If you’ve ever wondered what elder care will look like in 20 years, China may be giving us a preview. The country is greenlighting large-scale trials of aged care robots that can cook, clean, and even offer emotional support—and I have to admit, it’s both fascinating and slightly surreal. Personally, I’m curious to see whether this blend of robotics and real-world care hits the mark. Engineering like this can solve real problems, but I’ll always believe there’s no full substitute for human hands and human hearts.
Top Stories This Week
- China To Trial Aged Care Robots
- ABB Breaks Ground On New Robotics Campus In Sweden
- Huawei Chips Are One Generation Behind US But Firm Finding Workarounds, CEO Says
- XRobotics Raises $2.5 Million To Scale AI Pizza Production
- How Americans Think And Feel About Their Medical Devices: New Survey Findings
- Uber Brings Forward Trialling Driverless Taxis In UK
- Race To Mine Metals For EV Batteries Threatens Marine Paradise
- Meta AI Searches Made Public – But Do All Its Users Realise?
- Scientists Create A Two-dimensional Carbon Material Eight Times Stronger Than Graphene
- UCL And Cambridge Researchers Develop Robotic Skin That Detects Multiple Forms Of Touch In Real Time
- Cyient Semiconductors And MIPS To Develop Custom RISC-V-based Intelligent Power Solutions
Hardware Business News
ABB Breaks Ground On New Robotics Campus In Sweden
Big moves from ABB this week, as they break ground on a $280M Robotics Campus in Västerås, Sweden—bringing R&D, manufacturing, and training under one roof. Watching ABB over the past years, it’s impressive to see this kind of long-term investment in European robotics. It’s not just a facility; it’s a statement that industrial innovation is alive and well outside Silicon Valley. With a strong sustainability focus and deep roots in Västerås, this looks like a smart bet on the future of automation, built where engineering still means something.
Huawei Chips Are One Generation Behind US But Firm Finding Workarounds, CEO Says
Huawei’s CEO just acknowledged what many suspected: their chips are still a generation behind U.S. tech—but they’re not sitting still. With $25B a year in R&D and clever workarounds like cluster computing, Huawei is proving that raw chip specs aren’t the whole story, and also reminds us that performance isn’t always about having the best parts—it’s about knowing how to use what you’ve got. Whether it’s politics or silicon, creativity under constraint often yields the most interesting results.
XRobotics Raises $2.5 Million To Scale AI Pizza Production
If you think robotics is all assembly lines and AI hype, XRobotics might just change your mind—with pizza. The San Francisco startup raised $2.5M to scale its smart kitchen bots, which can crank out 100 pies an hour using custom robotics and real-time AI vision. This start-up is one of those rare cases where automation solves a real-world bottleneck—labor—and does it in greasy, high-volume kitchens, not a showroom. Pizza’s never been more high-tech, and frankly, I’m certainly hungry for it.
How Americans Think And Feel About Their Medical Devices: New Survey Findings
Here’s something that hits close to home for anyone in hardware: a new survey shows Americans are dropping brand loyalty when it comes to medical devices. Instead, it’s all about trust, accuracy, and reliability—especially if a doctor backs it. Engineering should always focus to serve real human needs, and this shift proves users are getting savvier. Flashy features won’t cut it anymore—dependability and clinical confidence are winning. For designers and manufacturers, that’s a call to focus less on marketing, and more on making devices that actually work when people need them most.
Hardware Engineering News
Uber Brings Forward Trialling Driverless Taxis In UK
Uber’s fast-tracked robotaxi trial in London caught my attention—partly because it’s a big leap for UK roads, and partly because it’s happening ahead of schedule for once. Partnering with Wayve, a solid UK AI firm, they’ll soon test fully autonomous vehicles with no safety driver, thanks to newly relaxed legislation. It’s a cautious but critical step in real-world deployment. Personally, I’m skeptical of sweeping promises, but I’ve seen what AI-driven vehicles can do—and if they’re more cautious than your average London driver, that’s already a win. Still, reliability and redundancy better be bulletproof before this hits the mainstream.
Race To Mine Metals For EV Batteries Threatens Marine Paradise
The Raja Ampat mining story lays bare a brutal contradiction: we push for “green” electric vehicles, but the metals fueling them come at a devastating ecological cost. Nickel demand is booming, and Indonesia—especially Raja Ampat, the so-called “Amazon of the Seas”—is paying the price in biodiversity, deforestation, and coastal degradation. The Indonesian government revoking permits is a good step, but activists rightly fear backpedaling under industry pressure. Mining might slightly reduce poverty, but the environmental toll—coral reef destruction, polluted waters, landslides—raises a difficult question: how sustainable is a “green” future if we destroy ecosystems to build it?
Meta AI Searches Made Public – But Do All Its Users Realise?
Meta AI’s public “Discover” feed is an interesting case of transparency meeting user expectation—and not always in a good way. While Meta insists users control what’s shared, many seem unaware their AI prompts and responses could be visible alongside their social profiles. We all understand the need for openness, yet privacy and clear communication must go hand in hand. It’s a reminder that tech innovation isn’t just about capabilities but also about designing responsibly for real people—and that subtle gap can have bigger consequences than some expect.
Hardware R&D News
Scientists Create A Two-dimensional Carbon Material Eight Times Stronger Than Graphene
Rice University scientists have developed a two-dimensional carbon material, monolayer amorphous carbon (MAC), that’s eight times tougher than graphene—and that’s no small feat. Unlike graphene’s brittle nature, MAC’s mixed crystalline and disordered structure stops cracks from spreading, boosting durability without sacrificing stiffness. This development could very well be a promising step toward more resilient flexible electronics and sensors. It’s a reminder that sometimes internal structure beats adding bulk—an approach worth watching closely for future tech.
UCL And Cambridge Researchers Develop Robotic Skin That Detects Multiple Forms Of Touch In Real Time
Researchers at UCL and Cambridge have created a robotic skin that detects multiple forms of touch using a single gelatin-based hydrogel material. This unified sensor design reduces complexity by eliminating the need for separate embedded sensors, while AI processes over 1.7 million data points to differentiate stimuli such as pressure, heat, and cuts. The material’s flexibility and durability make it well-suited for applications in robotics and prosthetics. This development represents a notable advancement in combining materials science with AI for enhanced sensor performance in next-generation hardware.
Open-Source Hardware News
Cyient Semiconductors And MIPS To Develop Custom RISC-V-based Intelligent Power Solutions
Cyient Semiconductors and MIPS have teamed up to develop custom RISC-V-based intelligent power solutions targeting automotive, industrial, and data centre markets. By combining MIPS’s real-time microcontroller expertise with Cyient’s mixed-signal power delivery design, this collaboration aims to optimize performance and safety in software-defined vehicles and industrial automation. From an engineering standpoint, leveraging an open, scalable architecture like RISC-V while addressing real-time power challenges is a solid, practical step forward — one that promises efficiency without vendor lock-in and could accelerate innovation in critical embedded systems.
