Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast. with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Tech. We are live from CES in Las Vegas, where we've been tracking the biggest tech stories. Another great lineup of incredible guests today, but we've also got some news outside of CES, right, Ed?
Yeah, coming up first, China plans to approve some imports of NVIDIA's H200 chips as soon as this quarter for select commercial use. Plus AI valuations pushing ever higher. Anthropic raising a new round of funding that would value the company at $350 billion today.
And we wrap this special CES edition today with guests from the robotics and augmented reality spaces, venture capital and the government. First, we check in on these markets that are in a bit of sell-off mode. Look, anxiety ahead of those non-farm payrolls data that we get tomorrow.
No one taking on any more risk after what has been a really rather nice run-up in tech stocks over the last three trading days. So today, maybe we sell the news. Today, we're off by some six-tenths of a percent, but all eyes really on one key player. Your chart is showing that actually we'd be kind of lower, wiggling around throughout the early session.
NVIDIA has taken a significant leg lower this Thursday. It's now off 2%. The reporting is crystal clear from Bloomberg. According to sources, China's government will approve some Chinese tech companies taking H200s.
The sources are giving details on which companies, but the crystal clear line is, has to be commercial use, cannot be military, cannot be some government, cannot be state-backed enterprise. Let's get out to Washington, D.C., and Bloomberg Senior Tech Editor Mike Shepard. There's a lot of specifics in this reporting.
Give us those specifics, what we know about the companies involved, and also the volumes, because that's going to matter to the stock.
Well, the volumes are a little bit unclear as far as what the Chinese government would approve. But we already are getting some signals, according to our reporting, that companies like ByteDance and Baidu would be interested in buying up to 200,000 Nvidia H200 chips each once those approvals go through. Now, it's unclear whether...
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Chapter 2: What innovations in humanoid robotics were showcased at CES?
Maybe that's why we're pulling back a little bit on Samsung. But let's switch gears a little bit, because another key part of our conversation that we had yesterday with Android founder Parmalaki was where we discussed U.S. competition with China.
And Ed, you first asked him about the compensation package after President Trump called for capping executive pay with defense contractors in particular. Just take a listen. One of the provisions that the president proposes is a salary cap of $5 million. In the Bloomberg story, it outlined some of the comp of those CEOs. Would you be willing to say what you pay yourself at Anderil?
And if you would abide by... I pay myself $100,000 a year. Significantly less than a $5 million cap. But I also own a lot of my company. And so this measure is not really written in a way where it's intended to hit new companies, starting new things.
Like if Kelly Johnson were alive today and he owned a bunch of Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman or Raytheon, I don't think that anyone would have nearly much of a problem with him. But yeah, I pay myself $100,000 a year. That's my compensation package. I own a bunch of Anduril because I started the company. That's... So my motivation is to try and build in the biggest thing possible.
I will say, people have fairly critiqued me and said, but Palmer, are you really a neutral party here? Are you really in a position to comment, given you're competing with these companies? And I'd say two things. One, these measures do apply in equal measure to me. I now cannot pay dividends. I now cannot do stock buybacks if I'm not investing in new plants, if I'm not doing these new things.
The other thing is, it's always tricky when you want to... You know, I'm in defense because I wanted to help solve these problems, right? It's actually the same thing with, like, Mod Retro in the gaming space. Like, oh, of course Palmer would criticize these other game companies. After all, he's in the gaming space.
It's like, yeah, but I'm in the gaming space because I want to solve these problems. It's kind of this, like, catch-22. Like, if you're outside of it, they'll say, well, why don't you do something about it then? And you do something, like, who cares what you're doing? You're just part of the problem. It's always been emotionally difficult for me.
When we're thinking about where you stand, where U.S. stands versus China, where does it in terms of drone technology? We're in this context of a geopolitical strain that started this year off with Venezuela. We look now to Russia. How do you see China and the Taiwan question? China has an incredibly strong drone industry. It is largely a result of state intervention.
It's largely a result of industrial policy, of supply chain investments that the government has made, and even trade deals that China has made around the world to allow for these drones to freely fly out into other marketplaces. Yeah, China has the best drone industry in the world. It's not even close. It's definitely a weakness that the United States has.
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Chapter 3: How are humanoid robots evolving from science experiments to practical products?
reiterating, I would say, a long stated goal of reunification with Taiwan. Now, the reason I want to start there, Jacob, is in your efforts with Paxilica, the scenario that everyone is trying to plan for Taiwan and access to capacity in the semiconductor side being shut off, if that scenario were to unfold, starting 2026, could you just bring us your latest thinking on that, please?
