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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio Radio News. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Tech. We are live from CS in Las Vegas where we've been tracking the biggest tech stories. Another great lineup of incredible guests today, but we also got some news outside of cbs, right?
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D
Yeah. Coming up first, China plans to approve some imports of Nvidia's H200 chips as soon as this quarter for select commercial use.
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A
Plus valuations pushing ever higher anthropic, raising a new round of funding that would value the company at $350 billion.
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D
And we wrap this special edition today with guests from the robotics and augmented reality spaces, venture capital and the government.
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A
First we check in on these markets that are in a bit of sell off mode. Look anxiety ahead of those nonfarm payrolls data that we get tomorrow. No one taking on any more risk of after what has been a really rather nice run up in tech stocks over the last three trading days. So today maybe we sell the news. Today we're off by some 610 of a percent. But all eyes really are one key.
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D
Yeah, like your chart is showing that actually you know, we'd be kind of lower wiggling around throughout the early session. Nvidia has taken a significant leg lower this Thursday. It's now off 2%. The reporting is crystal clear from Bloomberg. According to sources, China's government will approve some Chinese tech companies taking two hundreds. Sources are giving details on which companies but the crystal clear line is has to be commercial use, cannot be military, cannot be some government, cannot be state backed enterprise. Let's get out to Washington D.C. and Bloomberg senior tech editor Mike Shepherd. There's a lot of specifics in this reporting. Give us those specifics, what we know about the companies involved and also the volumes because that's going to matter to the stock.
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E
Well the volumes are a little bit unclear as far as what the Chinese government would approve. But we already are getting some signals according to our reporting that companies like ByteDance and Baidu would be interested in buying up to 200,000 Nvidia H200 chips each once those approvals go through. Now it's unclear whether China, the authorities in Beijing will allow those kinds of quantities right away into the market. And Ed, it's important to remember also that look there are restrictions still in place here from the U.S. even with President Donald Trump's verbal blessing for this, we still need to see licenses emitted by the Commerce Department. That process is still underway. Jensen Huang in your interview with him the other day indicated that he was optimistic that those would go through and likewise this would affect AMD which also has chips that it is hoping to get into China as well. Look for Nvidia, this is a big win if it all goes through as we are outlining in this report. China is the world's biggest semiconductor market and Gents Wang has identified it as a $50 billion opportunity for the company. And the timing is crucial. They are facing intensifying competition from rivals inside China, including Camerocon and smic which are making strides in the development of their own homegrown semiconductors. And we have also seen signals from authorities in Beijing that they would like local companies to start favoring domestic alternatives to in video over whatever might be coming from the US.
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A
Mike Shepard as always, thank you so much from Washington. We're going to stick with the theme of AI. Of course we are. But this time we look at it from a valuation perspective because anthropic the latest news that it's out looking and raising some $10 billion is before that raise valued therefore at $350 billion. We know OpenAI is out there also raising funds could be as whopping as $750 billion. All of this is we are potentially these companies coming to the public markets as well.
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D
I've been speaking to some of the investors backing this round. 10 billion do this $350 billion valuation. They don't have the scale that Open Air has. Right. But they've gone after the enterprise. And the way that one investor put it to me is there are four players right now, Open AI xi, Anthropic and Google. There's probably only room in the real world for three. But it's interesting to see them continue.
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A
Race and just how sophisticated they are when it comes to the coding side of the equation. That really seems to have been where they've made their mark. But also they're trying to say that they are what the safer, more focused on ethics. In some ways, they split off from OpenAI to remember that's what their origin story is.
- [06:04]
D
And in your interview with him on 10 Asia, getting a lot of credit for that coding piece as well. Another big story of the morning and it's a jostling for position. Once again, we're looking at the market cap of Google or Alphabet, the parent of Google, rising above Apple. What did I just say? In this world order four players right now, Alphabet and Google have really accelerated in recent months, both literally from a stock performance perspective, but also just I guess by news flow and reputation. And Apple, it's a different game, right? But yeah, this is one that I didn't see coming last year or at least you know, at any point that.
- [06:41]
A
In this story, that TV story just changed everything, didn't it, in the vertical integration.
- [06:46]
D
Okay, coming up, Humanoid Robotics takes shape right here at Cesar. We're going to discuss the future of physical AI with Jan Lippard, founder and CEO of Open Mind. This next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Here at cbs. Physical AI is breaking through to the mainstream with humanoid robotics taking center stage. Joining us is Jan Lipphart, founder and CEO of Open Mind, a startup building and operating system system designed to connect, coordinate and scale intelligence across all thinking machines. There are so many things to take away from being here this week. Let's I think focus on the humanoid robot form factor at least. But your main impression with those on display, I think Atlas is probably top of mind for many. Last night when I was here with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Placer, the wait to go and see Atlas was two hours. What do you make of that?
