Applied Intuition Collaborates with Heidelberg Materials to Advance Innovation in Quarry Operations with Autonomous Haulage Fleets
Deployment brings intelligent, vehicle-based autonomy to Australia, establishing a new operating model for construction and mining environments.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Applied Intuition, Inc., a leader in physical AI, today announced its collaboration with Heidelberg Materials, one of the world's largest integrated manufacturers of building materials and solutions, to deploy autonomous haulage systems for Heidelberg Materials' quarry operations, starting in Clarence Sands, Australia.
Applied Intuition will provide its Self-Driving System (SDS) for Construction to support autonomous haulage operations within Heidelberg Materials' fleet of construction and mining vehicles in Australia. The deployment marks the next real-world application of Applied Intuition's autonomy platform in industrial environments. Upon successful completion, it will support the expansion of autonomous operations within Heidelberg Materials' broader Australian network.
The collaboration also challenges the standard industry model. While autonomy solutions traditionally target the largest quarry sites, this system is designed for smaller operations, including those running just two 40-ton trucks, making it deployable across quarry sites of varying size worldwide.
"No two quarry or construction sites operate the same way, with different layouts, constraints and economics," said Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. "We've built our platform to adapt to that reality. This partnership shows we can take the same core system used in large mining operations and apply it to smaller, infrastructure-constrained quarry sites, scaling it across hundreds of unique locations."
For Heidelberg Materials, the partnership is aimed at enhancing safety and operational performance. It also reflects the need for an autonomy solution that can operate at large sites and smaller ones too, whereas traditional autonomous haulage systems are often too infrastructure-heavy or costly to scale. For Applied Intuition, it serves as a proof point that its autonomy platform is designed not just for one-off deployments, but for global scale across construction, quarry and mining environments of any size.
Applied Intuition's system runs directly on the vehicle, with integrated perception, decision-making and safety systems onboard, enabling reliable operation without constant connectivity or heavy site infrastructure.
The collaboration builds on Applied Intuition's growing presence in construction and mining autonomy and reinforces its broader physical AI strategy. The same core platform has already been deployed in other industries, including trucking and defense, with learnings from each domain contributing to continuous system improvements. Applied Intuition's SDS platform strategy also enables the company to bring technologies proven in other domains into construction and mining, helping accelerate development and deployment.
Through this project, Applied Intuition demonstrates the range of its autonomy platform, from some of the largest mining trucks in the world to smaller quarry vehicles operating in constrained, lower-infrastructure environments. Together, these deployments highlight the company's approach to building scalable autonomy for construction and mining from the ground up.
To learn more about how Applied Intuition is building the future of construction autonomy, visit applied.co.
About Applied Intuition
Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company's solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Gothenburg, Sweden; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co.
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