Will you have a humanoid robot in your home in 2026, helping you with laundry, dishes, vacuuming and other tasks? Probably not you specifically, but there might just be a few in select home in a public beta, according to Peter Diamandis.
It feels like we’re at a tipping point right now in humanoid robotics. Models are getting released faster and faster, more and more capable than ever. Robots are actually taking paying gigs in warehouses and factories, and there’s accelerating innovation to have humanoid robots as friends and companions as well.
Author, engineer, doctor, investor, and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis just released a major report on the entire industry, and together we dive into what’s happening and what’s changing.
Hit play to see our conversation here, and subscribe to my YouTube channel …
One prediction Peter made: we’ll have humanoid robots in the home, helping us with our work, by 2026 in beta.
We discuss recent advancements, like the shipment of new models by Agility Robotics and Figure, and the development of Tesla’s Optimus. Peter Diamandis shares insights from his extensive report on the state of humanoid robotics, highlighting key players in both the United States and China.
We also talk about the implications of having humanoid robots integrated into various industries, the potential for radically reduced labor costs, and the impact on global economics. And we touch on the broader societal impact, evoking considerations for purpose and struggle in a highly automated future.
Check it out wherever you get your podcasts
Here’s what to expect:
- 00:00 Introduction to Humanoid Robots
- 01:07 Meet Our Expert Guest: Peter Diamandis
- 01:33 The Rapid Evolution of Humanoid Robots
- 03:06 The Future of Humanoid Robots in Society
- 07:13 Economic Implications of Humanoid Robots
- 12:17 Technological Advancements and Human Adaptation
- 19:28 The Design and Functionality of Humanoid Robots
- 22:00 Future of Work: Robots Taking Over
- 22:39 The Evolution of Robot Design
- 23:08 Challenges and Early Days of Robotics
- 23:42 The Rise of Robot Companies
- 24:26 Integration of AI and Robotics
- 25:56 China’s Role in the Robotics Revolution
- 28:58 3D Printing and Robotics
- 30:22 Top Players in the Robotics Industry
- 36:31 Robots in Medicine and Surgery
- 38:43 Conclusion and Upcoming Events
Transcript: humanoid robots with Peter Diamandis
Peter Diamandis: If you lease it like you lease a car, a $30,000 car, your price point per month is 300 bucks. And that translates amazingly to $10 a day and 40 cents an hour. So you’ve got labor, right? That’s waiting for whatever your wish is. You know, clean up the house, go mow the lawn, you know, please change the baby’s diapers.
John Koetsier: Today we’re gonna take a deep dive into the wonderful, weird and maybe worrisome future of humanoid robots. Hello and welcome to Tech First. My name is John Gutsier. Kind of feels like we’re at a tipping point right now for autonomous humanoid robots. Just recently I wrote about agility robotics, the first humanoid robot with an actual paying gig.
This week I wrote in my Forbes column about figure 31 months after incorporating 31 months figure is shipping its second model and getting paid. According to a new report, a major report by our guest today. There are now 16 major players in humanoid Robotics, and we’re gonna talk to the author. We’re gonna talk to him about all this stuff that’s going on.
Let me intro him. He has a degree in molecular genetics. He’s a medical doctor. He created the XPRIZE Foundation. Ever heard of that? In 1995, think $10 million to get the first private spacecraft into orbit. He co-founded Singularity University with Ray Kurzwell, co-founded an asteroid mining company. How cool is that?
And has written many books, including The Future is Faster than You Think. His name is Peter Diamandis. Welcome Peter.
Peter Diamandis: My pleasure, John. Good to be here. You know, it is sort of the year 2025, it feels like the future, and it, and it is the future, and it’s moving fast. I mean, we’re in a period of hypergrowth across almost every tech domain out there.
And it’s getting exciting. I, I think that our ability to predict what’s coming next is becoming so challenging but fun.
John Koetsier: That’s a problem for people like you because that is your business.
Peter Diamandis: Yes, for sure.
John Koetsier: Let’s dive in. Maybe first big general question. You wrote this massive report on humanoid robots.
Why’d you hit that right now? What interested you in the space? What did you want to accomplish?
Peter Diamandis: Yeah, every year or every other year, I put out what I call the meta trend report, and it’s a look at what I consider the massive trends that are unstoppable. That are moving very rapidly. AI is one.
