Connect with us

Technology

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE REVOLUTIONIZING URBAN PLANNING WITH NEW URBAN COPILOT

Published

on

SYDNEY, Oct. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Urban planning and land use allocation are critical for Australia’s future economic growth. Current processes are often complex, time-consuming, and inconsistent across different jurisdictions, as evidenced from the substantial media attention on the issues of housing affordability and land development. The Urban Copilot project, spearheaded by Archistar, UNSW, MapAI, and PEXA Group, aims to transform this landscape using state-of-the-art Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies.

Urban Copilot is an innovative GenAI product suite designed to assist industry professionals in interpreting regulations and creating development applications that meet government requirements.

Archistar CEO, Ben Coorey, is leading this collaborative effort which is supported by a total project investment of $6.5 million including the announcement this week of $2.7 million in funding from the Federal Government through the Cooperative Research Centre’s Projects Grants program.

“Urban Copilot will enable the adoption of GenAI in a regulatory and commercial environment, ensuring efficiency and accuracy in urban planning. It will make the lives of government, developers and homeowners easier” says Dr Coorey.

This project will leverage existing efforts to bring trust and transparency to GenAI already underway from partners UNSW and MapAI. Director of the City Futures Research Centre UNSW, Professor Chris Pettit says “Recognising some challenges other Generative AI solutions have in trustworthiness, we are developing a transparent GenAI that explains how it answers questions, and what data and processes were used along the way. This ensures traceability of decision making, referring back to authoritative sources.”

The Urban Copilot project is expected to:

Substantially reduce the time for users to navigate the property development and planning systemGenerate simplified workflows from site search to planning approvalOptimise decision-making processes related to property developmentProvide tailored data insights integrating big data with user preferencesCreate an AI trustworthiness framework for regulatory and professional environments

Like Archistar and PEXA Group, MapAI is also an Australian grown innovation. “It is transformative to have the support of the Australian government in funding these advanced AI approaches. It shows that Generative AI can be developed in a way to support and grow the economy, and in way that benefits all Australians” MapAI CEO Phil Delaney said.

The project partners bring together a wealth of expertise and resources. Archistar, a pioneer in Property Tech and Planning Tech, provides the existing platform and user base. MapAI contributes its GenAI Geospatial Chat capabilities to enable the new products. UNSW leads the research efforts, accelerating GenAI accuracy and trustworthiness, and PEXA offers extensive property data and technological support.

PEXA Group’s Australia CEO, Les Vance, said “we are proud to be part of this partnership focused on improving the property ecosystem through collaboration and innovation, and look forward to supporting the Urban Copilot project as it uses Generative AI to simplify urban planning processes”

For press enquiries please contact:

Archistar – alex.howeson@archistar.ai

About Archistar

Archistar is a leading property and urban planning technology company, pioneering the use of AI to streamline and transform the real estate and construction industries. With products like eCheck for compliance automation and generative design tools, Archistar empowers developers, architects, and councils to visualize, plan, and implement projects faster and more efficiently, driving innovation in urban development across Australia and internationally.

https://www.archistar.ai

About City Futures Research Centre, UNSW

Since its establishment in 2005, City Futures has provided a training ground for the next generation of urban thinkers, city shapers, and urban scientists. The Centre provides ethical, evidence-based inputs to contemporary urban policy debates and the planning of 21st Century cities. With a vision to create a better and more sustainable future

https://cityfutures.ada.unsw.edu.au/about-us/ 

About MapAI

MapAI is an Australian grown, innovative business focused on making geospatial data accessible and actionable through conversational AI. Our platform, developed in collaboration with UNSW and FrontierSI, allows users to interact with maps using natural language, greatly simplifying the user experience. MapAI is committed to transparency, demonstrating AI processes clearly, and is designed to deliver tailored insights, enhancing user understanding.

https://mapai.net/

About PEXA Group

PEXA Group is a world-leading ASX-listed digital property exchange platform and property insights solutions business. The PEXA Exchange is the leading digital property settlements platform in Australia and licenced operator of Australia’s largest Electronic Lodgement Network. Since 2013, PEXA has facilitated more than 20 million property settlements through Australia, with 89% market reach, and in 2022 PEXA launched in the UK.

www.pexa-group.com 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/artificial-intelligence-revolutionizing-urban-planning-with-new-urban-copilot-302289872.html

SOURCE Archistar

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

Published

on

By

SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

Continue Reading

Technology

Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

Published

on

By

SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

Continue Reading

Technology

Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

Published

on

By

New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

Continue Reading

Trending