Know What's Happening in Manufacturing
Know What's Happening in Manufacturing
Manufacturing Pulse
EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
EngineAI Robotics lands $200M Series B, valuation tops $1.4B
EngineAI Robotics Technology Co. closed a $200M Series B round, lifting its valuation above 10 billion yuan (≈$1.4B). The round was co‑led by Henan Investment Group’s Huirong Fund and Luxshare Precision, with participation from state‑backed platforms and family offices. Henan plans to use its provincial supply‑chain network to accelerate EngineAI’s regional expansion.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Ara Partners invests up to $500M in waste‑management firm Sedron
Mitsubishi Motors announced it will begin assembling a new hybrid electric vehicle at its Santa Rosa, Laguna plant in the Philippines around mid‑2028, subject to approval under the country's Electric Vehicle Incentive Strategy (EVIS). The existing facility can produce up to 50,000 units annually, making the timeline plausible without a new build. However, Mitsubishi has not disclosed the specific model, expected output, local‑content commitments, or investment amount, leaving the scale of the venture unclear. The plan’s success now hinges on securing EVIS incentives and detailing the economics of hybrid production.
Global container volumes jumped to 15.04 m TEU in February, a 12‑13% year‑on‑year increase that outpaced the five‑year average despite the Chinese New Year lull. The surge coincided with a four‑point drop in the CTS Global Price Index to 74, suggesting...
Red Cat, a U.S. startup, plans to mass‑produce autonomous drone boats using large‑format 3D‑printed hulls. The company will adapt Ukraine’s naval drone technology for on‑demand logistics, partnering with 3D‑print service Haddy to fabricate near‑net‑shape hulls. While 3D‑printed boats have existed...
SpaceX has begun installing equipment at its new Bastrop, Texas manufacturing facility, targeting production start by the end of 2026. The plant will focus on advanced semiconductor packaging and AI‑enabled hardware for Starlink satellites, marking a shift toward a vertically...
DSV Contract Logistics filed a WARN Act notice indicating it will lay off 391 employees at its Wilmer, Texas distribution center. The cuts follow the loss of a major customer contract, prompting a complete cessation of operations at the site....
Ukraine is pursuing a home‑grown air‑defence system to offset dwindling Patriot deliveries as the United States reallocates batteries to the Middle East. Fire Point, a Ukrainian drone and missile maker, says its new interceptor could cost under $1 million per shot—roughly...
FrieslandCampina is expanding its Dutch production facility to increase capacity for whey protein isolate (WPI) and milk‑fat globule membrane (MFGM). The upgrade adds advanced filtration technology, targeting a 30% output boost to meet a projected 7.5% CAGR in the global...
Radify Metals has closed a funding round of just under $3 million to scale its plasma‑reactor technology that can turn metal oxides into pure rare‑earth metals. The startup says its compact reactors could produce several kilograms of dysprosium and neodymium per...
Brazil’s textile sector posted a 6.8% year‑over‑year increase in output from January to November 2025, while apparel manufacturing edged up 0.7% in the same period. The surge reflects stronger domestic consumption, renewed export contracts, and government incentives aimed at modernising factories....
The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT) gathered ministers, CEOs and experts in Abu Dhabi for an "Industrial Resilience and Supply Chain Continuity Forum" ahead of the May Make it in the Emirates exhibition. Chair Dr. Sultan bin Ahmed...
Battery recycling startup Ascend Elements announced a voluntary Chapter 11 filing Thursday, ending a decade‑long effort that attracted more than $1.1 bn in equity and government grants. The move highlights the capital intensity of circular‑economy ventures and raises questions about the...
Ensuring the structural integrity of stainless‑steel tanks is vital for chemicals, pharma and food processors, yet traditional visual and NDT inspections are time‑consuming and often require vessel shutdowns. Recent advances in robotic inspection allow remote‑controlled units equipped with ultrasonic, laser...
OP IS reported a modest dip in the FOB China TOPCon spot price to $0.119/W, down 0.83% amid post‑Lunar New Year slowdown. The decline follows China’s removal of export tax rebates on PV products effective April 1, prompting manufacturers to absorb higher...
Chinese robotics firms are moving from prototypes to commercial scale. UniX AI introduced Panther, a dual‑arm service robot for homes, while Leju Robotics and Dongfang Precision opened a factory capable of producing a humanoid every 30 minutes, targeting 10,000 units...
