Hardware AI Startup Jobs

Develops autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, and space-based interceptor systems for orbital defense and space superiority capabilities.

The Nuclear Company operates as America's deployment platform for nuclear power, constructing a series of nuclear power plants using a design-once, build-many approach with proven and licensed technology to deliver safe and reliable electricity at the lowest cost.

Standard Bots builds AI-native industrial robot arms and the software stack that runs them, targeting manufacturers who want automation without dedicated robotics engineers. Its RO1 cobot combines a no-code/AI control interface with US-based manufacturing in Glen Cove, NY. The company hit a $1B valuation with a $200M Series C in June 2026.

Pacific Fusion is building a high-gain pulsed magnetic fusion system designed to achieve net facility gain, delivering more fusion energy output than all stored energy input. The company develops affordable, modular fusion technology using common materials to provide abundant, clean energy for a prosperous planet.

Voltai builds foundation models and AI agents for the semiconductor and electronics industry, aiming to let AI reason about and design physical hardware. Its systems run large-scale simulation to assist with chip design, verification, and EDA workflows for semiconductor, consumer electronics, and automotive customers. Founded by former Stanford professors and SAIL researchers alongside ex-CTOs from Synopsys and GlobalFoundries, the company is based in Palo Alto, CA.

Building America's next generation of power infrastructure with hybrid inertial-battery systems combining mechanical flywheels with battery duration, providing grid stabilization without combustion or chemicals.

Upscale AI provides high-performance networking solutions for AI infrastructure. The company delivers open-standard connectivity for specialized computing, making AI more accessible through ready-to-use networking platforms designed for next-generation AI workloads.

Designs and fabricates superconducting quantum processors at industrial scale using its open VIO architecture, serving 50+ customers across 20 countries.

Dyna Robotics develops high-performance general-purpose robots powered by proprietary embodied AI foundation models that achieve 99+ percent success rates in commercial environments with self-improving capabilities.

Last Energy designs, builds, owns, and operates micro-modular nuclear power plants, most notably the PWR-20, a factory-built 20 MWe pressurized water reactor delivered as pre-fabricated modules. It sells full-service on-site baseload power to data centers, industrial facilities, and utilities, and is building a 5 MW pilot reactor at the Texas A&M-RELLIS campus. Spun out of the Energy Impact Center in 2019 by founder Bret Kugelmass, it is now headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Monumental develops AI-powered autonomous robots for on-site masonry construction work, performing bricklaying with millimeter precision using computer vision to make construction software-defined and autonomous.

Nudge is developing advanced whole-brain interfaces for everyday life using phased-array ultrasound-based wearable devices capable of both imaging and modulating brain activity, enabling at-home treatments for mood, memory, focus, and chronic conditions like pain, addiction, and anxiety.

Advanced patient monitoring platform using AI and sensors to provide continuous health tracking and early detection of medical complications in healthcare settings.

Wi-Fi landline phone for kids and families that reinvents the home phone experience without screens, apps, or texting. Features parental controls via companion app to approve contacts, set quiet hours, and enable Do Not Disturb. Priced at $75 with free calling between Tin Cans or $10/month for regular phone numbers. Addresses smartphone addiction concerns and went viral, selling out first two production runs.

Generalist AI is building embodied foundation models for general-purpose robots, starting with a focus on dexterous manipulation, leveraging research from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, and Google DeepMind to create end-to-end deep neural networks that map sensor data to real-time robotic actions.

Quartermaster (legally Quartermaster AI Inc.) builds SmartMast™, a weather-hardened COTS sensor package — HD camera, software-defined radio, and onboard AI — that mounts on commercial and civilian vessels and turns them into nodes of a distributed maritime sensing network. The platform fuses video, radar, RF sensing, and AIS into near-real-time maritime domain awareness for coast guards, navies, insurers, energy operators, and researchers, positioning itself as a replacement for the spoofable, opt-in AIS standard. The company reports 600+ sensors deployed across 25+ countries and over 400,000 vessels identified outside of AIS.

Terraforming robotics company that uses autonomous subsurface injection robots to lift and stabilize flood-prone terrain by injecting wood slurry deep underground, addressing urban flooding and land subsidence caused by sea level rise, extreme weather, and groundwater withdrawal with minimal surface disturbance.

Odin Dynamics is a defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and advanced robotics for undersea warfare, including precision strike, ISR, and mine-warfare missions. Its Dolphin-M and Dolphin-S UUV platforms emphasize high endurance, long range, and modular payloads, with in-house battery/powertrain engineering as a core differentiator. Founded by a former Tesla powertrain engineer and a 23-year Navy EOD officer, the company is headquartered in Los Angeles with a Washington, DC presence.

Grid Aero builds autonomous cargo aircraft for long-range, high-payload logistics solutions serving both military and commercial applications with rapid development cycles.

