Deep|Physical AI: From the Robot-Data Race to a Second Demand Curve for Compute

Executive Summary

This is the first report in our Physical AI research series, examining how robot-data investment translates into compute demand. Robotics may become the next focus of competition among large-model companies, and it is beginning to pull in a new wave of investment in advanced training compute. Our channel checks indicate that one LLM frontier lab is driving a robot-data procurement programme exceeding $1b, while other frontier labs are expanding their robotics teams. As new data and R&D resources flow into training pipelines, models for robotics and the physical world are likely to make visible progress over the coming year, and competition may intensify markedly.