complete the most hazardous tasks in dangerous work environments, and maximize project efficiency and cost savings. With 1mm accuracy in performing fine motor skills like picking, placing, pressing, twisting and connecting, the Robo-Labor has all-terrain mobility, precise manipulation, learning, communication, and safety compliance capabilities. RoboForce’s robots are unparalleled in the emerging field of AI Robotics.

Advanced Ionics Raises $6.7M to Accelerate Technology Commercialization and Deployment

Advanced Ionics, the developer of a new class of green hydrogen electrolyzers aimed at accelerating decarbonization, announced that it has raised an additional $6.7 million in funding from strategic investors JERA, Lummus Venture Capital, and the Argosy Foundation as well as existing investors Clean Energy Venture Group and bp Ventures. This new capital will be used to increase the pace of development of its water-vapor electrolyzer technology, as well as build out the company’s manufacturing and research and development facility.

Alta Resource Technologies Raises $5.1M in Seed Funding to Transform Mineral Separation With Advanced Biochemistry

Alta Resource Technologies, a pioneer in using advanced biochemistry to transform mineral separation, announced it has raised $5.1 million in an oversubscribed seed round co-led by DCVC and Voyager Ventures, with participation from Orion Industrial Ventures, Overture, and WovenEarth Ventures.

Alta’s advanced biochemistry platform, which leverages technology licensed from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory co-developed with collaborators including researchers at Pennsylvania State University, represents a step-change over existing approaches. The ability to tailor proteins to bind selectively to individual elements greatly expands the scope and scale of what’s possible in mineral separation and processing. With its first products, the company aims to increase supplies of rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium – essential for electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and defense technologies – by cost-effectively separating them from abundant low-grade sources and end-of-life products that cannot be processed using conventional methods.

DHL Supply Chain Acquires Reverse Logistics Leader, Inmar Supply Chain Solutions

DHL Supply Chain, the Americas leader in contract logistics, announced the acquisition of Inmar Supply Chain Solutions, a division of Inmar Intelligence and a leading returns solutions provider for the retail e-commerce industry. The strategic acquisition will make DHL Supply Chain the largest provider of reverse logistics solutions in North America.

Consumers expect retailers to provide a seamless returns process while retailers are faced with new challenges such as returns abuse and rising operational costs. Thus, the acquisition marks a logical step to foster DHL’s customer centric approach that involves collaboration, expertise, and integration to solve the greatest supply chain challenges.

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