Lyreco has completed a €25 million (≈$27 million) upgrade of its Villaines‑la‑Juhel logistics hub, adding a new 3,000 m² facility and more than 100 Exotec Skypod robots. The French site handles 60% of Lyreco’s 50,000 daily parcels, and the automation streamlines outbound sequencing,...
Silex Technology and Edge Impulse have teamed up to integrate Edge Impulse’s end‑to‑end AI development platform with Silex’s EP‑200Q system‑on‑module, which runs on Qualcomm’s Dragonwing QCS6490 processor. The joint solution bundles a Wi‑Fi 7 driver and AI acceleration to simplify the...
Tesla has added Chinese battery maker Sunwoda as its fifth supplier of traction‑battery cells, joining CATL, Panasonic, LG Energy Solution and BYD. Sunwoda’s third‑generation LFP cells, capable of 3C charging, are already being used in vehicles built at Tesla’s Shanghai...
U.S. diesel prices surged to an average $5.64 per gallon in April, up from $3.76 before the U.S.-Israel conflict, pushing fuel costs for truckers and freight carriers higher. The spike inflates per‑mile operating expenses, squeezes carrier margins and fuels broader...
Cygnum, an Irish timber‑frame specialist, unveiled an €8 million ($8.7 million) factory extension in Macroom, County Cork, creating 150 jobs and raising annual output from 1,400 to 2,500 homes. The company reported 2024 turnover of €34.6 million ($37.7 million) and operating profit of €5.46 million...
Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have 3D‑printed a monolithic solid‑oxide fuel cell using a gyroid lattice, achieving roughly 1 W per gram—about five times the power‑to‑weight of conventional planar SOFCs. The device is built from yttria‑stabilized zirconia (8YSZ) on...
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is mass‑producing container‑sized AI “pods” that function as miniature data centres, with a factory capable of delivering a unit in a matter of months. The modular pods bundle compute, storage, networking and cooling into a single...
The episode explores the resurgence of Attabotics, a high‑density robotic fulfillment system, after its bankruptcy and its new partnership with Lafayette, a long‑standing automation integrator. Guests Bruce Robbins (founder of Lafayette), Art Eldridge (SVP of Sales & Software at Attabotics),...
Seyond, the LiDAR supplier for Nio, announced it has shipped over one million units, with 750,000 Falcon and 250,000 Robin models delivered. First‑quarter shipments jumped 340% year‑on‑year to about 181,400 units, and the company expects full‑year 2026 deliveries to rise...
PPC Ltd has commissioned two 10 MW solar farms at its Slurry and Dwaalboom cement plants in South Africa, delivering renewable power directly to the production lines. The behind‑the‑meter installations, built with Sturdee Energy, use bifacial panels and single‑axis trackers to...
Intel announced three major moves: joining Elon Musk’s Terafab AI‑robotics fab targeting 1 TW of compute, expanding its multi‑year AI and cloud partnership with Google to include custom IPUs, and showcasing the world’s thinnest GaN chiplet from its foundry. Broadcom will...
Unacem Chile has signed an agreement with Cementos Transex to manufacture cement at the Puente Alto plant in the Santiago metropolitan area. The deal lets Unacem use existing capacity, enhancing logistics and avoiding fresh capital investment. In the fourth quarter...
The Double-Double laminate replaces the traditional Quad ply schedule with a 0°/‑60°/60°/0° sequence, creating a homogeneous composite that behaves like steel. Its repeatable building block eliminates the need for cross‑plies and allows ply drops without altering mechanical performance, making tapered...
Globant has deployed an AI‑driven supply‑chain traceability platform for CMPC, a global pulp, paper and packaging leader. Built on SAP Business Technology Platform and SAP Clean Core, the solution automates document extraction and compliance workflows, shrinking manual traceability from up...
Researchers have engineered a photo‑thermal dual‑curable resin that can be shaped by DLP 3D printing and then thermally post‑cured, delivering a low dielectric constant (ε′<3.0), ultra‑low loss (tan δ<0.01), glass transition above 200 °C and tensile strength over 80 MPa. The resin was...
TCL has launched a $280 million AI‑powered air‑conditioner smart factory in Guangzhou, marking its 100 million‑unit milestone. The 303‑acre complex can produce 8 million units a year, roughly one unit every seven seconds, through three fully automated lights‑out lines. An on‑site AI supercomputing...
Geocycle, Holcim's waste‑management unit, announced a $125 million investment to boost co‑processing capacity across Latin America by 2030. The funding builds on a $55 million spend that created 14 waste‑to‑fuel facilities, now delivering roughly 30% of the region’s thermal energy needs. In...