Humanoid robotics or robotics in general. The revolution in transportation longevity and biotech. All of these areas are just, are accelerating. I. On the back of computation, on the back of of AI and humanoid robotics. And listen, I grew up on Star Trek, right? Yep. The Apollo program lit the fuse.
Star Trek showed me where we were going. I was much more a Star Trek than a Star Wars person, but still, I, you know, C3 PO and, and R 2D two were like, you know, a part of the family. At the end of the day, humanoid robotics. Has always been there at some point in the future, but it’s now that it’s really materializing, right?
We’re getting these robots that are multimodal, meaning they understand what they see. You can speak to them, understand what you’re asking them to do, and they can communicate back to you. And that’s the principle, sort of you know, massively upward tech that’s driving it. And that same time you’ve got the convergence of all these other technologies you know, energy, high energy density, batteries.
New sensor technologies, new materials new compute, you know, compute and radios, all these things coming together to make a generation of robots that are gonna be actually useful and actually humanoid in many ways. So, yeah, I put out this report you know, it’s changing so fast. The report is you know, q.
Q4 of 2024. I’ll update it again next year. There are about a hundred or so reasonably to well-funded humanoid robot companies. Majority of the United States, a number of them outta China. ’cause China needs them desperately. Mm-hmm. And has a number of economic issues that humanoid robots can’t help.
John Koetsier: Yep. Yeah. And Japan needs them tremendously. Japan as well, Japan, Korea, we all need them. Aging societies, no doubt about it. Yeah. I’m gonna go back to what you started with and you kind of ended that bit with, and that was a tremendous amount of change because I said it in the intro right off the top, like this humanoid robots has been kind of our, it’s been our dream, it’s been our fantasy for so long.
And yet it’s just in the last literally eight to 12 weeks, we’ve seen tremendous leaps on them. So figure one. Yeah, I talked about figure their first model moved at 17%, the speed of a human. So you want to get that in your, in your logistics operation, in your, in your warehouse. You know, you were gonna take a big hit in productivity, figure two.
So one generation. Yeah. We’re talking literally within a calendar year is 10 times faster.
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. And you know, Brett Atcock, who’s the CEO at figure is brilliant. He had built a company called Archer Aviation that is the Flying car company, the e vial, the name that rolls off a tongue onto the floor, electric vertical takeoff or landing.
And he’s a friend. He’s gonna be on my stage this year at the Abundance Summit in March. And full disclosure, my venture fund is an investor in, mm-hmm. In figure ai. Mm-hmm. And when I was there, I saw figure two, I also saw figure three. You know, we’re, we’re seeing a lot. These, these these humanoid robots are iterating very rapidly.
And of course the most magnificent thing in the end result will be robots, building robots all the way down.
John Koetsier: Yeah. And that’s really interesting. You mentioned figure three. I haven’t even heard of that yet. I mean, like the, the fact that figure has been able to get to. A shipping saleable model 31 months after incorporation speaks to, it’s, it, this is an ecosystem because they’re probably not building every single component themselves.
Now I’m speaking outsider. I don’t know. And you don’t have to reveal anything.
Peter Diamandis: Well, I, I think he is, you know, listen, I’ve, I’ve had, I’ve had Brett on my, on my Moonshots podcast, we’ve talked about this and originally he thought he would be able to buy subsystems mm-hmm. From suppliers. But the reality is to make it work, to make it reliable, to make it affordable, just like Elon had to vertically integrate in SpaceX Brett’s vertically integrated at figure as well.
So a lot of it when you go and visit his headquarters and his manufacturing plant, this is where electronics are being built. These are where the mechanical systems are being built and a lot of it is being sort of, you know, from ground up at figure, which is allowing them to really understand the.
The entire system and subsystems and be able to make collaborative improvements across these things,
John Koetsier: then I’m even more shocked at that pace. Yeah. Okay. Let, let’s open it up and, and I mean, one thing I wanted to ask is when will we have like a good humanoid robot? And I don’t know what good means here, but I mean, obviously we have some that are, that are on that spectrum, let’s say, and, and you know, can replace a human, maybe do better, maybe less, or something like that.
How do you. Run that calculus. So what is a good humanoid robot and what’s your timetable to something that maybe is. Just as good plug and play as a human in challenging manufacturing situations.
