Emerging from nine years of stealth mode, ZaiNar, a Belmont, California-based company, has announced that it has raised more than $100 million in its latest investment round, bringing its valuation to over $1 billion. The company also unveiled its physical AI platform, a unique technology that is capable of transforming any wireless network into a monitoring system that knows the location of everything, without the need for satellites, cameras, or device power or computing consumption.
ZaiNar: Bridging the Data Gap for AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems currently lack the right kind of data to evolve and train reliably in the physical world. These AI models need centralized, real-time location information that is accurate to the nearest meter and continuously synchronized. “Physical AI needs a live, continuous feed of where things are, and that data set just didn’t exist,” says Daniel Jacker, co-founder and CEO of ZaiNar. The company claims to have solved this data problem by achieving time synchronization at a sub-nanosecond level, thereby transforming existing infrastructure into the base layer for physical AI.
Addressing Limitations of GPS, Cameras, and Beacons
ZaiNar asserts that though GPS, cameras, and beacons are powerful tools, they lack the low power, low compute, and continuous accuracy needed for training and inference of physical AI. GPS, while accurate, fails to provide sub-meter accuracy and performs poorly indoors, underground, or in dense urban environments. Cameras and computer vision systems require a visual line of sight and tend to accumulate small errors that grow over time. Ultra-wideband beacons, on the other hand, require expensive proprietary hardware and complex installation and calibration processes.
5G and IoT Networks: The Future of Sensing Platforms
ZaiNar aims to overcome these challenges by working with existing infrastructure and signals already deployed around the globe, without the need for additional hardware or software. The company claims it can synchronize these signals a thousand times more precisely than conventional networks, enabling high-quality positioning information.
By leveraging existing 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) networks as sensing platforms for location processing, ZaiNar believes it can enable new levels of device and edge coordination. “Each device connected to a network will know where it is in relation to other objects with sub-meter precision, in real time,” the company states.
ZaiNar’s technology is protocol agnostic and works across 5G, Wi-Fi, private cellular networks, and future wireless standards. The company has filed over 100 patents, with 90 issued, covering its core capabilities in phase-based time synchronization and networked computerized positioning.
Backing from Tech Veterans
Investors in ZaiNar’s latest round include Steve Jurvetson, a member of ZaiNar and SpaceX’s boards; Jerry Yang, founding partner of AME Cloud Ventures and co-founder of Yahoo; Tom Gruber, the co-founder of Siri; Jaan Tallinn, a founding engineer of Skype and co-founder of Metaplanet Holdings; and Nicholas Pritzker, co-founder of Tao Capital.
The company’s technology is already commercially deployed across multiple continents and has secured over $450 million in contracts and Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs). ZaiNar plans to announce major carrier and enterprise partnerships in the coming weeks. “ZaiNar is deployed and operational today, freeing construction workers from at-risk areas, helping care teams find medical devices, and enabling coordinated autonomous operations across all sectors,” the company concludes.
Source: Here
