🦾 HardTech Reads: The AI & Robotics Revolution vol.56
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🚀 HARDTECH NEWS: Robotics & AI Innovations
🔬 STARTUPS FUNDING: Game-Changers in HardTech & AI
📚 FAVORITE RESOURCES
🎤Events — let’s meet in person!
🚀 HARDTECH NEWS: Robotics & AI Innovations
🤖 Two humanoid IPOs, 🚶 XPENG’s Iron humanoid, 🍎 Apple’s $133B robotics market, 🍳 CA-1 robotic kitchen, 🚁 DJI’s Neo 2 selfie drone, 🏨 World’s first humanoid-staffed hotel, 💻 Microsoft’s Atlanta AI super factory, 🚗 Waymo’s freeway robotaxis, ⚛️ Quantinuum’s quantum error correction, 🏭 Tesla’s Terafab semiconductor plant, ✈️ Archer Aviation’s $126M airport acquisition, 💰 Anthropic’s $50B AI data centers, ⚛️ IBM’s 2029 commercial quantum computer, 🚀 Blue Origin’s New Glenn NASA mission, ☀️ Google’s Project Suncatcher AI satellites, ❤️ LOVOT companion robot, 🏥 China’s AI hospital
🤖 Two Humanoid IPOs!?
It seems as if not one but two of China’s leading humanoid robot makers will IPO on the Shanghai STAR stock exchange within the next year, in a sign of how fast the sector has matured.
Leju Robotics has raised $210M+ in pre-IPO funding, with preparations for a public listing well underway. The Shenzhen-based humanoid maker is partnered with 40+ companies, including giants like Tencent, Huawei, Alibaba, and China Mobile, to deploy its Kuavo bot in factories.
And, earlier this year, Unitree Robotics filed for a $7B IPO, recording $140M+ in 2024 revenue and four years of positive cash flow (a rarity in robotics).
🚶 XPENG Iron Humanoid Achieves Uncanny Valley
Chinese automaker XPENG unveiled Iron, a humanoid robot featuring bionic hands, touch-sensitive skin, and a digital face capable of natural expressions. The robot walked so convincingly across the stage that social media erupted with speculation it was a human in disguise until XPENG released a video debunking the claim. Iron is set to enter mass production next year.
🍎 Apple Could Capture 9% of Robotics Market Worth $133B by 2040
Morgan Stanley estimates that Apple could generate approximately $133 billion in annual revenue from robotics by 2040. The investment bank’s analysis comes as rumors suggest the company is developing a tabletop robot in Vietnam set to hit the market in 2027, potentially following the same strategy that made iPhones a cultural phenomenon.
🍳 CA-1 Cooks 120 Dishes Per Hour!
The CA-1 is a fully automated robotic kitchen that replaces an entire restaurant in one compact unit. Powered by AI, it cooks, plates, and cleans with no human chefs needed. Using dual robotic arms, smart ingredient storage, and computer vision, it prepares restaurant-quality meals in just 3–4 minutes. It can serve up to 120 dishes per hour and runs with only 1 hour of human oversight per day. Already rolling out in German supermarkets under the “Fresh & Smart” brand, it offers affordable meals starting at €6.
🚁 DJI Launches Neo 2 Selfie Drone with LiDAR Obstacle Avoidance
DJI released the Neo 2 selfie drone in China featuring LiDAR-based obstacle avoidance, gesture controls, and nearly double the follow speed of its predecessor. The compact drone represents a significant advancement in consumer autonomous flight technology with improved spatial awareness.
🏨 World’s First Hotel Staffed by Humanoids is Now Open
KEENON Robotics has partnered with the Shangri-La Group to launch a landmark smart hotel in Shanghai, powered by a full ecosystem of “Universal + Specialized” robots. The flagship wheeled humanoid, the XMAN-R1, serves as a receptionist, greeting guests upon arrival. It is joined by a full matrix of KEENON robots that collaborate to handle cleaning, meal delivery, and luggage handling.
💻 Microsoft Unveils Atlanta AI Super Factory with Hundreds of Thousands of NVIDIA GPUs
Microsoft is building an Atlanta AI “super factory” containing hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA GPUs as part of its Fairwater network of dedicated AI data centers. Each Fairwater facility comprises a standard 48MW CPU and storage building plus an ultra-dense GPU building with dedicated high-speed interconnects. The move demonstrates Microsoft’s aggressive expansion, doubling its data center footprint in two years to power OpenAI and enterprise AI workloads.
