MetAI’s advanced AI+3D technology, integrated with NVIDIA Omniverse, revolutionizes the creation of simulation-ready digital twins, driving transformative advancements in robotics and AI training.

TAIPEI, JANUARY 15th, 2024: MetAI, a Taiwanese startup pioneering the integration of industrial AI and 3D simulation technologies, today announced the successful close of a $4 million seed funding round. Investors include Addin Ventures, Kenmec Mechanical Engineering (6125.TWO), NVIDIA, Solomon Technology (2359.TW), SparkLabs Taiwan, and Upstream Ventures. This milestone underscores MetAI's pivotal role in advancing physical AI and bridging the gap between simulation and reality through cutting-edge technologies.

The funding will accelerate MetAI's research and development efforts, scale its engineering team, and expand operations into the US market with a focus on semiconductor manufacturing, automated warehousing, and robotics applications.

Revolutionizing Physical AI and World Models with Scalable Digital Twins
The next wave of AI, often described as the revolution of physical AI or generative physical AI, relies heavily on physically accurate simulated environments where robots, autonomous systems, and operational AI can be trained and validated before deployment. The transition to physical AI—and the development of comprehensive world models—has been hindered by the complex and time-consuming process of creating realistic, functional digital twins.
MetAI addresses this challenge with its proprietary generative model, a cutting-edge technology that enables the instantaneous generation of "SimReady (Simulation-Ready)" digital twins. By converting CAD files into operational 3D environments within minutes, MetAI's technology allows businesses to deploy precise, scalable, and fully functional simulations instantly.
"Developing physically accurate digital twins is seen as a barrier to entry for those looking to develop physical AI at scale," said Daniel Yu, CEO and Co-founder of MetAI. "We're changing that narrative by enabling businesses to instantly train AI systems—whether for robotics, logistics, or manufacturing—in physics-based virtual environments with unprecedented efficiency and scalability."

Driving Real Industry Impact: Collaboration with Kenmec
MetAI partnered with Kenmec Mechanical Engineering in 2023 to revolutionize the creation of automated warehouse digital twins. MetAI's technology reduced the time needed for warehouse digital twin simulations from thousands of hours to just 3 minutes, dramatically saving operational and verification efforts. The generated digital twins operate with real-world fidelity, effectively establishing a warehouse world simulator—a dynamic virtual environment that mirrors real-world operations, enabling immediate throughput validation, optimization and potential integration with AI agents to explore the world in simulations.

This collaboration demonstrated such significant value that Kenmec became a major investor in MetAI during this funding round.
"MetAI is changing the automated industry with its digital twin and simulation technologies." says Jonas Ko, President of Kenmec. "With their advanced technology combined with Kenmec's leading automated solutions, we aim to work together to deliver the most optimal and efficient outcomes for end customers, accelerating the adoption and implementation of automation with unprecedented precision and speed, empowered by AI advancements."
Building on this success, MetAI has initiated collaborations with major manufacturing giants, including semiconductor fabs, aiming to apply the same methodology to create operational digital twins for fabs, further accelerating industry-wide efficiency.

From Real-to-Sim to Sim-to-Real
MetAI's technology goes beyond digital twin creation to provide tools for physical AI training, validation, and the generation of precise world models. By integrating scalable digital twins with reinforcement learning, MetAI enables robots and AI agents to learn, adapt, and optimize performance within simulated environments that replicate real-world complexities before real-world deployment.
Key benefits include:
Scalability: Organizations can rapidly generate environments for multiple scenarios or facilities, enabling faster prototyping and validation, reducing simulation setup time from months to minutes.
World Models for Industrial Use: With digital twins that highly resemble the real world, MetAI enables the creation of world simulators—dynamic, physics-based virtual representations of physical environments—supporting comprehensive AI testing and optimization.
Precision Training: Robots and autonomous systems can be trained in physically accurate environments, minimizing real-world testing time, risks and costs.
Iterative Optimization: AI systems can refine their strategies continuously, leveraging reinforcement learning to adapt to changing needs.

Driving Value for the Semiconductor and Robotics Industries
One of MetAI's primary focuses is accelerating semiconductor manufacturing, an industry that faces significant challenges in labor constraints and operational efficiency of fab reiteration. By simulating fab construction and production line setup with AI agents, MetAI has the potential to reduce timelines by up to a year, significantly enhancing operational efficiency.
MetAI's broader applications extend to robotics and warehouses / logistics, where its ability to generate precise, dynamic environments allows for optimal training of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), robotic arms, and other precise industrial systems. This scalability helps industries maintain competitiveness in markets that evolve so fast nowadays.


Collaboration with NVIDIA
As a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, MetAI has collaborated closely with NVIDIA to refine its applications by integrating NVIDIA Omniverse technologies, unlocking new opportunities and industrial use cases. By taking advantage of the exceptional simulation scalability of the NVIDIA Omniverse platform, MetAI aims to empower businesses with applications that possess unprecedented speed and precision to train AI systems for real-world deployment.

Scaling in the US Market
Building on its momentum and preliminary success with industry leaders in Taiwan's manufacturing and automation sector, MetAI is set to fuel the momentum of growth and accelerate its presence in the US market. With plans to deepen its US operations in 2025, the company is committed to bringing its groundbreaking technologies to the US semiconductor and automated warehouse industries, supporting businesses to achieve new heights of operational efficiency and digital transformation.

About MetAI
MetAI scales digital twin development by integrating 3D and AI, enabling clients to create AI training simulation environments in minutes rather than standard half a year. By simply entering CAD files, clients can instantly create digital twins without 3D modeling expertise and generate unlimited iterations for rapid prototyping. MetAI focuses on helping clients in three key sectors: semiconductors, manufacturing and smart warehousing with their digital transformation and preparation for the physical AI revolution.
MetAI's official website: https://www.met-ai.net/
MetAI's LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/metai-technology-co-ltd/