talian robotic vision company Blimp joins NVIDIA Metropolis program Founded in Milan and specialized in AI solutions, Blimp announced it has joined NVIDIA Metropolis, focused on making cities safer and smarter through deep learning and artificial intelligence.
Milan 15 June 2023 – Blimp, a company of the e-Novia Group, founded in Milan and specialized in AI solutions on a global scale, announced today that it has joined NVIDIA Metropolis, a partner program focused on bringing to market a new generation of vision AI applications. The program nurtures a rich ecosystem and offers powerful developer tools to supercharge vision AI applications that are designed to make the world’s most important spaces and operations safer and more efficient. Blimp has developed a service enabled by proprietary sensors called Head-Counter, primarily targeted for use by retailers, for people and vehicle counting in real time. The Head-Counter sensors operate in very large spaces, covering distances of more than 200 meters, consequently minimizing the number of installations required even in very large areas.
They can also process and interpret data by extracting the information brands need to make targeted decisions.
After an initial phase of product development, in 2019 Blimp launched its first solution on the out of home advertising market. It was rapidly able to gather the trust of customers becoming a point of reference in the Italian measure audience market. In this sector, in 2022 the company consolidated its positioning by tripling its customers, doubling the manned spaces and acquiring its first international customers. The company also entered the retail market, thanks to its Store Analytics solution designed to measure the customer journey of stores; a product that brings great added value to retail players. In fact, important customers have already been acquired from several industries ranging from fashion to oil & gas, from telcos to specialized large-scale distribution. Blimp is very active on the market and is constantly looking for new solutions. It is currently focused on smart cities, implementing important projects such as smart parking and the analysis of pedestrian and vehicular mobility across different municipalities in Italy.
The permeation of technology in urban contexts has favored the diffusion of applications to support city institutions and brands operating in the retail world. These are large-scale and, above all, innovative: in 2022 the robotic vision market, towards which Blimp products are aimed, was worth 2.4 billion dollars worldwide and is expected to reach 3.8 billion by 2027, with an expected CAGR of 9.6% for the period described.
NVIDIA Metropolis makes it easier and more cost effective for enterprises, governments, and integration partners to use world-class AI-enabled solutions to improve critical operational efficiency and safety problems. The Metropolis ecosystem contains a large and growing breadth of members who are investing in the most advanced AI techniques and the most efficient deployment platforms, using an enterprise-class approach to their solutions. Members have the opportunity to gain early access to NVIDIA platform updates to further enhance and accelerate their AI application development efforts. Further, the program offers the opportunity for members to collaborate with industry-leading experts and other AI-driven organizations.
Alex Buzzetti, co-Founder and General Manager of Blimp, says: "Our set of technologies integrates perfectly into the new lifestyles of intelligent cities. NVIDIA Metropolis places us in an ecosystem of value and allows us to gain knowledge on what matters the most to our customers. Being part of the NVIDIA network also pushes us to work further for the design and implementation of highly innovative solutions for a really fast-moving present."