A Scots robotics team from the National Robotarium has been selected to compete in Amazon’s new global AI competition.

The eight-strong student team will create a ‘robot butler’ to help people around their homes, with support from Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Universities.

Amazon’s Alexa Prize SimBot Challenge asks teams to create help for a futuristic world that can understand natural language, interact with humans, and accomplish tasks, with a $500,000 prize up for grabs.

As the only team outside the US to pass selection, the Scots students successfully demonstrated expertise in embodied conversational AI research taught at the Robotarium. They will now receive a $250,000 grant to support development costs.

Commenting on the news, Stewart Miller, CEO of the National Robotarium, said: “To be the only team from outside the USA to be selected for the Alexa Prize SimBot Challenge demonstrates the global significance and capabilities of the teams within the National Robotarium.

“Backed by the combined robotic and AI experience of Heriot-Watt and the University of Edinburgh, we’re demonstrating our ability to lead global development in AI, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in a domestic setting.”

The Scots robotics team will compete in both sections of the two-phase SimBot Challenge, including a ‘public benchmark’ where teams will design a machine-learning model with language-guided visual navigation and task completion.

Following this is a ‘live interaction phase’, which will task bots to respond to customer commands and multimodal sensor inputs from within a virtual world.

UK Government Minister for Scotland Ian Stewart said: “The National Robotarium’s participation in this global competition is testament to the cutting-edge research happening in Scotland. It’s exciting to think their designs could be helping people in their homes in the not-too-distant future.

“The UK Government is investing £5bn a year in research and innovation and a further £1.7bn in regional projects across Scotland to level up communities and build back better from the pandemic.”

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The National Robotarium is part of the Data-Driven Innovation initiative and supported by £21m from the UK Government and £1.4m from the Scottish Government through the Edinburgh and Southeast Scotland City Region Deal.

Economy Secretary Kate Forbes added: “Technology has the potential to change lives for the better, and harnessing advances to aid people around the home in response to human speech has potentially far-reaching benefits.

“I am pleased the Scottish Government is providing £1.4m to support the National Robotarium as we move towards a sustainable and innovative economic recovery, and I wish their team the very best of luck in this high-profile competition.”

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