Absolutely. And it's great to join you guys here at CES in Las Vegas, which is such a great window into American innovation and innovation from a lot of Paxilica countries like South Korea and Japan. It's incredibly exciting that we're talking barely three weeks after the signing of this landmark declaration.
Ultimately, let me put into context why this is so important and why so many people are talking about technology competition. Today, it's clear that if the 20th century ran on steel, the 21st century is increasingly running on silicon and compute.
And we're already seeing in the United States a third of our GDP growth coming from AI and growth picking up and accelerating as productivity is starting to accelerate growth in sectors across the economy. So back in July, President Trump rolled out this landmark speech at an event I co-hosted with White House AI czar David Sachs called Winning the AI Race, where
It was a landmark moment where he declared that the U.S. is set to win the AI race and that it is the official policy of the U.S. government to do whatever it takes. A few months later, I'm happy to report that at the State Department, we have adopted a strategy that breaks down this broad goal into three parts. We want to help the U.S.
government win the AI race by leading an innovation, by gaining market share, and by securing our supply chains. So we launched PacSilica with a group of seven countries, and they are the most technologically advanced countries, including Japan, South Korea, which is home to Samsung, SK Hynix, Mitsubishi.
And we are engaged in a lot of intensive talks to now transition to the implementation phase of PacSilica in 2026.
A lot of your anxiety, and you've been at this for a very long time, trying to warn the United States and those in positions of power, and now in the power that you have yourself, that we shouldn't be so opposed to China in the way that we have been. Now, from a national security perspective, what do you think of the latest that maybe H200s go into China?
That by this quarter, they might sign off for Alibaba, for BYD to be able to access NVIDIA's chips?
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Chapter 4: What challenges remain in humanoid robot software development?
We're having dual track conversations with our partners. We want to protect our sensitive technologies, but we have got to have a path to gain market share. And I think everyone's on the same page.
Everyone who joined PacSilica understands that the world's supply chains being concentrated in one country, no matter how you feel about that country, is too risky, is too brittle, and is ultimately a liability to the global economy.
And that's why we started this economic security coalition with the world's most advanced technology companies and countries in order to make sure that we diversify those supply chains.
Jacob, those companies are here at CES Las Vegas. What do you hope to achieve in the time that you have at CES?
So part of what we're looking for our roadmap in 2026 is we want to focus on policy coordination. We want to expand membership of Pax Silica and we want to focus on infrastructure projects. The way that we view infrastructure is we want to focus on the arteries of supply chains through advanced logistics. We want to focus on the muscle might of industrial capacity.
particularly with fabs, factories and refineries. And we also want to focus on the fuel, particularly capital and energy. One of the things that's so interesting about talking with companies here is we can get to actually stress test a lot of these ideas with builders and with people who are the closest to these problems day to day.
Jacob, this week has been extraordinary from a geopolitical perspective. And I want to just get your thoughts on what high level your view on Pax Silica is that it's sort of peace through power. Is that how we should be interpreting what's occurred? Venezuela with Russian ships with what continues to occur worldwide right now?
So I think at the end of the day, one of the takeaways of the events the last few weeks is very clear that the world needs to know that the Trump administration says what it means and means what it says. I think Secretary Rubio spoke very eloquently about where the U.S. stands and the Trump administration stands on Venezuela and other issues that have been in the news like Greenland.
Ultimately, the biggest threat to international norms is the Western Hemisphere and the United States being asleep at the switch while we are encroached from the North through the Arctic and from the South through Latin America. Ultimately,
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Chapter 5: What predictions can be made about the future of humanoid robots?
She made up a term. Was it Yotto Flop? She talked about the sheer scale of compute that's still necessary, the winning formula that she's seeing, and stock is down. Qualcomm, though, really managed to impress the market. But also, it put itself into the market that everyone was already talking about. Yeah. So you see the chip makers say, okay, the next phase is physical AI.
We did learn some hard lessons that it's difficult out there. Memory is a big story. And then there's robots, right? It is the Consumer Electronics Show, and there were real robots to see. And what do we have here? 14 different humanoids, not to mention the furry friends that we're seeing around here that are going to be a companion to your child or to the elderly.
It's been extraordinary to be here on the floor of CES. And you see the level of innovation, stuff that will stick, stuff that definitely won't. I still haven't tried that lollipop that plays music as you eat it there. Yeah, and we got some deals. We got some M&A. We got some fundraising. But it is the best way to start the year. It is.
I mean, boy, still talking about those valuations and flopping as well. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. But don't forget, later today, an exclusive interview is coming with the co-founder and CEO of Minimax. That's right here from CES to discuss the Hong Kong listing. China IPO market for all things AI is on fire. IPO 2026, looking good. Recap on the pod. You know where to find it.
For the final time from Las Vegas, this is Bloomberg Tech.
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