Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Thursday, August 6, 2026
US Bars New Foreign-Made Humanoid Robots; China Threatens Retaliation
The United States Federal Communications Commission has added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List, preventing new models from receiving the equipment authorizations required for import and sale in the United States. The restrictions effectively bar newly released foreign-made humanoid robots from the American market. China’s government warned the measures will ‘damage economic and trade relations’ and threatened retaliatory action against American companies. The restrictions represent a significant escalation of US-China trade tensions into the fast-growing advanced robotics industry, which has been a rising area of competition between the two countries.
Sources: Robotics & Automation News
Open-Weight AI Models Near Frontier Capability With Significant Safety Gap
A new report from AI safety organization SaferAI finds that Z.ai’s open-weight GLM-5.2 model approaches frontier AI capabilities while lacking key safety mitigations, renewing concerns that powerful open models could outpace governance and safeguards. GLM-5.2 is only a few months behind OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 on cyber and biological capability benchmarks, yet the model refused none of the offensive cyber or biology tasks it was given. Z.ai published no safety framework, pre-deployment testing commitments, or risk assessment. SaferAI noted Claude Opus 4.7 ‘refused so consistently that SaferAI could not complete CyberGym on it at all.’
Sources: TechCrunch
Anthropic Builds In-House Chip Design Team for Custom AI Silicon
Anthropic is assembling a team of chip designers to build custom AI hardware, with the company saying it will co-design hardware and models to help Claude systems run faster and more efficiently. Business Insider first reported the news, which Anthropic subsequently confirmed to TechCrunch. The move follows a report last month from The Information that Anthropic was in discussions with Samsung as a potential manufacturing partner for its chips. Anthropic noted the push comes as demand for Claude has been rising and AI companies broadly compete for AI infrastructure deals and compute resources.
Sources: TechCrunch
Apple Expands OpenAI Trade Secrets Case, Identifies 11 More Implicated Former Employees
Apple’s ongoing trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI has expanded, with a new court filing revealing that Apple’s investigation has identified 11 additional former employees who may have been witnesses to or otherwise involved in the alleged theft of confidential data. The filing alleges one former employee met with the accused individuals and discussed Apple proprietary information ahead of their OpenAI interviews; another took screenshots of confidential documents related to an unannounced Apple product before an OpenAI job interview. Apple is now seeking a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI from developing any devices or products based on the allegedly stolen technology.
Sources: TechCrunch
Meta Enters AI Coding Race With Muse Spark 1.2 and Muse Code
Meta released Muse Code, a terminal-based AI coding agent in beta, alongside Muse Spark 1.2, entering direct competition with Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex. On Terminal-Bench 2.1, Muse Spark 1.2 scored 82.9 percent, edging OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Terra in Codex at 81.8 percent, though trailing Anthropic’s Opus 5 at 86.7 percent. Muse Code supports persistent async background agents capable of working autonomously on extended coding tasks. The release marks Meta’s first direct entry into the AI coding agent market, which has become a key competitive arena for major AI labs.
Sources: VentureBeat
Unitree Forecasts 36-45% Revenue Growth as Humanoid Robot Demand Accelerates
Chinese robotics company Unitree Technology expects first-half 2026 revenue of approximately CNY 1.1 billion, representing year-on-year growth of between 35.6 and 45.4 percent. The company cited accelerating demand for humanoid robots and embodied AI as the primary driver of the projected increase. The forecast reflects broad commercial momentum in the humanoid robotics sector, where Unitree has established itself as a major player. The company’s growth projections further add to a series of bullish signals from humanoid robotics manufacturers reporting increasing orders and expanding deployments across industrial and commercial applications worldwide.
Sources: Robotics & Automation News
Shopify: AI-Driven Traffic and Orders to Its Stores Tripled Year-Over-Year in Q2
Shopify reports that AI-driven traffic and orders to its stores tripled year over year in the second quarter of 2026, with the company’s president saying AI has become a complement to traditional search rather than a substitute for it. President Harley Finkelstein said the trend has particularly benefited the long tail of e-commerce, where smaller merchants are seeing increased customer discovery through AI search tools. The findings challenge earlier predictions that AI assistants would replace conventional search engines, instead pointing to an additive dynamic in which both channels drive consumer spending.
Sources: TechCrunch
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models: Claude Fable 5 (95.0%) | GPT-5.6 Sol Max (83.2%) | Gemini 2.5 Pro (69.0%)
Top Open Source Models: Qwen3.8-Max (86.1%) | DeepSeek V4 Pro (80.6%) | Kimi K3 (GDPval-AA #1)
Top Small Models (15–50B): Gemma 4 26B MoE (88.3%) | Qwen2.5 32B (83.3%) | Phi-4-15B (Pareto efficient)
Top Edge Models (0–15B): Phi-4-Mini (67.3%) | Gemma 4 E4B (52.0%) | IBM Granite Nano (browser-deploy)
AI Leaders: NVIDIA ~$5T | Microsoft ~$4T | Alphabet ~$3.25T
Robotics Leaders: Intuitive Surgical ~$200B | Figure AI $39B (private est.) | FANUC ~$30B
Every newsletter preserved and searchable
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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