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F
Well, just a few years ago, the robots here were kind of janky. They were wobbly and they had wires coming out of their head and they looked like science experiments. And it's really fascinating to see just how quickly humanoids are turning into a real product. And Atlas is of course, just one of those. So instead of them being science experiments, they look like real things that you might want to have in home or in your workplace.
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D
You're also a professor at Stanford and you know, the academic discussion here, which I've loved, is been, hey guys, we think we've solved the software problem. Have we solved the software problem?
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F
Well, when people talk about humanoids, everyone has a different picture of what the humanoid is going to do. If you're talking about a humanoid for a hospital, that's a totally different situation compared to a humanoid flipping hamburgers or teaching kids math. So it really depends point where moving.
- [08:50]
D
A box from one part of the table to the other part of the table is no longer impressive.
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F
Yeah, that's completely solved. And Amazon has 1.1 million robots deployed already, so the logistics pick and place is effectively solved. One frontier is what you might call social robotics. So these are the robots that will live with you and they will teach your kids and they will help your parents. And that is still more difficult because there is a lot of what we expect when we interact with people, their ability to make us laugh and speak and be quick and so forth, that is still difficult. But basics like picking things up, that's solved.
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A
When we think about the solution of integration, a lot of companies want to talk about how they're the vertically integrated company. They are making not just the hardware, but the software too. So where are you getting it in? How many of these 14 humanoids we see here at CBS are you putting open software to work it?
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F
Well, it's about half of them. And for many humanoid robotics companies, they have a traditional focus on hardware and they're seeing the software move extremely quickly. And some of them have the sense that they don't have the inherent capability to also be at the frontier of the software. And that's where we're getting traction for us.
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A
I want to go back to the very thesis of whether you want a humanoid at all. Boston Dynamics perspective is in the interim, before we have manufacturing units that are purpose built for robots. A humanoid makes sense. It has to work side along humans and, and augment them or at least replace them eventually. Maybe that's not the form factor we want. I don't think I want a form factor of humanoid in my home. To be perfectly frank, you're seeing a lot more of these sort of soft, cuddly toys for, for companionship and the way that they talk. What will robots look like in the future?
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F
Well, I have a humanoid at home and my kids, casual. Casual. And my humanoid, my kids thinks that is totally normal because for them, they've seen that for literally two years now. And however, when I talked to my mom, I sent my mom some videos of humanoids here. Iris.
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A
Iris.
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F
You built. No, this is hardware developed by someone else.
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G
Of course.
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F
It's running the software I wrote, which is why I trust it, because I know exactly what's going on inside the humanoid. But yeah, I sent my mom some videos of the humanoids around here and she said, yanni, I'm shocked. This is awesome. So, to your original point, what is the right form factor? What's special about a humanoid is that they're by definition compatible with your home, a hospital, school, workplace, door handles, light switches, stairs. So they can immediately be effective in all the infrastructure that humans have built for us.
- [11:46]
D
This is why it's important to get as far as you can be an objective take on the state of industry. Right. The problem, we started this segment by saying it's broken through to the mainstream. Actually, there is a lot of fatigue, just like there was a. With Robotaxi, we've been saying it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. What I see is in the industrial use cases, it's there. But one thing that came up with us a lot this week, Care of the elderly.
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F
Yeah.
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D
Are we really in a position where overnight humanoid robots are going to solve what is a massive addressable market?
- [12:16]
F
Well, to some people this sounds dystopian and creepy. You know, do. Is it, is it something you imagined that your parents would interact with robots? But some of the companies building robots for memory care facilities, like Andromeda in San Francisco and Australia, the stories they tell are heartbreaking. Where nurses now have to clean the head of the humanoid every evening because the patients will kiss the humanoid. So the nurses now have to remove lips, stick off the head of humanoid. And so for many people that are starved of human interaction, they get so attached to the humanoid and their eyes light up and they laugh and they will kiss the head of the humanoid. And so there's definitely something there. And for most people in retirement homes here in the us, they haven't been visited by their family members in a year or more. So it's a group of people that are really starved for any kind of interaction. And some of them really seem to love the technology.
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A
I mean, that speaks to a greater problem in humanity writ large. I want Your take? If I dare go back to open mind itself. Where do you make your money?
