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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman broke the news that Apple is planning to introduce advertising in its Maps app as early as next year.

The format may be similar to the App Store's search ads – merchants can spend money to make their store information appear higher in the search results.

This news is not big, and it only occupies a corner in the continuous technology sector, but I still feel regretful——

The last map without ads is probably about to disappear.

A clean system is a beautiful misunderstanding

in the country, Apple Maps is a very special existence.

Due to the limitation of surveying and mapping qualifications, its map data actually comes from AutoNavi, and business information is largely captured from Dianping.com. It can be said to be a complete "piece of jigsaw puzzle", and it is also like a "patchwork monster" of Guo-style aesthetics + domestic business data.

The few Apple Maps users are probably already accustomed to facing questions from others: Why don’t you use Amap and Dianping, which have more complete functions and more accurate information?

I think the answer of the few users in China and I would be surprisingly consistent: for some peace and quiet.

In the context of the Chinese Internet, "free" has always been expensive. The platform provides tools, and you become traffic. The platform needs to use this traffic to exchange for advertising fees, to complete the O2O closed loop, and to build its business empire.

Baidu Maps and Amap Maps are both products of this business logic. Their essence is a super aggregation of catering, hotels, taxi-hailing, and entertainment. They must be lively, crowded, and must do everything possible to make you "click" and "click" again and again.

Apple is unique. It won't pop up a red envelope offering a ride before you start navigating. It won't force a 20% discount coupon on you when you search for "coffee." It won't become a loud, noisy beauty or comedian, and then cover your driveway with ads when you just want to drive quietly…

It's just a map, nothing more.

This kind of tranquility is so precious that we are willing to tolerate its occasional inaccurate routes and delayed information, and maintain this specialness with an almost tolerant attitude.

This particularity further reflects the "tacit understanding" that consumers have always had towards Apple –

I paid a lot of money for my iPhone. I paid a high premium for the hardware, and in return you should give me a clean, secure, and undisturbed system.

This is fair and ideal.

Ironically, the "tacit understanding" we believe in may just be a decade-long wishful thinking.

The reason why there have been no advertisements on Maps is not because Apple doesn’t want to, but because it has inherent defects and it has taken a lot of time to improve them.

Fast forward to 2012, the world was bustling, "Gangnam Style" was a global hit, Nokia released its last generation of Symbian flagship 808, and the London Olympics had just ended.

In Silicon Valley, Apple and Google were breaking up.

When the iPhone was first released, it had Google Maps built in, but as iOS and Android became sworn enemies, Apple couldn't stand having its lifeline in the hands of its rival.

So, Apple Maps was hastily launched.

In September 2012, Apple replaced Google Maps with its own mapping service in iOS 6. However, the newly launched Apple Maps had a large number of outrageous problems: incorrect landmarks, distorted 3D views, melting roads, disappearing buildings, route navigation failures, etc., and was severely criticized by users and media around the world.

In response to this public relations disaster, Tim Cook published a rare open letter to users on September 28, 2012, in which he wrote:

At Apple, we strive to build world-class products that provide the best possible experience for our customers. Last week, we launched the new Maps app, but it didn't live up to that promise. We're deeply sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers, and we're working hard to make Maps even better.

Starting from such a low point is actually a good thing.

Apple Maps, which has crawled out of the ruins, has no time to compete head-on with Google. Its top priority is to avoid making a fool of itself and to do a good job of the "map" itself, so it has no time to care about advertising.

For several years after that, Apple continued to patch up its maps. It wasn't until iOS 9 in 2015 that Apple added basic features such as bus routes. In 2018, Apple announced that they would start from scratch and rebuild the entire map using 100% self-collected data.

This version was not launched throughout the United States until early 2020. Apple Maps can be said to have just been perfected.

What followed was the AI ​​wave we are familiar with, and the attention of this giant shifted again on a large scale. This wishful tacit understanding survived for a while.

Today's Apple Maps is not only usable, but also has unique features in some aspects: for example, in overseas areas, Apple Maps' 3D building modeling effect is unmatched by any other third-party map.

Our Pure Land, Commercial Waste

Now that the debt has been paid off, the map function has been improved, and the AI ​​wave has stabilized, Apple finally has the time to make the map what it planned.