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. Well first of all, I just wanna offer out to all listeners you can get the report for free@metatrendreport.com and you’ll see the robotics report there and you can get all the details.
I do go into detail on what I considered at that time, 16 of the top robot companies. I probably would add another four right now. And, and we have to look at, you know, in my mind there are two major. You know, the biggest players in the United States, and then there are a number in China. Again, we should really dive into what, what is driving the situation in China, but in the US figure and and, and Tesla with optimist is there, right?
So we’ve seen Optimist two we’ll see Optimist three. Now two things that both Brett Edcock and Elon agree on. Is number one. We will see by 2040 about 10 billion humanoid robots in the market, which is pretty extraordinary. It’s, you know, more than one per person. And another side note on that is, you know, Elon recently said something.
I, I interviewed him on stage at in Saudi Arabia a few months ago at the, at the FII eight summit. I’ve known him for 25 years. And, you know, he said, listen, I expect. That, that Tesla will be known for robot manufacturing more than car manufacturing. Now, if you think about it, the total number of cars on the planet are just about a billion.
And if there really is gonna be a market for for 10 billion robots that’s a pretty tasty target to go after. Mm-hmm. The other thing that both Brett and Elon have said is the price point likely to be. You know, 20 to 30,000. Let’s use $30,000 as the number. And what gets really interesting is that you can predict the price on a per kilogram basis for something that has certain level of complex in electronics like a robot.
And $30,000 is their number. If you lease it like you lease a car, a $30,000 car, your price point per month is 300 bucks. And that translates amazingly to $10 a day and 40 cents an hour. So you’ve got labor, right? That’s waiting for whatever your wish is. You know, clean up the house, go mow the lawn, you know, please change the baby’s diapers.
You know, I mean, it’ll be, I think it’ll be a few years before you let the ba, the robot change the baby’s diapers, but it will get there. Yeah. I mean, incredibly how fast AI is materialized as our psychotherapist, our consultant, our physician it’s all, it’s all moving at that extraordinary rate.
So when will we see in the house? I think we’ll see versions available in the house by the end of 2026. Wow. They’ll be in, in beta mode. I can’t wait to get one. But by the end of this decade, we’ll see them in a variety of places. You know I, I’m in Santa Monica having this conversation with you and what’s interesting, and I’m observant of, of new technology out in the field, right?
So for the last, for about a year ago. To two years ago, we would see Waymo’s driving around the road with a pa, with a driver in the driver’s seat, and they were, they were mapping roads and gathering data. And now, you know, on a typical day, I’ll see eight to 10 Waymo’s without a driver in the driver’s seat.
You know, buzzing on bottom, big
John Koetsier: wheeled
Peter Diamandis: robots, big wheeled robots. And then there’s this other little six wheeled robot called a cocoa that does food delivery that’s on the streets here of Santa Monica. And the first time you see that Waymo, the first time you see that cocoa robot, you’re like taking photos and you’re like, wow.
And then, you know, a few months later it’s like, please get outta my way for God’s sakes. You’re a nuisance. And so I asked my friend, what’s it gonna feel like when you’ve got these humanoid robots walking around every place, you know, just. And he said something very, very wise. He said, it’s gonna feel normal.
Mm-hmm. There’ll be a point at which it goes from like, wow to, yeah, that’s, that’s our world today.
John Koetsier: Crazy. To imagine right now. But I understand that. The question is, and, and there’s gonna be some time to adjust to this, but incredibly short periods of time when we think about human society laws how norms, how slowly those can change.
We have an atom bomb, a hydrogen bomb, an anti-matter bomb that is going to burst on our culture and on our economy in this next 15 to 20 year period. Mm. Where we’re you said we’re getting labor down to. $10 a day. That’s a, that’s a wonderful thing in a world where we have tons of jobs that don’t happen that, that, that don’t get done.
We don’t clean up our beaches. We don’t clean up our, our, our toxic totally. All that stuff. And we are, our, our elderly are, are underserved, under cared for. Not to think that. But it’s also a very scary world for somebody who earns a living, lifting and moving things or even doing intellectual work. We’ve seen chat, GBT talk about that.
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. So it is fascinating. And we’ll see certain transitions like an Uber driver in the future rather than driving a car around to earn money. May well buy three or four cyber cabs and own a fleet of cyber cabs that go around and earn that person money while they’re at home watching TV or going to school.
