<p>This Week in AI sneak peak! If you enjoy the episode find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube by looking up &quot;This Week in AI&quot; or by going to <strong>thisweekinai.ai</strong></p><p><br></p><p>This week Jason sat down with Jake Loosararian and Chris Lattner on Episode 6 of This Week in AI. Jake is the CEO and co-founder of Gecko Robotics, a company deploying purpose-built robots and AI for mission-critical infrastructure inspection across energy, defense, and manufacturing. Chris is the CEO and co-founder of Modular, building a universal software layer that lets developers run AI models across Nvidia, AMD, and Apple silicon without being locked into any single hardware vendor.</p><p><br></p><p>We explore the GPU shortage, why China&#39;s chip smuggling reveals the stakes of the AI cold war, how purpose-built robotics are beating humanoids on ROI, the case for American reindustrialization, and why the next decade could be the best ever for private equity in capital-intensive industries.</p><p><br></p><ul><li><strong>Purpose-Built Robots vs. Humanoids:</strong> Jake has been building mission-critical robots for 13 years. He explains why general-purpose humanoids still have too little ROI for industrial use, and why specialized robots that find and fix problems are winning in the field.</li><li><strong>The GPU Shortage Is Real:</strong> Chris breaks down why you can&#39;t just go buy 100 Blackwell chips today, why Nvidia&#39;s Cuda creates massive lock-in, and how Modular is building a unified software layer across all major chip architectures.</li><li><strong>Google TPUs Are the Sleeper</strong>: Chris ranks Google as the number one threat to Nvidia&#39;s dominance, ahead of Amazon&#39;s Trainium and AMD.</li><li><strong>China&#39;s Chip Smuggling &amp; the AI Cold War:</strong> A Supermicro co-founder allegedly smuggled $2.5B in Nvidia chips to China using fake serial numbers and a hairdryer. </li><li><strong>The Best Decade for Private Equity:</strong> Jake makes the case that capital-intensive, commoditized infrastructure assets: waste-to-energy, water treatment, old power plants will all generate incredible returns.</li><li><strong>Self-Driving State of Play</strong>: Chris, a former Tesla Autopilot lead, gives his read on Waymo&#39;s lead, Tesla&#39;s small Austin pilot, and why the real signal is when Tesla starts filing for fully autonomous permits in California.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Learn more about Gecko Robotics: https://www.geckorobotics.com</p><p>Learn more about Modular: https://www.modular.com/</p><p><br></p><p>This Week In AI is made possible by:</p><p>*PayPalOpen* - One Platform for all Business: paypalopen.com</p><p><br></p><p>*Timestamps:*</p><p>00:00 Welcome &amp; intro to Jake Lu (Gecko Robotics) and Chris Lattner (Modular)</p><p>01:34 Gecko&#39;s 13-year journey &amp; the Cantilever platform</p><p>05:15 Chris Lattner on Modular: replacing Cuda &amp; unifying AI hardware</p><p>11:10 Nvidia lock-in, AMD&#39;s Rock &amp; why the software stack is broken</p><p>19:49 The GPU shortage: how real is it?</p><p>22:13 Who challenges Nvidia? Google TPUs, Amazon Trainium &amp; AMD ranked</p><p>28:17 China chip smuggling: $2.5B in Nvidia GPUs &amp; the AI cold war</p><p>37:43 Self-driving update: Waymo, Tesla&#39;s Austin pilot &amp; Chris&#39;s Tesla history</p><p>42:20 Figure&#39;s humanoid package sorting — real or demo magic?</p><p>43:47 The best decade for private equity in capital-intensive assets</p><p>51:04 Reindustrialization, the trades boom &amp; making manufacturing cool</p><p>58:39 Building tech companies outside Silicon Valley</p><p>1:06:46 Breaking news: Brett Adcock launches Hark from Figure</p><p>1:10:15 Closing thoughts: grit over hype, customers over valuations</p><p><br></p><p>Subscribe to This Week in AI on Apple: https://thisweekinai.ai/spotify</p><p>Subscribe to This Week in AI on Spotify: https://thisweekinai.ai/apple</p><p><br></p><p>Thanks for watching!</p><p>🤖 If you want to stay ahead of the curve on all things AI, make sure to join our community across all platforms:</p><p>📩 Get the Weekly Newsletter: https://thisweekinai.ai/</p><p>📺 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinAIPodcast</p><p>📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinaipodcast</p><p>📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinaipodcast</p><p>✖️X: https://x.com/ThisWeeknAI</p><p><br></p><p>Follow Jason:</p><p>X: https://twitter.com/Jason</p><p><br></p><p>Follow Oliver:</p><p>https://x.com/oliverkorzen</p>