The San Francisco Bay Area is a nexus of AI and robotics. Source: Adobe Stock
The San Francisco Bay Area is the nexus of the bogus intelligence revolution within the U.S., anchored by San Francisco, with the renaissance of robotics funding and innovation in Silicon Valley. AI is merging with and embodied by robotics right here.
For occasion, Waymo’s driverless automobiles are a typical sight in San Francisco. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang mentioned the way forward for AI is bodily AI, embodied by robotics together with self-driving automobiles.
Recently, The New York Times urged the opportunity of a robotic “winter,” particularly for humanoid robots.
However, within the Dec. 10 Public Relation Society of America (PRSA) annual Silicon Valley Media Predicts of the 2025 know-how trade and market, Don Clark of the Times talked about that newspaper has by no means discovered a know-how it may well’t discover the darkish aspect of. He famous that The New York Times‘ first point out of synthetic intelligence, courting again to round 1953, warned that robots may sometime pose a menace to humanity.
Well, we’re alive and properly—busily growing humanoid robots and embedding superior AI chips into flying drones, self-driving automobiles, and different autonomous programs.
Media analysts affirm the arrival of the age AI
The PRSA occasion featured a distinguished panel, together with:
- Dion Lim of ABC7 Bay Area
- Jon Swartz, beforehand with Market Watch and USA Today and now with Techstrong.ai
- Rosalie Chan of Business Insider, whose work earlier appeared in TIME, The Chicago Report, and so on.
- Don Clark of New York Times, beforehand with The Wall Street Journal.
Lim mentioned autonomous automobiles, highlighting the success of Waymo, its partnership with Uber, and its enlargement in San Francisco and past to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, and now Tokyo. Although International Federation of Robotics (IFR) doesn’t categorize autonomous automobiles as robotics; they’re no much less an embodiment of AI than humanoid developer Figure AI.
The panel additionally delved into AI brokers and their functions. Swartz has written extensively about AI. He talked about AI “super agents,” the place one agent reviews to a different. Swartz noticed that advances in AI brokers will not be as fast as desired, however their trajectory stays promising.
From left: moderator Becca Chambers, Dion Lim of ABC7 Bay Area, Jon Swartz of Techstrong.ai, New York Times contributor Don Clark, and Rosalie Chan of Business Insider. Credit: Paul Sakuma Photography
Market and humanoid prospects are nonetheless vibrant
Chan commented on the quiet IPO market of the previous 12 months. She predicted a rebound in 2026. While others have speculated about 2025 as a turning level, the AI and robotics sectors stay vibrant regardless of a considerably subdued public providing market in 2025.
Following the Media Predict occasion was the Humanoid Summit on the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Aaron Prather, who spoke on the occasion, later posted in regards to the notion of “intentional stance” for AI robotics.
Prather, who’s
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Human capital clusters in Silicon Valley and elsewhere
This results in the significance of human capital, important to the fast development of cellular robots, drones, and autonomous automobiles. Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock, who raised $675 million for the AI robotics startup, lately posted that he’s “hiring like crazy.”
Financial capital chases after human capital. The Bay Area’s prime universities gas San Francisco and Silicon Valley’s development by coaching engineers and technicians who sort out challenges resembling bipedal dynamic, management, and deep studying.
Robotics professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition to Japan, India, and Switzerland, now embody skilled designers from main corporations, professors, and trade executives. They at the moment are engaged on coaching and schooling, not solely from content material in a information graph ontology sense, but additionally the epistemology in pedagogy sense.
In addition to concept and understanding, this numerous group is making actual progress. For instance, they’re growing {hardware} platforms in order that college students can study the fundamentals of upper-body versus lower-body dynamics. Other vital subjects embody guide and robotic dexterity, plus levels of freedom of the neck and hip, all towards the fast-changing backdrop of AI.
The AI trade continues to develop
NVIDIA final week introduced a major discount within the worth of its Orin Nano AI chipset. It halved the associated fee whereas growing efficiency 1.7x to 67 TOPS (trillion operations per second). According to Huang, this chipset can assist each general-purpose AI and agentic AI, enabling edge intelligence.
Agentic AI humanoid robots—reasoning cellular robots with anthropomorphic types—are edging nearer to actuality. These robots may sometime retrieve all recognized information, cause over very long time horizons, and bodily reply with agility. Could this be Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation? No marvel Starfleet’s headquarters are in San Francisco.
About the creator
Albert Hu, Ph.D., is president and director of schooling at SuperTech FT, a San Francisco-based nonprofit devoted to offering STEM (science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic), robotics, and AI schooling. The firm mentioned it delivers “agile upskilling for an agile workforce.”
Special due to public relations advisor Michelle Mclntyre for her LinkedIn put up, which was useful in recording the details of the Media Predict occasion.