00:00Jake thanks so much for joining us here on Bloomberg television and radio. We are here in Pennsylvania for this
00:05defense summit focused on bolstering the U.S. industrial base. You're a Pittsburgh based startup. And I'm wondering if you
00:12can walk me through what it's been like under this Pentagon's leadership when it comes to working with more innovative
00:19companies which historically have I think it's fair to say a harder time getting into that procurement process. What has
00:26your experience been like?
00:27Yeah I appreciate being able to talk about this especially like this. This summit is an exciting ones in Pennsylvania
00:33and last year's Pittsburgh was great too. But what I think it represents is also a energy and momentum into
00:40the defense sector from tech companies. And in particular tech companies that see the importance right now in particular of
00:48deterrence technology of weapon systems that enable the U.S. to be able to be put in a position to
00:54help ensure that peace and
00:57prosperity and prosperity and the values that we hold as a country are not threatened. And right now they are
01:03under threatened are being threatened. If we do not ensure that our technology keeps up with the rest of the
01:11world.
01:11For example shipbuilding in China is 300 times faster than shipbuilding in the U.S. and that spells a potential
01:18disaster. We can't figure out how to turn the engine and reindustrialize the U.S.
01:22and make things here in the U.S. again. And we've got to use technology like robotics and AI to
01:29give us advantages that we currently do not have.
01:32So let's build on this because it's my understanding Gecko won a five year up to 71 million dollar contract
01:38with the Navy this year to deploy AI and robotics across 18 Pacific fleets.
01:43So we're talking about the warships the amphibious assault units things like that. Can you walk me through to build
01:50on the point that you were making.
01:51How is your technology helping to compress timelines when it comes to helping the U.S. bolster its own defense
01:58capabilities.
01:59Well the U.S. the U.S. Secretary of Navy put a pretty ambitious goal of getting to 80 percent
02:05readiness for the fleet.
02:06We talked about building and manufacturing in the U.S. and reinvigorating the supply chain with technology like robotics and
02:13AI that Gecko builds and is deploying for program offices like the naval reactors.
02:18However sustainment and ensuring that the ships and vessels that are available to be used are actually able to be
02:26used and not stuck in a dry dock somewhere in a maintenance cycle.
02:29Typically it takes about 18 months sometimes 16 to 18 months for vessels to go through a maintenance cycle and
02:35that is so much time and that's why you know we're at about 67 68 percent readiness for the U
02:40.S. fleet and we want to be able to have as many vessels available to be used when called upon
02:45to deter conflict and this is not just a U.S. issue this is a this is a world issue
02:49our allies are suffering mightily because of this very problem of not having ships available to be used.
02:54And so you know it's really great to build new autonomous systems like Sironics building but it's also really important
03:00that you have a you have you know you go to war with the military and the and the assets
03:06you have to really important to ensure that we have every asset available to use and it's reliable.
03:11And so our robots are deployed to ensure that we reduce the amount of time ship spend in dry docks
03:16and that's what that contract is all about is taking processes that would take four months five months in some
03:20cases and make them two day processes to evaluate what's wrong and to fix it.
03:24That's the sort of things that we're doing and the Navy is leading the way in deploying technology like that.
03:29And that's what the CTO of the Navy says we provide 17000 percent ROI for the technology stack that we're
03:34deploying.
03:34We talk a lot about bottlenecks when it comes to the manufacturing side kind of the traditional reindustrialization that sort
03:43of idea.
03:44But I'm curious in your business where you see bottlenecks for what you're doing even when it comes to innovative
03:50technology.
03:50When you think about well I'll describe like this you know the Internet provided 30 to 40 years of digitizing
03:58things that are mostly analog and putting them online.
04:01And that created this rail an opportunity for ChatGPT to have its moment.
04:06Well the same sort of moment is going to happen in the next 10 years for robotics and physical intelligence
04:12models.
04:14Now what Gecko is doing is it's providing robots that are gathering all this information in the physical world.
04:19Sometimes that information is in people's heads and it's digitizing all of that inside of a technology stack that we
04:25built called Cantilever.
04:26It's creating a facility intelligence model.
04:29Now all of that allows for us to understand what sort of actions to take in the real world.
