Eclipse

On Tuesday post-GTC, Eclipse, Bright Machines, and Wayve brought together physical AI leaders from pioneering companies like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Rivian, and Waymo to discuss the future of embodied AI through several lenses: autonomous vehicles and robotics, advanced human interactions, and beyond. Thank you to everyone who joined us! Lior Susan, Seth Winterroth, Jiten Behl, Angela Hayward, Chris Stori, Alex Kendall, RJ Scaringe

The AI revolution can’t be fully realized unless we have the manufacturing capacity to build the infrastructure that powers it.? The U.S. hasn’t been a manufacturing leader for decades. Hanging on to our AI leadership hinges on changing this fact. The only way to reclaim domestic manufacturing leadership and establish AI dominance is by reinventing the industry. The next generation of manufacturing must be software-driven, adaptable to a wide range of use cases, and leverage the very technologies it brings to life: robotics, automation, computer vision, and AI. Bright Machines is emerging as a leader of this effort. Since its founding in 2018, the company has been on a mission to transform manufacturing with a software-driven, full-stack automation solution to provide design recommendation and to process, assemble, inspect, and disassemble complex electronics, including CPU- and GPU-based servers. This has made the company a valuable partner to instrumental players in the AI revolution NVIDIA and Microsoft. “AI has been around for a relatively long time, but the techniques and applications for how it is used are just being developed,” says Bright Machines CEO Chris Stori. “Our goal is to be the force multiplier for that development process.” See how the company has evolved from a software-driven manufacturer of any electronics into the highly specialized contract manufacturer strengthening the nation’s AI backbone: https://bit.ly/41Rcv5O

Today, Bright Machines announced Bright Designer, a new web-based application that empowers design engineers with robotic automation insights to improve CPU- and GPU-based server designs and deliver automation-friendly products to market more quickly, with fewer iterations in partnership with NVIDIA and Microsoft. If you're at GTC this week, you'll have the opportunity to see Bright Designer in action: SoftServe Booth (#1009) from 3:30-4:30PM, this Tuesday through Thursday Microsoft Booth (#514) from 12-2PM and 6-6:20PM, this Wednesday Congratulations Chris Stori and Bright Machines team!

This past weekend, Eclipse submitted a response to the Trump Administration’s Request for Information for its U.S. AI Action Plan. This will help shape the future of this critical technology in our country and ensure America stays at the forefront of global leadership in AI. To summarize, the surge in demand for AI applications has underscored the urgent need for robust, scalable, and secure energy and manufacturing infrastructure to support AI-driven computing. The rapid evolution of AI as a transformative technology is reshaping industries, economies, and global power structures. To maintain technological leadership and bolster national security, Eclipse believes the United States must not only secure its own AI infrastructure but also extend its capabilities to key allies, ensuring they have access to a high-performing, secure, and reliable AI foundation. A comprehensive strategy to achieve these goals involves three interdependent pillars: - The domestic production of key data center components - The availability of U.S.-led AI infrastructure by strategic allies - The strategic deployment of advanced energy solutions By developing a full-spectrum, domestically based manufacturing supply chain, the U.S. can ensure that critical components — ranging from AI-optimized servers and semiconductors, to storage systems and networking hardware — are built locally, reducing dependency on foreign supply chains and reinforcing technological independence. This effort is complemented by initiatives to bolster domestic semiconductor production and the establishment of resilient, high-capacity energy systems, including advanced nuclear and energy storage solutions, which are essential to meeting the enormous power demands of AI applications. The U.S. has an impressive history of high-tech leadership when the government and the private sector work together towards a common goal. This collaboration is a powerful force in shaping the trajectory and growth of physical industries by enabling and leveraging technologies like AI. The Eclipse team is excited to continue partnering with policymakers to build the New Economy.

Big news from Eclipse portfolio company Simbe: Kroger announced it deployed Simbe's autonomous robot "Tally" in 70 stores across Cincinnati and Indianapolis to handle inventory management and pricing verification. This initiative aims to improve shelf management, while enabling human associates to focus on customer service vs. inventory monitoring. More on the news from Omni Talk Retail: https://bit.ly/3FvOzxG Congratulations Brad Bogolea and Simbe team!

Building any sort of startup is hard, but companies working to transform physical industries face an especially rough road. However, transforming physical sectors means accepting that discomfort is part of the process, says Eclipse Partner Seth Winterroth. If you want to rebuild critical industries like defense, transportation, or manufacturing — which not only impact everyone’s lives, but also form the basis of a nation’s GDP — you must accept that it takes a certain amount of failure in order to learn. At the same time, you must move extremely fast to iterate based on those learnings to get to a place where you can demonstrate real impact on an industry.?Winterroth outlines a basic framework to set founders and their teams up to fail forward with specific lessons from Eclipse portfolio companies like True Anomaly, Mytra, Arc, and more, as they’ve executed on their missions to build game-changing businesses: https://bit.ly/3FkliFS

Wayve's expansion into the U.S. and Germany showcases AV2.0's ability to quickly adapt to new driving environments with minimal data. In a new blog, the team reports on how Wayve's foundation model generalizes across new geographies and vehicle platforms. Specifically: ???? Rapid adaptation in the US ?? Learning country-specific driving behaviors ???? Strong zero-shot performance in Germany ?? Seamless transition between vehicle platforms For more: https://bit.ly/3FkO0qo Congratulations Alex Kendall and Wayve team!

"The future of flying, and the future of Black Hawk, is here." Congratulations Mark Groden, PhD and Skyryse team! ??

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the world, claiming a life every?33 seconds in the U.S. alone,?according to?the Centers for Disease Control. Today, more than?7 million people?in the U.S. have heart valve disease, a complex condition made up primarily of dysfunctional mitral and tricuspid valves. Founded in 2020 and led by a team of heart valve implant experts and seasoned robotics engineers — including?Dan Wallace,?David Schummers, and?Maggie Nixon?— Capstan Medical has set out to address the rising need for minimally invasive structural heart disease treatments by delivering the world’s first fully integrated structural heart robotics and device company. Today, the company announced it successfully completed its first in-human, robot-assisted transcatheter mitral valve replacements. This is the first time a minimally invasive robotic structural heart platform has been used in clinical practice, successfully delivering a novel mitral valve into two human patients. More on today’s news from The Robot Report: https://bit.ly/3XxxauB Congratulations Dan, David, Maggie, and the entire Capstan team on this milestone moment!

Today’s growing computing demands are not going to slow down any time soon, requiring bold new architectures and approaches to create the world’s highest performing CPU. AheadComputing is leading the charge by leveraging RISC-V architecture to deliver high-efficiency, high-powered processing?to meet the new, unique computing demands across HPC, AI, cloud, and edge devices. Led by semiconductor industry veterans and former Intel CPU architects, Ahead aims to surpass the giants in the market including Intel, Apple, Arm, and AMD. ? The company has locations in Portland, Oregon, and Guadalajara, Mexico. They are looking for talented engineers to join their team: Senior Staff CPU Microarchitecture & Logic Design Engineer: https://bit.ly/3XtCsXI Staff Physical Design Engineer: https://bit.ly/4bAbGD1 For all open careers at Ahead Computing: https://bit.ly/3FgqElo