Serendie Street Boston is designed to enable co-creation, real-world testing, and scalable solutions across industries. Source: Mitsubishi Electric
Global enterprises know where to put innovation centers to gain access to partners, customers, and research expertise. Mitsubishi Electric US Inc. yesterday celebrated the grand opening of Serendie Street Boston, its first Western digital transformation hub.
“Serendie” combines “serendipity” and “digital engineering” (DX), and the company first launched the co-creation initiative last year in Yokohama, Japan. Mitsubishi said it is evolving into a “circular digital-engineering” company and that the center will enable continuous improvement as it “integrates devices, systems, and multi-domain services into unified solutions.”
“Serendie Street Boston represents a significant step forward in our global strategy to integrate digital intelligence with physical systems and create lasting value for our customers and society,” stated Mike Corbo, executive officer at Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and president and CEO of Mitsubishi Electric US.
“By establishing a presence in one of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems, near some of the world’s top technology institutes, we access the best talent and creative minds to support this DX hub and strengthen our ability to collaborate, scale new ideas globally, and deliver solutions for our customers,” he added.
Corbo cited the 80 Ph.D.s, 60 to 70 interns, and two members of MIT‘s AI venture class who have come to work at Mitsubishi’s Boston-area facilities, part of a total full-time staff of 120 in Cambridge, Mass. He also noted that Serendie Street Boston (SSB) follows Mitsubishi’s strategic expansion from providing products to supporting innovation and services.
Serendie Street Boston built for collaboration
“We built Serendie Street Boston to be a highly hands-on and collaborative space,” said Kyle Reissner, vice president of product management for Serendie Street Boston at Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions (MEIDS). “Our teams are working closely with customers and partners in real time, testing solutions, iterating quickly, and applying insights directly to operational environments.”
“Whether it’s optimizing building systems, improving energy efficiency, or integrating AI into existing infrastructure, this space allows us to move faster and deliver practical, measurable outcomes,” he said.
Reissner led visitors through demonstrations at the 7,950 sq. ft. (738.5 sq. m) DX site, which is in the same building as Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL).
Mitsubishi says its first U.S. digital transformation hub will accelerate digital transformation. Source: Mitsubishi Electric
MERL investigates optimized robotic monitoring
Dr. Abraham Vinod, a principal scientist at MERL, showed autonomous robot mapping and monitoring using a Unitree quadruped, a lidar scanner, and fully onboard compute. Instead of a person with a backpack spending hours to map a facility, Vinod said his team has developed an algorithm to optimize efficiency for automated mapping, which could be useful for facilities inspection and search-and-rescue operations.
Vinod’s colleague Alex Schperberg presented a paper at ICRA in Vienna this week on the potential for multiple legged robots to safely coordinate their movements while increasing the speed, frequency, and coverage of monitoring.
Abraham Vinod demonstrates autonomous robot mapping and monitoring at Serendie Street Boston. Credit: Eugene Demaitre
AWL Electricity provides wireless tool charging
Also at Serendie Street Boston, Mitsubishi partner AWL Electricity Inc. demonstrated a wireless charging system for a 10W, detachable end effector with a Mitsubishi MELFA robot arm. The power worked at 40 cm (15.7 in.), and the robot moved a camera around an object to scan it without any hazard of cord entanglement.
The technology could provide more flexibility for manufacturing systems using tool changers, acknowledged Takehiro Ishiguro, senior manager of open innovation at Mitsubishi Electric’s Factory Automation Business Group.
In an adjacent demo, Dr. William Nguyen, a Mitsubishi Electric Automation project development manager, explained how the Onyx AI platform can automate difficult AI research steps so that data is more effectively translated into deployable models for control systems. It combines physical data with digital twins to directly address the simulation-to-reality gap and customer pain points, he said.
AWL Electricity provides wireless charging for a range of systems. Source: AWL Electricity
MELIC offers AnyMile for growing drone deliveries
Anthony Martore, manager of strategy and innovation at the Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center (MELIC), discussed the AnyMile platform for advanced air mobility governance. It connects shippers, terminals, operators, and regulators for drone operations.
AnyMile provides continuity of information, operational discipline for procedures and compliance, and scalability, explained Martore. An app enables fleet managers to monitor order tracing and fulfillment in real time. As a leading healthcare hub, Boston has a need to move lab specimens and samples quickly and affordably rather than relying on vertically integrated vendors, he said.
In fact, AnyMile is already involved in thousands of flights per day across the U.S., noted Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu, vice president and general manager of venture studio MELIC.
“We expect significant B2B and B2C growth in the next two years, thanks in part to regulatory changes,” Corbo said. “Drones are coming that can carry 200 to 300 kg [440.9 to 661.3 lb.] hundreds of miles — that’s our target market.”
Nozomi acquisition provides cyber-resilience
In September 2025, Mitsubishi Electric acquired Nozomi Networks Inc., a San Francisco-based developer and distributor of operational technology (OT) risk-trending systems.
“We can either grow through in-house innovation or by acquisition,” said Corbo. “We previously held shares in Nozomi. Following our digital transformation strategy, we acquired the best in class for OT security.”
Nozomi’s technology continues to be vendor-agnostic, taking data to feed an AI engine for insights into risks across pharmaceuticals, critical infrastructure, manufacturing, utilities, and airports, said Mike Dutko, a sales engineer at Nozomi Networks.
Nozomi and Mitsubishi offer IT and OT security. Source: Mitsubishi Electric
Serendie Street shows Mitsubishi focus on industrial innovation
Other demonstrations at Serendie Street Boston involved vision-based airflow and temperature sensing, vision IoT and edge AI, and the GENESIS generative AI assistant for accelerating the design of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems across industrial sites.
While the demonstrations at the Serendie Street Boston grand opening covered a wide range of technologies and maturity levels, they all showed Mitsubishi’s commitment to commercially relevant automation, as well as its support for global and regional collaboration.
As part of its support for startups and innovation, the company is a partner of MassRobotics, which presented university teams, healthcare startups, and other member companies during last week’s Robotics Summit & Expo.
“The new administration [of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi] in Japan is very focused on innovation and healthcare,” Seiichiro Takahashi, consul general of Japan in Boston, told The Robot Report. “Our mission here is to develop partnerships.”
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