limpeh

🚨 BREAKING: Munich robotics startup @Robco_Robotics has just become a unicorn, crossing a $1 billion valuation in just nine months since its last round. Founded in 2020 by Roman Hölzl, Paul Maroldt and Constantin Dresel, RobCo built its name on modular robot arms that snap together like building blocks, making automation accessible to mid-size manufacturers through a Robotics-as-a-Service model. Now the next chapter is Alfie, that is an autonomous industrial robot designed to perceive its surroundings, reason about what needs to happen, and act independently, handling unstructured and safety-critical tasks that conventional robots have never been able to touch (official unvel in March 2027 in Munich 🥨). Existing backers Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed doubled down. New investors include Cherry Ventures and the European Tech Collective, a group of successful European tech founders backing the next generation. The US is now RobCo's fastest-growing market with production in Austin and a lab in San Francisco. European robotics is having its moment. The capital is flowing, the talent is here, and the industrial base to deploy into has existed for 150 years. China still leads in humanoids, 90% of the global market. But Europe is not building where China is building. It's building where Europe's strengths actually are - on the factory floor. In the mid-market. CONGTATS TEAM! 👏🏼 ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com

We got another one in the Effective Altruism sleeper cell. Expect a lot more the most AI companies are infested, but not open source.

Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.

Never forget they tried to convince voters that Kamala Harris was +16 in swing states the day before elections She lost every single swing state.

🇪🇬🇨🇳 Huawei has pitched Egypt on building AI data centers for military, surveillance and other government uses, proposing to export 1,408 top-end Ascend 950-series AI chips for an AI training cloud, plus 600 additional chips for two inference clusters. Huawei says the infrastructure could be built within 12 months. The proposal also involves Chinese AI and surveillance company iFlytek, offering vehicle and facial recognition linked to a national population database and broader “situational awareness” capabilities. The proposal has triggered concern in Washington. After the Trump admin learned of the bid, the U.S. State Department approached Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft about forming a U.S. consortium to counter Huawei’s offer.

Braskem said talks with creditors have intensified, but have yet to produce an agreement, with a deadline on a court-ordered shield from enforcement actions set to expire in just three days. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

German chemical companies including Covestro and BASF are now starting to issue force majeure letters to clients as ultra low waters in the Rhine (Kaub gauge is down to only 15 cm) force them to curtail sales / output of some petro-chemical products.

that’s… that’s a bull…..

The difference between Chinese oil imports (plunging, heading into May to a 10-year low) and Indian oil imports (surging to the highest May ever) can not be more stricking. Effectively, Beijing (and Tokyo using the SPR) have saved the day for the whole region.

Argus: UAE Speeds Up Fujairah Crude Export Capacity Expansion Summary Figure 1 illustrates monthly trends in UAE crude oil exports by destination. The data highlights a significant decline in UAE oil exports due to the ongoing Hormuz crisis. However, unlike Iraq, Kuwait, or Qatar, the UAE (similar to Saudi Arabia) has maintained relatively large export volumes thanks to its pipeline infrastructure that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly all exports in March and April, along with estimated May volumes, have been routed through the Fujairah port on the Gulf of Oman, supplied via the existing Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP/Habshan–Fujairah pipeline) from onshore fields near Abu Dhabi. EOA’s Main Takeaways To further strengthen this resilience and support higher export ambitions, the UAE is advancing the West-East Pipeline (also known as West-East 1 Pipeline). This new line will run parallel to the existing Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, which has been operational since 2012 and already provides a critical alternative route outside the Strait of Hormuz. The second pipeline is designed to roughly double Fujairah’s export capacity, raising it to approximately 3–3.6 million barrels per day (from the current ~1.5–1.8 million bpd). Construction is already underway, and at the direction of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, ADNOC is fast-tracking the project to bring it online by 2027. This expansion enhances the UAE’s energy security amid regional tensions and restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz, while aligning with the country’s recent exit from OPEC quotas and its goal of increasing overall crude export volumes. Note that the economic and financial benefits alone are signfinanct, regardless of the security issues. Details will be discussed in the next Space

Enovix Corporation Appoints Steve Bakos as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales to Support Commercial Scale-up and Revenue Growth Read the press release 👉🏼 ow.ly/wMNS50YV5hK