Fremont emerges as key robotics hub in Silicon Valley

On a Thursday afternoon, approximately 70 people gathered around a nearly six-foot-tall humanoid robot outside an unassuming office building in Fremont, California.

Employees, executives, and board members of Agility Robotics, along with local officials, had come to christen the startup's new engineering hub: a 60,000-square-foot facility where nearly 200 existing and new employees will work on artificial intelligence and skills for its Digit bipedal robot.

The ribbon-cutting did not take place in San Francisco, Palo Alto, or San Jose — cities where many leading robotics companies have chosen to cluster. Instead, Agility selected Fremont, an East Bay city better known for its industrial parks than for Silicon Valley startup mythology, to establish its new center.

A 'Robot School' for Teaching New Skills

At Agility's new facility, engineers will teach Digit new tasks and improve the skills it already possesses.

"This is going to be the robot school," Jonathan Hurst, Agility's cofounder and chief robot officer, told Business Insider. "This is where we teach robot skills. It's really going to be centered here."

Fremont's Industrial Heritage Paves the Way

Fremont's rise as a robotics center builds on an industrial history that Mayor Raj Salwan said the city deliberately preserved.

For more than 25 years, the city was home to New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI), a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. When the plant shut down in 2010, other cities might have converted the site into office space or housing. Salwan said Fremont chose a different path.

"We doubled down on industrial," the mayor told Business Insider. "We preserved our industrial land, and we said we're all in on manufacturing."

Tesla acquired the NUMMI plant that year, preserving Fremont's automotive ties and attracting a network of suppliers. Meanwhile, the city courted other industries, including semiconductor, biotech, and advanced manufacturing companies, Salwan said.

A Growing Robotics Hub

Agility is the latest robotics startup to establish a foothold in the area. Over the past 15 years, Fremont has seen numerous companies tied to robotics or autonomous vehicles set up operations in the city.

Major players with a footprint in Fremont include:

• Tesla — Its Fremont factory is being converted into a production hub for the company's Optimus humanoid robot.
• Meta
• Zoox
• Pony.ai
• DoorDash

What Attracts Robotics Companies to Fremont

Robotics companies require many of the same elements that attracted earlier hardware businesses to the East Bay city: large buildings, production expertise, and sufficient open floor space for machines to move around.

The city has worked to facilitate the opening of such large facilities. Salwan said Fremont streamlined regulations, developed in-house expertise, and changed some zoning rules to allow qualifying projects to move forward without lengthy hearings.

"We tell you everything up front, and then we help fast-track the process," Salwan said. "If you want to build things, Fremont is the place."

Proximity to Talent and Innovation

Large floor space is only half the equation for robotics companies. They also need talent.

Fremont does not sit in the heart of the research and venture capital ecosystem found near Stanford University and Sand Hill Road. However, it is close enough to tap into the same pool of engineers, investors, and business partners. The city is roughly 15 miles east of Palo Alto, across the Dumbarton Bridge.

This proximity keeps companies like DoorDash and Zoox close to talent, their headquarters, and their manufacturing hubs throughout the Bay Area.

DoorDash, headquartered in San Francisco, designs and builds its delivery bot, Dot, in Fremont through a partnership with Sonic Manufacturing Technologies. The partnership allows engineers from DoorDash Labs, the company's robotics arm, to work "shoulder-to-shoulder" with Sonic employees, a DoorDash spokesperson said.

"In some situations, going from designing the line to rolling out our first robot could take months or even years," the spokesperson said. "Thanks to the collaboration between the team working at Sonic and our Labs facilities, it only took a matter of weeks."

Small Startups Benefit Too

Anyware Robotics, a small startup founded in 2023 that builds mobile warehouse robots, fits its entire operation inside one 11,000-square-foot Fremont facility.

Torsten Schreiber, Anyware cofounder and VP of go-to-market and product, said everything from software development to robot testing happens in the same building, allowing the startup to iterate quickly.

"Fremont sits at the intersection of Silicon Valley software talent and the East Bay's hardware," Schreiber said.