So we’ll put that to work. You know, I was on stage years ago with I a, a Indian guru by the name of Side Guru. I don’t know if you know him. And I don’t. We were, we were on he’s brilliant and. He said something I’ll never forget. He said, technology is the means by which humanity takes a vacation from survival.
Right. So we have, for all of human history, right? Homo sapiens are some two, 300,000 years old. Majority of our existence as our current species. And before that, with our, our predecessors was about fundamental survival. That’s what your job was. To survive. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Fine food, fine shelter, not get eaten.
That was it. And recently, sometime over the last few hundred years, we came up with this idea of a job. Mm-hmm. Like a job is a rather recent you know, construct. Maybe it’s 500 years, a thousand years, but it wasn’t much more. Right. There was the priesthood, there was a scholar, there were a few different things.
Everybody else just. Farmed food to get food and survived. So unfortunately, much of our culture is, is, is entwined with Tell me about yourself. Well, I am a, you know, I’m a writer. I’m a reporter, I’m a physician, I’m a, I’m a whatever, you know, I’m a lawyer, whatever your, your job is. And we get so entwined with that.
So the challenge is gonna be when these. AI driven elements, right? The human, the ai, physical embodiment in a robot or an ai in a GPT advanced model is doing what you’re doing better than you do it. Mm-hmm. And how will we deal with that? Will we partner with it? Will we get jealous of it? Will we find other things to do with our time?
You know, majority of the world as a job, not because they love what they’re doing. They have a job because it’s what puts food on the table and gives them insurance for their family. And they didn’t dream about doing that when they were a kid.
John Koetsier: No, no, no, no. They didn’t dream about moving part A to slot B or something like that.
Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And that and that. I love that part of it, and I love, hopefully we can be. Have the freedom to become more human and also to find things where we can contribute value that a machine can’t in some way, shape or form. And also that contribute value to our own sense, but it does mean we have to reinvent our economic system.
Are you confident that we can do that?
Peter Diamandis: Yeah, so that’s a really important point. Economic, the classical economics that have governed our world are broken. And no longer apply. And if I had enough time, I would work on an economics book, but I don’t, I’ve got three in production, but not one in economics.
You know, the global GDP is in 2025 is estimated to be about 110 trillion dollars. Okay. Half of that is labor, meaning half of that is the the potential market for humanoid robots. Mm-hmm. Globally. It’s a massive, massive opportunity and which is why we’re seeing so many robot companies coming in and capital being invested into building these companies.
So we’re gonna, as if you look at putting the cost of labor. In the denominator and dividing it by really, really small numbers tending towards zero. You get a global GDP that sort of goes through the roof. Mm-hmm. There was one idea years ago, I don’t know if it was attributed to Jeff Bezos, someone else, which is at some point when we start replacing humans with AI or robots, we’re gonna tax the AI and robots and Bill Gates use that.
It was Bill Gates. Okay. We’ll use that tax base to create some version of UBI. Right. Racial basic income. You know, I think people, you know, the biggest concern I have is that people need purpose and people need struggle. Not too much struggle, but the right amount of struggle, right? So I have two 13-year-old boys.
They love their video games. And the video game’s too easy. It’s boring. They stop if it’s too hard. They don’t play it. Just getting that right positioning. So, you know, we need we rise to the level of the struggle in our job, in our, in our communities that we feel like we can achieve. So what’s it gonna be like when these robots and these ais are able to.
Enable us to do, you know, wanna write a book? Can you click this button? Your book is, is published under your name, but it was written by your ai. I mean, this is, this is the exciting future. I mean, you know, I wrote, my first book was called Abundance. The Future is Better Than You Think. And, I just sold a follow on called Age of Abundance.
Elon’s agreed to write the forward for it, which will come out in 2026. And the argument for creating increasing abundance in the world defined by enabling every man, woman, and child to have access to all the food, water, and energy, healthcare, education that they desire that story has gotten incredibly better, right?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s AI and robotics that’s gonna enable that age of abundance where effectively the cost of things. You know, it tends towards zero,
John Koetsier: the cost of education alone. I mean I’m a a chat GPT subscriber and I’m a curious person. And you see something, you snap a picture or you ask a question and the amount that you can learn, that curiosity machine that, that has become is incredible.
