Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
David Knight, founder and CEO of Las Vegas-based startup Terbine, believes we’re entering a new era of “physical AI” — intelligent, interconnected machines of all kinds.
As this technology evolves rapidly, Terbine is developing infrastructure to support these networked intelligent systems.
“Very, very little of physical AI in terms of infrastructure and, what I call collaboration between machines, has really been defined yet,” said Knight, a self-described serial entrepreneur. “So that really is the nexus of opportunity, is to be involved with the evolution and deployment of physical AI.”
As aviation grew in its early days, the proliferation of planes and air travel eventually required air traffic control. Knight describes Terbine as serving a similar role for the coming wave of intelligent machines — managing everything from airplanes and drones to humanoid robots, delivery machines, cars and boats.
“I mean anything really that moves,” he said. “Eventually, they’re all going to need to deal with each other and the environments they’re in, and humans — and that includes everything from managing safety, to making them more efficient by operating the big trucks on the highways and convoys and things like that. So we’re working on that technology.”
And now, they’re working with UNLV.
Terbine and UNLV signed a teaming agreement “to pursue federal and state grants, projects and industry partnerships that have the shared goal of delivering highly secure real-time monitoring, management and synchronization of autonomous supply chain systems and connected infrastructure across land, air and sea,” according to a news release.
Knight cited UNLV’s team, its Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab, and its relatively new Advanced Engineering Building — which features a “drone aviary” — as key factors in formalizing their partnership. Terbine can now approach big, primarily tech companies for sponsorships for UNLV’s College of Engineering and the Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab, he said.
Terbine and UNLV can also land at the “top of the stack” of bids for Request for Proposals, or RFPs, from the government.
“I have every motivation to help UNLV,” he said. “If we can, for example, get sponsors for the Drones and Autonomous Systems Lab and grants and other projects — that really helps the lab. And … there’s nothing about the lab that we need to duplicate ourselves, because we can really, really partner with them, and we really know that they have great people and great facilities.”
Rama Venkat, dean of UNLV’s Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering, said Knight has hired many of its students as interns and employees.
“He’s a great collaborator,” Venkat said. “He works with us. He’s on my engineering college’s advisory board. … He’s a great ambassador for UNLV engineering.”
Students and faculty who work with Terbine not only have the opportunity to contribute to the technology it develops, Venkat said, but also benefit themselves. For example, he said, if Terbine writes a collaborative proposal with UNLV and wins money from the federal government, it can fund faculty research and graduate students.
Undergraduate students can also get jobs with Terbine, and the two entities can co-create technologies, therefore collaborating on patents and intellectual property.
Everything is becoming autonomous, Venkat said, which demands communication among autonomous devices. To make a robust and efficient system for that, a lot of students, innovation and a good autonomous systems lab are needed.
“We are going to see AI — it’s going to be with us forever,” he said. “And so instead of fighting the technology, we have to embrace the technology, and that’s what we are telling our students and faculty to do.”
Terbine and UNLV are complementary, Knight said. The former is developing infrastructure class software, while the latter provides hardware and communications technology.
“It’s really fantastic that our university in the city we’re in has a whole focus area on drones and autonomous systems,” said Knight, who noted that Terbine already hired a graduate student from the lab as an intern. “Most universities do not. And so, this is just really an incredible pairing.”
Terbine relocated to Southern Nevada from San Francisco, fleeing overcrowding and a high cost of living, Knight said.
“I was told you could get business done here, but I now have a lot of proof of it,” said Knight, who emphasized that Las Vegas has been a “great environment,” for Terbine.
He pointed to the number of companies testing autonomous vehicles locally, including Zoox, Waymo, Vay and more.
He also pointed to the proximity of Creech Air Force Base, a military drone-operating base; renewable energy; the international airport and business incubators like StartUpNV, which helped Terbine find angel investors in Nevada.
“Nevada — and Vegas in particular — are very, very open to business,” Knight said. “They will very much get hands-on to help new businesses here. And I’ve never really experienced anything like it. It’s really — it’s incredible. They don’t slow you down; they almost accelerate.”
The goal is for Terbine to grow into a large, thriving and global company, Knight said, and its technology and business plan have tremendous potential. It “takes a village,” however, and he said the region’s assets are integral.
“We absolutely intend to be a global company,” Knight said. “I guess we’re sort of a newer-style company, where we fundamentally believe that you can do good for the planet and society, while becoming very financially successful. And we’re all about it.”