The UK government has pledged a £380 million grant (about $483 million) to Agratas for a new battery gigafactory in Somerset. The plant will produce lithium‑ion cells for Jaguar Land Rover, Agratas’s anchor customer, and is slated to employ over 2,200 workers...
Now please look at all the money that got sucked out of shipbuilding and the US Merchant Marine.
Swiss startup Maus Robotics, founded by 28‑year‑old Robert Hennig, has built an automated crêpe‑making robot that can serve a fresh crepe every 90 seconds. The prototype, developed during Hennig’s EPFL PhD, costs roughly $5,400–$6,500 in hardware and uses a patented...
Valeo has inaugurated a high‑definition surround‑view camera production line at its Sanand plant in Gujarat, India. The line will supply advanced driver‑assistance (ADAS) and advanced rider‑assistance (ARAS) vision systems to domestic OEMs. It forms part of a broader Sanand expansion...
China has summoned its leading electric‑vehicle and stationary battery manufacturers for a second time in just over three months, urging them to curb capacity expansion. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other agencies addressed 16 firms, calling for...
Stellantis’ circular‑economy arm SUSTAINera reported a 51% jump in its reuse business for 2025 and is set to launch a third vehicle‑dismantling centre in a new region, adding to sites in Turin and São Paulo. The subsidiary’s B‑Parts e‑commerce platform now...
India Inc is rapidly reactivating exports to the Middle East following a two‑week Iran ceasefire that reopened the Strait of Hormuz. Pharma, packaged‑food and electrical‑goods manufacturers report rising demand as regional inventories are restocked and reconstruction projects loom. Companies such...
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has received approval to launch 3‑nanometer production at its second Japanese fab in Kumamoto, with equipment installation slated for 2026 and volume output expected in 2028. The plant will initially run at a capacity of...
Filtronic has inaugurated a new state‑of‑the‑art headquarters, design centre and manufacturing facility at NetPark in Sedgefield, County Durham. The complex includes advanced cleanroom environments tailored for high‑frequency components used in space, defence and communications applications. By consolidating R&D and production...
Scaling volume machining requires timing adjustments to the data the machine provides. The first part should be used only to validate the setup, correcting gross errors and chatter while ignoring subtle deviations. Between parts two and ten, a small population...
Multi-Modal #Robot Shows Off Incredible Mobility, Balance and Fall Recovery by @IntEngineering #Robotics #AI #EmergingTech #Innovation #Technology https://t.co/4VjYvCcDvN
Riber posted 2025 full‑year results showing a modest 2% dip in revenue to €40.3 million (about $44 million) but a 27% jump in net income to €5.2 million ($5.7 million). The company’s operating margin improved to 13% of sales, aided by a favorable product...
The AI‑driven compute boom is pushing the Foundry 2.0 market toward a $360 billion valuation in 2026, with advanced nodes and CoWoS packaging remaining scarce. TSMC raised its 3 nm capacity target to 165,000 wafers per month and aims for a 44% market...
Rising oil prices are pushing virgin polyethylene, polypropylene and PET resin costs higher, eroding the long‑standing price advantage of new plastic over recycled material. The surge creates a window for recycled resins to compete on economics as well as sustainability,...
Additive Manufacturing (AM) revenues reached $16.0 billion in 2025, marking a 10.2% year‑over‑year rise and outpacing the 8.3% growth recorded in 2024. Metal AM generated $6.27 billion while polymer AM delivered $9.79 billion, together accounting for the bulk of market value. AM services...
3D Printed Robot Arm Pick and Place Testing #3dPrinted #Robot #STEM #Robotics #Arduino #engineering #BlackWomenInSTEM #NoireSTEMinist #NationalRoboticsWeek #BlackSky #STEMSky #BlackSTEMSky #BlackWomenInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #WomenInSTEM https://t.co/TrXj9dXq5V
Operators sometimes see SCADA tag values lag a few seconds even though PLC‑SCADA communication shows no errors. The delay typically stems from configuration choices such as overly long scan rates, PLC programs that update variables on slow cycles, or network...
Ford Motor Co. has formally asked the U.S. administration for relief from the 50% ad valorem aluminum tariff after a September blaze at Novelis' Oswego, New York plant knocked out aluminum sheets needed for the F‑150. The outage threatens $1.5‑$2 billion...
ASSA ABLOY announced the completion of its acquisition of Portugal‑based Rollerdoor Group, a sectional door maker with €58 million (≈$63 million) in 2025 sales. The deal is accretive to earnings per share from day one and expands the company's Entrance Systems Division...
