Torc Robotics, the Daimler Truck-owned self-driving truck developer, on May 26 announced a strategic partnership with Mila — Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, becoming the only autonomous trucking company embedded inside one of the world's largest academic AI research centers. The deal gives Torc dedicated research space at Mila's Montreal campus and direct access to the institute's 1,500-plus researchers, students and faculty.
Why Mila matters for autonomous trucks
Founded by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, Mila is one of the world's largest academic centers for deep learning research. Its alumni and affiliates hold leadership roles at OpenAI, Google and other frontier labs. By embedding inside Mila's ecosystem, Torc will pursue research in generative world models, multi-agent behavior modeling, reinforcement learning and foundation models for physical AI systems — areas increasingly central to closing the gap between simulation and on-road autonomy.
The partnership builds on a Torc-Mila affiliation that dates to 2020 and reinforces Torc's growing Montreal footprint alongside its Blacksburg, Virginia headquarters and engineering offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Dallas-Fort Worth.
A bet on physical AI
"Advancing the next generation of physical AI is central to our mission," said Felix Heide, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Torc. "Partnering enables deeper collaboration at the intersection of research and real-world deployment that supports continued progress toward commercializing autonomous trucking at scale."
Christopher Pal, Core Academic Member at Mila and Scientific Co-Director of IVADO, said the deal "brings together academic excellence and real-world deployment, creating opportunities for our students and researchers to work on impactful challenges in physical AI while advancing the state of the art in autonomous systems."
Fits a broader industry shift
Truck makers and AI labs are rapidly tightening the link between academic research and commercial autonomy as physical AI becomes the next major frontier for robotics. FANUC and Google recently teamed to bring Gemini AI to 1.1 million industrial robots, while Mitsubishi Electric and Chiba Institute of Technology have announced a joint physical AI lab for factory robots.
The trucking sector is moving in parallel. XPENG just rolled out its first mass-produced Level 4 robotaxi, and Pony AI lifted its 2026 robotaxi fleet target to 3,500 vehicles — rapid commercial moves that make foundational physical AI research a strategic asset.
What's next
Torc and Mila said they will jointly explore approaches that bridge simulation and real-world performance. Torc, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG, is focused on commercializing autonomous trucks for long-haul U.S. freight, and the company sees on-the-ground access to Mila as a way to accelerate hiring, recruiting and applied research close to its Montreal engineering office.
Liam Paull, a Core Academic Member at Mila and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, called the deal "exciting and important" as autonomous trucking moves closer to commercial reality.
Reporting based on coverage from Torc Robotics, Mila, RoboticsTomorrow and Truck News.