Its San Francisco arena is designed to turn physical tasks into training data, then test robot decisions on real machines.
Industry Next has launched the Real2Sim2Real Arena, a 10,000-square-foot facility at its San Francisco headquarters. Assembly magazine reports that the site combines robot learning, simulation, and real-world validation in one development workflow.
The arena houses more than 50 robots, including mobile two-armed systems and stationary industrial setups with dexterous hands. The company’s process starts with a task performed by a robot in the facility. Industry Next says that task is recreated in simulation, where training and validation can be scaled before the resulting robot behavior is tested again on physical machines.
That behavior is called a “policy.” In plain terms, it is the decision-making software that takes information such as camera images and robot position, then chooses an action, such as moving a joint or gripper.
The approach targets the gap between a convincing demonstration and reliable deployment. Industry Next co-founder and CEO Lukas Pankao said impressive demonstrations can fail during deployment, making collaboration among companies, universities, and startups important.
The facility also serves as the physical foundation for Sim2World, which Industry Next describes as an open benchmarking platform. The company says participating teams can contribute tasks, train policies, and validate results on real robots; its participation rules and independent results were not described.
Industry Next is already partnering with BMW Group to evaluate artificial-intelligence-driven dexterous manipulation for manufacturing. For plant leaders, the useful next step is concrete task data: repeatable results, operating metrics, and proof that a learned behavior transfers to a specific production line.