Highlights

• Ambi Robotics has deployed 100 robotic arm systems to logistics operators like Amazon and UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, Walmart, and more
• CEO Jim Liefer and COO Stephen McKinley point to Berkeley’s talent, space, and infrastructure as reasons the East Bay is well suited to physical AI companies
• Of the roughly 40 AI and robotics startups in Berkeley, Ambi is the company the Business Times turned to as the model of what’s working.

The San Francisco Business Times looked at what it will take for the East Bay to become a real AI and robotics hub, and used Ambi Robotics as the model for what’s already working. Where the broader Berkeley startup count has been flat for years, Ambi has scaled to 100 deployed systems, taken over a 34,000-square-foot facility for manufacturing and R&D, and become, in the paper’s words, a “de facto ambassador” for the city’s robotics and hardware industry.

Liefer, who built his logistics expertise running networks at Walmart before joining Ambi, told the paper that Berkeley offers talent, geography, and space “under one roof,” calling it an ideal base for physical AI. McKinley reinforced that message directly to the region’s investors and founders, using a recent Berkeley Commons panel to argue Berkeley’s robotics scene shouldn’t rely on one company alone to represent it. Meanwhile, OpenAI has already leased 202,000 square feet in Richmond, a sign that major AI players are starting to follow Ambi into the East Bay.