Niobia puts AI agents on chip and battery lines to speed defect diagnosis

TechCrunch reported that Niobia's customers use the agents on production lines to look for flaws, including pinhole-sized defects such as scratches. The agents run on self-contained GPUs mounted on manufacturing equipment, similar to a sensor, and collect data in one place. Engineers can then ask a chatbot what went wrong and investigate the cause further.

The focus on speed is tied to the importance and tight supply of chips and batteries. As manufacturers develop and improve technologies, problems during research and development are inevitable. Engineers may spend days or longer finding a fix before production can restart. Each flaw or mistake can be costly, sometimes reaching millions of dollars, and can set back manufacturing timelines, according to the report.

Niobia co-founders Gaurav Jha and Harveen Kaur both hold PhDs in chemistry and have worked at chipmakers and battery manufacturers. That background gave them firsthand experience with industry challenges, Jha told TechCrunch ahead of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where Niobia is a Battlefield finalist.

Jha described the market as extremely niche but large. "It's extremely niche; maybe people will never know about it," Jha said, according to TechCrunch. "But it's like behind the scenes, this is powering everything... we just don't see it in the regular world." He also said that processes like these touch every part of products around consumers, from glasses and shoes to slippers, wallets and headphones.

Niobia's agents run on open-source models that the company further trains with battery and chip research and other data. That training allows them to identify pinhole-sized defects. Jha said Niobia chose open-source models largely because customers do not want highly sensitive company information sent to a public AI cloud where it might be used to train a model. "None of our customers want their proprietary data to go to the cloud, even if we tell them it's safe," Jha said.

The startup also describes its cybersecurity approach, given the high-stakes race among adversarial nations to innovate in batteries and chips. Niobia lets customers hold their own encryption keys so the startup cannot decrypt customer data, according to the report.

Jha said the company's immediate priority is to focus on three specialties: film coating, electroplating -- coating a surface with metal using an electric current -- and fluidized bed reaction, a chemical process in which solid particles are suspended in a gas or liquid. He added that Niobia also wants its technology to become more autonomous, with the eventual aim of building a fully self-driving factory for customers.

Niobia is scheduled to present on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, where it is competing in Startup Battlefield. The competition includes 19 other startups and runs from Tuesday through Thursday, Oct. 15, according to TechCrunch.