🏭 Breaking the Bottleneck is a weekly newsletter and interview series covering manufacturing technology and physical AI. Want to chat? Reach out at aditya@machinafactory.org or connect with me on LinkedIn.
This newsletter is brought to you with support from our featured partners: AMT, IMTS, Ironloop, Upkeep, and Industry 4.0 Club.
Some Interesting Reads:
A great profile on ASML’s new “high-NA” machine, which raises the numerical aperture of its optics (from 0.33 to 0.55) rather than switching to a new form of light. This lets it print features down to eight nanometers with three times the transistor density. [MIT Technology Review]
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TSMC is accelerating its build-out of its Arizona fabs because of the enormous demand for AI and plans to raise prices as well [CNBC]
If you are in NY this week, stop by this awesome event hosted by Manufacturing Happy Hour in Brooklyn.
Michael Kratsios released his version of Vannevar Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier, called Science, A New Golden Age. [White House]
A great perspective from Kyle Chan on the real end goal of Chinese subsidies with the country rolling back tax breaks on lithium EV [X]
McKinsey’s perspective on Agentic AI across the Supply Chain [McKinsey]
Psi Quantum, a company developing utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers using silicon photonics and their factory. [Sachin and Adam]
Air Liquide commits over $530M to U.S. Gas Plants [E+E Leaders]
An interesting conversation with the VP of Advanced Manufacturing Innovation at Magna on AI and robotics in manufacturing. [RoadtoAutonomy]
A new executive order preventing defense contractors’ waiver access to procure critical minerals and components from China [Manufacturing Dive].
Meanwhile in Europe, China has started to wield its rare earth control over the chemical, electric vehicle, and defense manufacturers [NY Times].
Blogs:
Products:
Generalist revealed its latest embodied foundation model, supporting a broad range of end effectors from 5-finger hands to specialized tools. Each hand is a different sensorimotor interface capturing geometry, contact, friction, forces, and dynamics into an end effector-specific language for physical interaction. The team was even able to modify the hands mid-rollout and let the same model keep running to great effect. [Generalist]
Rockwell Automation and Augury partner [ARC Advisory]
AMD unveils Kria module for real-time control, unified memory for robots [Robot Report]
Really impressive from Black Forest Labs deploying video models in real factory use cases for Audi. The tasks spanned kitting parts into structured trays, inserting electronic control units into tight-fitting fixtures, assembling components together, and handling soft, flexible materials like seals and cables.
Financing & Transactions 💵
Atoms raised $1.7B from a16z
Robotics and Physical AI • Financing • USA
Sila Nanotechnologies raised $300M led by Atreides and Sutter Hill Ventures
Energy and Batteries • Financing • USA
Arrakis raised $30M led by Blossom Capital
Manufacturing AI • Series A • Europe
Planned Downtime 🧑🔧
The Secret of the Odyssey
Breaking the Bottleneck is brought to you with support from our partners.
AMT & IMTS - The Association for Manufacturing Technology represents and promotes U.S.-based manufacturing technology and hosts the largest manufacturing technology trade show in North America, IMTS.
Ironloop - Ironloop is a modern OT/ICS software platform that delivers configuration-level intelligence, providing manufacturers with ground-truth security visibility and confidence in compliance across air-gapped networks.
Upkeep - CMMS Software helping maintenance teams manage work orders, assets, and preventive tasks efficiently from any device.
Industry 4.0 Club - Leading cross-functional group accelerating the adoption of Industry 4.0, delivering better experiences to consumers, better profits to manufacturers, and better jobs to factory workers.
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