🎥In the cold north, power flows like water, as digital infrastructure begins to breathe with the landscape. Built not only for today’s compute, but for the intelligence of tomorrow — where energy, cooling, and AI converge as one. #AIInfrastructure# #DigitalInfrastructure# #DataCenter# #HPC# #AIDataCenter# #Norway#

🦾 Why Data, Not Models, Is the Real Moat in Embodied AI The timing of this question is hard to miss. This week, the World Humanoid Robot Games released a 2,500+ hour dataset covering 12 scenario categories, 44 operations, and more than 10,000 tasks. Crucially, it also includes failures and edge cases. But raw hours tell only part of the story. Zhihu contributor 于超, an assistant professor at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, shares his team’s view on why data has become embodied AI’s hardest-to-replicate advantage. 1️⃣ Robot scaling is fundamentally asymmetric Like language models, robot policies appear to benefit from more data, larger models, and greater compute. But these three inputs do not scale equally. Model architectures can be studied and reproduced quickly. General-purpose compute can, in principle, be purchased. High-quality robot data is different. It must be accumulated through physical interaction, and competitors cannot recreate it overnight. That asymmetry is what turns data into a moat. 2️⃣ Robot data must be manufactured LLMs inherited decades of internet data. Robots did not. Every useful trajectory must be produced through physical interaction. Even a simple cup-grasping task changes with the object, lighting, environment, camera angle, and robot body. So raw hours are not enough. What matters is the diversity of embodiments, tasks, objects, failures, and recoveries. Open X-Embodiment needed more than 20 institutions and 22 robot platforms to collect over one million trajectories. DROID used 50 collectors for a year, producing only 350 hours of data. New methods such as UMI and egocentric recording make collection easier. But every hour still requires real people, equipment, and time. 3️⃣ A successful trajectory can still be bad data Robot data quality is more complicated than whether a task was completed. On the hardware side, camera accuracy, encoder readings, force sensors, calibration, communication latency, and synchronization across modalities can all corrupt a trajectory. The human operator adds another source of noise. Teleoperating a robot is not the same as performing the action directly. Operators hesitate, pause, readjust, and develop habits for compensating for the control system. A task may succeed even when parts of the demonstration should never be imitated. Success is therefore only the coarsest possible label. One trajectory can contain both excellent behavior and inefficient or misleading actions. Training on the entire trajectory without distinction effectively tells the robot to learn both. 4️⃣ The next challenge is information density Collecting more trajectories is only half the problem. Teams must also identify which parts are worth learning from. Yu Chao’s team developed STEAM to detect local progress within a trajectory without frame-by-frame annotation or manually designed rewards. It separates useful progress from hesitation, failure, and recovery. The key question is shifting from “How many trajectories do we have?” to “How much useful information does each trajectory contain?” 5️⃣ Embodied data is physically expensive Text can be copied. Videos can be downloaded. Robot data requires a physical production process. Collecting one hour may involve a robot, sensors, teleoperation equipment, an operator, a suitable environment, task materials, and engineers who maintain and calibrate the system. Real factories, stores, and homes add even more complexity. And pressing the record button is only the beginning. Transmission, cleaning, governance, and storage can cost more than collection itself. The author offers a rough calculation. If a company wants one million hours of real-world data and reduces the combined collection and management cost to RMB 200 per hour, the total still reaches RMB 200 million. 🔑 The real moat compounds over time Quantity, quality, and cost explain why embodied AI data cannot be replicated through a short burst of spending. Large, diverse, high-quality datasets require physical infrastructure, operational discipline, and years of accumulation. As robot policies continue to benefit from scaling, the durable advantage will belong to teams that can repeatedly: 🔹 Collect broader real-world experience 🔹 Identify the most informative behavior 🔹 Preserve failures and recovery signals 🔹 Turn noisy trajectories into useful learning data In embodied AI, having data and knowing how to use it are becoming two very different capabilities. And the second may ultimately matter even more than the first. 🔗 Full analysis: #EmbodiedAI# #Robotics# #PhysicalAI# #RobotLearning# #AIData# #ScalingLaw# #Tsinghua#

