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AI, robotics and Nvidia’s CEO dominate the conversation at CES
Not surprisingly, artificial intelligence dominated the announcements and conversation at CES, as Nvidia announced new AI models and Nvidia, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm and others debuted new chips focused on AI.
In particular, robotics took center stage, especially in the always much-anticipated keynote from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (pictured), who wore his fancy shiny leather jacket for the occasion. Physical AI was on everyone’s lips, it seems, and our writer Kyt Dotson set the table recently with his prescient feature on the state of the art.
But Nvidia is hardly alone on the robotics front, especially in the variety that looks a little like people. Mobileye is splashing out $900 million to acquire humanoid robot startup Mentee Robotics, and the venerable Boston Dynamics teamed with parent Hyundai to bring humanoid robots to factories. Robotics startup Lyte AI also raised $107 million. Not least, at CES Arm announced a new Physical AI unit targeting robotics and intelligent cars.
Already 2026 looks to be another blockbuster year for AI funding as well. Elon Musk raised $20 billion more for xAI so we can have more deepfakes of naked women and girls, while Anthropic, not to be left behind, reportedly is raising an additional $10 billion for, one would assume, loftier pursuits. And it looks like 2026 could be the year of AI IPOs as well, as China’s MiniMax went public this week and talk swirls about potential IPOs later this year from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Quantum computing deals and funding continue to heat up as well. D-Wave Quantum is acquiring Quantum circuits, while Photonic raised $120 million.
More consolidation is afoot in cybersecurity in 2026 already as, among other deals, CrowdStrike bought SGNL for $740 million, Cisco may acquire Axonius and Palo Alto Networks is eyeing Koi Security. But Cyera also raised $400 million at a $9 billion valuation.
Don’t miss Tony Baer’s annual outlook for all things data.
Here’s all the enterprise and emerging tech news this first week of 2026 from SiliconANGLE and beyond:
AI and data: AI dominates CES
Analysis and food for thought
Data 2026 outlook: The rise of semantic spheres of influence
Nvidia and the AI factory era: What we’ve been watching all along
AI gets physical: Nvidia’s self-driving platform captures consumer world’s attention at CES
CES keynote analysis from theCUBE: How agentic AI is laying the groundwork for real-world impact
Seeking the Holy Grail: Why AI performance is now a systems problem
Retail 2026: When AI becomes the operating system
Amazon’s AI agents spark backlash from retailers after listing their products without permission
Is artificial general intelligence already here, practically speaking? Robin Sloan makes the case in a new post. Shakeel Hashim at Transformer, while not going that far, notes that Anthropic’s Claude Code certainly looks far more capable at doing a lot of things than the “Code” in the name implies because, well, code underlies a rapidly increasing number of tasks in work and the economy.
New models and services
Nvidia introduces open-source AI models for humanoid robots, autonomous vehicles
Nvidia at CES: Alpamayo signals the real arrival of physical AI
OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Health to answer users’ medical questions
Google’s Gmail is getting a Gemini-inspired overhaul with AI priorities, summaries and more
Vibe’s new AI robot sits in on meetings to record every interaction and delegate tasks
Plaud launches NotePin S wearable AI recorder and bot-free desktop app
Motive debuts AI Dashcam to help logistics fleet operators avoid collisions
SAP expands AI options for retailers
CraftStory adds image-to-video generation to power long-form AI videos with human ‘actors’
Coralogix gains US Department of Education support in push for FedRAMP Moderate
ContractPodAI rebrands as Leah to expand agentic automation beyond contract lifecycle management
Money matters
Elon Musk’s xAI raises $20B funding round backed by Nvidia and Cisco
Anthropic reportedly seeking to raise $10B at $350B valuation
Snowflake acquires Observe to enhance its observability capabilities
MiniMax raises $619M in Hong Kong IPO as investor appetite for generative AI remains strong
AI cloud provider Lambda reportedly raising $350M round
AI evaluation startup LMArena raises $150M at $1.7B valuation
Articul8 reels in $35M+ for its AI application platform
Protege raises $30M to grow governed marketplace for AI training data
Clipto raises funding at $250M valuation to revolutionize on-device content management
AI lending startup Pluto Financial raises $8.6M to unlock illiquid private equity capital
Unusual raises $3.6M to shape how AI models talk about brands
Policy
Chinese regulators probe Meta’s acquisition of AI startup Manus
Around the enterprise: AI chipfest at CES
New products and services
Nvidia debuts Rubin chip with 336B transistors and 50 petaflops of performance
Red Hat pledges day-zero support for Nvidia’s newest GPUs
Qualcomm debuts new chips for robots and Windows laptops
Intel launches first chips built on its most advanced 18A manufacturing process
AMD launches Ryzen AI PC, mobile and embedded processors at CES
Dell revives the XPS laptop brand, just one year after killing it off
Dell unveils new Alienware gaming PCs oozing power and style
Ambiq debuts first energy-optimized NPU chipset for advanced AI on battery-powered devices
Broadcom debuts new chips for powering Wi-Fi 8 access points
Lenovo launches new ThinkSystem servers dedicated to AI inference
Case study
Money matters
OpenAI invests $500M in SoftBank’s SB Energy unit
Samsung forecasts record-breaking profit on booming AI chip demand
OneStream to be acquired by Hg in all-cash $6.4B transaction
Data center startup DayOne closes $2B+ funding round
Marvell buys network switching specialist XConn for $540M to boost its AI story
Strava makes confidential IPO filing as subscriptions and revenue grow
Swap raises $100M Series C round to expand global commerce operating system
Nvidia partner Foxconn reports 22% revenue surge as AI buildout ramps up
Policy
Trump blocks China-linked HieFo from acquiring US firm’s semiconductor assets
Cyber beat: The year of industry consolidation?
