Lukas Bromig, UniteLabs, München
Integrating laboratory hardware and software remains a persistent challenge in lab automation. Today’s solutions rely on proprietary, point-to-point integrations—connecting automation equipment to schedulers or file systems to LIMS—resulting in a fragmented, inflexible, and costly landscape.
A modern laboratory requires a robust infrastructure layer that standardizes connectivity across vendors, from the edge to the cloud. By adopting an API-first approach and leveraging principles from Industry 4.0, labs can achieve seamless automation that is more scalable, cost-effective, and accessible.
Current approaches tend to separate data management from physical automation, but as labs demand more integrated workflows and FAIR data principles, these boundaries are increasingly blurred. UniteLabs is developing an integration platform—an operating system for the lab—that enables low-level, bi-directional connectivity between laboratory hardware and software. By decoupling integration from the application layer, this approach reduces complexity, lowers the total cost of ownership, and accelerates lab automation projects.