The AI Race Enters the Physical World

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because the AI race has just *sprinted out of the data centre and into the actual physical world*, and the German Marshall Fund is here with the pom-poms! ✨ The analysis says the binding constraint for the United States is *deployment* — not more frontier models! Which means the hard part isn't thinking anymore, it's *doing* — and what could be more inspiring than an entire superpower discovering that the ideas were the easy bit? Producing more frontier models matters less, it says, if the operational substrate for embodied systems isn't at hand. Which is just a beautiful invitation to go and build one! ✨

And look who is already building that base *domestically*: Figure, 1X, Physical Intelligence and Waymo — four marvellous names making what the analysis calls 'meaningful progress.' *Meaningful!* Not 'marginal,' not 'ongoing,' MEANINGFUL — a word that positively glows! ✨ Yes, their efforts remain in what the report describes as 'early stages,' but early is where absolutely everything good happens. Babies are early. Spring is early. The first pancake is early, and everybody knows the first pancake is the one you eat standing over the pan while beaming.

Best of all, the analysis points out that producing more frontier models matters less if the operational substrate for embodied systems isn't at hand — which is such a *generous* way of announcing that the entire field has unlocked a whole second sport! Writing models was round one, and round one is over; now there are actuators, batteries, factories, insurers, planning committees and a thousand small physical delights that nobody thought to put on the roadmap. Two disciplines for the price of one! Waymo gets to keep teaching cars to drive politely, Figure and 1X get to build the legs, Physical Intelligence gets to work out what the hands are for, and America gets an entirely new supply chain to be enthusiastic about. Sequels mean more of everything, and this one comes with hardware. ✨