I loved your point about frustration. I spoke to a game designer one time. He said a perfect game is a balance between frustration and pleasure.
Peter Diamandis: Yes. Yeah, for for sure. I. So robots in particular, right? A few questions to ask ourselves here, which is, they’re humanoid robots. Why are they humanoid? Yes. Why are all of these robots coming out with.
10 fingers, two legs, head a body. Why aren’t they coming out like an octopus? Why aren’t they coming out with, you know, six arms, you know, 12 fingers per hand and so forth? And it’s interesting, right? ’cause there’s a, there’s a psychological trade and there’s a environmental interface trade. So the theory is that everything that a human can do.
Everything that’s been built for humans, a humanoid robot can do. You can crawl under a bed to grab a sock. It can open a door, it can climb stairs, it can pick up a hand drill and you don’t have to retool the world around us for a humanoid robot. ’cause humanoid robot is effectively doing what every human could do.
And I find that fascinating and I think true. A friend of mine said, well, what don’t you want like a, a, a kitchen robot to have multiple arms so you can pick up all the ingredients and be mixing them together? And I said, sure. But that’s a kitchen robot, not a humanoid robot. And if you had one humanoid robot and you needed more arms, you could put three in the kitchen and have them collaborate.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is gonna be fascinating to see what models, I mean. You know, science fiction has done us a service of preparing us for this future. You know, we saw all the droids on Star Wars and we saw data on Star Trek and we’ve seen Bicentennial Man.
John Koetsier: Mm-hmm.
Peter Diamandis: Did you see the recent robot called Clone?
John Koetsier: I did not.
Peter Diamandis: Not. So there’s a, there’s a robot that is effectively using hydraulics instead of electromechanical systems. And so it has created arms where. The, the muscular system, like in our, is in our forearm here, moving the hands and our, our muscles act in the myosin contract and expand. And they use hydraulics to contract and expand.
Wow. And it looks like Westworld, it looks identical to to Westworld. And, you know, that’s an interesting approach to it. So we’re gonna still see these things evolving continuously over the decades ahead getting more and more human-like. Getting
John Koetsier: it is really interesting to have humanoid robots, and I understand it from the point of view.
Hey, interfaces with our world. It’s interesting if in 50 years or a hundred years almost all work is done by robots. We start saying, Hey, we don’t need to like, you know, make things that work in the world of humans. The world of humans doesn’t intersect with all that making and building and shipping and stuff like that.
We’ll make whatever we wanna make. Yeah. It’s also interesting to think, okay, I I only, I can only afford one robot. I need one that does it all right? Yeah. And hey, you can get the extra arm attachment that plugs into the chest and now your, your cook has three arms, right? So the world is our oyster. We can do what we want and
Peter Diamandis: the beautiful thing.
About it all is its self-referential and evolving. Meaning, you know, in the not too distant future, we’ll have a set of ais designing all these generations of robots. And the robots will build the next generations of robots, and you’ll try a whole bunch of them. You’ll see which ones work and which one stand up.
And, and there will be robots that work the field, that look different perhaps, than robots that are in a automotive manufacturing. But in the beginning we’re starting with a general purpose humanoid robot. Now, what, what’s the limitations on these things? Is it power? Is it compute? Is it wear and tear?
You know, it’s still the early days where mm-hmm. And what’s interesting as well is if you think about it in the beginning of the automotive age, you know, circa the 2010s to twenties, there were hundreds of car companies. Mm-hmm. Hundreds of them. And everybody was getting in, everybody was designing theirs, and then they fought it out and the, you know, got the primes or the majors around the world.
I think it’s the same thing in robots. We’re seeing, we’re gonna see hundreds of robots companies. Mm-hmm. And then there will be, you know, a top, I don’t know, 5, 10, 20 of them around the world.
John Koetsier: The other interesting thing about the early days of automotive is you had you didn’t have vertical, vertical integration in a lot of cases.
You had people who would build a chassis and you had coach makers who would make the actual sort of part of the car that humans were in lived in. And that’s a question I’ve had. I mean, you’ve listed 16 major players in the report, you say, I’d actually probably add four more just off the top of my head right now.
Do you see this evolving in a way, sort of like the Wintel thing evolve, where there’s software and there’s hardware divisions? You talked about the integration. Yeah. At at companies being really, really critical and important and Apple follows that model to a t obviously, but we also see a lot of robots that, hey, you know, you can put CLO in there.
