The Machine-breaking Disturbances Rocking Assembly

This week: Enter the lab of π, Cadillac F1, and Nothing; bauxite mining and construction, quantum manufacturing challenge, large-format 3D printing ROI and nozzles, battery breakthroughs, energy funds

Jan 25, 2026

Shop Talk

Capturing this week’s zeitgeist

Exclusive interview in the Physical Intelligence robotics lab, who’re backed by top investors to build robots which work in the real world. Not just scripted environments.

Sachin Shah@Sachin_Shah_

We profiled the most hyped robotics company in the world. Inside Physical Intelligence with Co-founder @lachygroom Exclusive interview in the Physical Intelligence robotics lab, who’re backed by top investors to build robots which work in the real world. Not just scripted

10:00 PM · Jan 22, 2026 · 101K Views

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🥇 Physical Intelligence Wins the Olympics: Deep Dive /General Robots/
🧠 Advancing AI for the physical world /Microsoft/ by announcing Rho-alpha (ρα), our first robotics model derived from Microsoft’s Phi series of vision-language models. They invite organizations interested in evaluating Rho-alpha for their robots and use cases to express interest in the Rho-alpha Research Early Access Program.

New in 2026: We are gifting a 1-year paid subscription to the first person to identify the content link AND cultural reference to the title/subject line of this week’s digest. Comment on this post with your guess before next week’s digest is released to be eligible!

Assembly Line

This week’s Industry 5.0 breakthroughs and frontier technologies of the built world.

⚒️ Inside Bauxite Mining: One of the World’s Most Essential Resources!

Most people have never heard of bauxite, yet they couldn’t live without the essential metal it eventually transforms into: aluminum. No bauxite, no planes, cans, or electronics. The durable, yet light and corrosion-resistant metal has become the world’s second-most consumed metal, behind iron.

🛢️ Why don’t oil rigs rust in the sea? /Object Zero on X/

🏗️ How Caterpillar Uses AI to Revolutionize Construction Safety & Efficiency

In an interview with Munro Live, Brandon Hootman, Vice President of Data and AI at Caterpillar, shared an in-depth look at the company’s efforts to bring cutting-edge technology directly to the jobsite.

🏗️💰 Brickeye Raises $10M Series B to Scale Construction Risk Mitigation Technology Across North America and Beyond /ACCESS Newswire/
🛖💰 XBuild Raises $19M Series A; Launches AI-Powered Residential Roofing Estimate Product /PR Newswire/ the first vibe coding estimating platform for all of construction, scaling proposal capabilities into verticals including concrete, landscaping, painting, windows and doors, glass and glazing, insulation, HVAC, and plumbing.

💿 Why Quobly, STMicro, Soitec See Quantum as a Manufacturing Challenge

✍️ Author: Pat Brans

Quobly’s strategy is shaped by a deliberately unglamorous premise: If quantum processors are ever to move beyond bespoke demonstrators, they must be designed from the outset to live inside the constraints of the semiconductor industry. That conviction underpins the company’s reliance on fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology and its close collaboration with STMicroelectronics (STMicro) and substrate supplier Soitec.
Rather than inventing an exotic qubit platform and worrying about scale later, Quobly is doing the opposite: starting with an industrial platform and accepting the constraints it imposes on qubit design.

🏎️📐 The Small Town Building Cadillac’s First Formula 1 Car

Inside the heart of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team’s Silverstone facility, where parts first designed as CAD files in Charlotte are brought to life. As months of iteration converge, we explore the team’s home base and meet the leaders building Cadillac’s first Formula 1 race car.

📐 New Crosscar Beam Made of Fiber Reinforced Plastic and Steel /ASSEMBLY/
📱 Inside Nothing’s workshop: The team that will beat Apple /Andreas Klinger ⅹ Europe’s Most Ambitious Startups/ How did Carl build Nothing, what do they do differently and how will the future of smartphones look like in the age of AI?

🖨️⚙️ Subaru reduces tooling lead times using large-format 3D printing

✍️ Author: Anyer Tenorio Lara

Subaru of America, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese automaker Subaru Corporation, has reduced tooling development time by more than 50% and cut fabrication costs by approximately 70% by adopting large-format 3D printing for accessory installation tooling. These changes were enabled through the use of a Stratasys F770 system combined with a higher-throughput T25 print head, supporting faster iteration, insourced production, and just-in-time manufacturing for Subaru vehicles sold in the United States.
Any capital equipment investment required a clear financial case. Subaru evaluated the cost of traditionally fabricated tooling against the option of internal production and determined that large-format fused deposition modeling could offset those expenses. Approval followed for a Stratasys F770 system, with internal projections indicating cost reductions of roughly 70% for a single tooling program and a return on investment of approximately two years. “We develop specialized tooling and jigs for precise installation of many of our products. The fabrication cost for just one of those developments was so incredibly high, that when we put pen to paper, it was easy to justify a business case for an F770 purchase,” said Matt Daroff, Project Engineering Manager at Subaru. He noted that the system has since been used across multiple vehicle platforms and accessory programs.

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

🔋📐 CATL Wins World Economic Forum’s MINDS Award for AI-Driven Next-Generation Battery Design

ATL has been honored with the World Economic Forum’s 2026 MINDS (Meaningful, Intelligent, Novel, Deployable Solutions) Award, recognizing its groundbreaking project “Augmented Intelligence Leading Next-Generation Lithium-ion Battery Design,” which has been acclaimed as a global benchmark for AI-driven industrial application. This project revolutionizes the lithium-ion battery R&D paradigm with augmented intelligence, delivering virtual batteries with superior performance, increased reliability, and higher efficiency while transforming human design into co-design between AI and customers.

