PhD Research Intern - AI & Computer Vision

Physical AI stopped being a robotics story this week: 4 procurement signals. Geekplus opened its first European innovation lab in Düsseldorf, Locus Robotics won a Supply Chain Excellence Award, Magentic raised $18M for agentic procurement AI, and Trackonomy acquired Identiv to form a vertically integrated physical-AI supply chain. The category plan just changed. For most of 2026, "physical AI" has lived in robotics trade press. This week it crossed into procurement, M&A, and awards - and that is the moment the category plan changed. Four signals landed within five days, and they belong in the same conversation. 1. Geekplus opened its first European Innovation Lab in Düsseldorf. On 17 September, Geekplus inaugurated its Düsseldorf European Innovation Lab, welcoming 150+ industry leaders including GXO, DSV, and LPP Logistics, plus Düsseldorf's First Deputy Mayor. The facility showcases Gravity, Geekplus's "unified embodied AI framework for long-horizon, complex tasks" - i.e., a demonstration space where European buyers can run proof-of-concept under their own workflows before committing to a fleet. For sourcing teams in Europe, this is now the lowest-friction way to evaluate mobile robotics without flying to Shenzhen. 2. Locus Robotics and Kimball Midwest won Best Use of Robotics at the 2026 Supply Chain Excellence awards USA. Winners were announced at Union Station in Dallas on 15 September across the full category list - and the Best Use of Robotics prize went to Locus Robotics with Kimball Midwest. The 2026 ceremony saw entries up +106% YoY and participating companies up +102%. For procurement: a customer-led deployment beat the field, not a vendor-led showcase. The award is now a referenceable shortlist for any AMR RFP that needs a "who has actually shipped at scale" data point. 3. Magentic raised $18M Series A to put AI agents inside sourcing workflows. Magentic (London / New York) closed an $18M Series A on 17-19 September, led by Felicis with Sequoia and The Westly Group participating. The product is multi-agent AI workers that operate inside Microsoft Teams and email to run buy-versus-build decisions, supplier selection, contract negotiation, purchase orders, and invoice clearing. Reported customer outcomes: 2-5% spend savings across Global 500 deployments, ~60% data-quality improvement, and one customer processing more than 1M orders annually through the agents. This is agentic AI for procurement - not "AI features" bolted onto an e-sourcing tool. 4. Trackonomy completed its acquisition of Identiv's IoT business. On 16 September, Trackonomy Systems closed the Identiv IoT acquisition and rebranded the combined entity as Trackonomy Group, positioning it as "the industry's only vertically integrated Physical AI supply chain" spanning semiconductors (InPlay BLE SoCs), RFID/NFC labels (Identiv), and end-to-end solutions (Trackonomy). For procurement: the silicon-to-label stack that underpins every passive tracking deployment is now consolidated under one supplier - a meaningful shift in vendor-concentration risk and roadmap visibility. Why procurement should care. These four signals share a single shape: buyers are now purchasing physical-AI infrastructure, not point robots. A lab you can visit, an award-shortlisted reference deployment, a SaaS agent that lives in your procurement team's chat tool, and a vertically integrated silicon-plus-label supplier - each one of these is a category-plan line item that didn't exist 18 months ago. Bottom line: Treat physical AI as a multi-track category, not a single RFP. Anchor the orchestration layer with 05 WMS, fold robot SKUs and RFID labels into one inventory with 01 Asset Management, bring 03 MES in where line-side robotics and order execution intersect, lean on 06 Checklist for the safety and commissioning SOPs that change every quarter, and deploy 08 People Tracking in human-robot coexistence zones. The winners of this decade will be the teams that buy physical AI as one connected layer. Mapping out your 2026 physical-AI category plan? Contact the Intensecomp team to walk through how Inventrack composes with your existing WMS, MES, and AMR investments. Ready to transform your operations? Discover how Intensecomp's RFID and IoT solutions can streamline your asset management.

Locus Robotics and Kimball Midwest win 2026 Supply Chain Excellence award for Best Use of Robotics. Three-site automation program surpasses 13.2M robotic-assisted lines picked, doubles putaway productivity, and achieves ROI in under one year. Locus Robotics, the leader in Flexibility-First Warehouse Automation, and customer Kimball Midwest have won the Best Use of Robotics category at the 2026 Supply Chain Excellence Awards USA. The award was presented September 15 at Union Station in Dallas. More headlines. Articles. Kimball Midwest implemented Locus Robotics to expand warehouse capacity while protecting its commitment to ship 99.9% of orders received by 4 p.m. the same day. After launching in Columbus in January 2024, the company expanded the program from one site to three in just 14 months without major changes to its existing shelving or pallet-rack infrastructure, supporting sustained double-digit growth and its path toward $1 billion in annual revenue. "Kimball Midwest had a clear objective: increase capacity without compromising the service its customers depend on," said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics. "The results show what warehouse automation can deliver when technology, operations, and business strategy work together." Today, a fleet of 100+ Locus autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) support picking and putaway across Kimball Midwest distribution centers in Ohio, Texas, and Nevada. Together, the three facilities have completed more than 13.2 million robotic-assisted lines picked and approximately 1 million lines put away. Specifically, the operation has achieved: Picking productivity increased: Approximately 45%, from roughly 110 to more than 160 lines per hour Putaway productivity improved: More than 100%, rising from approximately 30 to 91-96 lines per hour ROI achieved: In under one year Onboarding time reduced: From approximately two weeks to minutes or hours Labor efficiency improved: Reliance on temporary labor decreased and overtime was effectively eliminated "What made this program unique was the way it changed the flow of work across the warehouse," said Steve Good, Director of Operations at Kimball Midwest. "Using one robotics platform for both picking and putaway allows managers to reallocate associates as priorities change throughout the day. Capacity can shift from replenishment in the morning to order fulfillment as shipping cutoffs approach, eliminating the need for separate labor pools. Our teams can move between picking, putaway, and replenishment based on current demand, and that responsiveness has helped us maintain our customer promise while creating a better experience for associates." The 2026 honor marks Locus Robotics' second consecutive win in the Best Use of Robotics category. Locus Robotics received the 2025 award alongside customer Dental City, whose warehouse automation program increased picking productivity by 300%. The Supply Chain Excellence Awards USA celebrate measurable achievement in logistics, warehousing, technology, and supply chain management. Entries are evaluated by an independent panel of industry leaders based on business benefits, competitive advantage, depth of application, collaboration, and evidence of results. About Kimball Midwest Kimball Midwest is a family-owned national distributor of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products that has been providing superior products and superior service since 1923. About Locus Robotics Locus Robotics is the leader in Flexibility-First Warehouse Automation, helping enterprise operators outperform in an uncertain world. Powered by the LocusONE platform, Locus Robotics combines real-time orchestration, advanced robotics, and AI-driven execution to automate fulfillment operations at scale. As one of the largest robotics companies globally, Locus Robotics delivers proven productivity and throughput improvements while giving organizations the agility to adapt to changing demand, labor availability, and growth requirements. Trusted by 150+ unique customers serving more than 1,000 brands across 360+ sites worldwide, Locus Robotics helps leading retail, healthcare, 3PL, and industrial brands scale efficiently and achieve faster time-to-value through its Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.