At the Plan B Forum held in Lugano on October 23-24, 2026, Italian robotics startup Generative Bionics demonstrated a humanoid robot powered by Tether's local AI platform, QVAC. The robot, built on the GENE.01 hardware platform, performed AI inference entirely on-device without relying on remote servers.
Tether invested €70 million in Generative Bionics during a seed funding round in December 2025. The startup focuses on developing human-centric robots for industrial sectors, specifically targeting manufacturing and logistics where low latency and data privacy are critical requirements.
The QVAC platform is an open-source, on-device AI solution designed to function independently of cloud infrastructure. By processing sensor data locally, the system aims to eliminate network dependencies and ensure that sensitive information gathered by the robot remains on the machine.
While the demonstration showcased the capabilities of the GENE.01 platform, no independently verified performance metrics have been released. Future milestones for the project include independent testing, the announcement of pilot deployments in industrial settings, and broader adoption of QVAC by external developers.
