Meet Micropolis: Fly exclusive interview with CEO Fareed Aljawhari

In an exclusive interview, Micropolis (MCRP) CEO Fareed Aljawhari met with The Fly to discuss the company, partnerships, the robotics and AI spaces, its expansion plans, and much more.

UNIQUE BUSINESS MODEL: Micropolis is a UAE-based company specializing in the design, development, and manufacturing of unmanned ground vehicles, AI systems, and smart infrastructure for urban, security, and industrial applications. The company’s vertically integrated capabilities cover everything from mechatronics and embedded systems to AI software and high-level autonomy. The company’s offerings include AMRs, operating software such as autonomous driving systems and fleet mission planners, custom software development, and electronic control and power storage units.

“We have a unique business model. We build autonomous robotics and software to power future cities. We automate and augment operations using robotics, AI to come up with automation solutions. Our solutions combine robotics AI, smart mobility, Internet of Things and H computing all together,” CEO Fareed Aljawhari told The Fly in an exclusive interview.

THE FUTURE: Operating in the AI, robotics and electric vehicles spaces, Micropolis has witnessed firsthand the rapid evolution of new technologies and software. “What we are doing is the product of the future,” Aljawhari said. “Before AI nobody knew exactly what AI did, until they experienced it with ChatGPT. And after ChatGPT, you have a lot of computer vision models that process images, understand images, and that can understand the human brain. In the future, a lot of operations will be automated using AI and smart mobility and robotics, especially operations that rely on human capital or operations that are conducted, for example remote areas or harsh environment.”

PARTNERSHIPS: Micropolis has a series of established partnerships with well-known companies such as Nvidia (NVDA), Velodyne, and Siemens (SIEGY). “Our partnership with Nvidia is extremely strategic and important,” the executive explained to The Fly. “Without Nvidia’s processors it would be impossible to process any model. You must rely on those giants, which have the technology needed. We build our solutions on top of their technology. In the future, we want to start working with academia to have access to more research papers and very intelligent students.”

EXPANSION PLANS: The company has recently announced an expansion into Egypt and North Africa with an agreement with AERXIO. “Expanding to North Africa is still quite early but we do get a huge interest from Egypt, Morocco and Africa in general. Our plan is to expand into the United States as soon and as fast as we can. We provide customized solutions for large clients, like government and large enterprises,” the CEO notes.

MISCONCEPTION: Discussing potential misconceptions about Micropolis, Aljawhari said that, “One misconception is that we are on the robotic hardware manufacturer side, which is not true. We are innovators; Micropolis is an ecosystem company. We build robotics but also the AI behind it. It’s everything a customer needs in a one-stop shop. Our vision is holistic. We are a technology company; we’re not just selling machines.”

Meet the Company” is The Fly’s recurring series of exclusive short interviews with Executive Officers to offer a deeper look inside the company.