The platform combines physics‑based electrochemical models with machine learning to deliver scientifically reliable predictions and speed up key steps in cell design. Running on an on‑premises private cloud, it draws on more than 50 million data records to strengthen its models. With physics‑informed machine learning and agentic AI, it works like a “digital engineer,” automatically generating, evaluating and refining design options. This closed loop of data, physics and computation moves battery development beyond manual trial‑and‑error toward a more rigorous and automated process.

🏭💧 Clyde Hydrogen announces hydrogen production breakthrough

✍️ Author: Mary Bailey

Clyde Hydrogen’s technology uses a decoupled electrolysis process which aims to make using hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels significantly safer, simpler and cheaper in comparison to conventional systems available today. Crucially, Clyde Hydrogen’s system can be connected direct to renewable power and store the hydrogen in a non-gaseous form, solving many of the industry’s biggest obstacles and offering a real solution to long-term energy storage.
Last year, Clyde Hydrogen achieved an important technical breakthrough when it produced hydrogen at high pressure via its innovative decoupled electrolysis process for the first time. Now with the launch of its first fully integrated prototype system, Clyde Hydrogen will focus on scaling up to a commercial demonstrator, with the first market-ready product targeted for release in 2028.

✈️🧐 Dance of the White Light Robots: A Closer Look at the Newest Inspection Technology in MRO

Not long ago, GE Aerospace brought revolutionary technology to some of the most crucial yet laborious work in aviation: inspecting every nook and cranny of a high-pressure turbine (HPT), including one particular part that spins at tremendous speeds inside the very core of a jet engine. These exquisitely machined, nickel-based disks bear the blades of the HPT and their maintenance requires painstaking scrutiny. Even the most minor anomaly — a scratch or a minuscule smudge of corrosion — requires professional judgment on which engineering disposition applies: whether the part should be accepted, repaired, or rejected.

Business Transactions

This week’s top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

💸 Heartland Ventures Launches $60 Million Fund III to Power Reindustrialization, including manufacturing, construction, logistics, and real estate /GlobeNewswire/
💸 Black Bay Partners Closes Third Fund at $425 Million Hard Cap /Business Wire/ specializing in strategic investments within the energy industry and adjacent chemical and industrial sectors

🇩🇪⚡ Cloover secures $1.2 billion financing commitment to build the AI operating system for energy independence

Cloover has secured $22 million in Series A equity financing alongside a $1.2 billion debt facility, bringing total capital commitments to $1.222 billion. The equity round was led by MMC Ventures and QED Investors, with participation from Lowercarbon Capital, BNVT Capital, Bosch Ventures, Centrotec, and Earthshot Ventures. The debt facility was provided by a leading European bank to fund customer and installer financing on the platform. Cloover also benefits from a €300 million guarantee from the European Investment Fund, which underpins its financing programs and enables scalable, low-cost capital for the energy transition. In total, Cloover has now raised more than $30 million in equity financing and secured over $1.3 billion in debt.

At the heart of this innovation is AI-powered credit underwriting, which evaluates long-term energy savings rather than traditional credit metrics alone. Cloover also pre-finances public subsidies, allowing consumers to benefit immediately from state incentives. For institutional investors, Cloover opens the door to a new impact-aligned infrastructure asset class, backed by real performance data, climate impact tracking, and full transparency across the value chain.

🇺🇸🔏 Claroty Secures $150 Million in Series F Funding to Lead Charge on Securing the World’s Mission Critical Infrastructure

Claroty, the cyber-physical systems (CPS) protection company, announced it has secured $150 million in Series F funding led by Golub Growth, an affiliate of Golub Capital, with additional confirmed participation from existing investors up to $50 million. This new investment will fuel global expansion through both organic and inorganic growth, as the company continues to pursue an aggressive vision for building the industry’s most comprehensive CPS protection platform.

🇩🇪📦 one.five Raises €14 Million Series A To Accelerate AI-Driven Product-Market Fit In Packaging

one.five, a Hamburg-based company building AI-powered solutions for packaging product development, has raised €14 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Dr. Hans Riegel Holding (one of the principal shareholders of the confectionary group HARIBO), with participation from 212 NexT, Symbia VC (family office), Btomorrow Ventures, KIMPA Impact (multi-family office), Zubi Capital and existing investors Speedinvest, Planet A, Green Generation Fund, Climentum Capital, Revent and WEPA Ventures.

The fresh capital will be used to further expand one.five’s proprietary AI platform and data foundation, enabling companies across the packaging value chain to develop successful packaging products faster and with significantly higher market success rates.

🇺🇸 Apprentice.io Acquires Ganymede to Deliver the Industry’s First AI-Native Platform Spanning R&D Through Commercial Manufacturing

Apprentice.io, the creator of the first agentic AI manufacturing platform, announced the acquisition of Ganymede, an AI-powered cloud platform that captures, standardizes, and automates lab and process data. With this acquisition, Ganymede’s Lab-as-Code technology becomes a core component of the Apprentice platform, allowing scientists, engineers, and IT leaders to define real-time integrations and analytical workflows directly in software, and connect seamlessly to lab instruments and scientific applications. The full suite of Ganymede products for R&D and diagnostics data will continue to be offered.

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