Serve Robotics launches new business to become the AWS for robots

Serve Robotics, a maker of self-driving sidewalk delivery robots, is expanding beyond its autonomous delivery operations in a bid to become a technology supplier to other companies building robots. The company, which spun out of Uber’s acquisition of Postmates in 2021 and went public in 2024, said Thursday it will launch a new business line called Physical AI Services.

自动驾驶人行道配送机器人制造商 Serve Robotics 正在将其业务扩展至自主配送运营之外，旨在成为其他机器人制造公司的技术供应商。该公司于 2021 年从 Uber 收购 Postmates 的交易中分拆出来，并于 2024 年上市。周四，该公司宣布将推出名为“物理人工智能服务”（Physical AI Services）的新业务线。

Specifically, Serve Robotics will offer customers its connectivity and data tools. Bedrock Robotics, a startup developing self-driving systems for construction equipment, is a customer, according to Serve. It’s also working with T-Mobile to bring AI computing power closer to robots, Serve announced alongside its third-quarter earnings on Thursday. “We are solving the problem of robots in human spaces,” Serve Robotics CEO and co-founder Ali Kashani told TechCrunch.

具体而言，Serve Robotics 将向客户提供其连接和数据工具。据 Serve 称，正在开发建筑设备自动驾驶系统的初创公司 Bedrock Robotics 已成为其客户。Serve 在周四公布第三季度财报时还宣布，正与 T-Mobile 合作，将人工智能计算能力更贴近机器人。Serve Robotics 首席执行官兼联合创始人 Ali Kashani 对 TechCrunch 表示：“我们正在解决机器人如何在人类空间中运行的问题。”

Serve Robotics already makes two kinds of robots, the cute googly-eyed sidewalk delivery robot and one designed for hospitals that it got through its acquisition of Diligent Robotics. Those businesses are not going away, Kashani emphasized in a recent interview. Instead, he said there is opportunity to sell the technology it developed for its own robots to other companies developing robots for farms, warehouses, and other uncontrolled environments.

Serve Robotics 目前生产两种机器人：一种是带有可爱大眼睛的人行道配送机器人，另一种是通过收购 Diligent Robotics 获得的医院专用机器人。Kashani 在最近的一次采访中强调，这些业务不会消失。相反，他表示，公司有机会将为自身机器人开发的技术出售给其他正在为农场、仓库及其他非受控环境开发机器人的公司。

“I kind of think of it as the AWS moment where we are taking the technology we’ve built for us, and we’re opening it up for more people to build on,” he said, adding this wouldn’t have been possible without developing its own robot fleet. The expansion comes as Serve’s sidewalk delivery business expands, but is shifting away from Uber and toward other partners, including DoorDash and Wonder.

“我认为这就像是 AWS 时刻，我们将为自己构建的技术开放出来，让更多人在此基础上进行开发，”他说，并补充道，如果没有开发自己的机器人车队，这一切都不可能实现。此次扩张正值 Serve 的人行道配送业务增长之际，但该业务正从 Uber 转向包括 DoorDash 和 Wonder 在内的其他合作伙伴。

Its new Physical AI Services business line will offer three products. Serve Link helps connect robots in the field to AI systems running in data centers, which would allow companies to potentially tap into more powerful AI models without having to put all that computing power onboard. “Any robotic application generally needs to connect the robots to some offline intelligence, whether it’s to collect data or do exception handling or whatever,” said Kashani.

其新的“物理人工智能服务”业务线将提供三款产品。Serve Link 有助于将现场机器人连接到数据中心运行的人工智能系统，使公司无需在机器人上部署所有计算能力，即可利用更强大的人工智能模型。Kashani 说：“任何机器人应用通常都需要将机器人连接到某种离线智能，无论是为了收集数据、进行异常处理还是其他用途。”

“It’s the connectivity piece that has to be really high performance. You need to be able to manage really unreliable networks and still reliably connect, and that’s what we solve.” It’s also launching a data curator tool that helps companies find edge cases in the reams of real-world data a robot collects, which can then be fed back into a training model to improve performance.

“连接部分必须具备极高的性能。你需要能够管理非常不可靠的网络，同时保持可靠的连接，而这正是我们所解决的问题。”该公司还推出了一款数据管理工具，帮助公司从机器人收集的海量现实世界数据中发现边缘案例，这些数据随后可反馈至训练模型以提升性能。

Its third product is a real-world, foundation-model data catalog built from Serve’s own sidewalk robots that can teach AI models how to understand complex human environments. Kashani said he’s been thinking about this idea — a playbook he learned from Amazon — for years. “When the technology is so nascent, you have got to build the end-to-end application because that’s the only way you know what to build, but then over time, as the technology gets more advanced, a lot more people are going to be wanting to build similar things,” he said.

其第三款产品是一个基于 Serve 自有人行道机器人构建的现实世界基础模型数据目录，可以教导人工智能模型如何理解复杂的人类环境。Kashani 表示，他多年来一直在思考这个想法——这是他从亚马逊学到的策略。“当技术尚处于萌芽阶段时，你必须构建端到端的应用程序，因为这是你了解需要构建什么的唯一途径；但随着时间的推移，当技术变得更加先进时，会有更多人想要构建类似的东西，”他说。

“And what you want to do is to open your technology so others build with you and on your platform.”

“而你想要做的，就是开放你的技术，让其他人与你一起并在你的平台上进行构建。”