The reason why it has time to do this is because the Apple that once had a tacit understanding with us is no longer the Apple of 2012.

In 2012, Apple was still an "iPhone company" and most of its profits came from selling hardware. Software and services were part of its moat and were supporting facilities to make hardware sales easier.

But thirteen years later, Apple is no longer a small company.

App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay… the service businesses that are too numerous to list have become Apple's second largest source of revenue after the iPhone, and their profit margins are frighteningly high.

This giant has quietly transformed into a "service company."

When a trillion-dollar ecological empire is built and hardware growth begins to slow, Cook and his team will naturally turn their attention to the underutilized land within the empire.

How many advertising spaces are there in the Apple system waiting to be developed?

Apple demonstrated this as early as 2016.

At that time, in the App Store, Apple enabled Apple Search Ads: a pure bidding ranking system.

Developers (advertisers) can bid for keywords such as "notes" and "photo editing". Whoever bids higher and has stronger relevance will have their app ranked at the top of the search results.

This model proved to be very successful, and the next step was naturally the map.

From a business logic perspective, this is understandable.

Maps naturally connect search intent and offline consumption, and are one of the entrances closest to money. Apple has hundreds of millions of the world's most valuable user groups, but has left this "feng shui treasure land" idle for ten years.

To Cook, who seeks growth and efficiency, this is a waste.

Therefore, the map, which is regarded as a "tacitly agreed" private domain by users, will naturally become a "bidding booth."

As for the users who once believed in the "tacit understanding"… in the end, it was nothing more than wishful thinking.

And the introduction of Apple Search Ads to Maps didn’t just disrupt the tacit understanding.

As a user, a map is essentially a tool that is about truth and trust – we believe that it will objectively tell me the fastest way to get from point A to point B, and we believe that it will honestly tell me which cafes are nearby.

But once "bidding ranking" came in, this trust was shattered.

Once Apple Search Ads is enabled, when you search for "hot pot" on the map, the first place listed will no longer be the one with the highest rating or the closest distance, but the one that spent the most on advertising.

As a countermeasure, users can also use ratings as a measurement system to obtain relatively real information, but for the third role involved in the map – merchants, this is a more cruel era.

In this arms race for exposure, Starbucks, McDonald's, and supermarket chains have ample budgets to purchase keywords like "within 5 km," "coffee," and "lunch."

How can small independent coffee shops, husband-and-wife noodle shops, and small bookstores hidden in alleys possibly compete with those wealthy chain brands?

In the end, what the map recommends to you is no longer the best or most distinctive, but the richest.

In the end, a bidding system like this is a competition of economic strength. This result has been repeatedly confirmed on countless shopping and food delivery platforms.

Of course, Apple can argue that this is just to "help merchants be better discovered", but we all know that when "discovery" requires payment, it becomes the new growth pole of the platform.

Ultimately, the map is just a microcosm. Behind it is a three-party game between the platform, merchants, and consumers. This kind of game is not uncommon, and the final results are roughly similar – consumers and merchants compromise more, and the platform earns more.

As long as the platforms, merchants and consumers exist, this kind of game will exist. This set of business logic has been repeatedly verified and is cold, hard and irrefutable.

The reason why we feel so sorry about the "fall" of Apple Maps is not because we are too naive to understand this truth. On the contrary, it is because we once thought that Apple would be the exception.

Now, this beautiful misunderstanding has finally been resolved. When the last piece of pure land is also planted with the flag of the bidding booth, the "tragedy of the commons" of the Internet is irreversible. Commercialization has become an irresistible gravity, and no corner can be spared.

What we miss is an era when “tools” were just “tools”.

The duty of a "tool" is to serve you, while the instinct of a "platform" is to manage you. When a map is no longer just responsible for "leading the way" but starts to plan which store you should go to, its identity has changed.

For a service company, providing good service is just a favor; making money is the real job. All so-called "user experience" must take a backseat to growth in financial reports.

We are witnessing one "plaza" after another irreversibly transformed into a "shopping mall". Behind this is the ultimate question that all platforms must answer: "how to make a profit."

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By 2025, JK Technology Group aims to achieve a 40% growth rate and reach an annual sales target of 710,000 vehicles, becoming one of the "BBA" (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) of the new energy vehicle era.

