• A new humanoid robot product line – NEO
  • The first commercial rover is headed to the Moon
  • A new precision medicine company just came out of stealth

Dear Reader,

The development in European energy policy this weekend was fascinating. While the timing may have been coincidental, the juxtaposition couldn’t have been more striking.

Finland announced that it has begun commercial operation of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor on the country’s west coast. Making the news even more remarkable is the fact that Olkiluoto 3 is the first nuclear power plant to open in 16 years in Europe.

It was originally planned for operation back in 2009 but experienced more than a decade in delays due to the addition of extra safety mechanisms.

The timing is amazing for Finland. Given the conflict between Russia and NATO in the Ukraine, Finland lost its natural gas imports that contributed to about 10% of its total energy production. Olkiluoto 3 will largely solve that problem and is a critical piece of Finland’s energy policy to become carbon neutral as a country.

Standing in stark contrast is Germany, which over the weekend shut down and removed its last three nuclear power plants from its power grid. Making matters more interesting was a poll from last week that showed that 59% of Germans were against shutting the nuclear power plants down, and only 34% were supportive.

And unlike Finland, Germany is moving in the opposite direction with regards to carbon neutrality. Over the last two years, Germany has been increasing its use of coal. Coal is now responsible for more than 36% of the nation’s electricity production.

Germany’s energy policy has killed the country’s energy independence, increased carbon emissions, and is resulting in German companies moving manufacturing plants out of the country to jurisdictions that have access to cheap, dependable sources of electricity.

The reality is that if the world is serious about clean energy production, nuclear power (fission and/or fusion) must be the most critical part of energy policy.

Onneksi Olkoon Suomi! (Congratulations Finland!)

The latest humanoid robot – meet Eve…

Last week we had a look at Agility Robotics’ latest and greatest bipedal robot Digit. It’s designed specifically for industrial applications in warehouses.

Today, we have to highlight a brand new entrant into the humanoid robot space. It’s a company called 1X Technologies. And it’s building a robot that’s designed to interact with humans on a daily basis.

Meet NEO Eve:

Eve, a Bipedal Robot from 1X

Source: 1X Technologies

“NEO” is 1X’s product name for its AI-powered humanoid robots, and “Eve” is the android model shown above. The nomenclature suggests that there will be others to follow… Adam, perhaps?

1X Technologies took the approach to clothe its intelligent machines. We can see what appears to be modern athletic gear. It’s in place to hide all the mechanical joints, motors, and the power supply. It would be no different than putting clothes on Agility’s Digit or Boston Dynamics’ Atlas.

We can also see that Eve is equipped with what appear to be modern sneakers. No doubt they feature a sole with a good grip to enhance the robot’s ability to navigate its surroundings.

And notice the hands. They look just like human hands. There are five digits, one of which is an opposable thumb.

This tells us that Eve wasn’t designed for a specific task like moving pallets around like Digit. Instead, Eve is geared to do much more dexterous tasks – those that are common within a home or office setting.

This is certainly an exciting development.

And 1X Technologies just completed a $23.5 million venture capital (VC) round that caught my eye. That’s because none other than OpenAI was a major backer in the raise.

That’s right – the creator of the generative AI ChatGPT that’s set the world ablaze this year is getting behind 1X Technologies and its new robot Eve.

I always pay attention to which companies are investing in venture capital rounds. Very often, part of the motivation is to establish a relationship with a company for future collaboration or even acquisition.

In this case, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the team at OpenAI is looking at Eve as a potential “body” for the powerful GPT software. Generative AI certainly has utility in a humanoid robot designed for human interaction. And if coupled with other forms of AI like reinforcement learning, which will be necessary for a humanoid robot to function in unstructured situations, NEO Eve could become remarkably useful. This combination of software and hardware could result in a bipedal that is “smart” and can perform any task a human can.

So this is absolutely a company we need to be tracking closely going forward.

And get this – a recent report from Goldman Sachs around humanoid robotics suggests that this will be a $150 billion market by 2035. That makes it a massive greenfield opportunity. The smart money can see that all of the key technological pieces are now available. The task has suddenly switched to integration, productization, and commercialization as quickly as possible.