AI’s biggest bottleneck is moving data and that could still create huge opportunities for optical networking companies (Save this) The chart shows a 1.6T optical transceiver, a device that transfers data between AI servers, switches, GPUs, and fiber optic networks. 1.6T means it can theoretically move up to 1.6 terabits of data per second, or 1,600 gigabits and that is about twice the speed of an 800G connection. This technology is important because AI data centers contain thousands of GPUs that must constantly exchange information. As AI models become larger, slow connections can leave expensive processors waiting for data but faster optical links help reduce that bottleneck and allow AI clusters to operate more efficiently. This image shows two directions of travel. The TX path converts electrical data from a server or switch into light which travels through fiber. The RX path receives that light and converts it back into an electrical signal for another device. And inside the module are several key components. Optical DSPs process and correct the signal, laser drivers control the lasers, modulators place data onto the light, and photodiodes convert incoming light back into electricity. Amplifiers, timing chips, thermal sensors, power management devices, and high speed connectors help the system operate reliably. Optical fiber becomes more attractive at higher speeds because copper connections lose efficiency over longer distances. At 1.6T, copper may only be practical across very short distances while optical technology can move data farther with better bandwidth and lower signal loss. This creates an investment opportunity beyond the companies making AI chips. NVIDIA remains a major beneficiary because its AI systems require fast connections between GPUs. Broadcom and Marvell could benefit from their networking chips, custom silicon, and optical connectivity products. Coherent and Lumentum are important optical suppliers with exposure to lasers, photonics, and high speed transceivers while Applied Optoelectronics is a more direct transceiver play and has announced a volume order for 1.6T data center products. Arista Networks and Cisco could benefit by selling the switches and networking systems that connect AI servers. Chinese suppliers such as Innolight, Eoptolink and Accelink Technology could also benefit as China expands its AI data center infrastructure. If you enjoyed reading this, make sure to follow @MelvinInvests for more photonics, AI infrastructure and semiconductor insights and turn on post notifications so you don't miss a single update. If you want to see exactly what I'm buying as an analyst at Milk Road Pro, check out the link below:

AI data centres demand power. Human brains are much more efficient than GPUs, using neurons to communicate information. A mistake in a #semiconductor# lab led to researchers developing a process that can make a regular transistor behave like a neuron.

AI is creating one of the largest new electricity loads in decades and now its also becoming the intelligence layer needed to operate energy system supporting it. U.S. AI-in-energy market is expected to reach ~$42B by 2035 which is ~13x today as grid modernization, energy security and rising power complexity force utilities and data centers to automate more of the system. That creates opportunities across the entire power stack: Generation & Onsite Power • $CEG maximizing output & uptime across nuclear generation as AI drives baseload demand higher • $VST monetizing rising electricity demand while optimizing generation & dispatch across its fleet • $BE deploying behind-the-meter fuel cells that let AI data centers add reliable onsite power without waiting years for grid upgrades • $NEE combining large-scale generation, renewables & storage with one of the biggest development pipelines serving future load growth Grid Intelligence & Utility AI • $ITRI pushing intelligence directly to grid edge through smart meters, distributed intelligence & real-time utility data • $GEV using GridOS & digital infrastructure to make an increasingly complex electric grid easier to forecast and operate • $PLTR turning fragmented utility, generation & asset data into real-time operating decisions Storage, Demand Response & Grid Flexibility • $EOSE building long-duration storage that can shift electricity across hours as AI increases value of dispatchable power • $FLNC combining grid-scale batteries with software that determines when & where storage should dispatch • $TSLA using Autobidder to optimize Megapack fleets & electricity-market participation • $TE expanding into battery & energy infrastructure as AI data centers create new demand for behind-the-meter power systems Data Center Energy Management • $VRT optimizing the power & cooling path from grid all the way to increasingly dense AI racks • $MOD supplying precision cooling as higher rack densities make thermal management a larger part of AI infrastructure spend • $ON supplying the power semiconductors that improve conversion efficiency as AI data centers transition toward higher-voltage architectures