AI-driven robotics reshaping infrastructure and automation – News

A new digital order is taking shape, with artificial intelligence scaling beyond tools into full systems. AI-driven robotics is shifting from novelty to infrastructure, and programmable capital is moving from speculation to real-world economic layers.

In the latest episode of theCUBE Pod, theCUBE Research’s John Furrier (pictured, left), executive analyst, and Dave Vellante (right), chief analyst, dove into all the recent developments, including from the recent theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Robotics & AI Infrastructure Leaders 2025 event. It comes as recent reports suggest Amazon.com Inc. now almost uses more robots than humans in its warehouse, a sign of how AI-driven robotics is already transforming logistics.

“It’s still primitive,” Furrier said. “But you know, it’s coming.”

At the theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Robotics & AI Infrastructure Leaders 2025 event, the evolving direction of AI-driven robotics was highlighted, from visions of sub-$50,000 general-purpose humanoids to more focused, single-task machines. Such robots would be targeted at under $1,500.

“A robot that does your laundry, a robot that does your cooking, a robot that mows your lawn, and they’re gonna be sub-$1,500 each,” Vellante said. “I like that model, because I think it has a higher probability of success than … a general-purpose model, which does a lot of things.”

Digital money taking shape

Last week, Furrier and Vellante spoke with a lineup of C-suite crypto executives and entrepreneurial visionaries during the theCUBE + NYSE Wired Crypto Trailblazer NYC event. Stablecoins are rapidly gaining momentum, with companies such as Circle Internet Group Inc. seeking certification and backing their currencies with high-quality banks and real-world assets, setting the stage for a major shift in financial infrastructure, according to Vellante.

“It’s really starting to provide critical infrastructure now for the banking community,” he said. “I’m predicting that you’re going to start to see central bank digital currencies start to be fused together in a digital world, and real-world assets becoming digitized and tokenized. We’re entering an entirely new, really exciting era, where these assets become much more fungible, much more tradeable.”

Stablecoins are poised to fundamentally reshape the global financial system as digital currency becomes increasingly programmable, according to Furrier. The crypto market is beginning to return to its original vision, moving beyond the disruptions caused by past scams.

“Blockchain and decentralized infrastructure is going to now go back to its roots, where you’re starting to see infrastructure. The international settlement market, stablecoins will play there,” Furrier said. “Then, this will be a sovereignty opportunity.”

Meta and money

Last week, Meta Platforms Inc. reportedly recruited four former OpenAI researchers to its newly launched superintelligence lab. In response, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman reportedly said that “missionaries will beat mercenaries.”

“Zuckerberg offering people, literally a hundred million dollars in the first year and $300 million over three years,” Furrier said. “You get a massive money system happening, Dave … it’s mind-blowing.”

With the stock market hitting new highs, there’s growing discussion around the parallels and differences between the dot-com era and today’s AI boom. There are clear similarities in hype cycles, capital spending and more, according to Vellante.

“But there are a lot of differences too,” Vellante said. “The companies that are funding this thing are much more stable. They have much more consistent cash flows than what we saw with the Global Crossings and the Enrons and some of the other ones that were building out all the internet infrastructure, the MCIs and WorldComs.”

Months ahead promise insight on AI-driven robotics and more

The momentum continues as theCUBE heads into a packed summer schedule across the globe. Coverage of the Raise Summit in Paris will kick off July 8 and 9.

“Raise is going to be a great conference; everyone’s going to be there,” Furrier said. “It’s going to be essentially an international kind of tech, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, New York tech scene, going to Paris and integrating it with the Europeans.”

Also on the calendar is AWS Summit New York. No matter the event, the months ahead promise to further clarify the trajectory of AI-driven robotics, programmable capital and the evolving AI arms race.

“There’s going to be two camps of AI,” Furrier said. “There’s builders of AI and consumers of AI. So I think on both fronts, there’s a picks-and-shovels market, and there’s also the application side. I think applying AI will be the use case.”

Here’s the full theCUBE Pod episode:

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