- [13:33]
F
Ah, well, we have a little bit of a different take on humanoids. We don't want them to be closed. We don't want them to be these magic boxes that show up at your front door. We think of them much more like cell phones that are open and where developers everywhere can add apps or skills that will allow your humanoids to do many more things very quickly. And so it's very important to us that this technology is not like this magic black box, but it's something that most of us understand, can engage with and build for.
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A
Great catching up with you. Thank you for spending some time. Thank you so much, Janice. CEO of Open Mind. Sticking with robots. Well, I'd got to sit down with Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Plater to discuss the company's latest iteration of a humanoid robot as Atlas, designed to work in Hyundai's manufacturing plant starting in 2028, including a factory in Savannah, Georgia. Take a listen.
- [14:29]
E
By 2028, Hyundai is going to build us a purpose built factory designed for mass manufacturer of our humanoids. And that's going to have a capacity of between 10 and 30,000 units per year. And so that's the goal. By 2030, we'll be building tens of thousands of robots per year.
- [14:44]
D
I've always wanted to ask you, and I'm going to ask you your analysis and impressions of Tesla's Optimus program and your assessment of what they're doing and what they've done.
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E
Well, I think they're a very serious competitor. They've done a lot of very impressive work. They also have the advantages we have that they have a consumer in Tesla.
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D
To use those robots internally.
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E
Yeah, and I think, I think it really requires both aspects. You need the technology from robotics and AI. You also need that, that customer and that consumer. And so automotive is a natural fit. And so I think Tesla is actually very well placed to succeed here as well.
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D
That was Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Plater. And coming up here on the show next X Rail revamped its AR glasses is the wearable space is seeing more competition. We speak with X Real CEO Zisu. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
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A
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D
I will bring out a renaissance to the field of music. That's according to Grammy winning artists Will. I am also the founder and CEO of FYI dot AI. Bloomberg's Tech's Tom McKenney sat down with him for this week's episode of Bloomberg Tech Europe taking a deep dive into how AI is shaking up the music industry and the streaming business model. Listen to this.
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It's a renaissance.
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D
The same way the renaissance, you know, catapulted, you know, dimensionalized the creative industry in the past. The renaissance, this new renaissance to do.
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A
It for this era that we're in.
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D
So it's, it's the age of the hyper creative. Got to catch that episode of Bloomberg Tech Europe this Friday here on Bloomberg Television. 8:30am in London. That's 3:30 in the morning on you in the east coast. But this what worth getting up for, trust me. Carol, what's up?
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A
Meanwhile, let's pivot to the world of smart eyewear because we're talking about X Real. They've just unveiled new entry level AL glasses that come at a cheaper price point. Dubbed the One S, the new glasses boast a 1200p resolution with a new price of $449. X Real CEO Jisoo is here with us now. Congratulations on the unveil but we've got some news I want to hit first.
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H
Sure.
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A
You've been getting some finance thing. We understand you're raising money to be able to put out these new glasses at a cheaper price point.
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H
I agree. Yes. It's getting heated up for the whole race. Right. And you know, it's getting exciting as well for the whole industry to really see Glasses can really be the next competing platform paired with AI. You know, I think at some point it can truly replace the cell phone we're using today.
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A
Going back to the financing.
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H
Yeah.
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A
Raised about 100 million. Able to disclose what valuation who's backing you.
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H
So okay, I would say at this moment is mainly supply chain partners as some key Vendors, you know, at this moment, there's not more information to share, but definitely later.
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D
$100 million is accurate.
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H
Yes.
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D
I think there's a bit of an academic debate to be had here. I've used that phrase a lot. But is glasses the right form factor? The Razor CEO is actually on the program.
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H
Okay.
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D
Talking about how headphones might be the better form factor in a world, you know, you have options in the wearables category.
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H
Yep.
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D
Is he right? Wrong.
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H
Well, okay, so I just met him actually a couple of days ago. We talk about, we talk a little bit about that. But for me, you know, from my perspective, I do think glasses is the ultimate conform factor. You know, when we see how we actually involve going from the big screen to your laptop to your cell phone, the screen is getting closer and closer. And what is even closer than your cell phone, it's probably going to be this display right in front of your eyes. Right. And also in my opinion, with a, you know, combination of AI, you can actually have AI assistant seeing your eye, see what you see, feel and hear what you hear 24 7, if that is actually available. I do believe, you know, there's no other advantage you can compete with.
- [19:58]
D
The gospel this matter is going to set further. Right. And now put the display in worries you, doesn't worry you?