🚗 Waymo Launches First Freeway Robotaxi Routes in LA, SF, and Phoenix
Waymo has started offering fully autonomous freeway rides to paying customers in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area — the first time any company is offering fully autonomous rides on freeways to fare-paying riders in the US. Operating at higher speeds with unpredictable traffic patterns represents a major milestone, requiring cars to predict behaviors much farther ahead. Waymo plans to more than double its operating cities globally.
⚛️ Quantinuum Achieves Breakthrough Quantum Error Correction with Helios Machine
Quantinuum’s new Helios quantum computer features 98 physical qubits capable of delivering 48 logical error-corrected qubits — a groundbreaking 2:1 ratio that crushes competitors requiring dozens to hundreds of physical qubits per logical qubit. JPMorgan Chase is already using Helios in private preview to run complex algorithms, validating the technology’s industrial readiness. This milestone puts Quantinuum on track to deploy large-scale fault-tolerant systems by 2029.
⚛️ IBM Targets Useful Commercial Quantum Computers by 2029
IBM announced plans to achieve quantum computers delivering real business value by 2029, joining competitors like IonQ and Quantinuum in the race to practical quantum computing. The five-year timeline suggests quantum systems will begin tackling real-world problems in chemistry simulation, portfolio optimization, and machine learning — moving quantum from research labs to enterprise applications.
🏭 Tesla Announces Terafab Construction in Texas
Elon Musk revealed Tesla will build a large-scale semiconductor fabrication facility (“terafab”) at its Giga Texas complex, targeting 100,000 wafers per month production capacity. Tesla aims to manufacture 10 million Optimus humanoid robots annually using chips made in-house, vertically integrating chip design, fabrication, and robotics assembly to eliminate external chip dependencies and accelerate deployment.
✈️ Archer Aviation Acquires HHR Airport for $126M
Urban air mobility startup Archer Aviation purchased HHR airport in San Jose for $126 million to establish its first operational hub for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The acquisition signals confidence in near-term eVTOL commercialization — Archer is targeting 2026 certification of its Midnight aircraft, positioning infrastructure before regulatory approval, mirroring the playbook used by successful autonomous vehicle operators.
💰 Anthropic Commits $50B to Build Massive AI Data Centers in TX & NY
Anthropic announced a $50 billion infrastructure investment with partner Fluidstack to build dedicated AI data centers launching in 2026, creating 800 permanent roles and 2,400 construction jobs. The mega-project mirrors OpenAI-Microsoft’s Stargate initiative, signaling an unprecedented race for compute ownership as frontier AI labs become infrastructure companies competing for data center dominance.
🚀 Blue Origin Prepares New Glenn’s Second Launch with NASA’s ESCAPADE Mission
Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket is set for launch from Cape Canaveral no earlier than 2:51 PM ET on Sunday, carrying NASA’s ESCAPADE mission alongside another boost recovery attempt. The reusable launch system represents a critical test for Blue Origin’s viability in serving NASA’s space science missions and competing for national security contracts. Success here could establish New Glenn as a viable alternative to SpaceX for high-priority government payloads.
☀️ Google’s Project Suncatcher Launches Solar-Powered AI Satellites by 2027
Google unveiled Project Suncatcher, an ambitious initiative to deploy AI chips on solar-powered satellites orbiting Earth, capturing sunlight 8x more efficiently than terrestrial grids and operating 24/7 without interruption. The company’s proprietary AI chips passed radiation simulations representing 5 years in space, and trials with partner Planet begin in 2027. If successful, this could decouple AI scaling from terrestrial infrastructure constraints — a paradigm shift for next-generation compute infrastructure.
❤️ Met Lovot Life in Tokyo :) Cutest robot ever!
LOVOT is a new home robot that stirs your instinct to love. It might be a robot, but not the dark scary one, it will warm your heart! :)
🏥 The world’s first AI Hospital, developed in China
Tsinghua’s Agent Hospital was made up of 14 AI doctors upon launch. The system features 42 AI doctors across 21 clinical specialties, covering over 300 diseases. These AI doctors can treat 10,000 patients with 93% accuracy in a matter of days, a feat that would take real doctors years to complete. Furthermore, these doctors aren’t chatbots; they’re AI systems capable of autonomously working with AI generated patients in a fully-fledged closed-loop ecosystem.
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🔬 STARTUPS FUNDING: Game-Changers in HardTech & AI
➡️ Reflex Aerospace raised a €50M Series A led by Human Element and Alpine Space to scale production of commercial SAR and SIGINT satellites.
