Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Innovation Center(opens in new window) (RIC) has secured its first corporate tenant, bringing the high-growth robotics unicorn FieldAI(opens in new window) to the university’s new research facility at Hazelwood Green.
The move, announced ahead of the facility’s formal opening this week, embeds an industry leader in physical artificial intelligence into a 2,500-square-foot lab and office suite on the building’s second floor.
“We’ve always believed that the best robotics technology comes from blending cutting-edge research with real-world deployment,” said FieldAI CEO Ali Agha(opens in new window). “The RIC’s indoor and outdoor testing labs are purpose-built for the kind of work we do every day. It’s where fundamental research meets the challenges of the field, and that’s where breakthroughs happen.”
The new RIC laboratory represents growth for FieldAI in Pittsburgh. The specialized facilities at the RIC are designed for the rapid development of robots built to operate in complex and dangerous environments, such as nuclear cleanup sites and unmapped industrial zones.
“Welcoming FieldAI as our first partner in the Robotics Innovation Center will enable serendipitous interactions between researchers, students and practitioners,” said Theresa Mayer(opens in new window), CMU’s vice president for research. “By connecting our robotics research directly with the companies putting it to work, we strengthen the vital ties between academia and industry — accelerating innovation, informing new discoveries and ensuring that breakthrough technologies move more rapidly from lab to impact right here in Pittsburgh.”
“We are thrilled to see FieldAI join the new CMU Robotics Innovation Center as its first industry tenant, further strengthening Pittsburgh’s dynamic innovation ecosystem,” said Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Rick Siger(opens in new window). “The Robotics Innovation Center will serve as a new hub to connect the brightest minds in the field with cutting-edge companies like FieldAI. Today’s announcement underscores the critical role Pennsylvania plays as a center for research and innovation, and the Shapiro Administration will continue to find new ways to support and grow the innovation economy.”
“Field AI did not grow up here in Pittsburgh— they chose here. That is the distinction that matters,” said Audrey Russo(opens in new window), president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council(opens in new window). “When a company valued at $2 billion with $405 million in backing decides to expand its footprint into Pittsburgh and anchor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Innovation Center, it is not a courtesy — it is a calculation. They are here because the talent, the CMU research infrastructure and the faculty paired with the depth of this robotics ecosystem are unmatched. The Pittsburgh Technology Council represents more than 37,000 technology workers in this region, and this is exactly the kind of signal that tells the world Pittsburgh is not just producing robotics innovation — it is where serious robotics companies come to scale.”
The arrival of FieldAI is the first in a series of planned corporate residencies at the RIC. The 150,000-square-foot center, which was made possible by the generosity of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, is intended to function as a co-location site for a curated group of industry partners, bridging the university’s fundamental research and commercial deployment.
A partnership built on research and talent
The co-location formalizes a series of existing ties between the company and the university. FieldAI was founded by a team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they frequently competed alongside — and against — CMU teams in high-stakes DARPA challenges designed to push the limits of autonomous subterranean(opens in new window) and off-road navigation(opens in new window). These competitions laid the foundation for the current partnership, personified by Sebastian Scherer(opens in new window), a CMU robotics professor who serves as FieldAI’s director of fieldable embodied AI and leads the company’s Pittsburgh-based operations.
“Bringing FieldAI to the RIC creates a unique cooperation between academic discovery and real-world deployment,” said Scherer. “CMU researchers and students will have a front-row seat to the engineering challenges of scaling AI for the field and will see what it takes to make the technology work in demanding scenarios. With FieldAI in the building, we can see exactly how our foundational research translates into commercial applications and uncover new directions for our work in the lab.”
The partnership builds on a history of shared investment and talent exchange. FieldAI has supported CMU’s Robotics Institute through sponsored research agreements, focused on high-speed, off-road perception and planning designed to help autonomous vehicles navigate complex terrain. It has provided philanthropic support to specialized labs, including the AirLab(opens in new window) and the Learning and Control for Agile Robotics lab (LeCAR)(opens in new window). Currently, FieldAI is sponsoring a student team, VectorRobotics(opens in new window), on a capstone project in humanoid loco-manipulation for the Master of Science in Robotic Systems Development(opens in new window), an advanced graduate degree with a focus on technical and business skills.
Testing at scale at Hazelwood Green
The RIC facility was designed to support work in field robotics — a discipline defined by CMU researchers(opens in new window) for nearly 50 years. The proximity to the RIC’s testing grounds is central to FieldAI’s development of field foundation models. These models are designed to enable autonomous robots to operate in unmapped, unstructured environments, such as deep mines or disaster zones.
The RIC facility features specialized high-bay labs and a 1.5-acre outdoor “running room” designed for testing robots in varied terrain. This infrastructure allows FieldAI to quickly improve its software across a wide range of machines, including four-legged robots, human-shaped robots, wheeled robots and even vehicle-sized machines.
“Building AI for the physical world requires a fundamentally different kind of research than what works for language or vision models,” said Shayegan Omidshafiei, president and chief scientific officer at FieldAI. “The RIC brings together the right people and the right infrastructure to tackle that challenge head-on.”
“Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The institution was originally established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical School. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees.”
Please visit the firm link to site