- [20:07]
H
No, no, I think, you know, it's a great competition. You know, meta definitely have a lot of advantages. You know, they have a lot of investment, great talent and they start really, really early. Right. But still I think this is big enough market and still I don't really see the form factor kind of converge. So this is open race for everybody. I'm just excited, you know, to be part of that journey.
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A
And well, the people we're waiting for the unveil from is Google. How are you working alongside Google? How is your relationship deepening? How is project Aura?
- [20:35]
H
Okay, that's a great question. You know, this week we just, you know, announced that we're deepening the partnership with multi year extension and also name actually being the lead hardware partner with Google on Android xr. And this is really great, exciting moments. I think maybe it's not just one company going to do everything, you know, together. Maybe it's kind of combination, the hardware, software collaboration at some point. And actually we are really good at building optical modules, building chips, you know, and you know, Google, they're really good at building AI, building operating system. So I think, you know, this is a win, win situation for us to team up together to kind of polish the end to end hardware and software ecosystem experiences together.
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A
So do you think it'll almost be like a cell phone world in that you have the Google Pixel, but you also have Samsung with the Android operating system and a myriad of others using Android. So is it going to be Google with their own hardware and their own and then all you're going to be the hardware partner of choice and then be some others out there?
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H
Absolutely. If you remember early on, actually Google partner with htc, you know, at the very beginning to define the whole smartphone industry. Part of it, you know, alongside with Apple and then they start to roll out to LG to Samsung and then they have their own Pixel.
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D
Right.
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H
So it's going to be an ecosystem play. We're just, you know, we're just feel lucky we got picked by Google so we can work together being the pioneer to drive this industry forward.
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D
When, when Project Aura Glasses come to.
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H
The real world 26 it's going to be this year.
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D
What does the rollout look like?
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H
Well, that's something I cannot share at this moment.
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D
But you will go to market, you'll say they're ready, this is what they look like, this is what they cost, they'll be available.
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H
Available, of course, you know, when the time is ready, we'll release those kind of information.
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D
There are some other things that you're, you're battling with your latest generation existing xreal glasses, right?
- [22:19]
H
Absolutely.
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D
Sleek, lower price. Price is so important. But you are going up against the market where we have Vision Pro and other similar products. And then we question Immersion and field of view.
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H
That's right.
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D
What's your response to those questions?
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H
People start to think about, you know, maybe be for Apple Vision Pro. It is great experience but the question and challenge is, you know, it is too expensive, it is too heavy. Right. So how can we, can we come up with something, you know, lighter, more affordable like. But we can deliver like 80% of that kind of experience. And that's where, you know, extra glass is coming about. And especially if you look at the latest generation 1s. Right. We further kind of bump up to the features. You know, some of the, you know, very unique feature we say is 2D to 3D lifetime conversion. We're using our own chip to do this AI conversion in the real time. And it's amazing. Any kind of content coming with the glasses, whether it's a cell phone, handhold, gaming devices, your laptop, it can turn into 3D in the real time.
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A
Let's talk about how you've got the price point down.
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F
Yes.
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A
Is it because you're making your own chip. Is it a supply chain navigation or are you just taking a hit from a profit margin perspective?
- [23:29]
H
No, we just, you know, we see spend a lot of effort optimizing this whole supply chain. You know, better yield rate, you know, higher volume, all it's kind of going to help to bring the cost down. Is it coming from China part of that? Yes.
- [23:41]
A
And is that a risk, an issue given the national security concerns?
- [23:44]
H
Oh, that's a great question. You know, we do have this kind of global supply chain strategy as well. It can be China, it can be other part of the, it can be even in the US in someday.
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D
Just very, very quick.
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F
Yes.
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D
This cbs, you've had a lot of foot traffic.
- [23:58]
H
Yes.
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D
Just reflect on that really quick.
- [24:00]
H
Well, you know, people like glasses and they like to experience actually, even though we've been talking about glasses for so long, there's still a lot of people they haven't really tried on any glasses. So I think this is still a long kind of education process.
