Andrew Kang (@Rewkang)

Pinned post

When is the ChatGPT moment for robotics?

Some say it's happened, some say it's coming. How capable are Physical AI models today? What does the adoption curve for robotics look like?

We've talked to most of the major players and make sense of it here

robostrategy.co/news/the-chatg…

robostrategy.co The ChatGPT Moment for Robotics When will Robotics and Physical AI get its ChatGPT Moment?

Andrew Kang @Rewkang 3d

Whatever happens to Leopold’s fund, he is still right about the Intelligence Explosion.

R&D timelines across industries continue to compress and technology will continue to accelerate

There will always be short term market corrections, but the exponential is still intact

Andrew Kang @Rewkang 6d

We probably have the top humanoid companies reaching 1 million annual production rate in 2029-2030

But robots even at smaller scale have an incredible economic impact. The largest robotics company in the world, Intuitive Surgical (~$150b), sells ~2,000 robot systems per year. Unitree sold ~5,500 humanoids last year. Symbotic sells 5,000-10,000 SymBots per year.

Take an example of Tesla and Figure scaling production at their current rate and hypothetically each achieving 50,000 robots / year next year. A robot in the US working 2-3 shifts would produce >$100,000 of economic value compared to fully loaded labor equivalent.

That would be >$500k of economic value over a 5 year useful life. Annually, that would be >$25 billion of future economic value created at that 50k robot / year scale.

This value will be split between customer and robot OEMs, but I expect the value realization split to shift from customers to OEMs. Hardware will be a bottleneck and machines will be increasingly leased, not sold.

This has been evidenced by the large RaaS contracts we have seen in the industry this year. Hardware will not be a commodity.

RoboStrategy @RoboStrategy 6d

A million Optimus robots next year means one off the Fremont line every 30 seconds.

@GoingBallistic5 doesn't think Tesla gets there that fast. Here's why.

View quoted post on X

Andrew Kang @Rewkang Oct 30

Winning in the humanoid space is not going to be easy. Some companies in the space will become absolute giants while many others will fail. The dispersion in returns over the next year will be massive as the wheat separates from the chaff.

Outperforming as an investor in this space requires real expertise and it will only pay for true discerning investors.

Only compound winners, everything else is noise

Mike Kalil Verified account @mikekalilmfg Sep 7

It looks like Figure AI founder Brett Adcock was onto something last year when he predicted that Agility Robotics would be out of business within 12 months.

Though Oregon-based Agility hasn't gone under, its 2026 SEC filing shows that its management believed the robotics firm did not have enough cash to fund operations for the following year without raising more.

The filing is unusually serious for a company preparing to go public. Agility reported never having a positive cash flow and said that losses could become greater as it expands operations. Agility reported losing $138.1 million in 2025 and warned that losses could become greater.

"Without consideration of the proposed business combination transaction, Agility has concluded there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern, which could materially adversely affect the Post-Closing Company’s business, financial condition, and the value of your investment," the filing says.

Agility's auditor cited the company's ability to continue as a going-concern based on financial statements for 2024 and 2025. The startup later raised another $100 million in July 2026 by selling SAFEs, which are agreements that give investors the right to receive company shares in the future.

Agility, spun out of Oregon State University in 2015, is pursuing an SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI that would take the company public and give it access to additional capital. The planned deal values Agility at around $2.5 billion and includes a separate $201 million PIPE investment.

If it closes, the SPAC could extend Agility's runway considerably, but the startup is still burning cash. Describing itself as an early-state company, Agility burned $99.8 million in operating cash in 2025, up from $70.7 million the prior year, and it has since added more overhead by expanding into Silicon Valley. The company opened a new facility in Fremont in July 2026 to serve as a software and AI development hub.

According to the filing, Agility's Digit v4 humanoid robots are deployed or committed for deployment across nine customer facilities. Named customers include Amazon, GXO Logistics, Schaeffler, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, and Mercado Libre. Most of the work they're doing is simple material-handling jobs like moving bins and totes.

Agility says it's also secured $300 million in multi-year orders for 1,000 Digit v5 robots under 3-year Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreements. However, those orders hinge on Agility meeting certain product and contract milestones.

Though the deals offer a reason for optimism, Agility says the RaaS model still has not proven it can make money at scale. The economics depend on still-unproven assumptions about Digit's useful life, repair costs, customer renewals, and servicing expenses. Since Agility owns the hardware, it spends the money from the RaaS deals to build them upfront and receives money gradually afterward.

Agility names Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Figure AI, Apptronik, 1X Technologies, Sanctuary AI, Hexagon, and NEURA Robotics as its main competitors in the filing. The company says many of them have more resources for technical development, mass manufacturing, and marketing as well as stronger brand recognition and more existing customer relationships.

View quoted post on X

Andrew Kang @Rewkang Oct 29

The FCC rule earlier this year restricted foreign made advanced robots. This presidential action goes further into the rest of the factory floor to include industrial arms, CNC, grinding, turning, milling, industrial stamping and pressing machines

The president will consider "establishing a program to incentivize new investment in United States production of robotics and industrial machinery"

With enough focus on automation, operational excellence, and investment, America can become as competitive on manufacturing as any other country

Aaron Slodov Verified account @aphysicist Oct 28

the white house just declared our dependence on imported robots and industrial machinery a national security threat.

no new tariffs yet. trade negotiations come first.

the bigger point: rebuilding american industry means building the machines that make everything else.

View quoted post on X

Andrew Kang

Latest posts 5