Salt Lake City, Utah-based Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation, a developer of robotics and microelectromechanical systems for military and industrial applications has announced the closure of its Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania facility and a pivot from its robotics hardware to its robotic artificial intelligence and machine learning software platform.
The business realignment will impact 150 employees. The company will transition its manufacturing from Pittsburgh to Salt Lake City.
According to Laura Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sarcos, “The underlying power of what Sarcos offers is in the software we have developed over many years. After continued extensive analysis of our business that led to a deeper understanding of the risks and work necessary to bring our robotic systems to market, we determined that our AI software
platform offers the greatest risk-adjusted revenue opportunity for the company in the near- and mid-term. We believe that our AI software platform will enable, for the majority of the industrial robots being sold around the world, a dramatic reduction in robotic training times while also making industrial robots far more agile, meaning they can perform more tasks with greater variability similar to how humans can perform a wide variety of tasks. In our lab environment and in simulations, we have trained commercially available robotic arms to do simple tasks in minutes."
“Our DNA is robotics, which gives us a unique and valuable perspective on how to use software to tackle the challenges associated with training and managing industrial robots in complex and dynamic environments. With the large number of robotic systems throughout the world and a product that we believe is unlike anything else currently available, we see a broad addressable market and an opportunity to build a robust software business that is scalable at a substantially faster rate than our hardware solutions.”
"By decoupling our AI and ML software from our own robotic systems, we believe we can reach a much broader market more quickly. We believe this is the right decision for both the short-term and long-term health of and opportunities for the business. We can run a leaner business that is more efficient, reduce our cash usage and put ourselves in a stronger position to reach profitability without the need to raise additional financing.”
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?
