Raised $300M, Backed by Bill Gates — Robot Startup Vicarious Files for Bankruptcy

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In the midst of a global humanoid robot boom, a sobering reminder of how hard the robotics business actually is: Vicarious Surgical, a US surgical robot startup that raised $300 million from investors including Bill Gates and Jerry Yang, has filed for bankruptcy. Founded in 2014 by two MIT graduates, Vicarious set out to build … Read more

China’s First Fields Medalists in History Mark a New Era for Mathematics

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On July 23, the International Mathematical Union awarded the Fields Medal — mathematics’ highest honor — to four mathematicians. Two of them, Deng Yu and Wang Hong, were born in China. It is the first time in the prize’s 90-year history that two Chinese-born mathematicians have won in the same year. Deng Yu, born in … Read more

Chinese Cars Cost Double Overseas — And That’s the Point

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Chinese automakers are selling cars overseas at nearly double the domestic price. This isn’t price gouging — it’s strategy. Take the Xiaopeng MONA L03, launched in Munich on July 16. In Germany, the pure EV version starts at €35,600 ($27.6K USD equivalent). In China, the same car starts at ¥123,800 ($17.2K). The markup is nearly … Read more

Jensen Huang’s First Tweet Was About Open Source AI — Here’s Why

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On July 24, Jensen Huang posted his first-ever tweet. It wasn’t about NVIDIA’s latest GPU, earnings, or a product launch. It was about open source AI. Huang’s newly created X (Twitter) account shared an open letter titled “Open-Weight Models and American AI Leadership,” signed by NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta, Hugging Face, Mistral, Y Combinator, and 15+ … Read more

Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Makes TIME Magazine Cover, First Chinese Entrepreneur in 8 Years

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Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics, has achieved what no Chinese entrepreneur has done in eight years: appear on the cover of TIME Magazine. The cover, published July 23, features Wang alongside Unitree’s mech product GD01 under the headline “The Robot Age Is Here.” The last time a Chinese business leader appeared on … Read more

Humanoid Robots: Cool Demos, Zero Buyers

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Humanoid robots can dance, backflip, and run marathons. What they cannot do, it turns out, is find enough paying customers. A growing number of analysts are asking an uncomfortable question about the humanoid robot boom: who is actually buying these machines? The answer, according to a detailed analysis published on Chinese tech media Sohu IT, … Read more

Japanese Media Admits Defeat After G1 Teardown: “China’s Humanoid Robots Are Uncatchable”

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When Japanese technicians cracked open a Unitree G1 humanoid robot, they found a reason to give up. Nikkei xTECH, a Japanese technology media outlet, published a teardown video of Unitree’s G1 on July 23. The verdict, as reported by CCTV News, was blunt: China’s humanoid robot technology has clearly moved beyond the “show-and-tell” stage, and … Read more