This is the annual goal set by CEO An Conghui in February after JK and Lynk & Co officially merged into "JK Technology Group".

Among them, the JiKe brand needs to complete 320,000 vehicles, which is an average of 27,000 vehicles per month.

Seven months later, Jike has achieved 44.88% of its sales target, with 170,000 vehicles still to be sold in the remainder of the year.

To achieve this sales target of 170,000 vehicles, Jike has prepared three major models for the second half of the year: the 9X, the Renewed 001, and the Renewed 7X.

The 9X is performing quite well so far, with over 10,000 pre-orders placed within 13 minutes of its launch. However, it is, after all, a luxury car priced around 500,000 yuan, so the real sales volume will fall on the 001 and 7X.

So, following the huge improvement of the 001, today JiKe has also brought out the upgraded 7X.

The revamped Extreme Krypton 7X comes in three versions, differing only in battery capacity, air suspension, and four-wheel drive; other features are largely the same. Specifically:

75-degree rear-wheel drive MAX version: 229,800 yuan;

103-degree rear-wheel drive MAX version: 249,800 yuan;

103-degree four-wheel drive Ultra version: 269,800 yuan.

Highway Tank

The first upgrade that Jike mentioned at the press conference was the one that family users value most and that has been the subject of much discussion recently – vehicle safety.

The Jike 7X adopts a one-piece die-cast rear aluminum body structure, with the material strength increased from the industry-standard 1500MPa to 2000MPa. A 2.35-meter one-piece molded tube beam runs through the A to C pillars on one side, far exceeding the industry standard.

In collision scenarios, the high-voltage power distribution box of the Jike 7X has an active sliding protection mechanism that can flip and move downwards after a collision at speeds up to 105 km/h to avoid intrusion and compression. The dedicated pressure sensor deployed at the rear bumper can cut off the high-voltage power within milliseconds to ensure safety. The inverted energy-absorbing liquid tank technology allows the air conditioning liquid tank to also serve as an energy-absorbing box, reducing the amount of collision intrusion by 13% and releasing white mist downwards during a collision to prevent suffocation.

Regarding the risk of battery fire after a collision, Jike stated that the Kirin battery used in the 7X features a 9-layer battery protection design at the bottom, with a 7mm specially designed profile base plate, a 0.9mm high-strength and high-toughness special steel base plate, and an outer 1.4mm military-grade bulletproof polyurea coating. This design can absorb energy layer by layer, ensuring the safety of the battery and effectively preventing the battery from catching fire after being squeezed.

During daily use, XGIMI has also implemented 10 safety measures for the battery, including cloud monitoring, automatic early warning, real-time prevention and control, millisecond power-off, active cooling, efficient heat absorption, multi-layer heat insulation for unobstructed heat dissipation, bottom shield, and high temperature locking, which effectively ensure battery safety.

In terms of active safety, the Jike 7X can safely stop a stationary vehicle at a maximum speed of 130km/h; at speeds of 80-130km/h, when encountering dangerous obstacles on the road, it can perform two consecutive emergency avoidance maneuvers (AES+AES) or emergency avoidance + emergency braking (AES+AEB).

At the same time, JiKe also officially announced its one-click window-breaking worry-free service.

The window breaker installed in the driver's seat of the Krypton 7X is simple and easy to operate, requiring only about 50N of force to trigger. Once activated, the pin acting on the glass can generate an instantaneous impact force of up to 3,000N, which is about 33 times the impact force of a regular safety hammer, equivalent to the combined weight of 5 adult males hitting a single point on the glass at the same time.

After using a window breaker to escape in a water-filled situation, Jike can replace the original glass and reset the window breaker for free, and provide free full vehicle disinfection and deep cabin cleaning services.

Beyond safety, the 103kWh battery version of the Jike 7X has been upgraded to the same 900V platform as the Huanxin 001, supporting 6C supercharging, with a CLTC range of 802km, and a charging time of approximately 10 minutes from 10% to 80%. The 75kWh version uses an 800V high-voltage platform, supports 5.5C supercharging, with a CLTC range of 620km, and a charging time of approximately 10.5 minutes from 10% to 80%.

