🚨🎉 Nissan Leaf, Kawasaki Ninja 300, and Chevrolet Silverado LD have been registered for autonomous rides in Texas. Waymo just registered 224 new robotaxis (111 2026 Zeekr RT, 59 2024 Jaguar I-PACE, 46 2021 Jaguar I-PACE, 5 2025 Zeekr RT, 1 2020 Nissan Leaf, 1 2016 Kawasaki Ninj…

Weekly AI Update AMD–ANTHROPIC AI DEAL $AMD and Anthropic have reportedly agreed to an AI infrastructure deal worth tens of billions of dollars. Anthropic plans to acquire up to 2 gigawatts of AMD's next-generation Instinct MI450 chips starting in 1H27, while AMD could invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic based on deployment milestones, strengthening AMD's challenge to $NVDA. NVIDIA EXPANDS JAPAN AI ECOSYSTEM $NVDA unveiled its Cosmos 3 Edge AI model for robots and vision AI agents while expanding its physical AI ecosystem in Japan through partnerships with Fujitsu, Hitachi, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and healthcare firms. The initiative strengthens Nvidia’s presence in industrial automation, robotics, and AI-driven drug discovery across Japan. ANTHROPIC BOOSTS AI SAFETY FUNDING Anthropic pledged an additional $20 million to Public First Action, bringing its total support to $40 million for AI safety education and policy initiatives. The company continues advocating for stronger AI safeguards, including mandatory safety testing, tighter chip export controls, and measures to reduce national security risks from advanced AI.

My friend Shingo has worked for a moving company in Tokyo for twenty-four years. His specialty is the hardest kind of move: Japanese families coming home after years in America. He's unpacked more than two thousand of them. He says he can tell exactly where in America a family lived by one thing. What they refuse to let him throw away. Kansas. A rescue dog named Daisy. Every afternoon at 3:10, she sits by the front door and waits for a yellow school bus. There are no yellow school buses in Tokyo. The family hasn't told her. Georgia. A spiral-bound church cookbook. 212 recipes, every one with the name of the woman who made it. Nine of them are for the same casserole. All nine are slightly different. All nine are signed like legal documents. Alabama. A piece of plywood the neighborhood kids painted for the family's last day: "WE'LL MISS Y'ALL, MIZUNOS!" It hangs in their kitchen now. The paint is peeling. Nobody is allowed to touch it. Oklahoma. A full-size American flag. The family's ten-year-old folds it every night on their little balcony in Kawasaki, exactly the way the retired Marine next door taught him. Thirteen folds. He does not let anyone help. Then there's the family from Kentucky, in 2017. At the bottom of their very last box, under the bubble wrap, Shingo found an envelope. It was addressed in thick black marker: "TO THE MOVERS IN JAPAN" Inside, on a piece of notebook paper: "To whoever unpacks this on the other side of the world. Take care of this family. They were good neighbors. The little one cried when we took her bike apart, so please put it back together first. — Darnell, Boone & the boys, Bowling Green, KY P.S. The red dresser is heavier than it looks. Don't be a hero." Shingo doesn't read much English. He read it with a dictionary on the floor of an empty apartment, and then he put the bike together first. That letter has been taped inside his locker for nine years. And since then, every box his crew packs for a family moving to America has a note at the bottom. In English he had to learn for it. "To the movers in America. Take care of this family. They are good neighbors. — Shingo & the boys, Tokyo." Last spring, a reply came back. From Indiana. "Got your note. Family's doing great. The dresser was heavy. We were not heroes. — Skeeter & the guys" People keep telling me America isn't the country it used to be. Maybe. But for a long time now, Americans have been leaving notes at the bottom of the box for people they'll never meet. We're still finding them.

Japanese alpinist Tetsu Hashimoto (2001–2026) was a young climber from Tokyo whose short climbing career was already marked by difficult, exploratory ascents. He graduated from Tokyo University of Agriculture in 2023 and was a member of the alpine climbing team Sansai Tori Online. Hashimoto climbed extensively in Japan and abroad, including El Capitan’s The Nose and Zodiac in Yosemite and routes in Canada. In Pakistan, he was part of the first ascent of the west face of Rahman Zom (6,350 m) and the first ascent of the north face of Shiyko Zom (5,709 m). He had also won his age category at Japan’s demanding Hasegawa Tsuneo Cup mountain endurance race. In autumn 2026, the 25-year-old travelled to Nepal with Hidesuke Taneishi for what he described as his most difficult expedition yet: an alpine-style attempt on unclimbed Gangapurna West, involving a wall of around 1,700 metres. The pair lost contact on October 15 after reaching around 7,000 metres. Their bodies were found on October 23 on Gangapurna’s southern side after a multi-day aerial and drone search. Photo ©: Mashu Kawasaki.

Fuji Electric (TSE: 6504) A company can raise guidance and mean very little by it. What it cannot soften is when it has scheduled the money to go out. Fuji Electric (TSE: 6504) reported the June quarter with its data center power line down 3 percent in revenue. Same day, in the supplementary data file, that line is planned up 25 percent for the half and up 23 for the year. The capex schedule in the same file says how. Segment capital spending, June quarter actual and first half plan: Energy: 1.7bn yen actual, 10.5bn planned for the half Semiconductors: 2.8bn actual, 7.3bn planned Subtract the quarter from the half and you have the plan for the September quarter. Energy 8.8bn against 1.4bn a year ago, six times. Semiconductors 4.5bn against 13.7bn, one third. Company total 19.1bn against 18.2bn. The quarter as a whole barely moves. What is inside it moves six times one way and down two thirds the other. Context that cuts against the excitement. Company capex peaked at 85.2bn yen in the year to March 2025, came in at 56.7bn last year, and is planned at 56.0bn this year. This is not a spending cycle. It is a reallocation inside a shrinking one, and that is a different thing to own. Energy money buys new buildings at three sites, Malaysia, Kobe and Tsukuba, and moves switchgear production from Chiba to Kawasaki. The stated reason is demand for substation equipment, and the order book names data centers and overseas semiconductor plants among its drivers. One number for scale on the other side. Semiconductor depreciation and lease cost was 8.9bn in the quarter against 2.8bn of new spending. That segment is still paying for the last cycle while this one gets funded. The US and Korean names in this layer are well covered. Eaton ($ETN), GE Vernova ($GEV), HD Hyundai Electric (KRX: 267260), Hyosung Heavy Industries (KRX: 298040). This is the Japanese one I had never written about until today. What would change my read: the September quarter closes in six weeks. If energy capex lands near 1.4bn again instead of 8.8bn, the reallocation was a schedule and not a decision. Guidance is what a company says. A capex schedule is when it has to write the cheque. Sources, in order: Fuji Electric, Q1 FY2026 supplementary data file, pages P1, P3 and P9. Fuji Electric, Q1 results presentation, 30 July 2026. Fuji Electric, FY2026 management plan, 28 April 2026. My read, not advice. The September quarter figures are the half year plan minus the reported quarter.