Shares of Robo.ai Inc. (NASDAQ:AIIO) jumped 23.8% in premarket trading on Friday after the autonomous systems specialist unveiled a strategic, multi-year partnership aimed at expanding its role in AI infrastructure.
The company said it has entered into a three-year Gold Reseller Agreement with The Ghazi Group (TGG), under which Robo.ai will gain Gold Reseller status to market and distribute TGG’s edge inference servers for fully autonomous vehicles, as well as high-performance CPU and GPU server platforms, storage solutions and networking systems. The agreement covers markets across the Middle East, North Africa and selected parts of Southeast Asia.
The deal marks a significant shift in Robo.ai’s strategy, repositioning the company from a pure AI robotics platform provider to what it describes as a “compute gateway” supporting enterprise and sovereign AI deployments. The move places Robo.ai at the intersection of AI software, robotics and advanced compute infrastructure.
The partnership is focused on regions expected to see rapid growth in edge AI adoption. The Asia-Pacific edge AI market is forecast to reach roughly $6.0 billion by 2026, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 26.8%, while the Middle East and Africa edge AI market is projected to grow to about $3.1 billion over the same period.
Robo.ai and TGG said the collaboration could unlock more than $100 million in revenue opportunities across the targeted regions. The model is designed to generate recurring income streams through a combination of hardware sales, systems integration, software licensing and long-term technical support agreements.
“In an era of rapid technological and geopolitical change, Robo.ai has been forging its own path of evolution. Our strategic focus on the AI machine economy is proving its merit,” said Robo.ai CEO Benjamin Zhai in a statement.
Beyond near-term commercial benefits, the partnership is also expected to support Robo.ai’s ambition to become the first fully autonomous vehicle manufacturer based in the United Arab Emirates and to establish itself as a leading player in the emerging smart, open machine economy.