Money matters
Cyera bets big on AI data security with $400M round at $9B valuation
CrowdStrike acquires just-in-time access startup SGNL for $740M
ThreatModeler acquires competing threat modeling startup IriusRisk
Palo Alto Networks reportedly explores $400M acquisition of Koi Security
Cisco reportedly in talks to acquire Axonius, which denies discussions
JumpCloud expands Latin America presence with MacSolution acquisition
Record cybersecurity deal activity in 2025 sets aggressive tone for 2026, says Momentum Cyber
Attack & response
Ledger confirms leak of customer data from third-party Global-e hack
Resecurity denies ShinyHunters breach claim, says attackers hit synthetic honeypot
Securonix warns of malware campaign targeting hospitality sector
Cyera researchers detail critical ‘Ni8mare’ vulnerability allowing full takeover of n8n instances
Astaroth banking malware returns with WhatsApp-based worm targeting Brazil
Barracuda report finds phishing kits doubled in 2025 as attacks grew more evasive
Brightspeed probes alleged cyberattack as Crimson Collective threatens data release
Sedgwick confirms cyberattack on subsidiary after TridentLocker claims data theft
New services
Exabeam targets AI agent risk with connected, AI-driven security workflows
Upwind rolls out Choppy AI to bring transparent natural-language security to cloud workloads
Elsewhere in tech: Robots step out at CES
Mobileye to acquire AI humanoid robotics startup Mentee Robotics in $900M deal
Chip designer Arm targets robotics with new Physical AI business
Hyundai and Boston Dynamics join forces to bring humanoid robots to factories
Former Apple Face ID engineers launch robotics startup Lyte with $107M in funding
China is employing armies of human ‘cyber laborers’ to train humanoid robots
D-Wave to acquire Quantum Circuits in bid to become world’s leading quantum computing firm
Photonic raises $130M to scale quantum computers with entanglement-based networking
Uber-VC firm Andreessen Horowitz raises $15 billion more
Stablecoin payment card startup Rain reels in $250M
Fireblocks acquires Tres Finance to bring financial controls to digital assets
PitchBook: AI dominates global venture capital as 2025 deal value nears record
Xreal releases new AR glasses and power hub to transform work and entertainment
Comings and goings
Nvidia hired Google veteran Alison Wagenfeld as its first chief marketing officer.
AWS’ data center network lead Saurabh Kumar jumped to xAI to run machine learning infrastructure (per CRN).
Meta hired Microsoft‘s C.J. Mahoney as chief legal officer (per Axios). It also hired Bill McGinley, a veteran Republican operative and the former top lawyer for DOGE, as a lobbyist (per Bloomberg).
ServiceNow appointed former Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Hossein Nowbar president and CLO.
U.K. data center firm Nscale named former Palantir international public sector head Lauren Hurwitz chief operating officer.
Neocloud Lambda said Leonard Speiser, former co-founder and CEO of Clover, is joining as COO.
Cowbell Cyber appointed former Resilience Chief Financial Officer John Botros CFO.
Digital commerce platform commercetools named John Lentine chief revenue officer and Paul Applegate VP of partners and alliances.
Horizon3.ai has a new CMO: former Rubrik CMO Andres Botero.
What’s next
Thursday, Jan. 15: TSMC earnings
Photo: Nvidia
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