You can put chat GBT in there. You can put Gemini in there, whatever. Yeah. How do you see that all evolving?
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. Well, we’re seeing that right now. We’re seeing, like, for example, obviously Tesla and Optimists will focus using Grok and XAI. Mm-hmm. It’ll be a, a full integration. And in fact, the, you know, all of the optimist robots as they’re in working out in the environment and they’re seeing things, they’re collecting data to help train the next generation of ROC four.
Right. We talk about a. Data wall, we don’t have enough data to train the next generations. Well, we’re going to cut the data from these robots out there interacting with the real world. We’ve seen basically figure is aligned fully with open ai. Mm-hmm. Right? But then you’ve got Peggy Johnson at Agility.
Right. They have their robot digit and they are basically open to any system.
John Koetsier: Yep.
Peter Diamandis: And so you’ll have that where. Some of the robot companies will just swap in whichever large language model Makes sense. You’ve got Nvidia investing in many of these top companies. Mm-hmm. Because they want to keep the party going.
Mm-hmm. These robots are a way to, you know, continue creation of chips and demand for large language models. But then you’ve got China, and we should talk about China for a second, shall we?
John Koetsier: Yes. Let’s,
Peter Diamandis: yeah. So, I mean, what made China successful over the last 40 odd years? I. Is their low labor rate. They had a lot of humans at very low cost that could manufacture almost anything.
And we in the western world, were willing to take that super low cost and pay the additional for, for shipping and delays and put our supply chain. You know, on the other side of the planet, out of our control. Out of our control. Because they were, because the Chinese manufacturing was so cheap and reliable.
Right? Foxcon over there making the apple. Mm-hmm. IPhones very famously. And then of course, COVID hit and the supply chain broke. And everybody’s saying we can onshore stuff now. So manufacturing gets pulled out of China, but at the same time. The results of the one child policy materialize.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden there’s an aging population. You have a much less youth coming in because they cut them. You know, the reproduction rate in half, you have an aging population that needs help. They, they, you know, think about this. You got four grandparents and one kid. Mm-hmm. I know. Wow.
Yeah. It’s, it’s tough. And, and the other, the cost of living has been going up in China, so the labor rate per hour is going up. And as a result of this, China desperately needs humanoid robots for a number of reasons. One, take care of the elderly. And two, to keep their cost. Right? Because again, think about this, California minimum wage is 20 bucks an hour.
How do you ever not put a robot in that spot at 40 cents an hour? Yeah. Which works 24 7, no drug testing, no fights with her girlfriend or boyfriend, you know, no sick days. I mean, it gets pretty compelling. Mm-hmm. So China needs it. It’s an existential threat for China, and as you said, Japan. Other parts of Asia much of Europe, you know, you know, Elon’s been very loud about this.
I have as well that the biggest problem on the planet is not gonna be overpopulation of Earth. This under population, I.
John Koetsier: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think we’re a ways from that, but obviously the trends are in that direction. Certainly in certain nations. No doubt about it. The interesting thing about China as well is that their competitive advantage over the past probably two decades, has shifted from being the lowest cost area to the ecosystem of production capability.
So you need to make something. All the makers of all the bits are in the same. 20 mile radius, 30 kilometer radius, whatever it is. And it’s really hard to like invent that instantly in reinvent that in America or Western Europe or something like that. So, we’ll interest, interest to see how that goes.
Also interesting to see how 3D printing, if that. Evolves further comes into this question as well. I mean, the idea of the cornucopia and you know, you manufacture wherever you are, right? Yeah. That puts everything up upside down for
Peter Diamandis: sure. And I mean, the 3D printing market’s been crushed over the last few years.
If you look at companies going into business and so forth. But still, we’re seeing 3D printing as important components in automotive. In rockets.
John Koetsier: Rockets, exactly.
Peter Diamandis: Rockets the toughest spot. Yeah. Pretty extraordinary in rocket engine development. You have relativity based the US Navy.
John Koetsier: I need a part, I’m in the middle of the Mediterranean.
The part is in that I need is in Virginia, you know? Yes. And I’ll make one right now.
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. It’s, it is extraordinary. But I, and I do agree with you, I can imagine 3D printers cranking out components for, for robots on demand, you know, need to fix it. Instead of keeping a supply of all the components, you’ve got files and you just hit print on what you need.