The Bot Company is a San Francisco robotics startup founded in 2024 by former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, ex-Tesla AI lead Paril Jain, and ex-Cruise engineer Luke Holoubek. It is building an affordable, non-humanoid household robot that uses AI to pick up, organize, and put away items so people spend less time on chores. The company has raised over $550M pre-product, most recently at a valuation above $4B.

AI-powered infrastructure intelligence platform for transportation infrastructure management using LiDAR sensors, cameras, and advanced AI algorithms.

Pantograph is a San Francisco-based public benefit corporation and applied research lab building generally intelligent, low-cost robots. It trains general models on internet-scale video and video games, then deploys them onto its own fleet of affordable, durable robots for large-scale real-world interaction data collection. The company owns its full stack — hardware, firmware, training infrastructure, and learning algorithms — and released its first video-pretrained model in July 2026.

Runwise is a New York-based smart operating system for buildings that combines proprietary wireless sensors and controls with cloud software to run heating, cooling, electric, and water systems more efficiently. Its platform cuts building energy use by roughly 20-25% and is installed in over 10,000 buildings across the U.S., saving customers more than $100M in energy costs to date. Customers include large real estate owners and operators such as Related Companies and Rudin Management.

Copper is a Berkeley-based startup that makes battery-equipped induction stoves that plug into regular 120V outlets, enabling easy upgrades from gas to induction without costly electrical work, combining premium cooking performance with grid-supporting battery technology.

AstroForge is a deep-space mining company focused on extracting valuable metals from asteroids, particularly platinum group metals (PGMs) and critical minerals. The company develops technology to locate, reach, and mine asteroids to provide sustainable resources for Earth and space industries.

Discovered Materials (formerly Matforge, YC Spring 2026) builds swarms of AI agents that act as "AI scientists" to design candidate semiconductor materials and their synthesis routes, then validates them against real lab testing. It targets data center chip supply-chain needs including fab, advanced packaging, interconnect, and thermal interface materials. The company aims to compress 10+ year materials R&D cycles into months.

Hapta Labs is a San Francisco robotics infrastructure startup building one standard for robot data — unified manipulation, egocentric, teleoperation and multi-sensor datasets, plus the custom capture hardware and rigs that produce them. It trains models on that data so robot skills transfer across embodiments. Founded by Sylvia Li (CMU AI, Tsinghua math), with a team drawn from CMU, Stanford, Meta and NVIDIA.

Builds fully autonomous, cabless electric freight haulers (Class 8 trucks) that use vision-based AI to move freight across warehouses, ports, and railyards at lower cost.

Instrumental builds an AI-powered manufacturing optimization platform for complex electronics, combining in-line camera hardware with computer-vision models that detect defects, surface root causes, and enforce quality controls across contract-manufacturing lines. Founded by two ex-Apple engineers, it is used by consumer-electronics and data-center hardware makers to improve yield and speed up failure analysis. In March 2026 it announced an investment from NVIDIA's NVentures tied to accelerating AI server and rack manufacturing.

LeydenJar develops and produces pure silicon anodes for energy-dense batteries, enabling 70% more energy storage while reducing CO2 emissions by 85% with 7-minute charging capability.

Parasma is a San Francisco biocomputing startup that writes algorithms to train live human brain cells to act as a computing substrate for AI workloads. The founder previously got cultured human neurons to play Doom, and the company's claimed edge is the training methodology rather than proprietary wetware hardware. It is a Y Combinator Summer 2026 company, solo-founded and pre-product as of mid-2026.

Power Dynamics designs, manufactures and deploys integrated modular systems that pair sustainable energy with high-density compute — KW/MW/GW battery energy storage systems (BESS), single-phase immersion cooling for GPUs, and containerized modular data centers. The company also builds industrial heat-recovery systems that reuse waste heat from GPUs for processes like textile dyeing and food sterilization. Co-founded and led by CEO Jen Zhu Scott, with manufacturing and project deployment in Meizhou, Guangdong.

Sway is a material innovation company that harnesses seaweed to create home-compostable replacements for single-use plastic packaging. Their patent-pending TPSea resin is 100% biobased and microplastic-free. Named TIME Best Invention of 2025.

Tandem is an AI-native context layer for hardware development teams, connecting design intent, requirements, CAD changes, and validation evidence in one system. Its AI generates ECO drafts, design reviews, drawings, DFM feedback, impact reports, assembly documentation, and traceability reports from real engineering activity. Customers span aerospace, medical devices, robotics, and consumer hardware, including Fluxergy, Vaxon Space, Starlight Cardiovascular, and Endiatx.

Electric vehicle manufacturer building compact city-friendly trucks starting with the MT1 model, combining utility vehicle functionality with sustainable electric power for urban and commercial use.