Former Uber Boss Travis Kalanick Starts Robot Startup Called Atoms

Uber founder Travis Kalanick is making a splash in the tech world again (photo: x @founderncom)

JAKARTA - Uber founder Travis Kalanick is making a splash in the technology world again after announcing major changes to the business he built for almost a decade. The company, which previously operated in a closed manner, has officially changed its name to Atoms and will focus on developing industrial robots for various economic sectors.

Kalanick revealed that the company had actually been operating for about eight years in a secret or stealth mode. During this period, employees were not even allowed to list the company's name on their professional profiles so that the company's activities were almost unknown to the public.

"We've been in stealth mode for eight years," Kalanick said in an interview on the TBPN podcast. "A lot of people think I'm back, but I never really left."

Startup Atoms is an evolution of its previous business known as City Storage Systems and CloudKitchens, a virtual kitchen infrastructure company founded by Kalanick after he left Uber in 2017. Now the business is expanding into robotics and industrial automation.

According to Kalanick, the approach chosen by Atoms is different from the trend of humanoid robots that are popular among global technology companies. He assessed that robots designed for specific tasks are much more realistic and faster to provide economic impact than robots that try to fully imitate humans.

"At Atoms we are building robots that actually work, robots that have productive jobs and can create abundance for their owners and society," Kalanick said.

This company is designed to have several main divisions targeting different industrial sectors. Among them is Atoms Food which focuses on food industry infrastructure and automation, Atoms Mining which develops robots to increase the efficiency of the mining sector, as well as Atoms Transport which targets robotic technology for logistics and transportation systems.

Kalanick also assessed that humanoid robots still have major challenges to become an industrial solution in the near future. According to him, special robots designed for a specific job will be more quickly implemented commercially.

"Humanoids do have their own place, but there is still a large space for specialized robots that work efficiently on an industrial scale," he said.

In another strategic move, Atoms is reportedly exploring the acquisition of autonomous vehicle startup Pronto founded by former Uber and Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski. If the acquisition is realized, Atoms has the potential to expand its portfolio into transportation and logistics automation technology.

The launch of Atoms is a new chapter for Kalanick after his controversial period at Uber which ended in 2017 when he stepped down from the CEO position amid investor pressure and various internal company problems. However, he is still known as a figure who revolutionized the global transportation industry through the ride-hailing service which is now used in various countries.

Now through Atoms, Kalanick is trying to bring another major change, no longer in the world of digital applications, but in the physical world through robots and artificial intelligence that work directly in various industrial sectors.

If Uber once changed the way humans move from one place to another, Atoms seems to want to do something more radical by introducing robots as a new workforce in the global economy.