Tech

• Duolingo: Pittsburgh’s first unicorn, founded by reCAPTCHA creator Luis von Ahn, went public in July 2021 and achieved a valuation of $6.5 billion.
• Google: Ten years after relocating from Carnegie Mellon to Pittsburgh’s Bakery Square development, Google is expanding its current footprint to add three floors, bringing its presence to 320,000 square feet of office and data center space.
• Hornetsecurity: This German-based cloud email security provider opened its U.S. headquarters in Pittsburgh in 2017. More than 45,000 organizations use its platform.
• Gecko Robotics: In 2021, this maker of industrial inspection robots doubled its office and manufacturing space to 68,000 square feet at Nova Place, an emerging hub of technology companies on Pittsburgh’s Northside.
• Astrobotic: This Carnegie Mellon spinout focuses on commercial trips to the moon and contracts with NASA. It is exploring a wireless charging solution for lunar robots and delivery of the VIPER robot to the moon’s south pole.

The tech R&D presence in Pittsburgh contributes to the region’s continued growth in the sector. Examples include:

• Amazon Tech Hub: A year after opening in 2017, Amazon added 22,000 square feet of space to its hub footprint, where employees translate shopping content and entertainment into multiple languages and integrate Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant, into cars.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint project of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh best known for intersecting artificial intelligence with life sciences and healthcare tech. It is supported by several federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and private industry.
• The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is one of 10 federally funded research and development centers conducting research for the U.S. government through a nonprofit, publicprivate partnership. Its R&D initiatives include software engineering, systems engineering, cybersecurity, and many other areas of computing that introduce private-sector innovations into government.
• The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute (ARM), an award-winning public/private partnership that is a national collaborative in robotics technology and education.
• The National Robotics Engineering Center, which operates within Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, partners with government and industry clients to develop and commercialize robotics solutions. It also educates K-12 and college students through the Robotics Academy.
• Companies that are part of the Pittsburgh Robotics Network strive to grow local investment, attract new talent to the region, and support local suppliers and companies. Members include Astrobotic, Gecko Robotics, and Seegrid.
• The University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security (Pitt Cyber) was launched in 2017 to create an interdisciplinary environment for cyber research.