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D
X Real CEO. She's great to have you back on Bloomberg Tech here at cs. Thank you so much. Coming up, we're going to speak with Jacob Helberg, U.S. state Department Undersecretary for Economic affairs, to discuss the state of chip export curbs. The sources say China is now ready to approve imports of some Nvidia H200 chips. The big story from Bloomberg this Thursday. It is half time. We are in Las Vegas. This is CBS and this is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. There is a lot of news that's driving markets irrespective of what's going on here in Las Vegas. One of them is the Warner Brothers discovery situation. Paramount Skydance came out with a statement reaffirming their $30 a share offer. But interesting car, like in the calculus. They're now saying that the cable networks that they want to include in the deal are worth $0, which is interesting because like a lot of the street and a lot of the market is saying we don't think you're quite right on that. Remember, Netflix wants to buy just the studios and streaming spin out the legacy networks and cable offering, whereas Paramount, Skydance, as we say on Bloomberg Tech, want the whole enchilada. Either way, we're still kind of in a holding pattern until we move forward. There's a really big story overnight out of Korea and that is Samsung quarterly profit tripled because memory we've been talking so much about the supply constraint and bottleneck that is memory right now. And pricing goes up. But if you're a memory maker and pricing goes up to that extent, it's usually pretty good for your bottom line. The stock down about a percentage point. But that was the big headline and it has been such a focus this week. The issue and bottleneck that is memory chips, not just in the data center context, but of course PC as well.
- [26:03]
A
And of course because gentleman made that point as SanDisk, the shares went wild. Maybe that's why we're pulling back a little bit on Samsung. But let's switch gears a little bit because another key part of our conversation that we had yesterday with Andrew founder Palmer Lucky was where we discussed US competition with China and you first asked him about the compensation package after President Trump called for capping executive pay with defense contractors in particular. Just take a listen.
- [26:28]
D
One of the provisions that the president proposes is a salary cap of $5 million. In the Bloomberg story out outlined some of the comp of those CEOs. Would you be willing to say what you pay yourself and if you would abide by I pay my.
- [26:42]
C
I pay myself $100,000 a year.
- [26:44]
D
So significantly less than a $5 million cap.
- [26:48]
B
True.
- [26:48]
C
But I also own a lot of my company and so, so this, this measure is not really written in a way where it's intended to hit new companies starting new things. You act like if Kelly Johnson were alive today and he owned a bunch of, you know, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman or Raytheon, I don't think that anyone would have nearly much of a problem with them. Yeah, I pay myself $100,000 a year. That's my compensation package. I own a bunch of Android because I started the company. That's so my motivation is to try and build it the biggest thing possible. I will say people are fairly critique and said but Palmer, you know, are you really a neutral party here? Are you really in a position to comment given you're competing with these companies? I'd say two things. One, these measures do apply in equal measure to me. I now cannot pay dividends. I now cannot do stock buybacks if I'm not investing in new plants. If I'm not doing these two things. The other thing is it's always tricky when you want to, you know, I'm in defense because I wanted to help solve these problems. Right. It's actually the same thing with like mod retro in the gaming space. Like oh, of course Palmer would criticize these other game companies. After all, he's in the gaming space. It's like. But yeah, but I'm in the gaming space because I want to solve these problems. It's kind of this like catch 22. Like, like if you're outside of it, they'll say, well, why don't you do something about it then? And you do something like, who cares what you're doing? You're just part of the problem. It's all always been emotionally difficult for me.
- [28:02]
A
When we're thinking about where you stand, where US stands versus China.
- [28:07]
C
Yep.
- [28:08]
A
Where does it in terms of drone technology? We're in this context of a geopolitical strain that started this year off with Venezuela. We look now to Russia. How do you see China and the Taiwan question?
- [28:19]
C
China has an incredibly strong drone industry. It is a largely a result of state intervention. It's largely a result of industrial policy, of supply chain investments that the government has made, and even trade deals that China has made around the world to allow for these drones to freely fly out in other marketplaces. Yet China has the best drone industry in the world. It's not even close. It's definitely a weakness that the United States has. Now, you saw recently this ban on DJI drones.
- [28:43]
D
Yes.
- [28:43]
C
The intention there is to try and fix that. You can fix these things. The US Is capable of building drones. It's just we aren't capable of competing with the labor laws, emissions laws, energy prices from coal plants, etc. That you see in China. So I'm hoping that this ban on DJI drones results in a strong US drone market popping up to take its place over the next one to three years. Andrew actually is a drone that we were showing off in Japan recently that's made with 100% Japanese parts. Japan is another nation that can build their own drones. They don't need dji. But it's hard for that to make economic sense when China is allowed to flood the market.
