28 January 2026 | News
Image Courtesy: Public Domain
EDGE Group, one of the world’s leading advanced technology and defence groups and the largest defence manufacturer in the Middle East, the UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a global leader in applied research and advanced technologies, and SteerAI have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Micropolis Robotics (NYSE: MCRP) (“Micropolis” or the “Company”), a pioneer in unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and AI-driven autonomous mobility solutions. The agreement establishes a framework for the production and industrialisation of an Autonomous Logistics Platform (ALP), as well as piloting the technology in EDGE Group’s industrial areas. The MoU marks a major milestone for sovereign Emirati expertise in UGVs, AI systems, and smart infrastructure.
Designed to automate the movement of materials within and between manufacturing facilities, the autonomous platform will pair advanced, custom-built unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) with AI-driven software. Advanced features of the ALPs include fleet management, navigation and safety, digital twins, situation awareness, operational optimisation, advanced analytics, and enterprise integration.
Fareed Aljawhari, Founder and CEO of Micropolis, said: “This collaboration underscores Micropolis’ commitment to delivering autonomous solutions for today’s complex operations. Working alongside our partners, EDGE, TII and SteerAI, we are focused on enabling manufacturers to automate material movement with precision, insight, and scalability. Our aim for this AI-powered platform is to not only automate material movement, but also provide situational awareness, empowering users to operate smarter, safer, and more efficiently.”
Bader Al Jaberi, Vice President for Industrialisation Technologies, EDGE BRIDGE, said: “As a catalyst for injecting emerging technologies into the UAE’s industrial defence hub, we are partnering with the UAE’s growing autonomous ecosystem to champion the development of advanced manufacturing systems. This MoU marks a significant step forward in our mission to build sovereign, end-to-end autonomous capabilities, from advanced research to industrial-scale manufacturing.”
Michael Sonderby, Acting CEO, SteerAI, said, “The real power of autonomous technology lies in aggregating and coordinating individual vehicles as fleets and integrating them with companies’ core systems. CoreConnect does exactly that: It works with any autonomous robot, including ground, aerial or marine to provide operators with centralised planning, execution, and oversight of complex autonomous operations. We look forward to collaborating on this initiative and using it as a model for how autonomy can be rolled out at scale across the UAE."