➡️️ BTRY AG closed a $5.7M seed round led by Redstone and Bloomhaus for ultra-thin solid-state battery production technology.
➡️ Allie AI secured a $5.2M seed round led by Voyager and Tesla for its manufacturing intelligence platform.
➡️ Partner Robotics raised a Series A led by China Growth Capital for its cloud simulation and multi-sensor perception platform.
➡️ Carbon raised $60M led by Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake, adidas, Baillie Gifford, Madrone, and Northgate to scale additive manufacturing.
➡️ Fabric8Labs closed a $50M Series A led by NEA and Intel Capital for its electrochemical 3D printing technology.
➡️ Metropolis Technologies raised a $1.6B growth round for its AI-powered physical-world infrastructure.
➡️ d-Matrix raised a $275M Series C at a $2B valuation for its generative AI inference infrastructure.
➡️ Harbinger landed a $160M Series C to scale American-made electric and hybrid medium-duty vehicles.
➡️ Exowatt raised a $50M growth extension on its $70M Series A for renewable energy solutions.
➡️ Valar Atomics raised a $130M Series A for its high-temperature helium-cooled nuclear reactors.
➡️ Attentive.ai raised a $30.5M Series B for its AI-powered construction takeoff and estimating platform.
➡️ Foxglove raised a $40M Series B for its data and observability platform for physical AI.
➡️ EnduroSat raised over $100M to scale mid-sized satellite manufacturing.
➡️ Voltaic Marine raised a $3M pre-seed for next-generation electric boats.
➡️ Vermeer raised a $10M Series A for its AI-powered GPS-independent drone navigation.
➡️ FibreCoat raised a $21.6M Series B for advanced electromagnetic shielding materials.
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📚FAVORITE RESOURCES
💡A 200-page teardown of Boston Dynamics’ Spot robo-dog has been making the rounds online recently. Written entirely in Chinese, the document is forensic in its detail. The report’s authors put Spot through its paces, stripping the quadruped down to its motors, mapping payload interfaces, and even accidentally dunking it in a flooded drainage channel.
💡Tesla Optimus BOM
💡 Robotics Market Map
🎤EVENTS — Let’s meet in person!
🦿Nov 20 — Monthly Robotics Meetup, SF
🤖 Nov 22 - Robot Party and Brazilian BBQ at CL MV by
🇯🇵 Dec 1–4 — Intl. Conference on Space Robotics (Sendai, Japan)
🦿December 1–5: SOSV Robotics Matchup — online
🇦🇪 Dec 8–12 — Deep Tech Week Dubai 2025
🦿 Dec 11–12 — Humanoid Summit (Silicon Valley, TBA)- — ping me if you are there!
🇬🇧 Mar 16–19, 2026 — Intl. Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Join the SOSV Robotics Matchup on December 1–5 for one of the largest robotics investment events of the year. This free and virtual matchmaking event brings together 500 innovative robotics startups and 500 investors for strategic 1:1 meetings scheduled at mutually convenient times.
Hosted by SOSV, a global leader in robotics investing, this event connects emerging robotics innovators with the capital they need to scale. Whether you’re seeking investment for your robotics venture or looking to discover the next breakthrough in automation, AI, manufacturing, or beyond — this is where the future of robotics gets funded. Register here.
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If you are interested in AI, Robotics & HardTech, check my previous posts:
➡️The Physical AI Revolution: Mapping the $60 Trillion Transformation
❗️The VC Industry Loves Data. But Doesn’t Use It…
— Is it why it’s ‘dying’?
➡️19 Robotic Hands Startups to Watch
➡️ The world doesn’t fix itself. These startups are trying /Top 100 HardTech Startups
➡️ Will we have a chatGPT moment for Robots?
➡️ The Coming Scarcity of Humanity
➡️ The Art and Science of Venture Capital Investing
➡️ Deep Thinkers & Builders in Tech, Science and Bio
➡️ Humanoids Don’t Exist in Isolation / It Takes an Ecosystem to Bring Them to Life!
➡️ Clone Alpha: The Next Leap in Humanoid Robotics
➡️ ‘Made in China’-Robotics Market Overview
➡️ The Science of Networks: From Theory to New Realities
Hey, great read as always. The humanoid IPOs are mindblowing, really buildin on what you covered about AI acceleraton last time!
Super cool article. The all robotic hotel staff one I’m all for.