All models of the new vehicle support a 900V platform for their electric motors, electronic control systems, and thermal management systems. The rear-drive motor has a power output of 370kW, while the four-wheel drive version has 585kW, reducing the 0-100km/h acceleration time from 3.8 seconds to 2.98 seconds.

The hardcore genes of the old model Jike 7X have been continued in the refreshed model. The new car is equipped with Jike Magic Carpet Air Suspension Package, which supports 5-level height adjustment with speed and geofencing function. The maximum ground clearance of the vehicle is 230mm. With intelligent anti-slip dTCS distributed traction control system and CCD electromagnetic damping and intelligent Magic Carpet system, Jike 7X can adjust the body posture in real time to ensure stable driving in various road conditions.

From comprehensive to strong in all aspects

Jike made minor adjustments to the exterior of the new car, adding air ducts to the front bumper, changing the active air intake grille to an open design, slightly adjusting the tailgate shape, moving the license plate frame position upward, and adding a smart driving blue light.

Stepping inside, the refreshed Jike 7X adds two new interior color schemes: black-purple and black-orange. The center console has been redesigned, integrating an electric refrigerator with both heating and cooling functions. The cupholders have been changed from a front-to-back arrangement to a side-to-side arrangement. The much-criticized fabric headliner has been replaced with suede, and double-layered laminated glass is now standard on all four doors, significantly enhancing the sense of luxury.

The popular rear executive seats and sliding rails from the previous model have been retained, and the graphene heating function has been upgraded to support hot stone therapy. The rear seats also integrate electric reclining seats, electric leg rests, electric sunshades, electric tables, rear electric smart screens, and a 6-inch touch screen in the rear center armrest, providing a riding experience comparable to a luxury MPV.

Built on the SEA architecture, the redesigned Krypton 7X achieves a class-leading 83.34% usable floor area. Rear legroom reaches 1187mm, and the maximum trunk capacity is 905L. The 40 flexible storage spaces within the vehicle also fully meet storage needs.

The driver assistance function of Jike has always been regarded as a weakness, and this time the revamped 7X has also made key upgrades. The driver assistance chip has been upgraded from NVIDIA Orin-X to NVIDIA Thor-U, and the computing power has been increased from 508 TOPS to 700 TOPS.

The newly revamped Geely 7X adopts Geely's self-developed "H7 Solution for Assisted Driving System", which can realize multiple functions such as D2D parking space navigation assistance, NZP city autonomous navigation, and APA parking assistance.

Most of the upgrades to the 7X this time precisely address the points that users have previously requested the most or complained about the most. After changing most of the optional features of the old model to standard features, the overall value of the vehicle has once again reached the top tier in the industry.

However, the successive upgrades in a short period of time have also brought unprecedented delivery pressure to Jike.

Recently, JiKrypton officially announced that the revamped JiKrypton 007, originally scheduled for release in the fourth quarter, will be postponed to the second quarter of 2026.

Due to the rapid increase in orders for the renovated Jike 001 and Jike 7X, coupled with the fact that some models share the same battery production line, the order volume has exceeded the existing battery production capacity reserves, resulting in an extension of the delivery cycle for some vehicles.

Therefore, Jike chose to prioritize the delivery of existing models, while the refreshed 007 was postponed.

This incident also shows that Jike's user operations have truly begun to shift this year.

Official channels have begun to release information in advance through various channels to prevent users from suffering losses due to lack of knowledge. The collaboration between the delivery and sales departments has also become much closer. Instead of relying on frequent model updates to stimulate car purchases, the focus is now on ensuring the delivery of existing orders.

The original car owners have not been forgotten either. Jike officials stated that they are currently actively researching solutions to upgrade the current model with a suede roof, double-layered laminated glass, and a small blue light for driver assistance.

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Starting with the all-new Geefo Alfa T5, NOA (Noise, Arrival, and Occupancy) in urban areas will no longer be exclusive to high-end cars.

What is the minimum price for a new energy vehicle equipped with urban NOA and all-scenario intelligent parking functions?

The latest price for the BAIC Jihu Alfa T5 is 127,800 yuan.