John Koetsier: Yeah. It’s amazing. I mean, we can go lots of different places. Imagine going to the moon, imagine going to the Mars and you have the capability, you find the resources and you build what you want on site rather than shipping it all there. Right? So we can go all kinds of directions that are way too far here.
You mentioned let’s talk top players and then maybe let’s wrap a a after that. Yeah. You mentioned 16 major players. You’ve mentioned two in the states. You mentioned China. There’s, there’s a bunch there. Who, who are you seeing as kinda leading the space right now that really interesting to watch?
Peter Diamandis: Well, I mean, without question, it it from my mind it’s figure and and Optimus, right?
Figure and, and Tesla. You also have a, a company that manufactures the Apollo Robot Aprons was Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Aprons is doing a, a damn good design. And they were early in this, in fact, a lot of the work. Done by other robot companies, were done by electronics. Mm-hmm. And they’ve ended up basically supporting supporting these companies.
You know, they’re, and what’s interesting about them
John Koetsier: as well is that they have a very pragmatic approach. I’ve interviewed their CEO very interesting long history in building automation parts and stuff like that, and they’re building up to the full humanoid robot here, and they’ll do what works.
SO’S necessary. They won’t go, they’re not going for the moonshot, right? You’re going for what works today and tomorrow. It’s, it, it’s a really unique approach and I, I’m interested in ’em. Agility I think is super interesting as well.
Peter Diamandis: Agility. Yep. With their district. Why are you
John Koetsier: high on Tesla? I mean, and on optimist, because we’ve seen interesting progress there.
No doubt about it. But we’ve also seen, you know, kind of avatar ridealongs, if I could put it that way. So there’s been some, there’s been some doubt there.
Peter Diamandis: I’m high on it because I would never bet against Elon bluntly. I also think that they have one of the most advanced engineering and AI capabilities in house.
And he’s identified this as the core of their future. You’ve got Boston Dynamics, of course. Yep. You know the team of Boston Dynamics has been a leader in this area for ages. Their old version of their of their robot. Atlas used to be hydraulics, right? Mm-hmm. And, and it would do their famous video doing flips and back flips and, and doing parkour.
And they just moved Atlas from hydraulics, which would leak hydraulics, literally, but it was super strong. And they’ve transitioned it to an all electric. They’re partnered with Nvidia and they’re an amazing company. And, you know, at a, you know, billion plus valuation. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Unit tree out of China I think is, is doing extremely well. Another company at a billion dollars. And what’s interesting about unit tree is that they proposed a robot at a $16,000 price tag. Wow. And then of course, the US tariffs would double that $32,000. But, but it’s a, it’s a small and agile robot that can be available. And I, I can imagine a future in which you’ve got a few of these and they are just.
In the background doing their work. Mm-hmm. Doing the gardening, cleaning up the house behind you. Right. There’s one X technologies that is just
John Koetsier: make life better.
Peter Diamandis: Yeah. One X is TAR is also partnered with OpenAI. So you see OpenAI and Nvidia partnering with a number of these companies and providing the software layer you know, I’m
John Koetsier: trying to recollect from your report.
Yeah. And it’s, it’s evading me Europe. Are we seeing anything interesting in Europe? No. I mean, there’s major automation and manufacturing and engineering houses in Europe comes to mind. Others. But are you seeing anything interesting in robots? I’m
Peter Diamandis: not, not yet. Not that have really made it to the top dozen.
Mm-hmm. Again, we’ve got abot out of China. We’ve got a company called Beijing, HRIC. Out of China. Again, a number of these companies and at the end of the day and also one other one, I, there is one out of Europe. It’s out of the uk It’s Engineered Arts, right? Yes. It’s the Amika robot. Yeah. And Amika, I’ve had on my stage at the abundance some number of times what makes Amica super super cool is the facial expressions, right?
Amika has got something like 30. Actuators. Mm-hmm. In, I’m gonna say her face. I’m gonna give her a gender. Gender, yeah. And I’ve had her on stage a few times. And, and Amika Iss Amika runs any large language model that you want. Will Jackson, who’s the CEO There is Incredible. And Amika is the kind of humanoid robot that would be at the front desk of a hotel, or, you know, a concierge service that’s there to interact with you, help you out.
