Technical University of Munich And Neura Robotics Build "TUM RoboGym" for Physical AI Europe's Largest Robotics Training Center Planned

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The "Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence" (TUM MIRMI) of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the company Neura Robotics are founding Europe's largest research and training center for robotics in the scientific field with the "TUM RoboGym". Under the leadership of TUM MIRMI professors Lorenzo Masia and Achim Lilienthal, hundreds of robotic systems will be further developed and trained with AI support for their use in everyday life from mid-2026.

The new robotics hub "TUM RoboGym (powered by Neura)" is being built in the "TUM Convergence Center" at Munich Airport. The cooperation partners will conduct joint research into the next generation of humanoid robots on an area of 25,000 square feet—with the aim of expanding the area in the near future. Among other things, AI-supported training of robotic systems is planned. TUM MIRMI and Neura Robotics will make most of the data generated from this available to the robotics community in an open ecosystem. In the future, the "RoboGym" will also be open to industrial partners and start-ups.

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The partners are jointly investing around 19 million US dollars in the project at the start, with Neura Robotics contributing the majority of the investment at around 12 million US dollars. Most of the data generated in "RoboGym" will flow into the "Neuraverse"—Neura's central, cross-hardware platform for training data. More sovereign data for the "Neuraverse" means more precise AI models and more powerful robots. Prof. Achim Lilienthal is convinced: "The combination of high-end robotics technology and top-class academic research in artificial intelligence will give development a huge boost."

For the Director of "TUM RoboGym" and TUM MIRMI Executive Director Prof. Lorenzo Masia, the cooperation offers the opportunity to help shape future developments in robotics worldwide: "European sovereignty is extremely important in times of geopolitical competition between East and West. With this research and training center, we are creating a unique infrastructure in Europe for our researchers and students, where they can experience, develop and learn new approaches in robotics and AI and thus become a strong core of European experts when they enter the job market."

Gaining Valuable Data from Human Movements

TUM President Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann emphasizes: "Humanoid robots have long since left the status of science fiction. In the near future, they will be an integral part of our everyday lives and support people in many tasks. Together with Neura Robotics, we at TUM are working on accelerating this development and, above all, ensuring the safety of coexistence between humans and robots in addition to functionality."

The founder and CEO of Neura Robotics, David Reger, says: "The decisive competitive factor in intelligent robotics is no longer mechanics, it lies in the data. Those who have high-quality, realistic training data set the pace. This is precisely where we at Neura Robotics bring our strengths to bear: With the global establishment of 'robot gyms' and the networking of training data via our 'Neuraverse' platform, we are creating scalable training infrastructures for physical AI. Together with TUM, we combine excellent research with entrepreneurial implementation power. In this way, we are setting new standards in intelligent robotics and sustainably strengthening Germany's and Europe's technological leadership in one of the key future technologies of our time."

In contrast to language models such as ChatGPT, it is not possible in embodied AI to access almost any amount of data from the internet and learn with its help. Web videos in which robotic arms are used to perform certain tasks, for example, are almost impossible to find. It is also still unclear how well movements can be read from videos. Simulations are also usually too imprecise and cannot reliably reproduce frictional forces that exist in the real world.

"These are the reasons why we need a training center where people can teach the robots individual skills, such as folding a box or putting components together," says Prof. Lilienthal. "The robots will learn general skills in the 'RoboGym', which they can then transfer independently to specific tasks." The prerequisite for this is a large number of data sets, which will be created by human robot trainers in the RoboGym from mid-2026.

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