"We need Robots that think like ants and sense like superheroes”

When Lars Reger takes the stage, standing still is not an option. The Chief Technology Officer of NXP Semiconductors darts left and right, arms slicing the air, his voice rising and falling like a storyteller on a mission. At the launch of Eindhoven University of Technology’s new Casimir Institute, he delivered not just a lecture on chips and systems, but a performance — one part science, one part vision, one part comedy show.

“I just came in from East-Eindhoven, also known as Hamburg,” he quipped at the start, already in motion, setting the tone for a talk that was equal parts personal and provocative.

From Cousteau to chips

Reger projected an image from his youth. “That is a picture of me as a kid, or at least how I imagined myself,” he said, mimicking a child peering into the unknown. Born in 1970, he dreamed of either following Neil Armstrong to the moon or Jacques-Yves Cousteau into the deep sea. “I even became a lifeguard trainer, just to be a better diver than Cousteau,” he laughed. But instead of exploring oceans or space, he dove into physics and semiconductors - first at Infineon, Siemens and Continental, later at NXP.

At that time, the semiconductor industry was precarious. “Most of us were loss-making,” Reger recalled. “That’s why the mother companies kicked us out and said: get happy and healthy on yourself.” Philips, Siemens, and Motorola all spun off their chip divisions. Then came the smartphone revolution. “Some smart guy stuffed a laptop into a lousy phone,” he said, pacing the stage. “And suddenly, we had data display devices. The on-demand world was born.”

From brains on wheels to ants and energy

That digital leap set the stage for today’s shift toward robotics and autonomy. “Analysts talk about 50 billion smart connected devices,” Reger said. “But these are robots, and they must be responsible robots.”

Trust, he argued, is non-negotiable. “The first time your smart fridge orders 500 bottles of milk, you go shopping again. And the first time your smart car starts driving erratically, you don’t let your kids go to school anymore — you drive them in a tank,” he joked. Reliability, in his world, boils down to functional safety (borrowed from automotive braking systems) and cybersecurity (shaped by Europe’s leadership in banking and NFC).

To explain complexity, Reger used his own body as a metaphor, stamping his foot and straightening his spine. “Here you have a 95-kilo bag of water with a couple of bones,” he said. “A biological robot.” His spine, cerebellum, and brain became analogies for layers of computing: reflexes, stability, and higher reasoning. “And this entire system runs on 20 watts,” he emphasized, pointing upward. “Meanwhile, AI is burning terawatts in data centers to imitate us. Do you see the imbalance?”

Then came his favorite comparison: ants. “Ants are amazing transportation robots,” he said, mimicking the insects marching across the stage. “They platoon, they carry heavy loads — with 250,000 neurons and one milliwatt of brain power. That’s where we need to go with robotics. Efficient, simple, effective.”

Superheroes on stage

But Reger wasn’t done. He called in his “superheroes” to illustrate the sensory future of autonomous systems. With sweeping arm gestures, he evoked Dumbledore moving objects out of reach, Yoda sensing what can’t be seen, and Superman spotting through rain and fog. “Wouldn’t it be cool,” he asked, “if our cars and robots could do that too?” From Daredevil came the idea of cars with ears sharp enough to detect a ringing bicycle bell behind them. From the Hitchhiker’s Guide, the Babel fish inspired a common language for all connected devices.

Behind the jokes was a serious point: Europe has unique strengths in sensors, secure connectivity, and energy-efficient microcontrollers.

Europe’s play in semiconductors

Much of this, he reminded the audience, is already happening in Eindhoven. NXP’s first CMOS radar chip was developed here in 2013. “That made us market leader worldwide in automotive radar,” Reger said proudly. The company is now pushing safe power management, secure software platforms, and energy-efficient chips built with TSMC. “We need the right architectural vision, superior sensors, and functional safety software,” he summed up.

And crucially: “This is where Europe has something to say. The big AI gigafactory dudes have not solved this. But we can.”

Contact sport at the coffee machine

Innovation, he stressed, doesn’t just come from labs. It comes from encounters. “The radar idea came from the contact sports we do at the coffee machine,” Reger said, bouncing back to center stage. “Someone said, Lars, don’t you need wireless HDMI in cars? I said no, no way, this is 60 GHz. Yeah, but what do you need? 80 GHz radar. We build it for you. And then my boss said, Lars, this is completely impossible, this is complete nonsense. But here's the money, prove it. And this is how that went. This is how this leading innovation comes.”

With that, Reger closed his performance, sketching a future where his children might build the robots he will rely on in old age. “Ideally, my house behaves like paradise; always food, always warm, always protecting me,” he said with a grin. “That’s my vision.”

As the audience laughed and applauded, one thing was clear: Lars Reger hadn’t just explained semiconductors. He had turned chips, ants, superheroes, and neurons into a story of Europe’s chance to lead in trustworthy, efficient AI-powered robotics.