NVIDIA, BYD, Figure, 1x, Sanctuary, Apptronik, OpenAI, Intuitive Machines, Groq & Google
Plus US rules that AI can't hold patents, and the next wave of immigration issues
The lunar landing rush is on! I actually bet against seeing two successful landings in Q1 of 2024, but apparently I used the wrong definition of ‘successful’. Japan’s SLIM is a success in spite of landing upside down and 55 meters away from target. Far enough! SLIM deployed payload and sent pictures home.
Intuitive Machines’ NovaC lost navigation and guidance systems (due to operator error in setup), landed too hard and fast a couple of kilometers from the launch site and is apparently on its side. Still no pictures released or word on the other payloads. Apparently a ‘successful’ landing though. Absolute kudos for the teams at NASA and Intuitive Machines for repurposing the LRA (Laser Retroreflective Array) designed for lunar navigation as the lander’s only navigation tool - all in the space of 90 minutes, or one additional moon orbit!
So many disappointments with the Peregrine landing failure - not least that Mexico’s 5 robots from the Colmena project didn’t reach the moon. Mexico was nearly the 11th country to have landed on the moon but doesn’t seem likely to be going again in the next 2-3 years.
Coming up in 2024, there are we have Queqiao 2 from China and Chang’e 6 from China with Pakistan’s first payload on the moon. One from ispace Japan and ispace Europe with the Hakuto-R second mission. And four from the US, including rovers from Sweden and Japan, with Firefly Space, Astrobotic, NASA, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and MIT all taking part.
2025 and 2026 are looking busy, with India, Australia and Canada all getting involved. China and Russia seem to be targeting 2026 or 2027 for their next declared missions, however there are numerous other countries ‘trying to get off the ground’ still TBC.
The first human landings still likely to be via Artemis program no earlier than 2026. Fair enough!
If you are a robotics company, March is a great time to join Silicon Valley Robotics and our startup accelerator program.
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Interesting News:
BYD this week announced a $230,000 super car AND a $14,000 hatchback. I now see a lot of BYD vehicles on the roads in other countries and the US is worried that Mexico will be the entry point for vehicles that will gut the nascent US EV industry and the legacy automakers as well.
BYD , the Chinese carmaker that recently overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla in global electric-vehicle sales, has struck fear into legacy automakers. That’s primarily because of its low production costs and inexpensive vehicles, which has the likes of Ford and Stellantis scrambling to become more competitive on price.... via Fortune
Groq Inference Tokenomics: speed but at what price?
Google unveils Gemma
Google unveils new family of open-source AI models called Gemma to take on Meta and others—deciding open-source AI ain’t so bad after all - Fortune
Robotics News:
Robots and AI are saving the American economy with a boom in productivity, the ‘magic beanstalk beans’ that allow higher wages without inflation - Fortune
Robots and happy workers: Productivity surge helps explain US economy’s surprising resilience - APNews
NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang sees a ‘giant suite’ of AI enabled robots coming soon… The Stack
Why VCs are betting that robots will build your next home - Crunchbase News
领英推荐
Bezos, NVIDIA and Open AI among other big names backing FigureAI at a premoney valuation of $2B - Fortune
Figure AI to raise $675 million for human-like robots - PYMNTS
Watch this humanoid robot work on NIO’s EV assembly line - Electrek
Neura Robotics to move production from China to Germany - The Robot Report
Uber Eats is launching a delivery service with Cartken’s sidewalk robots in Japan - TechCrunch
Who’s still in autonomous trucking? - Transport Topics
Cruise wants to get back on the horse, test autonomous cars in Texas - Carscoops
Meet GUSS - an electric, autonomous sprayer from John Deere - Electrek
3 New Frontiers for Robotics and AI in 2024 - Manufacturing.Net
The Dawn of a New Era: How robotics and automation are shaping the future of manufacturing - BNNBreaking
FDA clears ROSA Shoulder robotics surgery system from Zimmer Biomet - The Robot Report
Opentrons announces medical robotics expert Gregory Cole as Chief Innovation Officer to accelerate AI-Driven Robo-Lab partnerships and innovations - BusinessWire
Let Robots Do Your Lab Work; Air Force Research Laboratory software automates the design and implementation of experiments - IEEE Spectrum
Mazor Robotics executive convicted of insider trading related to Medtronic acquisition - CBSNews
Robotics Events:
See the Future at GTC 2024: NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang to unveil latest breakthroughs in accelerated computing, generative AI and robotics - NVIDIA (see you there?)
6 March - Bots&Beer - ?? looking for venue in Peninsula or SF ??
5-6 April - SF Symphony: Press Play Carol Reiley and the Robots - Soundbox SF
6 April - Robot Block Party - exciting new location (more news soon!)
18-21 April 2024 - RoboGames - TBC
21 April 2024 - Robots on Ice - Yerba Buena Skating Rink SF
Some upcoming academic robotics conferences
If you are a robotics company, March is a great time to join Silicon Valley Robotics and our startup accelerator program.
Did you just switch to a paid subscription over at Substack ? Thank you! It makes you an angel investor in the work I do at Silicon Valley Robotics as a startup advisor, and accelerator.
Scaling @NEURA Robotics | 70.000+ Follower | Ex-Siemens | Actionable tips covering the entire deep tech journey, from idea to scaling.
8 个月Crazy how we were able to pull this of 50 years ago, Andra Keay
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8 个月I think having a person in it will help the landing. not too bad without!