March 13 (Reuters) - Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former chief executive of Uber, on Friday launched his startup, Atoms, focused on specialized industrial robotics designed to automate tasks in the mining, transport and food sectors.

Kalanick is betting that task-specific machines are the key to improving industrial productivity. He is expanding and renaming City Storage Systems, the startup he started building after leaving the ride-hailing giant.

"Gainfully employed robots are the machines best suited for the job at hand, that can make a living doing it," Kalanick said in a statement.

Interest has been rising in specialized robots as they could offer a clear path to profitability, given the stress on automation across industries such as transport and waste management.

General-purpose humanoid robotics faces challenges such as how to teach machines to navigate unpredictable environments and develop sophisticated reasoning abilities.

Kalanick said Atoms will be organized into Atoms Food, providing infrastructure for the food industry, Atoms Mining, focusing on increasing mine productivity, and Atoms Transport, which he described as a "wheelbase for robots."

He had resigned as CEO of Uber in 2017 due to pressure from investors, capping a tumultuous period for the ride-services company. In 2019, he left the company board.

Kalanick wrote on the startup's website that he was "heartbroken" after he had left Uber and now he was back to his "calling" of building atoms-based computers, which are specialized systems using physical artificial intelligence to automate tasks in the real world.