Interview with Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian

The inspiration for Gecko Robotics came when founder and CEO Jake Loosararian was visiting a Pennsylvania power plant during his time at university. 

“The problem for the plant was they were experiencing these really crazy shutdowns,” Loosararian told The Engineer. “About 40 per cent of the year they were having forced outages because of infrastructure failure.”

At one point in the tour, the plant manager explained that a worker had died on site the previous year while examining the plant’s boiler for defects.  “I was kind of just like, dumbfounded, right? Like, this is 2012…and dudes are dying on ropes, trying to search for invisible defects,” said Loosararian.  “And then I started thinking about, like, ‘Man, I wonder what else that we rely on, that’s made out of metal or concrete or whatever that’s been around for 100 years is going to start killing us?’”

This kickstarted Loosararian on his mission to codify and map out the fundamental health of the built environment. He founded Gecko Robotics while still in college, developing the company’s first robotic crawlers, which use ultrasonics and camera sensors to build detailed datasets of whatever structures they are set loose on. 

The system’s potential was clear from the outset, illustrated by the enormous savings made by the Pennsylvania power plant at the centre of Gecko’s macabre origin story. “It saved them about $30 million that year,” said Loosararian .

Despite this startling early success, Loosararian quickly realised that the company needed to be much more than just a robotics provider. While robots were central to its capabilities, they were really just a conduit for the collection of mission critical data that underpinned the safety and reliability of infrastructure, from bridges and buildings, to oil rigs and power plants. “If you just sell robots, you’re actually missing out on so much of the value created with robots,” Loosararian explained.

To build a scalable business, Gecko needed a more direct way to influence company balance sheets. According to Loosararian , the richness of the data provided by its robots allows infrastructure owners to refine their capital expenditure models, extending the useful life of infrastructure, improving appreciation models and positively impacting the bottom line.  “These are the kinds of things that people actually care about,” said the Gecko CEO.  “We had to create a critical mass so that we became the company that had the largest inventory and Rolodex of information and health of the built world.”

While data is ultimately the currency Loosararian is chasing, robotics remain absolutely vital to how that data is harvested. Alongside its distinctive tethered crawlers, Gecko also uses drones and ROVs to gather data on assets from the sky and water, using a combination of ultrasonic, optical, electromagnetic and thermal sensors. Robotic rigs can be tailored for different jobs, but a typical setup has roughly 20 different sensors onboard with around 100 data points collected for every centimetre climbed.

However, the real value today comes from Cantilever, Gecko’s proprietary software platform where data gathered by the robots is uploaded and analysed. In development for more than half a decade, Cantilever ties together Gecko’s robotics and sensor expertise, providing the kind of insights that companies can use to shape their balance sheets. “The software is specifically oriented around creating financial modules that are using artificial intelligence to help drive big decisions that affect those kinds of business outcomes,” said Loosararian .

The AI-powered platform can provide recommendations for operational changes and repair plans that improve asset reliability and safety, optimising productivity while minimising risk. To date, Cantilever has been used to build 360-degree data pictures of more than 500,000 infrastructure assets.  “It’s full coverage,” Loosararian explained. “Terabytes of data versus, like, a couple hundred data points by a human on a piece of paper.”

This technological leap has seen Gecko Robotics achieve substantial growth in recent years, hitting a valuation of $633m in 2024. Along the way, it has picked up major contracts across both the private and public sector, including with the US Navy. Its work with the Navy’s submarine fleet was recently extended to include the Columbia-class programme. Set to be the largest submarines ever built by the US, the Columbia class will replace the Ohio-class fleet of nuclear subs that currently carries the country’s Trident nuclear deterrent. Gecko’s role involves helping to identify and predict problem areas in the build process, potentially preventing substantial delays across the highly complex project.

Gecko has also partnered with the US Navy to work on the surface fleet, including its first aircraft carrier project in 2024. Despite this continued success with the US military, the UK defence market has been a tougher nut to crack.  “The big companies don’t want somebody coming in and messing with their contracts,” said Loosararian .  “There’s just no room for innovation right now. And that is a huge, huge problem in the UK. I’m hoping something changes, because it’s going to spell bad things for security.”

Back in the US, the country’s creaking infrastructure continues to be a hot-button topic, one that politicians frequently weigh in on, alongside engineers. Maintaining infrastructure is inevitably a less glamorous pursuit than building it, though no less demanding. Across the US, bridges, highways and power plants are reaching the latter stages of life, with the cracks on full display for all to see.

To highlight the issue, Gecko shared a video clip  that showed a representative of the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) estimating what it would take to get US infrastructure back up to scratch. According to a recent ASCE report, the overall grade for the current state of infrastructure is a D plus. Raising that to a B grade – the level recommended to aim for by the ASCE – would require an investment of around $4.6 trillion. Loosararian believes that figure is a wild overestimate, but the data to challenge it does not exist.

“I actually think that number is, like, far, far inflated,” he said. “I think that number is about 80 per cent too high. But the problem is, it has to be that high if you don’t have any information or data on these built structures…we just don’t have any information or data to be able to call bullsh*t on all this.

“And so that’s the big problem. That’s the big thing I’m pushing right now on this administration, other governments and ministers around the world. I think you’re getting taken to the bank right now, right? I think you’re getting robbed blind.”

Rather than the multi-trillion-dollar nationwide overhaul of infrastructure that the ASCE recommends, Loosararian instead advocates for a more targeted approach, informed by first gathering a much richer data picture on the US’s ageing built environment.  “We can arm the decision makers and capital allocators with the ability to extend and make sure that when you’re crossing that bridge, that bridge is safe,” he said.  “But also understand, do I actually spend the 50 million dollars that you’re telling me I need to on this bridge? Or can I actually spend about 1 million or 5 million, and just target my repairs and then spend the other 45 million somewhere else?”