Week 2 in AI: CES 2026 defines the ‘Physical AI’ era with NVIDIA, Boston Dynamics, and LG. xAI raises $20B and Anthropic reportedly seeks $350B valuation. OpenAI enters healthcare market. Meta signs historic 6.6GW nuclear deal. AMD challenges NVIDIA with Helios rack. Industrial AI OS launches.

📋 Quick Takeaways

• NVIDIA and Siemens announce landmark partnership to build Industrial AI Operating System, with first AI-driven factory launching in Erlangen, Germany in 2026
• AMD unveils Helios AI rack with 72 MI455X chips, directly challenging NVIDIA’s dominance in AI data centers
• AMD previews MI500 Series claiming unprecedented 1,000x performance increase over MI300X using CDNA 6 architecture
• Amazon launches Alexa.com bringing Alexa+ AI assistant to web browsers, competing with ChatGPT and Gemini
• NVIDIA introduces DLSS 4.5 with Dynamic Multi Frame Generation and 6X mode for RTX 50-series GPUs
• LG showcases CLOiD humanoid robot demonstrating household tasks including laundry folding and cooking
• AMD announces Ryzen AI 400 Series with 60 TOPS NPU for next-generation AI PCs
• Agentic AI predicted to reach consumer mass-market adoption in 2026 according to global technology survey

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🏭 Industrial AI & Infrastructure

NVIDIA and Siemens Partner to Build Industrial AI Operating System

Transformative Partnership: At CES 2026, Siemens and NVIDIA announced a significant expansion of their strategic partnership to develop what they call the Industrial AI Operating System—a platform designed to embed AI across the entire industrial lifecycle from design to supply chain operations.

📋 Quick Takeaways

• xAI closes historic $20 billion Series E with strategic investments from NVIDIA, Cisco, Fidelity, and Qatar Investment Authority at ~$230B valuation
• NVIDIA unveils Vera Rubin AI platform featuring six co-designed chips optimized for agentic AI and trillion-parameter models
• NVIDIA releases Alpamayo open-source models for Level 4 autonomous driving, partnering with Mercedes-Benz for Q1 2026 US launch
• Google DeepMind integrates Gemini into Boston Dynamics Atlas in landmark robotics collaboration
• Mobileye acquires Mentee Robotics for $900M betting on humanoid robots as next AI frontier
• Hyundai announces $26B US investment over four years for robotics and autonomous driving ecosystem
• AMD reveals Ryzen AI 400 Series with 60 TOPS NPU and Helios rack systems challenging NVIDIA

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💰 Major AI Funding

xAI Raises Record $20 Billion in Series E Funding

Historic Round: Elon Musk’s xAI announced on January 6 the completion of a $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding its initial $15 billion target and representing one of the largest single funding rounds in tech history.

📋 Quick Takeaways

• NVIDIA unveils Vera Rubin platform — first extreme-codesigned six-chip AI system promising 10x reduction in inference token cost
• “ChatGPT moment for physical AI” declared by Jensen Huang as NVIDIA releases robotics foundation models for Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar, and LG
• NVIDIA launches Alpamayo — world’s first open-source reasoning AI for autonomous driving, shipping in Mercedes-Benz CLA this year
• AMD counters with Helios — “world’s best AI rack” featuring 72 MI455X GPUs to directly challenge NVIDIA’s dominance
• Intel debuts Core Ultra Series 3 — first consumer chips built on 18A process technology, pre-orders start January 6
• World Labs demonstrates Marble — Dr. Fei-Fei Li showcases 3D world model creating physics-accurate virtual environments

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🚀 NVIDIA Vera Rubin: Next-Generation AI Computing Platform

NVIDIA Unveils Vera Rubin — The Most Powerful AI Platform Ever Built

Landmark Announcement: At CES 2026 in Las Vegas on January 5, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang unveiled Vera Rubin, the company’s first extreme-codesigned AI platform featuring six integrated chips designed to revolutionize AI training and inference.

📋 Quick Takeaways

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang keynote at CES 2026 focuses on “what’s next in AI,” featuring robotics, autonomous driving, and next-gen GPU innovations
• AMD CEO Lisa Su delivers opening keynote unveiling Ryzen AI 400 series, refreshed desktop CPUs with 3D V-Cache, and enterprise AI roadmap
• Johns Hopkins research challenges AI training paradigm — brain-inspired AI models produce intelligent behavior without massive training data
• Boston Dynamics next-gen Atlas robot makes first public CES debut at Hyundai’s AI Robotics presentation
• Intel launches Core Ultra 300 (Panther Lake) — first chips built on revolutionary 18A process with 15% efficiency gains
• Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite delivers 44% better CPU performance per watt than Intel competitors

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🚀 Nvidia CES 2026 Keynote: The AI Industry’s Most Anticipated Event

Jensen Huang Takes Center Stage for 90-Minute AI Showcase

Date & Time: January 5, 2026, 1:00 PM PT / 4:00 PM ET

📋 Quick Takeaways

• CES 2026 officially kicks off with Samsung’s “The First Look” presentation unveiling AI-driven customer experiences
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang set to deliver highly anticipated 90-minute keynote on January 5
• Anthropic challenges OpenAI’s $1.4 trillion compute strategy with “do more with less” efficiency approach
• Anthropic projects $26 billion revenue for 2026, up from $1 billion at start of 2025
• OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX all eyeing potential IPOs in 2026, with OpenAI targeting up to $1 trillion valuation
• Google wins Pentagon GenAI.mil contract with Gemini AI, challenging Palantir’s defense dominance
• Peter Thiel sells entire Nvidia stake, pivots to Microsoft for AI platform exposure

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🚀 CES 2026 & Industry Keynotes

Nvidia CES 2026 Keynote: Jensen Huang to Showcase AI Future

Market-Moving Event: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a highly anticipated 90-minute keynote on Monday, January 5 at CES 2026, with investors and the tech industry watching closely.