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Kambria is intent on disrupting AI and Robotics development.

Robotics culture is more the “secret” than sharing knowledge. Currently, market leaders have no interest in sharing their knowledge with competitors, due to huge investments they made. How will Kambria proceed to change their mindset surrounding AI and Robotics development?

We believe those huge companies that have already invested a ton of capital will eventually come around due to the amount of technology amassed by Kambria. But things will be kicked off first by 4 groups:

  • Super passionate individuals like those that contributed to Linux early on
  • Startups that are struggling to build their own robots on time and budget, or now seeing new opportunities due to lower cost development with Kambria platform
  • Universities making it way easier to develop, share, and also get value back instead of the risk of trying to start a new company
  • Large corporates who want to get into robotics but are finding it super hard (which is what we find in 90% of the big non-robotics companies pivoting into robotics)

Our mindset is basically proof by usefulness and value. If we can build up our community to the point where Kambria becomes the platform of choice to start with and develop robots (like Linux is for deploying most software), then we have significant enough value that the large companies will participate.

Another argument we have been testing is to say that they can now easily turn what used to be development costs into revenue sources. For example, not every piece of a large robot needs to be proprietary, what about say a motor drive or some sensors. We have found many partners where the large companies may be willing to share pieces, but they just aren’t set up internally to make it happen. It is not like they will let you order just the motors via their own supply chain.

So if they (with the help of Kambria community) help to bring some of those less critical AI and Robotics modules onto Kambria, they can gain a lot of goodwill and also benefits if the community starts using them a lot, with much less hassle than trying to open up a new business line themselves to sell the components.

According to Kambria’s whitepaper, one of the main constraints for robotics innovation is the high investment cost needed for innovation. Will Kambria provide this infrastructure (both software and hardware) in order to facilitate innovation from startups?

 

We thought about the entire process and came up with a solution to what we consider a “broken” robotics dev process today, and it’s on many fronts. Initially starting outside blockchain, with for example our 3D printing technology (e.g. cluster design, custom printers, control software) where we can make production parts (not just prototypes) at an incredibly low cost for any quantity from 1 to 1000. So many robotics startups and companies have been interested in this and come to visit us because they see what a huge difference this can be for robotics. The Kambria Manufacturing Alliance and API will solve the problem of collaboration and supply chain. So much time roboticists spend is just finding parts, setting up arrangements with suppliers. And if we find someone to make my parts here in the US, even if we share my design files to a partner lab in say Singapore or France, they still need to do lots of overhead to find their own local supplier who can cut or make or source the parts for them, which slows things down tremendously. Our goal is to make robotics hardware development as fast and lean as software, instead of “Write once, run anywhere” in software we want “Design once, make anywhere” enabled by Kambria. That eliminates all the friction in collaboration and will make it possible for roboticists to build off each others work rather than building fragmented, separate things. Then on top of that, of course the key part is blockchain technology, which allows us to tokenize and design game theoretic incentives for people who want to collaborate. The token is the key and the heart. Without it today, robotics collaboration is a losing game. You see every single company incentivized to hide their technology. Simply put, today secrecy is rewarded. Using the token, we can change this so that openness is rewarded more, and hence will change the game completely.

The Kambria Team
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Kambria is the first decentralized open innovation platform for Deep Tech (AI, Robotics, Blockchain, VR/AR…). Using our platform, anyone can collaborate in researching, developing and commercializing innovative ideas and get rewarded fairly for their contributions. Through partnerships with government agencies, top universities and leading companies, Kambria is dedicated to building a sustainable open innovation ecosystem to change the way we innovate and to accelerate advanced technology development and industry adoption. Together, let’s shape the future of technology where technology is open and contributes more to society.