Five deep-tech solutions qualify for the Future Investment Initiative Investment Day, showcasing embodied AI and automation at Riyadh’s forefront

The Future Investment Initiative Institute announced the selection of five international start-ups from 1,321 nominations submitted by 90 countries, to showcase their technologies to global investors in Riyadh on 29 October 2026. This step is part of Investment Day in the initiative’s tenth edition, held at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center under the theme “Continuous Impact Power”, in partnership with the MIT-based MIT Solve platform. The qualifying companies, hailing from Argentina, India, Poland and the United States, cover health care, robotics, transport, logistics and advanced manufacturing, reflecting AI’s shift from pure software to tangible devices and field-operable systems.

The most prominent shift in these selections is the rise of embodied AI, showing how computer vision meets industrial hardware and direct medical intervention devices.U.S. firm Argon Mechatronics exemplifies this path by developing flexible industrial robots equipped with interchangeable tool heads that combine precision robotics, computer vision and physical AI. The system enables a single robot to perform multiple manufacturing tasks, including 3-D printing, digitally controlled automation, laser processing, and part transport and sorting, eliminating the need for single-purpose, high-cost production lines. In the same motion-focused context, Indian company Asterik Innovations offers its external robotic framework “Unic Exo”, a modular, low-cost device for lower-limb rehabilitation that integrates motion sensors and AI algorithms to assist patients while standing and walking according to data-driven therapy plans.

On heavy transport and logistics, Polish company Nivomo offers its MagRail technology, which develops custom electromagnetic propulsion systems to upgrade existing conventional railways without the need to build entirely new track networks. The system relies on supplying existing rails and wagons with electromagnetic drive and AI-supported automation for freight handling, raising train speeds and capacity while reducing carbon emissions. In the health sector, American company iSono Health has developed the Atosa system, a portable, wearable three-dimensional ultrasound scanner for breast imaging that completes a full breast exam in roughly two minutes, combining automation and advanced imaging with algorithmic analysis to make clinical diagnosis standardized, fast and available at the point of care. In food security and sustainable agriculture, Argentine firm Apollo Biotech has created solutions based on non-genetically modified RNA to protect crops by activating plants’ natural defenses against fungi and viruses, thereby reducing reliance on synthetic chemical pesticides.

Her Royal Highness Princess Dr. Maha bint Mishari bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, chief executive officer of the Future Investment Initiative Institute (FII Institute), said that innovation attains its true value when it creates a sustainable impact on society, confirming that the platform is working to open pathways that connect innovators with capital and partnerships capable of accelerating this impact and expanding it globally. For her part, Hala Hana, executive director of the MIT Solve initiative, noted the continued cooperation to support entrepreneurs who employ emerging technologies to generate new opportunities and change ways of life in the health, sustainability, education and robotics sectors.

What does this qualification mean for the work and industry sectors in the region?We see that this scene conveys a clear message to engineers and project managers in the Gulf, Egypt and the Levant: technical competition is no longer confined to building conversational models and text applications, but has moved to integrating software with metal structures and infrastructure networks. For the Gulf industrial sector seeking to localise manufacturing, the multi-tool robot model enables a reduction in capital expenditure for flexible assembly lines, as a single manufacturing workshop can switch between laser and 3-D printing without purchasing separate, costly systems. The railway-upgrade model also offers an economical alternative to road-shipping networks and logistical links between ports and dry warehouses in the region, by raising the efficiency of existing routes instead of draining budgets on building independent magnetic tracks from scratch.

At the level of health care, the medical director in regional hospitals and peripheral centers faces a shortage of specialist radiologists, and the automation of three-dimensional wave scanning in two minutes enables the transfer of the initial scanning workload to primary-care staff while standardising imaging accuracy algorithmically. If you manage a technical or investment team, the skill required of you in the next phase no longer is limited to writing code commands but requires understanding the physical linkage between motion sensors, mechanical systems and computer-vision models, as the arrival of these companies at the exhibition platform in Riyadh demonstrates that regional capital is now seeking technologies that have a tangible physical impact on the ground.