Two Robot Startups, One Week, $22 Billion: The Physical AI Funding Frenzy
Physical Intelligence and a second ex-DeepMind robotics startup are each in funding talks at around $11 billion valuations this week. Neither has shipped a product at commercial scale. Investors who missed the LLM wave are not waiting for proof of concept this time, and the numbers tell a story about where they think the next wave of displacement is heading.
Read full story →Pay to Play: Washington Is Turning AI Into a Trade Weapon
The U.S. ambassador to the EU told Brussels last week to stop fining American tech companies if it wants access to American AI hardware, models, and data centres. It is the most explicit statement yet that the Trump administration views the AI technology stack as leverage in trade negotiations, and it puts Europe's regulatory ambitions on a collision course with its infrastructure dependencies.
Read full story →The Robot Bubble Is Not About Robots
Twenty-two billion dollars in robotics valuations in a single week is not really a story about robots. It is the next chapter of the same displacement story playing out in the part of the labour market that has the least cushion, the fewest advocates, and the smallest chance of being protected by anyone with the power to do so. Peter Harrison on what the physical AI funding frenzy actually means.
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