{"id":230808,"date":"2026-06-29T11:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/230808\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:07:11","slug":"pittsburghs-robotics-sector-faces-a-critical-next-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/230808\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh\u2019s robotics sector faces a critical next 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herbert Televox\u2019s mission: To help with everyday household chores by switching household appliances on or off according to the tune of its user\u2019s voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Herbert was considered a state-of-the-art robot when former Westinghouse engineer Roy Wensley filed its patent nearly 100 years ago. A half-century later, Carnegie Mellon University partnered with the same electric company and the US government to found the Robotics Institute<\/a>. Today, professors<\/a> train four-legged robots capable of completing search-and-rescue missions in addition to helping humans out at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m rarely counseling places to accentuate the positive [but] it\u2019s very hard to not think that Pittsburgh is one of the absolute centers of AI development and adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Muro, Brookings Institution<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to say what new robotics and artificial intelligence inventions will materialize over the next half-century. There\u2019s reason to believe that Pittsburgh\u2019s broader tech sector will help transform the city\u2019s built environment and economy: Some of the city\u2019s neighborhoods \u2014 including Oakland, Lawrenceville<\/a>, the Strip and North Shore \u2014 have already grown into hubs driven by burgeoning tech startups and universities\u2019 research activities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the city\u2019s tech ecosystem has shown little capacity to support maturing startups with capital investments, corporate partnerships and physical space, according to some experts. If the status quo remains the same over the next 50 years, Pittsburgh could continue to be a place where tech businesses start but don\u2019t grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about the dot-com era,\u201d said Jenn Apicella, the executive director of the Pittsburgh Robotics Network. \u201cPittsburgh missed that opportunity. We had very similar, brilliant minds coming out of research and development, a wide variety of technical talent here, but none of those businesses took root here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A shift in focus, however, from innovation to business could keep companies here, allowing more to grow beyond the startup phase. It could also lead to more manufacturing activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will Pittsburgh fix its short circuit?<\/p>\n

Westinghouse engineers went on to design two other humanoid robots<\/a> \u2014 Mr. Telelux in 1931 and Elektro the Moto-Man in 1937, which the company showcased two years later at the World\u2019s Fair in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1984, the Pittsburgh region had a moment in the world spotlight again when William \u201cRed\u201d Whittaker, a robotics professor at CMU, and his team sent the Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle (RRV) to the flooded basement of a reactor on Three Mile Island. The mission\u2019s success cemented Pittsburgh as the home of field robotics, or robots that can move through worksites and other tricky terrain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AHerbert Televox, Pittsburgh\u2019s first humanoid robot<\/p>\n

Whittaker said he moved to Pittsburgh to continue his education at a time when \u201cthere just wasn\u2019t a whisper of an idea\u201d that the tech would evolve, or \u201cfind a place in the world,\u201d but RRV\u2019s mission on the nuclear reactor site, \u201craised the belief state, like maybe something could come of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, the Pittsburgh Robotics Network estimates that more than 260 deep-tech companies \u2014 or those whose products focus on robotics, AI or smart systems \u2014 exist within the Pittsburgh region, employing over 11,300 people across Southwestern Pennsylvania<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet only 10 companies \u201cexited\u201d<\/a> last year, meaning that they successfully ended the startup phase by being acquired, merging with another company or becoming publicly traded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will that grow? The answer could depend on whether the region can bring together corporations looking to buy, adopt and use startups\u2019 technologies, Apicella said. She pointed to her organization\u2019s partnership with Duquesne Light, which matches the electric company with local AI companies that can help meet the utility\u2019s needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe Pittsburgh Robotics Factory (Sarah Narrarato\/Pittsburgh Media Partnership)<\/p>\n

