Christoph Schell runs KUKA, the company that built one of the first industrial robots, Famulus, in 1973 and now has close to 600,000 robots working in factories around the world.
Now KUKA is betting on physical AI. The idea is to combine the deterministic automation KUKA is known for with robots that understand a situation and act on intent, so that even older machines can learn new tricks.
I sat down with Christoph to talk about where the training data for physical AI really comes from, why KUKA is growing faster than the market in China, robotics as a service, and why he sees humanoids as one form factor among many mobile robots rather than a category of their own.
Christoph told me why this shift feels different from anything he’s seen before:
“We’re not disrupting the old industry. We are evolving it.”
This is a conversation about physical AI on real factory floors, the business models that come with it, and why the industry’s deployment timelines may be too ambitious.
00:00 Intro and KUKA’s first robot
00:40 What physical AI changes for existing robots
01:45 KUKA’s installed base and factory data
02:40 Automation 2.0: the bin-picking example
03:35 Selling intent-based automation to factories
04:45 Where physical-AI training data comes from
06:15 What data gets you to the 99,99999% reliability
07:10 Robotics as a service
08:25 KUKA’s growth in China
09:40 What does scaling mean for KUKA?
10:45 Why KUKA built a US AI team?
11:35 Is the robotics timeline too ambitious?
12:53 Humanoids versus other mobile robots
14:35 What industrial leaders will need in 2036
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