- [29:24]
D
That was Andrew Founder Palmer Lucky. For more on the US relationship with China and the national security concerns behind semiconductors, we're joined by Jacob Hellback, U.S. state Department undersecretary for Economic Economic affairs, but also the founder the Hill and Valley Forum which we were able to attend last year. There was something in the, in the, in the China context where. Which we didn't get to with Palmer, which was a piece of recent news with President Xi reiterating, I would say a long stated goal of reunification with Taiwan. Now the reason I want to start there, Jacob, is in your efforts with pacsilica, the scenario that everyone is trying to plan for Taiwan and access to capacity in the. The semiconductor side being Shut off. If that scenario were to unfold starting 2026. Could you just bring us your latest thinking on that, please?
- [30:20]
G
Absolutely. And it's great to join you guys here at CS in Las Vegas, which is such a great window into American innovation and innovation from a lot of PACs, like countries like South Korea and Japan. It's incredibly exciting that we're talking barely three weeks after the signing of this landmark declaration. Ultimately, let me put into context why this is so important and why so many people are talking about technology competition today. It's clear that if the 20th century ran on steel, the 21st century is increasingly running on silicon and compute. And we're already seeing in the United States a third of our GDP growth coming from AI and growth picking up and accelerating as productivity is starting to accelerate growth in sectors across the the economy. So back in July, President Trump rolled out this landmark speech at an event I co hosted with White House czar David Sachs called Winning the Air Race, where it was a landmark moment where he declared that the US Is set to win the air race and that it is the official policy of the US Government to do whatever it takes. A few months later, I'm happy to report that at the State Department, we have adopted a strategy that breaks down this broad goal into three parts. We want to help the US Government win the race by leading in innovation, by gaining market share, and by securing our supply chains. So we launched Pack Silica with a group of seven countries, and they are the most technologically advanced countries, including Japan, South Korea, which is home to Samsung, sk, Hynix, Mitsubishi. And we are engaged in a lot of intensive talks to now transition to the implementation phase of pack silicon 2026.
- [32:02]
A
A lot of your anxiety and your. You've been at this for a very long time trying to warn the United States and those in positions of power and now in the power that you have yourself, that we shouldn't have be exposed to China in the way that we have been. Now, from a national security perspective, what do you think of the Latest? That maybe H2 hundreds go into China by this quarter. They might sign off for Alibaba, for BYD to be able to access Nvidia's chips.
- [32:27]
G
So part of the goal of winning the supply chain means we need to expand market share. And sometimes there's a bit of a tension between innovation and diffusion, because when you diffuse technology, sometimes you're compromising a little bit on innovation because more people have access to that technology, which narrows your technological edge. Part of what we're Doing by exporting our H2 hundreds is making sure that the world's developers are building on top of the American stack. And we want to ensure that American models actually stay ahead through these strategic bilateral deals in countries in the Gulf like the uae, Saudi Arabia and a number of others that are on the way. But still too early to disclose here today in order to make sure that our companies have by far the most compute capacity so that our LMS stay.
- [33:18]
D
Ahead as well on that market share bucket. You know, the concern that that many in D.C. outlined to us is if we don't export to the Gulf, China will. Is that the right way to think about it for America?
- [33:33]
G
I think it's an opportunity where there is nature abhors a vacuum. We have got to fill the vacuum while we can. We have the world's best technology and the world's know that. And ultimately America has thrived when we allow our innovators to actually dominate market share.
- [33:52]
A
They did dominate. Nvidia had 95% of the market. And now Jensen to say he has zero and maybe he's being allowed to claw some back. Has not the horse bolted? Are we not already allowed Cameron to grow and Huawei to grow? Are we really going to be able to get clean back and have the stack of our own worldwide?
- [34:09]
G
And that's exactly why we launched Pack Silica. To make sure that we have a sensible approach to exporting our best technologies while protecting our most sensitive technologies. We're having dual track conversations with our partners. We want to protect our sensitive technologies, but we have got to have a path to gain market share. And I think everyone's on the same page. Everyone who joined Pack Silica understands concerns that the world's supply chains being concentrated in one country, no matter how you feel about that country, is too risky, is too brittle and is ultimately a liability to the global economy. And that's why we started this economic security coalition with the world's most advanced technology companies and and countries in order to make sure that we diversify those supply chains.
- [34:55]
D
Jacob, those companies are here. Las Vegas. What do you hope to achieve in the time that you have at ces?
- [35:02]
G
So part of what we're looking for, our roadmap in 2026 is we want to focus on policy coordination. We want to expand membership of PacSlica and we want to focus on infrastructure projects. The way that we view infrastructure is we want to focus on the arteries of supply chains through advanced logistics. We want to focus on the muscle might of industrial capacity and particularly with fabs. Factories and refineries. And we also want to focus on the fuel, particularly capital and energy. One of the things that's so interesting about talking with companies here is we can get to actually stress test a lot of these ideas with builders and with people who are the closest to these problems day to day.