With changes like that, \u201cwe would be known for the big tech giants that have big offices here and do serious business here \u2014 not just where they put an engineering back office or a small place to do research,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Senior Fellow Mark Muro and Senior Research Assistant Shriya Methkupally, both of the Brookings Institution think tank, have also found that Pittsburgh\u2019s commercial businesses trail other cities in adopting AI, a shortcoming that can hurt startups trying to market their products. But when ranking more than 200 American cities based on their overall preparedness for an AI-driven economy \u2014 which factored in talent and innovation in addition to adoption \u2014 Muro and Methkupally found Pittsburgh ranked 7th overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m rarely counseling places to accentuate the positive \u2014 I think it\u2019s often valuable to see one\u2019s debits \u2014 but really, it\u2019s very hard to not think that Pittsburgh is one of the absolute centers of AI development and adoption,\u201d Muro said.<\/p>\n

The future could also depend on funding. As startups, companies can raise money through government grants, venture capital, angel investments, private partnerships \u2014 even family and friends. During most stages of the startup journey, companies vie for venture capital.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Pittsburgh-based startups raised about $1.5 billion in venture capital funding<\/a> last year, only a small share came from regional firms. Pittsburgh-area firms\u2019 supply of venture funds stood at only $23 million last year, according to a report<\/a> by Ernst and Young LLP and Innovation Works. That\u2019s far fewer dollars than the $140 million they had on hand roughly 10 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AJenn Apicella, executive director of the Pittsburgh Robotics Network (Sarah Narrarato\/Pittsburgh Media Partnership)<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a deep-tech ecosystem of our scale, there\u2019s not adequate infrastructure available to help these companies scale in the ways that other cities have provided,\u201d Apicella said.<\/p>\n

Another close observer of the tech scene said Pittsburgh\u2019s ecosystem may splinter in the future. Aaron Tainter, Innovation Works\u2019 director of accelerator programs, said the city\u2019s next 50 years could see startups mostly fall into two buckets:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re gonna see some companies separate and build really big, really promising, and we\u2019ve already seen pieces of that,\u201d said Tainter. \u201cOn the other side, with lower-tech software companies, I think you\u2019re gonna see a lot of one-person, million-dollar [revenue] startups.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Innovation Works\u2019 Kevin Dowling said he\u2019s hopeful the startups that do become highly successful will gain enough visibility to attract more investment to the city over 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that time frame we\u2019ll have enough successes, the Duolingos of the world that have risen, become unicorns<\/a>, gone public [and] had an exit. We need more of those,\u201d he said. \u201cAs those happen, I think that success will spread, it will allow more funding to happen here and attract even more folks from the coast and elsewhere that say, \u2018Well, Pittsburgh\u2019s really where it\u2019s at.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Spinning out from Oakland<\/p>\n

Finding space in Pittsburgh also poses a challenge to some startups, which either need more funding to afford a space, offices that better accommodate their employees or infrastructure that can withstand robotics testing. Over the next 50 years, it could lead to a perpetual \u201cspin out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the region\u2019s deep-tech startups begin as research projects at nearby universities \u2014 which spend about $2 billion annually on research and development \u2014 then \u201cspin out\u201d of the universities to form companies. Because of this, most of Pittsburgh\u2019s young startup companies begin in Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the early stages of these companies, they want to stay close to campus either because that\u2019s what they\u2019re used to, that\u2019s where they live,\u201d said Andrew Millberg, senior vice president of brokerage at the real-estate firm JLL. \u201cWith AI companies recently, we\u2019ve seen a lot of companies that have employees that are also still attending classes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ThreePittsburgh\u2019s Oakland neighborhood (Sarah Narrarato\/Pittsburgh Media Partnership)<\/p>\n

Tight budgets often mean moves away from Oakland. Dowling, Innovation Works\u2019 Robotics Factory managing director, said the businesses he mentors through the Robotics Factory\u2019s incubator program find space<\/a> \u201cin the corners of Lawrenceville and Garfield\u201d to lower their costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one coming out of the accelerator can afford what they\u2019re doing in Bakery Square,\u201d he said, referring to the Walnut Capital development straddling Larimer and East Liberty. \u201cGoogle can afford it, and a very, very well-funded AI company can afford it, but no one else can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from costs, companies may relocate from Oakland to accommodate more employees, commutes or needs for larger spaces for testing or manufacturing. Tech-driven companies sometimes relocate to other states, such as Texas or Arizona, due in part to the state\u2019s building permitting laws and less competitive tax credits, said Tim White, senior vice president of business development and strategy for the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC).<\/p>\n

