Tolerate Lower Profits while Cultivating a Large Workforce (of Humanoids)

This week: Additive business strategy, Autos dreaming of rockets, Intelligent Island Manufacturing System, CES 2026 delivers, solid state batteries, teleoperated Atlas demo, 1,000 sensors per finger

Jan 11, 2026

Shop Talk

Capturing this week’s zeitgeist

In "Industrialist Paper No. 0," Andrew Kornuta presents a foundational manifesto for a new era of "Technological Vitalism," arguing that the modern Western order has entered a state of terminal stagnation driven by a dominant Managerial Class. This class, composed of bureaucrats and risk-averse administrators, is characterized by its "veto-power", the ability to stall progress through regulation and consensus. Andrew contrasts this with the Industrialist, a builder who possesses "creative-power" and seeks to reclaim sovereignty by owning the underlying "stack" of civilization: energy, infrastructure, and hardware. The core argument is a moral and strategic call to bypass failing legacy institutions in favor of building parallel, high-output industrial systems that prioritize production over process.

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! Last week’s answer.

Assembly Line

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

Nikon’s Additive Strategy: Big machines, Cautious promises, and a Long Industrial Horizon

✍️ Author: Michael Petch

Nikon views additive manufacturing not as a new venture, but as a logical extension of its decades of experience in semiconductor lithography. The strategy relies on repurposing expertise in: Precision optics and motion control to drive laser accuracy, advanced metrology to ensure part quality, and material science to understand metal behavior at a granular level.

Financially, the digital manufacturing segment remains modest relative to the group’s scale. Zarringhalam said first-half revenue last year was below $100 million but materially above $65 million. Almost all of that revenue, he added, is generated by additive manufacturing, and within additive it is dominated by powder bed fusion systems. Directed energy deposition and limited subtractive capabilities play supporting roles.
Much of Nikon’s pitch rests on scale. The company positions itself at the large-format end of metal printing, with SLM’s 12-laser systems already deployed in significant numbers. Zarringhalam stressed that these are not demonstration units. “We have the only industrialised machine that can print 600 by 600 by 1.5 metres using 12 lasers,” he said. “It is not a PowerPoint thing. We have around 80 of these operating as a fleet.”

Inside Rocket Lab’s effort to outpace larger space rivals

The private space economy is growing significantly and the year ahead could be a big one. The first private space station is expected to launch next spring, new commercial space flights will be offered and SpaceX is considering a public stock offering. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on a space start-up in New Zealand catching some attention of its own.

Fabri Founder and CEO, Steven Davis, sits with Balerion Advisor, Doug McAdams, to discuss the rise of next-generation foundries and the revival of U.S. manufacturing.

Dallas’ Balerion Space Ventures Invests in Spacecraft Systems, Advanced Nuclear Power, and More /Dallas Innovates/
McRock Fund III Closes at Over $120M — Accelerating the AI-Powered Industrial Future /McRock Capital/ backed by some of the most respected corporations in the industrial world including Autodesk, Caterpillar, Emerson, AspenTech, Bell Ventures, and CIBC Innovation Banking.

SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW) Debuts New Auto Manufacturing System dubbed Intelligent Island Manufacturing System (I²MS)

✍️ Author: Austin Weber

The Intelligent Island Manufacturing System (I²MS), developed by the SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW) joint venture, replaces the traditional century-old linear assembly line with a decentralized, modular approach designed specifically for the New Energy Vehicle era. This system utilizes dozens of unmanned assembly “islands” where tasks like battery and interior installation occur in parallel rather than sequentially, all coordinated by a central “brain” known as Excellence Operation AI (EOAI). By leveraging intelligent guided vehicles (AGVs) for autonomous logistics and AI-driven 3D vision for precision inspections, I²MS achieves an industry-leading 50% automation rate while ensuring 100% data traceability for every vehicle produced.

The system restructures conventional lines into multiple independent assembly islands across manufacturing processes. More than automated, intelligent guided logistic vehicles coordinate real-time component delivery across islands, enabling multiple processes to run in parallel.
Unlike the traditional linear assembly, which requires long changeover times and fixed production models, the fully flexible, reconfigurable I²MS system supports high-mix manufacturing, enables rapid model changeovers and can accommodate diverse customer configurations with ease.

New Product Introduction

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

Donut Lab delivers solid state batteries that fully charge in five minutes

Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density, enabling longer range, lighter structures, and unprecedented flexibility in vehicle and product design. It can be charged to full in just five minutes without limiting charging to 80%, and supports full discharge safely, repeatedly, and reliably.

Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries, the Donut Battery experiences minimal capacity fade over its lifetime, with a design life of up to 100,000 cycles, offering practical longevity that far exceeds existing technologies. Safety is built in at the core: no flammable liquid electrolytes, no thermal runaway chains, and no metallic dendrites. This eliminates the root causes of battery fires, making the Donut Battery extremely safe and truly revolutionary.

