AVS

Trending Up

In the late 2010s, the self-driving world summited the peak of inflated expectations and quickly spiraled into the trough of disillusionment. Now, we’re seeing cautious optimism that reminds us of a more realistic version of the mood a few years ago. 

All in the last month...

Let’s start smol. Chipotle invested in Nuro, which also launched a delivery pilot with Domino’s in Houston, TX. AutoX, a Chinese startup, announced a development partnership with Honda. Huawei revealed that it’s working on a self-driving car. 

Going bigger—Walmart took part in Cruise’s $2.75 billion funding round, which values the self-driving company at $30 billion. GM is the majority owner of Cruise, a Y Combinator alum that also counts Microsoft and Honda as investors.  

Autonomous trucking company TuSimple went public, becoming the first pure-play, publicly traded AV company. “We’ve got a long way to go,” TuSimple CFO Pat Dillon told the Brew, “but I do think it’s important that we’re generating revenue.” 

• TuSimple made $1.8 million in 2020—and lost $177.9 million—but Dillon said revenue will grow “substantially” in the coming years through its retrofitted fleet of 70 robo-trucks, an autonomous freight network, and eventually, purpose-built vehicles.  

Delivery startup Udelv announced that it will deploy 35,000 “Transporters” between 2023–2028. Udelv said it’s already received a pre-order of 1,000 Transporters, which are compact AVs that will run on Intel’s Mobileye Drive.

The middle ground 

Intel, which acquired Mobileye for $15.3 billion in 2017, considers its advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) business as the perfect hedge against the uncertainty of fully driverless tech.  

• Mobileye sells to customers like VW, Nissan, and BMW. It also offers white-label ADAS systems to automakers.
• Mobileye has effectively crowdsourced mapping the world to auto customers—it collects 8 million kilometers (nearly 5 million miles) of data a day, Intel Fellow and Mobileye VP Jack Weast told the Brew. 

“We have a very healthy business with driver assistance, so we can cash-flow the investment in a driverless future,” Weast said. 

Weast foresees a future where driver assistance systems are going to be almost as capable as a driverless vehicle. These features will still require a driver in the loop for liability and regulatory reasons. 

Big picture: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

If recent news is anything to go off, some version of at-scale autonomy is nigh. Though we’ve heard this story before, we see indicators that it’s more realistic this time.

But, but but...Let’s assume self-driving technology is perfected (which it isn’t). There are still other pieces of the puzzle: 1) laws/regulation 2) the creation of a self-driving supply chain 3) mass production 4) consumer trust. —RD

AI

Gap or No Gap?

Survey after survey shows that hiring AI talent is the biggest barrier to enterprise AI adoption. The Biden admin, the DoD, and other Washingtonians want to fix it.

Only problem? We don’t know how big the gap is...or whether one truly exists at all. 

A new report from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) says there is little evidence to suggest there is a massive, urgent AI skills gap. Digging deeper...

• If there is a shortage, it’s likely just for a small subset of highly specialized AI roles—like research scientists.
• Talent pipelines are “working to meet increased demand” for roles like software developers and data scientists, meaning supply is likely to catch up to demand soon. 
• There's no evidence of a talent gap for less technical roles, like project management or UX design. 

Bottom line: The findings echo something David Autor, an economics professor at MIT, told us: “Whenever there is a hot new field, there is a scramble for talent and expertise—however, most AI tools are not so abstruse as to require years and years of training. That's qualitatively different from a shortage of surgeons or nuclear engineers, where there's a five- to 10-year pipeline between demand and supply.” —DM

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BIG TECH

Billion Dollar Bets

Tech entrepreneurs may be betting on Austin and Miami, but this morning, Apple announced it’s going all-in on the US at large—with a $430 billion commitment over the next five years. 

CEO Tim Cook called it a “generational investment reaching communities across all 50 states,” but the company is banking (literally, with tens of billions) on projects in nine states in particular to amp up silicon development and 5G. 

• Otherwise, the majority of the $$ will flow to US suppliers, investments in data centers and other capital expenditures, and job creation in emerging tech sectors including AI. 

Zoom in: Apple will open up a new, million-square-foot campus in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, and they're earmarking $1 billion for the area. The campus will focus on AI, machine learning, software engineering, and more, and hiring for some of its ~3,000 roles will begin right away. 

Zoom out: For Apple, this is a 20% increase on existing investment commitments, so it's not out of the blue. Since 2018, Apple’s US contributions have “significantly outpaced” its original five-year goal of $350 billion. Think of this as a goal correction rather than an entirely unexpected influx of investment. —HF

BITS & BYTES

Stat: The inventor(s) of bitcoin are believed to have mined 1 million units of the cryptocurrency—which would be worth nearly $50 billion today. 

Quote: “Aaron Krolik is a complete loser. Will do anything for attention.” —An NYT writer who slandered himself online, then tracked the info’s spread via hidden data in the file code 

Read: What does your phone have in common with a Martian helicopter?

Flip out: Flippy is the burger flippin’ robot set to revolutionize the QSR industry as the world's first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant. Projected to help businesses increase profit margins by 300%, you can invest in this flippin’ great opportunity now.*

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Walt Disney Imagineering introduced a walking, talking robotic actor—an in-development “platform” for theme parks that could take different forms, including Baby Groot. 
• Microsoft and the UK are teaming up to create the “world’s most powerful” weather supercomputer by summer 2022. 
• Tesla’s Autopilot feature can be tricked into driving with no one at the wheel, according to Consumer Reports. 
• SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit last week. They arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday.
• Brompton electric bikes are being recalled due to an acceleration software bug.
• Ant is in a standoff with China’s central bank over consumer lending data, per the FT.

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THREE THINGS WE'RE WATCHING

It’s a busy week for tech earnings, and Big Tech has been making major announcements leading up to those quarterly reports—from Apple’s new US investment to Microsoft’s new supercomputer deal. 

Tuesday: Google, Microsoft, AMD. 

Wednesday: Apple, Facebook, Qualcomm, Samsung, Spotify, Shopify. 

Thursday: Amazon, Twitter, LG. 

TECH THROWBACK

Thirteen years ago, the browser wars were heating up as Google secretly prepared to launch its own competitor to Internet Explorer: Google Chrome. 

But that wasn’t public knowledge yet. Google sent out a 38-page comic book announcing the project in September 2008. According to a blog post from that month: “The book points to www.google.com/chrome, but I can’t see anything live there yet.” 

ICYMI

From the crew: Do you know a new grad that’s bound for Silicon Valley, ATX, or dare we say...Miami? Get them a gift to help them succeed in the world of tech from Sidekick’s Graduation Gift Guide inspired by Elon Musk. 

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• How a smartphone chip made it all the way to Mars
• Amazon opens an AR hair salon in East London
• Survey: Southern US adults are more skeptical of AVs