Aurora, a leader in autonomous trucking technology, hosted a ribbon cutting Thursday for a new 78,000-square-foot office and testing facility located on Montana State University’s Innovation Campus.
The modern, two-story facility includes lidar research and development laboratories; a world-class manufacturing space and clean room facility; and garage for vehicle testing. In collaboration with MSU, the company also opened a state-of-the-art lidar testing range.
Lidar is short for light detection and ranging, a sensing method that emits pulses of laser light to determine the presence, shape and distance of objects.
Aurora said the facility is designed to support continued development and testing of its proprietary lidar technology, which can detect objects more than 450 meters away, unlocking highway driving capabilities for Aurora’s autonomous trucks.
The ceremony Thursday, which included tours of Aurora’s laboratories and testing facilities, featured remarks by Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Bozeman Mayor Terry Cunningham, MSU Vice President for Research and Economic Development Alison Harmon, and Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson.
“Our state is made stronger when companies like Aurora choose to expand their business in Montana,” the governor said. “From their investments in the Bozeman community, to inspiring the next generation of innovators, Montana is seeing rapid growth in industries like photonics thanks to job creators like Aurora.”
“The grand opening of Aurora’s Bozeman facility is wonderful news for Montana,” Montana’s U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said in a statement. “Investing in cutting-edge technology and the photonics sector will provide new jobs and an increasingly talented workforce in our state. I look forward to seeing the opportunities and progress that will come from this exciting development.”
“We’re delighted to see Aurora’s commitment to Bozeman,” said Mayor Cunningham. “This ribbon-cutting event is also an affirmation of the collaborative approach that the city of Bozeman, the state of Montana, Montana State University and our business community take to foster an environment where innovative, high-tech businesses like Aurora can grow and thrive.”
“From early on, we knew Montana’s photonics leadership would be invaluable for bringing safe, scalable self-driving technology to the world,” said Urmson. “Our new Bozeman office deepens our commitment to the region and strengthens our ability to expand our fleet of autonomous trucks.”
MSU has been a hub of optics and photonics research for decades. Its Optical Technology Center, or OpTeC, and its Spectrum Lab have been national leaders in lidar and other laser optics research and have helped foster one of the nation’s highest concentrations of laser-optics companies in Bozeman.
Montana State University is the state’s largest research enterprise, with $258 million in research and contract expenditures. In July, MSU was announced as a founding member of the Headwaters Regional Technology and Innovation Hub, which received a $41 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration to help create tech jobs across Montana, with a focus on photonics and smart sensors.
Harmon said MSU is proud of its land-grant mission, which includes education, research and engagement, and that the MSU Innovation Campus is one way that mission is made real.
“Innovation Campus is a window to the future of the land-grant mission,” she said. “It is a place for partnerships among researchers and industry, and it provides students with hands-on education and employment opportunities.”
Founded in 2017, Aurora has offices in seven cities, including Bozeman. In 2019, it purchased Bozeman-based Blackmore, a company known for its work on frequency modulated continuous wave lidar and whose founders conducted research at MSU before establishing the company.
MSU’s Innovation Campus is being developed by Charter Realty & Development as the master developer of the 42-acre project in partnership with the Montana State University Alumni Foundation and its subsidiary, the MSU Innovation Campus. Once complete, the campus will house more than half a million square feet of technology and office space.