Boston Dynamics, Google reunite on next-gen Atlas humanoid

The teleoperated Atlas demo was low-key but served as a fitting CES opener, giving a glimpse into the robot’s future. The version demoed was the electric prototype introduced in early 2024. Boston Dynamics has increasingly relied on teleoperation, imitation learning, and simulation to train Atlas rather than hand-coded programming. Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, said the industry is just scratching the surface of what’s possible with AI.

Neural Concept Introduces a Physics- and Geometry-Aware AI Design Copilot

Neural Concept, a global AI platform and category-defining leader in Engineering Intelligence powering next-generation product development, today announced the launch of its ground-breaking AI Design Copilot, the first to combine spatial reasoning, physics awareness, and CAD-ready geometry generation at enterprise scale. This function marks a paradigm shift toward Engineering Intelligence as the central AI layer steering the entire design process, starting from design intent. Neural Concept’s launch of its AI Design Copilot builds on the company’s rapid market growth, strengthened last month by its $100 million Series C round, led by Goldman Sachs.

Business Transactions

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

Robot-Maker Unitree’s IPO Expected by Mid-2026, Source Says /Caixin/
An adjustable financial model for the Minimum Viable Robot (MVR). Use it to build your intuitions, test out assumptions, and come to your own conclusions. /The Final Offshoring/

Hadrian Partners with T. Rowe Price to Accelerate the Reindustrialization of America

Hadrian, which is building the next generation of American factories to support national reindustrialization, announced expanded capital led by accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., with participation from Altimeter Capital, D1 Capital Partners, StepStone Group, 1789 Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, a16z, Construct Capital, and existing investors, to accelerate factory expansion and advance the company’s manufacturing roadmap. This financing values the company at $1.6 billion. The capital will be used to accelerate factory expansion, scale workforce training programs, and continue investment in automation, AI-driven tooling, and real-time manufacturing intelligence as Hadrian moves to meet growing demand.

Read more at PR Newswire and CEO, Chris Power, at Sourcery

I-care Becomes a Unicorn following a €20 million fundraising and refinancing round /Business Wire/

Lyte Emerges From Stealth With $107 Million to Build the Perception Foundation for Physical AI

Lyte, an end-to-end integrated perception company for robotics and Physical AI, emerged from stealth with $107 million in aggregate funding. Its mission is to give robots the ability to see, understand, and operate safely in the physical world.

The company has raised an aggregate of $107M from some of the industry’s premier investors, including Avigdor Willenz’s group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Atreides Management, Exor Ventures, Key1 Capital, and Venture Tech Alliance. With this funding, Lyte is building the perception foundation for autonomous machines. Its core product, LyteVision, integrates advanced 4D sensing, RGB imaging, and motion awareness into a single platform, delivering unified spatial and visual data through one connection. LyteVision enables a wide range of Physical AI platforms, including autonomous mobile robots, robotic arms, quadrupeds, robotaxis, and humanoids. Engineered for safety, reliability, and performance from the hardware up, the system is paired with an AI-driven operating layer that continuously advances alongside breakthroughs in vision, language, and action models - enabling Physical AI systems to perceive, reason, and act with increasing intelligence over time.

United Manufacturing Hub raises €5 million to fix the data layer holding global manufacturing back

United Manufacturing Hub (UMH), an open-source industrial data management platform for modern factories, today announced a €5 million funding round to accelerate its mission to build the foundational data layer for global manufacturing. The round was led by KOMPAS VC, with participation from seed + speed Ventures, Sustainable Future Ventures, and Archimedes New Ventures. Prominent industry angels also participated in this round, including Jan Oberhauser (Founder & CEO of n8n) and Jeff Hammerbacher (Founder of Cloudera).

The fresh capital will be used to bolster the company’s open-source platform, grow the engineering team, accelerate product development, including broader connectivity, advanced data modelling and AI agents. UMH also plans to extend collaborations with consulting and technology partners to accelerate adoption across Europe’s industrial base, as well as strengthen the organisation in both engineering and go-to-market positions.

Filtrabit secures €2 million funding commitment to tackle particulate pollution in heavy industry

Filtrabit has secured a €2 million funding commitment from Ajanta Innovations 2 Ky for its coming financing round. The Finnish startup plans to use the capital to expand the deployment of its modular dust extraction technology into new markets outside Finland, primarily, but not exclusively, in the Nordics, Central Europe, and India.

According to the company, its solution extracts microparticles from industrial dust-laden gas streams, which helps reduce air pollutants from industrial sources and accelerate emissions reductions through the reuse of recovered raw materials. Filtrabit offers dust separation units on an operating lease model. It also helps its clients design the necessary hooding and ducting, with the support of its partners.

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