UR & Scale AI Launch AI Trainer for Robotics: Lab-to-Factory Data Capture

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Universal Robots (UR) and Scale AI today unveiled the UR AI Trainer, a new system designed to accelerate artificial intelligence model training for robots, at NVIDIA’s GTC 2026 conference in Silicon Valley. The system aims to bridge the gap between AI research and practical factory deployment by enabling robots to learn from human demonstration in real-world production environments.

Developed through a collaboration between the two companies, the UR AI Trainer utilizes an “imitation learning” approach, where robots mimic the movements of human operators. A human guides a “leader” robot through a task, while a “follower” robot simultaneously mirrors those actions. The system captures synchronized data encompassing motion, force feedback, and visual information, creating datasets suitable for training Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models.

“Our customers, ranging from large enterprises to AI research labs, are no longer just asking for AI features,” said Anders Beck, VP of AI Robotics Products at Universal Robots. “They need a way to collect high-fidelity, synchronized robot and vision data to train AI models on the same robots they intend to deploy. Our AI Trainer is the industry’s first direct lab-to-factory solution for AI model training.”

Traditionally, AI robotics training has been hampered by the use of research robots not suited for production settings and a reliance on limited visual feedback, making it difficult to train robots for tasks requiring delicate manipulation or physical contact. The UR AI Trainer addresses these challenges by leveraging Universal Robots’ Direct Torque Control and force feedback capabilities, allowing developers to directly influence how the robot interacts with its environment.

Scale AI’s contribution centers on providing the software infrastructure to manage and scale the data capture process. “Universal Robots is a leader in industrial robotics, and its global footprint offers the ideal foundation for data capture and AI deployment,” said Ben Levin, General Manager, Physical AI at Scale AI. “Together, we’ve created an integrated robotics data flywheel, allowing customers to train, deploy, and improve their AI models faster than ever before.”

At the GTC 2026 booth, Universal Robots demonstrated the AI Trainer’s capabilities with two UR3e robots acting as “leaders” providing haptic input to control two UR7e “follower” robots. The demonstration involved a complex smartphone packaging task, previously considered unattainable without recent advancements in physical AI. Data from the demonstration is being recorded in real-time on Scale’s platform and is replayable directly on the AI Trainer.

Alongside the AI Trainer, Universal Robots showcased a robotic foundation model developed by Generalist AI, a preferred model partner. The companies also announced plans to release a large-scale industrial dataset collected on UR robots later this year.