04:33What sorts of grinding or welding is needed for a part that has a defect that you wouldn't have been
04:37able to find unless you had a human crawling around and doing gathering information data points using ultrasonic technologies like
04:43you would do for a sonogram.
04:44Instead the robots are able to understand the complete health of all of that and then digitize it.
04:48Have a record so that when you get that asset out and you're in a sustainment period you don't have
04:54much time and maintenance cycles.
04:56Those things are just available to be used whenever.
04:58It's technology like that that countries like China don't even have.
05:03But we're introducing and now scaling inside of the manufacturing and supply chain.
05:09And it's not things that are like available in 10 years.
05:11It's like available right now.
05:13So if you can understand and have an understanding of the health at all times of the critical assets that
05:19we have, well then you have a superior advantage in how to leverage and use that.
05:23And so that's what the Navy is bringing to bear right now with us.
05:26If we just drill in a little bit more when it comes to government contracting, there is this stop and
05:31go nature.
05:31But I'm wondering if you think that is more a constraint.
05:34Does that impact how you're hiring down the line or is it a benefit because in some way it gives
05:40you more leeway to innovate?
05:43What it does is it provides it provides large contracts to be able to excite the business model.
05:52But we shouldn't rely on just the defense and the DOW's budget for our innovation.
05:57We want to invest ahead of the buying cycles, especially with technologies like robotics and AI, where a lot of
06:04the understanding of the capabilities of those technologies are not understood by even the folks in the field, let alone
06:11folks on the acquisition side for the government.
06:13So we actually leverage our commercial customers in the private sector, whether it's energy companies in the Middle East or
06:20in the US or power companies, mining and metal manufacturing companies, the industrials, where we are doing cutting edge development
06:29and deployment of robots and AI systems at scale that then can be leveraged on the government side.
06:33And that also works in reverse. But companies that are singly focused on defense, I think, limits the ability for
06:40deploying and scaling really quickly systems like robots and AI systems that can move at space and innovation that the
06:51military is really going to need.
06:52So it's really important to be dual use. That's our core belief. And it's proving to be very successful in
06:57terms of how quickly the government's adopting.
06:59In the final minute, I have you. Relatedly, I did want to ask you about energy because it does dovetail
07:03into the defense picture, the defense industrial base.
07:06These companies really do need to rely on reliable energy resources. I'm wondering what your view has been.
07:14Have you spoken to any of these defense customers to inspect their energy infrastructure? Can you talk to me about
07:20the link there?
07:22The link is mostly tied to AI infrastructure. And then also a lot of the customers, whether it's internationally and
07:32allies or domestic, all they really care about is, like, do I have a resilient, reliable energy infrastructure?
07:38And then are we creating facilities that are self-learning and self-improving?
07:41And the answer is pretty much no outside of the technology stack that we bring to bear.
07:47And so point solutions with robots are where you die, is where scale can't happen, and a way that justifies
07:53it for the customer or for the company.
07:55So that's why we build stacks of robots that fly, swim, crawl, and walk, bring those all to bear, that
08:01feed information and data sets and insights into a central model that helps to optimize the way that plant is
08:07operating and then also maintaining itself.
08:09And then it begins to self-learn. How does the facility improve? How do you make power more efficiently, less
08:14BTUs but more kilowatts?
08:15And how do you make it reliable without having potential shutdowns?
08:18This is the kind of resilience that the DOE is paying more and more attention to.
08:22Obviously, DOE is inside of the budget of DOE.
08:25In order to have a reliable intelligence for the country, a reliable grid for the country, you actually need to
08:31figure out how do you create more with less.
08:33And that's what we're doing on the independent power producing side.
08:36The utilities are the slow movers.
08:37And so my big push to Secretary Burgum or Secretary Chris Wright is you've got to be able to speed
08:46up the deployments here because the utilities are going way too slow in their adaptations.
08:51And so independent power is moving faster. And so we need to look to them.
08:54That's what our partner who runs 5% of the U.S. power grid is doing right now with us.
08:59So that's what I would love to see the U.S. lead opposed to lag because China is doing this
09:04right now.
09:05All right. Thank you so much for joining us here on Bloomberg Television and Radio.
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