- [35:44]
A
Jacob, this week has been extraordinary from a geopolitical perspective and I want to just get you your thoughts. High level. Your view on PAC silica is that it's sort of peace through power. Is that how we should be interpreting what's occurred Venezuela with Russian ships, with what continues to occur worldwide right now?
- [36:06]
G
So I think at the end of the day, one of the takeaways of the events the last few weeks is very clear that the world needs to know that the Trump administration says what it means and means what it says. I think Secretary Rubio spoke very eloquently about where the US stands and the Trump administration stands on Venezuela and other issues that have been in the news like Greenland. Ultimately, the biggest threat to international norms is the Western Hemisphere and the United States being asleep at the switch while we are encroached from the north through the Arctic and from the south through Latin America. Ultimately, Pack Silica is an effort to pursue a very pragmatic approach by working with our closest technological partners to actually forge strategic investment deals and allow moving the needle in a way that actually benefits all of us. That is why this coalition is so diverse. It's very, very new. It's a completely new grouping of countries that includes players like Singapore, like Israel, the uae, people who are aren't used to being included in traditional legacy forums like the G20 and the G7 and yet these countries punch far above their weight and we're very proud to partner with them.
- [37:18]
A
Jacob, it's great having some time with you. I'm excited to be on stage with you a little bit later as well. Jacob is U.S. department of State Under Secretary for Economics affairs and of course founder of the Helen Barry Forum which is bringing together a VC and Washington surrounding the China issues. Meanwhile, coming up, more on the future of AI as companies shift in and out of the digital world world and back into physical. Steve Zhang, Skin Adventures Managing Partner joins us next is Bloomberg Tech. AI's real world impact is dominating the conversation here at CES with investors watching closely to see which technologies move from hype to reality and maybe they foster that reality. Steve Jobs with us Managing Partner and founder of Kindred Ventures, early stage venture firm known for backing category defining startups making significant bets on we think of the work you did with Uber, but we think of so many of the companies that have had significant exits and M and A that's happening. But for you here, I think one of the stars of the show has been Nuro. Right. We saw this big announcement coming from, we had Lucid on the show, but Uber and indeed Nuro teaming up to provide the future of Robo Taxis. But it's a crowded field. How did you decide Nuro was going to be helping win in that autonomous fight?
- [38:28]
B
Sure. So if you rewind time and you look at the history of Uber, you'll remember 10 years ago Uber had announced that they were going to invest in self driving car technology. Now a lot of things happened since then. So they originally had planned it with Travis Kalanick at the helm of the company and then had to jettison that whole business before going public under Dara. And I think what Dara did is pick that back up and say we need to accelerate our strategy. So about two years ago a lot of those plans were put into motion. And what was interesting was Neuro was a company that had been one of the few companies like Waymo that had been training around Bay Area streets with their LIDAR and their cameras. And they recently launched a Autonomy intelligence platform which is basically an operating system to allow any third party automaker to have self driving capabilities. And so what you saw here was a great launch between Neuro, Lucid and Uber to not only fit retrofit a lucid car with autonomy full level 4, not 8s, right. Not level 2 plus plus assistance, but full self driving capability like Waymo and Tesla FSD and launch that with Lucid on the Uber network. So you'll be able to open up your Uber app at the end of this year in the Bay Area and be able to take a self driving.
- [39:48]
D
Car like Capital Light model. Yes, let someone else take on the burden of the hardware and the stack, just do the fleet management. But for me the bigger piece of news in that world was Alpha Myo. Right. Because Nvidia is coming with the same thing saying hey, we have a full stack solution. I know that you caught notice of that.
- [40:04]
B
So AgX Thor, which is inside of Neuro is part of that outside the inference.
- [40:08]
D
Right, right.