So out of Europe, really, you know. For me, Amika is the likely major player today. I’m sure there are other, there have to be companies out of Germany that are being developed there to be.
John Koetsier: Yeah, and I mean, Europe is like, like, like Japan in that sense as well. Huge need as well. And Europe also. Because it’s the European community, they have sort of a collective will Yeah.
To do certain things sometimes, whether it’s an airplane and and manufacturing that, whether it’s whatever it is. And so if they see something that they think is critical for their wellbeing and survival, they’ll put a big team, international team on it. Yep.
Peter Diamandis: But I don’t, but I think at the end of the day, it is going to be the cost is, it’s the players are gonna be the players who are manufacturing the most.
I. Bringing the cost per unit down and able to ride the AI curve mm-hmm. And integrate whatever the most powerful AI is. Now you have to remember that these robots share another major benefit when you have a fleet of a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million robots and one robot. See something unique that no other robot has ever seen before.
Yes, yes. All of a sudden, all the robots now understand that. Yeah. And so one of the questions I I say is, listen, I have a medical family and I have a few nieces that are in medical school. One is a surgeon. I’m going, you know, you’re gonna be replaced by robots. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I don’t mean robots where it’s a extension of a human, I mean, a robot doing the surgery on its own.
John Koetsier: Yeah. Yeah.
Peter Diamandis: You know, because. If you, if you wanna know that, if you’re interviewing a surgeon, there’s one question you ask the surgeon, do you know what it is? I have no idea how saved of your
John Koetsier: hands.
Peter Diamandis: It’s how many times have you done this surgery this morning? Right. It’s ouch. The frequency, the frequency at which a surgeon has done a particular surgery is, is critical.
Their success rate is a function of that. ’cause they’ve seen every variation of every situation and they have a, a font of knowledge, which. Won’t surprise them in a particular case. Mm-hmm. Now, of course, you know, a surgeon may do few thousand surgeries, but imagine a robotic surgeon that has shared the experience of 10 million surgeries and they all have seen it.
And the surgeon, robot surgeon at hand doesn’t I. Have any jitter, the robot can see an infrared and ultraviolet, a violet, you know, didn’t have too much coffee that morning, no fight with their spouse in the morning. And so we’re gonna see robots entering into interesting places. My my favorite is you, you know, you need surgery, you’re at the hospital and you see this human coming at you.
Introducing themselves as your surgeon, and you go, oh, no, no, no. I do not want that human touching me. I want the robot that’s done it a million times.
John Koetsier: The thing that comes to mind is the first Neuralink patient the, the human surgeon prepped and drilled through the skull. The robotic surgeon actually inserted the electrodes into the, into the brain, and yeah.
And, and that went incredibly well in, in a very short period of time. The other thing that, you know, you just mentioned, right, like those robot surgeons. They’ve done, they’ve done, they’ve seen it done. They’ve, they’ve essentially done, because it’s a distributed bean in a sense, in terms of intelligence, a million surgeries.
They don’t have one specialty because they’ve seen 500 different surgeries done and have all that experience from all the over the world. It’s a crazy, interesting world we’re going into. I wanna thank you for the report and for sharing it. Thank you. You have a conference that’s coming up in la You mentioned it once.
Yeah. What is that conference name again? It’s,
Peter Diamandis: it’s called Thank you. It’s called the Abundance Summit. And the program’s Abundance 360 people can go to abundance three sixty.com to learn. We spend a deep dive full day in ai. Some of the top CEOs, AI companies that are there. Elon was speaking last year.
I’ll see if I get him back again this year. We go into a day on exponential tech. Kathy Wood, Vinod, sla, two of the biggest investors in the field are there. Brett Atcock will be there. We’re doing I have Max Hodak, who’s the co-founder of Neuralink with Elon, but he’s got a new version of Brain Computer Interface speaking.
So we have a day, you know, we do a, a big session on blockchain and, and crypto. Then a day on longevity technologies and a day on moonshots like. How do you, how do you build a moonshot companies that’s Abundance 360. And and then again, the this humanoid report please get it, consume it. I have a whole section on first principle thinking and the fundamentals that are making this robot companies materialize.
And that’s at meta trend report.com. Yeah.
John Koetsier: Wonderful. Well, thank you for this time. I really do appreciate it.
Peter Diamandis: Thank you, John. Pleasure speaking with you. Happy holidays.