SiMa.ai, ARK Electronics Partner to Build Autonomous Drones

Physical AI company SiMa.ai and hardware manufacturer ARK Electronics have partnered to develop and deploy autonomous drones for commercial and defence markets. 

The companies launched ARK-SiMa.ai Modalix MLSoC Bundles as production-ready solutions for drone development.

The joint solutions combine SiMa.ai’s Physical AI platform with ARK Electronics’ drone and robotics expertise. They aim to simplify development while providing affordable, high-performance computing for commercial, industrial, agriculture and defence deployments.

SiMa.ai’s platform combines the Modalix System-on-Module (SoM), built on its Modalix MLSoC, with Palette Neat, an agentic development environment. The company says Palette Neat can reduce AI development timelines from months to days.

“The drone market is at an inflexion point,” said Durga Peddireddy, VP of Strategic Business Development and Partnerships at SiMa.ai. He added that the partnership would deliver an “affordable solution for intelligent autonomy” without compromising performance or trust.

The collaboration will pair these capabilities with ARK Electronics’ drone and robotics technology and experience. The companies said this combination will provide a foundation for deploying Physical AI at scale.

Alex Klimaj, CEO of ARK Electronics, said autonomous intelligence is becoming a key area for drones used in defence, agriculture and commercial applications. The joint solution, he said, gives customers a purpose-built foundation while helping them “develop faster and deploy at scale”.

The Modalix SoM is compatible with a leading GPU-based edge platform in form factor. SiMa.ai said this compatibility can help drone and robotics developers accelerate development and reduce design risks.

The companies also said the platform improves performance, power consumption, and cost. ARK Electronics has built and validated the joint solutions for the drone ecosystem.