3 min learnNew DelhiMar 15, 2026 03:15 PM IST
Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick on Friday, March 13, launched a startup referred to as Atoms that’s targeted on specialised industrial robotics designed to automate duties within the mining, transport, and meals sectors.
Atoms seems to be the expanded and re-branded model of Kalanick’s current enterprise, Metropolis Storage Programs, which is the guardian of ghost-kitchen operator CloudKitchens.
With Atoms, Kalanick is betting that task-specific machines are the important thing to bettering industrial productiveness. The startup will likely be divided into Atoms Meals, offering infrastructure for the meals business, Atoms Mining, specializing in rising mine productiveness, and Atoms Transport or a “wheelbase for robots” as described by Kalanick within the 1,700-word mission assertion on the brand new Atoms web site.
In an look on the TBPN podcast on Friday, the tech billionaire additional mentioned that Atoms has been working in stealth for eight years with “1000’s of workers.”
The announcement comes amid rising curiosity in bodily AI and general-purpose humanoid robots. Nevertheless, these robots faces challenges resembling find out how to train machines to navigate unpredictable environments and develop subtle reasoning talents.
In the meantime, specialised robots might provide a clearer path to profitability, given the stress on automation throughout industries resembling transport and waste administration. Kalanick has described his calling post-Uber as constructing atoms-based computer systems, that are mentioned to be specialised programs utilizing bodily AI to automate duties in the true world.
Stating that he was heartbroken after his exit from Uber, Kalanick wrote, “I bled, however I didn’t perish. I acquired again up and fought my approach again into the sector, again to my calling. Again to constructing.”
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“At this time we increase our bodily world computation portfolio to the Mining and Transport industries and rename the corporate Atoms. At Atoms we make gainfully employed robots — specialised robots with productive jobs that convey abundance to their house owners and society at massive,” he added.
Who’s Travis Kalanick?
Kalanick co-founded Uber in 2009. He ended up resigning as CEO of Uber in 2017, reportedly because of stress from traders, capping a tumultuous interval for the ride-services firm. In 2019, he left the corporate board.
After being compelled to resign from Uber, Kalanick joined Metropolis Storage Programs as CEO the next 12 months and grew the corporate right into a reported $15 billion valuation by 2022.
Metropolis Storage Programs is the guardian agency of CloudKitchens, which operates a community of economic kitchens that can be utilized by eateries, massive and small, to assist with supply, pickup and meals manufacturing. The CloudKitchens web site remains to be dwell, as per CNBC.