Huang and Nvidia, Musk and Tesla, Altman and OpenAI --- and their China-sized robot problem
This is a transcript, for the video found here:
Bullets:
Humanoid robots are the next frontier in Artificial Intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
Nvidia, OpenAI, Tesla, and scores of other companies have made heavy investments in robotics, as industrial applications for their trillion-dollar bets in AI.
But Chinese industrial planners also understand that mass-market adoption of advanced robots will undermine their status as factory of the world.
The supply chains for these robots include titanium, rare earth metals and magnets, soft plastics, and specialized steel products that Chinese companies currently enjoy near-monopolies on.
Report:
Good morning. Supply chain managers for manufacturing companies need to carefully go through your Bills of Materials for everything you build. This also applies to products that your company depends on, but which you outsource the production of. And you need to consider, product by product, and material by material, which of them are also in high demand by Pentagon contractors, for example, or in any other industry which China considers of high national interest, to them.
China’s export bans on bismuth are already causing big problems for the suppliers of the biggest tech companies, who need bismuth soldering paste to build AI centers and supercomputers. Antimony is another good example. Antimony is used by weapons makers to build bombs and explosives, and antimony is also a critical component of flame retardant, used in textiles and plastics. China’s bans on the exports of antimony are clearly aimed at Pentagon contractors. Your company probably isn’t helping Raytheon build rockets, or producing artillery shells to be used in Ukraine. It doesn’t matter. If you need antimony for anything else, it’s not coming.
Today we’ll look at robots, which is going to be a massive industry. It already is. Jensen Huang is head of Nvidia, who designs advanced chips for Artificial Intelligence. He expects his Nvidia chips to power smart factories, and robots and robotics systems. A robot might one day be hired for $100,000 a year, and humanoid robotics may be the biggest industry ever. Nvidia is already building the AI models for them. One analyst expects annual production to be over 1 million units soon. The physical functionality for the robots is already there, now they need to be smarter.
All of this is also obvious to policymakers and industrial planners here in China. In March, the national government opened the first of what will be many investment funds for robotics and smart factories. $138 billion for this phase.
In 2021, China unveiled a comprehensive national strategy for robotics. And here’s how that’s going. Annual robot installations across manufacturers went from 30% in 2020 to about half by 2023. In 2023, two thirds of industrial robots in electronics were put here, and Chinese companies build more than half of those. This chart runs just through to the end of 2023, and the smart factories keep coming, factories that combine AI with engineering, supply chain and logistics management, product design— comprehensive, end-to-end manufacturing systems.
Sam Altman is head of Open AI, the company that makes ChatGPT. He is also looking to robotics as a major profit center for his company. “Robots that can build other robots aren’t that far off”—that’s true. It’s happening right over there, in Guangdong. Altman goes on to say that robots will one day operate the entire supply chain—”digging and refining minerals, driving trucks.” Again—that is already happening. Chinese mines are replacing thousands of truck drivers with smart systems that automate that entire process.
So Altman is talking about his big ambitions for AI in the future, but those breakthroughs are happening now, today. China is the factory for the world, and Chinese understand that robotics and automation can close the gap between Western firms and Chinese ones. But China also has monopolies on many of the raw materials necessary for building robots. Before Nvidia can put their AI chips into a million robots to make them super-smart, first our companies need to go through Chinese supply chains to build stupid robots.
And that’s true for Sam Altman and OpenAI too, if they ever hope to get their models installed in humanoid robots working in smart factories and driving mining trucks. And Sam Altman and OpenAI already have a big problem. The company recently called for a ban on DeepSeek, which is an AI system now in wide use across the world, and developed here in China. They’re pushing for a ban on PRC-produced models, which would also include Alibaba’s Qwen system and some others. Microsoft is a major partner with OpenAI, and both hope to benefit from the Stargate Project. Stargate is a $500 billion program that is intended to secure dominance over China in AI.
Elon Musk and Tesla are trying to mass-produce humanoid robots right now. But China’s rare earth metals ban, and particularly on magnets, is causing big delays there. Elon Musk is very widely respected in China. Tesla has a giant factory in Shanghai, and it’s one of the world’s largest in the world, employing thousands of Chinese to build cars. And if Elon Musk can’t get Chinese magnets to build robots for Tesla, there’s no way Sam Altman and his friends will get any. And neither will anyone else.
This is the Dujiangyan irrigation system, It’s over 2,000 years old, in Sichuan province.
Be Good.
Resources and links:
Newsweek, Trump Announces Stargate: Texas-Based Investment Combines AI Heavyweights
https://www.newsweek.com/stargate-ai-oracle-donald-trump-infrastructure-sam-altman-2018614
Reuters Explainer: What is antimony and why is China curbing its exports?
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/what-is-antimony-why-is-china-curbing-its-exports-2024-08-16/
Nikkei, China's critical mineral curbs shake AI data center suppliers
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Supply-Chain/China-s-critical-mineral-curbs-shake-AI-data-center-suppliers2
Uncle Sam (Altman) OpenAI Asks 'Daddy Government' to Ban DeepSeek
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uncle-sam-altman-openai-asks-daddy-government-ban-dimas-rahardja--foiyc/
Sam Altman, The Gentle Singularity
https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity
New York Times, Elon Musk Warns Rare Earth Magnet Shortage May Delay Tesla’s Robots
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/business/elon-musk-tesla-robots.html
CNBC, Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots hit by China’s rare earth restrictions, says Musk
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/23/teslas-optimus-hit-by-chinas-rare-earth-restrictions-says-musk.html
Elon Musk warns rare earth magnet shortage may delay Tesla's robots
China to Invest 1 Trillion Yuan in Robotics and High-Tech Industries
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
Robots Build Robots at Kuka's Guangdong Facility, Producing One Every Half Hour
When folks like Donald Trump, Sam Altman, Peter Thiels, Elon Musk, etc., go off on their anti-ChYna rhetorics and pushes for anti-ChYna trade or technology sanction policies/implementation, they seem to forget that all of this available on the net. They must assume (or believe) that the Chinese government don't have people reading or watching the news and other publicly available media network.
I've said it before and I'll say it again- the US started this war with typical arrogance and hubris and finally it has met its match. These people think that they can act with impunity. Not this time