- [40:09]
B
And so what what Nvidia is doing, and it's very smart of Nvidia, they are selling chips, right. And so what they want to do is sell you a starter kit, they want to give you an open source model, they want to give you open data sets and they say Go to town. We want you to build a self driving car platform to fit these cars, to fit your ride sharing or delivery network, your logistics network. And what they're saying is we want to have many competitors out there so we can sell you more GPUs. And so neuro is actually one of the very first partners, has been using that for years now. Nvidia is an investor in Neuro. And so, you know, Neuro and Uber are sort of the prime example and hopefully a flagship for them in their business. But you know, Nvidia on a larger scale at this show is what they're doing is they're king making, they're king making an entire sector. They're saying, you know, a year ago they were talking about robotics, this year they've transitioned that into physical AI. Now they're not just talking about robotics, they're talking about autonomy and mobility because it's coming to a crescendo. And so they're very, very smart in saying we're sort of like the Fed, right? We're going to, we're the Fed for AI. We're going to tell you the headline, right? Yeah, yeah. And we're going to, we're going to tell you where everyone's going to go. You may be on that wave, you may not be on that wave, but you should be. And by the way, we have the models, we have the data and we have the chips and overall compute for you to go build that. And so, you know, I think there's been a lot of argument about, you know, is in video's kingdom at risk right now. And I would say that they continue to surprise and be several years ahead of their competition. So we're, we're very excited, but we're watching closely.
- [41:43]
A
I mean, look, you were known for backing Uber and ultimately there were two key winners out of that, Uber and Lyft. When I think about the areas that you're also thinking of, I mean, how many players can it be an autonomous, how many players can they be in foundational models? You're in perplexity. And everyone thinking maybe there's only an anthropic and an open air and a Gemini space.
- [42:00]
C
Sure.
- [42:01]
B
As you're rightfully noting, any innovation curve starts with many competitors and it whittles down to two or three. It's just a, it's a, it's a rule of thumb in Silicon Valley. So right now Neuro is entering the space. There's Waymo, there's Tesla and there's Neuro in China. There's several other competitors. Right. In Europe, there are none. Right. And so on level four capability. So what I think is happening is you're seeing a whittling down because of the resources, the training data, the amount of years that you need to do to train across all these streets. It's not a software company that you can just start up out of scratch. So I think, I think one of the things that you'll see also in robotics is you'll see this, this whittling down of competition. And you see Boston Dynamics, which is owned by Hyundai, which is very interesting. They're doing quite well. And they reveal the humanoid. You know, I've been very careful and skeptical about the development of humanoids. And I would say that this is the first time I've seen humanoids in action that look practical. And so I think you'll see that in robotics as well. I think you'll see that in generative media. I think you'll see that in agents. So a lot of these platforms will start to whittle down to two, three, maybe four for players. And this year will be the year of that, which is why inference, you know, one of the other things that we're seeing here is that more further evidence that inference is going to exceed training in terms of compute. And that flip, that flipping, if you will, if I can use a bitcoin term, that flippening is means a lot. So demand for compute is far exceeding supply. Even with the HBM shortage, it's going to increase that. So there's a battle royale happening here.
- [43:40]
D
In compute Stijiang Kendra Ventures hitting literally the biggest stories of the week. We've had her out of CES and we have much more to come. Stay with us. This is Bloomberg Tech. The story in markets right now is tech is down in video off by 8 has 1% have been much lower over the course of the week. We've kind of not had any of the euphoria we expected. We all came to Las Vegas thinking that in video, who in Steve Jiang's words was the kingmaker of AI, the Fed of I would tell us something profound that would keep the stock going higher. And it's not really panned out that.
- [44:21]
A
Way, even though it kind of did said look, that $500 billion of inbound I see in revenue in 2026, that's going to be higher. Maybe we even get two hundreds into China. And yet so high expectations. Look AMD, what more could Lisa sue do? She made up a term. Was it yatto flop? She talked about the sheer scale of compute that's still necessary. The winning formula that she's seeing. And stock is down. Qualcomm, though, really managed to impress the.
- [44:45]
D
Market, also from robotics and into the market that everyone was already talking about, you know. So you see, the chip makers say, okay, the next phase is physical AI. We did learn some hard lessons that it's difficult out there. Memory is a big story. And then there's robots. Right Is the Consumer Electronics show. And there were real robots to see.
- [45:04]
A
And what do we have? 14 different humanoids. Not to mention the furry friends that we're seeing around here that are going to be a companion to your child or, or to the elderly. It's been extraordinary to be here on the floor of CS and you see the level of innovation. Stuff that will stick, stuff that definitely won't. I still haven't tried that lollipop that plays music as you eat it.
- [45:21]
D
Yeah, and we got some deals, we got some M and A, we got some fundraising, but it is the best way to start the year.
- [45:26]
A
It is, I mean, boy, still talking about those value valuations and dropping as well. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. But don't forget, later today, an exclusive interview is coming with the co founder CEO of Mini Max, that's right here from CES to discuss the Hong Kong listing. China IPO market for all things is on fire.
- [45:44]
D
IPO 2026. Looking good. Recap on the pod. You know where to find it. For the final time, from Las Vegas, this is Bloomberg Tech.