My gut tells me that Goldman’s forecast is way too conservative…

A glimpse of how human outposts in space will come together…

A company called Astrolab just inked a deal with SpaceX to take its lunar rover to the Moon.

What’s fascinating here is that Astrolab doesn’t have any NASA contracts whatsoever. Nobody has asked it to deliver a transport vehicle to the lunar surface.

Instead, Astrolab is taking matters into its own hands. The company figures that if it already has a rover sitting on the Moon, NASA will have to think very hard about contracting with Astrolab once its manned missions to the Moon pick up in earnest. In essence, supply creates its own demand.

It’s a bold move. But it makes perfect sense.

After all, manned missions to the Moon will require an incredible amount of cargo to be launched into space and delivered to the lunar surface. If there’s already a rover waiting, that’s one less thing NASA would have to worry about it.

Here’s a look at the rover in action:

Here we can see the Astrolab team testing out its rover in the desert. And it’s incredibly functional.

The idea isn’t just to move people around from place to place. The vehicle was designed to haul cargo and help conduct experiments as well.

So this rover will be going to the moon on a future SpaceX launch. This is the very first commercial cargo contract that SpaceX has signed… but I think we’ll start to see a lot more of these.

The reality is that the dramatic reduction in the cost of launching payloads into orbit has made it possible for small, private companies to put payloads into space or even on the surface of the moon or Mars. This is something that just wasn’t realistic even a decade ago.

What’s exciting is that innovative companies with great ideas can pre-emptively launch critical equipment and necessities necessary to support a human presence on another world. I can even imagine that some companies will look to launch critical resources, commodities like food and water, to support human life well in advance to an outpost being constructed.

Private companies are in a great position to move fast, innovate, and deliver payloads where they will be needed. Without the bureaucracy of a government agency, they can just get things done. The business contracts can be put in place at a later date. There’s some risk involved, but the goods will be needed to support an outpost.

This is a perfect example of the shift that we’ve been exploring in The Bleeding Edge. Government agencies like NASA no longer control all extraterrestrial economic activity. There is a lot more collaboration with private companies that will both support NASA’s initiatives, as well as pursue their own commercial goals.

A natural extension of CRISPR technology – the enzyme…

David Liu, a founder I’ve followed closely for years now, just took his latest company out of stealth. The company is called Resonance Medicine. And I couldn’t be more excited about what it’s working on.

Some of us might remember that Liu helped found both Beam Therapeutics and Prime Medicine. We’ve talked about both companies in these pages before.

Both Beam and Prime Medicine are genetic editing companies with unique approaches that differ from the “original” CRISPR-Cas9 technology. They are working on therapies that are optimized for different therapeutic applications.

And it turns out that Resonance Medicine is going to be highly complementary to both. That’s because Residence is focused on engineering enzymes for use in genetic editing therapies.

These enzymes are what encapsulate a genetic therapy as it is delivered to a specific target within the body. And the enzyme also facilitates the cutting or editing of DNA upon arriving at its target location.

For example, many readers will be familiar with CRISPR Cas-9. This is the first generation of CRISPR technology.

Well, Cas-9 refers to the specific enzyme that the first CRISPR therapies use. Cas-9 actually stands for CRISPR associated protein No. 9. It’s what cuts out the mutation in DNA to be replaced with a correct version.

Since then there have been numerous new enzymes developed. And they each have their own therapeutic applications and specialties.

So it seems Liu and Resonance Medicine intend to up the ante. They are going to focus entirely on new CRISPR enzymes. Then they will partner with companies like Beam and Prime Medicine to incorporate these new enzymes into highly customized therapies.

It makes perfect sense that there be a company that just focuses on enzymes given their importance in genetic editing. And a company like Resonance will be a great compliment to Liu’s other companies, Beam and Prime, as well as so many others in the space.

And that means Residence Medicine could be an incredible “picks and shovels” play on the entire genetic editing space in time. A company like this will probably be looking towards an IPO in two- or three-years’ time.

Regards,

Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge