Hannah
25 Aug 2026
High in the mountains of northern Sweden, one of the country’s best-known ski resorts is building its future on something that hasn’t been done before.
Hemavan Alpint is carrying out the largest expansion in its history – an entirely new ski and mountain area west of Hemavan, with four lifts, seven new runs, a retail area and around 3,000 guest beds. The centrepiece is a brand-new lift, the first in the region since 2020, due to open by Christmas. And it stands on the world’s first robotically manufactured ski lift foundations, designed and produced by Hyperion Robotics.
It’s a project we’re proud of – and, quietly, a milestone for the wider industry.
A major investment, in a difficult place to build
The new ski area is part of a roughly 200 million SEK investment – a significant commitment for a resort of Hemavan Alpint’s size. “For a relatively small company, it’s significant,” says CEO Markus Eriksson. “We’ve had to work for a few years to be able to take on this investment.” On what it will mean for the resort, he’s more direct: “It will add a great deal.”
Building at this altitude is not straightforward. Road access is difficult, and on a remote mountain site every trip up the hill adds cost, time and carbon. That’s exactly the kind of challenge our approach is built for.
Designed by AI, made by robots
Working with Hemavan Alpint and lift manufacturer Doppelmayr, we designed and manufactured the foundations using our physical AI technology, which connects design directly to production. Instead of the usual back-and-forth between engineering and construction, each foundation’s geometry is generated and optimised to be built by robots from the outset – so material goes only where the structure actually needs it.
The result is foundations that use around 40% less material than conventional concrete, with significantly lower embodied carbon. And because they’re lighter and arrive ready to install, they mean fewer heavy transport trips up the mountain, less crane and machinery time, and a shorter build window in demanding terrain – where those costs are usually at their highest.
Tested where it counts
Adopting a new technology on critical infrastructure isn’t a decision anyone takes lightly. Before the foundations were accepted for the project, they were tested through a full winter season and independently approved by Dekra, an internationally recognised inspection and certification authority – real-world validation under the exact conditions they were designed for. They are CE marked to European standards for safety and performance.
The same idea, wherever it’s hard to build
Hemavan is our first project in the ski industry. But the same foundation system is already at work in some of the most demanding sectors there are – water, energy and data centre infrastructure, including with National Grid in the UK.
A ski lift in the Swedish mountains and a substation in Britain don’t have much in common on the surface. Underneath, the challenge is identical: build critical infrastructure faster, lighter and with less carbon – wherever the site is hard to reach and expensive to build.
There’s a certain symmetry to seeing our foundations under a ski lift. It’s a reminder that low-carbon construction doesn’t belong to one type of project, or one corner of the world.
Building somewhere difficult? We’d love to talk.