\"TwoPeople on the University of Pittsburgh\u2019s Oakland campus, with the Cathedral of Learning towering in the background (Stephanie Strasburg\/Public Source)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a new product, whether it\u2019s an autonomous truck, or energy generation for electrification or new coating material for AV [autonomous vehicles], you need to be able to test it in a real-world environment. That can\u2019t be done inside a lab,\u201d White said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because of these factors, Millberg said it\u2019s likely that Oakland will remain \u201cthe center of gravity for Pittsburgh\u2019s \u2018eds and meds\u2019 economy for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe universities are continuing to develop throughout Oakland for their own purposes, further increasing the existing density and forcing most non-university affiliated developers to look outward for opportunities,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the long term, CMU plans to focus on \u201cdensification,\u201d wrote CMU\u2019s Director of Media Relations Cassia Crogan in an email, through projects akin to the Alan Magee Scaife Hall of Engineering and the Highmark Center for Health, Wellness and Athletics. Pitt\u2019s campus master plan<\/a> also calls for increasing its number of academic facilities and increasing on-campus housing.<\/p>\n

The city is also proposing to add density to Oakland through multi-residential development over the next 25 years, as described in its proposed comprehensive plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From testing to manufacturing<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh region has an opportunity in the future to transition from being a leader in developing materials to providing physical spaces to develop and manufacture innovative technology products, said White.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting in the 1990s, RIDC and others began redeveloping the city\u2019s riverfronts into innovation testing grounds \u2014 something that couldn\u2019t be accommodated in Oakland because of its high density and small floorplates. At the same time, the riverfronts were still close enough to Oakland\u2019s campuses for students and professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt mattered to have something that was arm\u2019s length beyond, and complementary to, the basic research that was occurring on the main campus,\u201d said CMU Professor Whittaker, who helped establish the National Robotics Engineering Center in Lawrenceville in 1996.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to the NREC, these developments resulted in the Pittsburgh Technology Center in South Oakland, Lawrenceville\u2019s Tech Forge and technology center, and CMU\u2019s Robotics Innovation Center and Pitt\u2019s BioForge in Hazelwood Green.<\/p>\n

White predicts that \u201cmajor changes in manufacturing are on the horizon,\u201d and the focus will transition to sites such as the Lawrenceville Technology Center and Neighborhood 91 in Clinton, which operate as advanced manufacturing centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dowling of Innovation Works said he also thinks more manufacturing will exist in the Pittsburgh region in 50 years: \u201cThere\u2019s been a general awareness that reshoring can happen here\u201d he said, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic and now the U.S. and Israel\u2019s war in Iran have driven up shipping costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Millberg expects that Pittsburgh\u2019s riverfronts will only continue to evolve. So far, between 2014 and 2024 alone, Lower and Central Lawrenceville grew in population by 7% and 3%, respectively. The Strip District, which houses several mature university spin-outs, nearly tripled its population over the same period.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s draft comprehensive plan also calls for a further transformation of riverfront neighborhoods over the next 25 years through a focus on increasing mixed-use development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were here 10, 15 years ago, and you walked through the Strip District, it didn\u2019t look anything like it does today,\u201d Millberg said. \u201cAll of that new development along the river, not just the office redevelopments and new construction, but the housing that\u2019s come with it, has been because of tech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mia Hollie is the economic development and housing reporter for Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source. She can be reached at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story was fact-checked by Emma Folts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Herbert Televox\u2019s mission: To help with everyday household chores by switching household appliances on or off according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[278,1160,15427,73,75,74,13683,9880],"class_list":["post-230808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-ai","tag-economic-development","tag-ecosystem-building","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-robotics","tag-semiquincentennial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}