North Hall Sneak Peak for Automate 2026

Automate 2026 comes to Chicago next week, and we’ve been hard at work digging through the lists of over a thousand exhibitors to find interesting products and opportunities to track down at the show. Last week, you got a sneak peak at the South Hall, and today, we’ll be exploring everything that will be happening across the street at McCormick’s North Hall.

As Automate lays out in their own show preview, the North Hall is dedicated to emerging and experimental technology. From AI to cutting-edge software and robots, the many potential futures of the industry are all congregating on this side of the show. Here’s some of what we’ll be exploring when we’re at Automate June 22-25…

CIMON – Booth 19040

As a manufacturer of programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software and more, Cimon specializes in the space where people and automated machines connect. Their wide range of industrial automation solutions cover a wide range of industries and are focused on reducing friction by making systems easier to implement and scale. Unlike some companies, Cimon is large enough to develop both hardware and software solutions for a complete top-to-bottom suite of products guaranteed to work together. https://www.cimon.com/

SEW Eurodrive – Booth 19034

Alongside a broad portfolio of motors, drives and control technology, SEW Eurodrive also provides robust automation support through their Maxolution brand of products. Supporting everything from AMR-run logistics operations to heavy-duty automotive manufacturing lines, SEW can help make most popular types of automation systems a reality with both individual components and numerous software solutions. https://www.seweurodrive.com/home.html

DieQua – Booth 19027

A components specialist covering a wide range of motion control and power transmission categories, DieQua provides gearboxes, couplings and everything in between. They also have a robust custom component design team that will be present at the show to talk shop about your project’s unique needs. DieQua focuses on a consultative approach to ensure that you get the most optimized solution for your specific application. https://diequa.com/

Murrelektronik – Booth 21030

Murrelektronik specializes in efficient electrical management, particularly when it comes to decentralized systems not based around a single control cabinet. From IIoT-related technology like their IO-Link solutions to their flagship MVK Fusion fieldbus, the company provides a wide portfolio of products to tackle any connectivity or electrical need. Murrelektronik is also an innovator in the field of cabinet-free automation with their Vario-X system of products. https://my.murrelektronik.com

QNX – Booth 11064

QNX is Blackberry’s long-running OS developer with widespread adoption across numerous manufacturing industries. Automotive is a particular specialty, with virtually every big name automotive manufacturer having some form of partnership with them. In recent years, they’ve added AI companies like NVIDIA to their portfolio of partnerships and have started marketing their highly secure OS towards Physical AI, an umbrella term used to classify AI solutions based on their intended application: interfacing between a machine and the physical world. https://qnx.software/en

Teguar – Booth 32022

Teguar provides PCs for industrial edge applications designed for durability first. This Automate, they’ll have a trio of brand new products ranging from a powerhouse PC with 96 GB of RAM all the way down to a lightweight box designed with portability in mind. If you’d like to know more, we covered their booth preview in detail here. https://teguar.com/

Burro – Booth 25064

Operating primarily in agriculture, Burro provides autonomous robots designed to assist workers in the field by automating tasks such as transport and spraying weeds. Burro is attending Automate at the same time that its newest product, the Grande 44, has just started shipping. https://burro.ai/

Integrated Solutions Center

In addition to individual booths, we’ll have our eye on one pavilion in particular.

Stationed at the front of the North Hall, the Integrated Solutions Center is a collection of booths dedicated to turning all of this experimental technology into actionable, integrated solutions. The ISC’s focus is two-pronged. One, getting disparate technologies from different companies to successfully integrate and communicate with each other. And two, turning experimental pilots into fully functioning solutions that can exist inside of and contribute to your existing systems.

This is, in my opinion, easily the most important topic at Automate. Particularly this year, when a single, all-consuming technology is riding the wave of one of the largest marketing pushes in decades to try and embed itself everywhere. AI is the buzzword du jour, but it remains a highly experimental technology. Practical implementation into your existing workflow is currently one of the highest hurdles AI technology and its many evangelists face and numerous companies are tripping over this step of the process. How convenient that there’s an entire section of the show dedicated to that exact problem! If, like us, you are still trying to figure out how AI transitions from an expensive experiment into a reliable everyday solution, I would direct your attention here.

This only scrapes the surface of what we’ll be seeing at the show. Even if you don’t make it out yourself, you’ll be able to catch glimpses of how these companies and more are making waves in the industry in the coming months here at AutomationMesh!