The all-new Alphard T5 Yuanjing Smart Edition is the first to be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8775 cockpit-driver integrated intelligent solution developed by Zhuoyu Technology. It uses 15 radars, 7 cameras, and the industry's first "stereoscopic binocular OCC" hardware to enable a vehicle in the 150,000 RMB price range to not only support highway NOA navigation assistance, but also urban NOA navigation assistance and all-scenario intelligent parking functions.

The biggest highlight of this solution is that it supports the combined functions of driver assistance and smart cockpit through a single Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8775P chip with a density of 72 TOPS. Compared with the traditional separate cockpit and smart driving solutions, the cockpit-driver integration can reduce system costs by about 30%, while reducing wiring complexity and improving system reliability.

Furthermore, thanks to the advantages of direct interaction between cockpit and pilot data and the efficiency improvements brought about by architecture optimization, the user's cockpit operation response speed has also been significantly improved. Interface rendering and function switching are smooth without any lag, and multitasking can be switched smoothly.

In addition to its intelligent driving highlights, the new Geefo Alfa T5 has also upgraded its configuration and added a range-extended version.

The pure electric version comes in four configurations, priced from 119,800 yuan to 154,800 yuan;

The extended-range version comes in three configurations, priced from 109,800 yuan to 127,800 yuan.

The new Alphard T5 from Jihu is positioned as a mid-size SUV. The vehicle's overall dimensions are 4760×1936×1650mm, which is 70mm longer than the current model, and the wheelbase reaches 2845mm.

The vehicle's exterior design is also more minimalist and streamlined, with a black lower grille that runs through the front and dynamic triangular air vents on both sides. The side of the vehicle features a currently popular floating roof and fastback design, and two new more youthful color options, Vana Blue and Lava Gray, have been added.

The new car features a 15.6-inch central control screen and a 22.8-inch HUD head-up display, supporting Carplay, Hicar and other car connectivity functions, as well as 50W wireless fast charging for the front seats, heated, ventilated and massaging front seats, and an 18-speaker audio system.

The vehicle also comes standard with features such as one-touch folding of the driver and passenger seats, a 1.68-square-meter panoramic sunroof, and an electric sunroof sunshade. It adopts near-zero formaldehyde and zero-benzene cabin technology and 11.75 square meters of tooth-grade fabric, which is unique in its class, to ensure that the interior is non-toxic and harmless.

The all-new Jihu Alfa T5, a newly launched range-extended version, is equipped with CATL's Xiaoyao range-extended exclusive battery and BAIC Shenqing range-extended power. The integrated design reduces the weight of the entire range-extending system by about 5%, while achieving a power generation efficiency of up to 95%, an oil-to-electric conversion rate of over 3.5kWh/L, and an electric drive efficiency of up to 98%.

The official statement says that this solution solves three major pain points of traditional range-extended vehicles: poor range, weak power when the battery is depleted, and loud vibration and noise. The vehicle's power system has a peak power of 200kW and a peak torque of 365N·m. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 6.5 seconds when fully charged and 7.6 seconds when the battery is depleted, which can effectively improve the range-extended travel experience.

The all-new Alfa T5 range extender is also equipped with BAIC Shenqing's class-leading range extender start-stop seamless technology, which can reduce starting vibration by 33% and shutdown vibration by 25%, resulting in a noise difference of less than 1 decibel between range extender and pure electric modes, allowing range extender vehicles to enjoy the smoothness and quietness of pure electric vehicles.

The T5 extended-range CLTC has a pure electric range of 215km, a fuel consumption of 5.18L per 100km when the battery is depleted, and an energy consumption of 16.5 kWh per 100km. The CLTC has a combined range of up to 1215km and can be charged from 30% to 80% in 15 minutes.

The all-new Alfa T5 pure electric version comes in three range options: 560km, 660km, and 705km, with battery capacities of 64.8kWh, 74.4kWh, and 79.2kWh respectively. The first two use CATL lithium iron phosphate batteries, while the latter uses CATL ternary lithium batteries. With an 800V high-voltage supercharging platform and 5C Shenxing battery super flash charging technology, the new car can be charged for nearly 400km in just 10 minutes.

At the launch event, Jihu specifically stated that the all-new Alfa T5 was born at BAIC Blue Valley Magna's high-end intelligent manufacturing base, inheriting the same top-tier manufacturing processes as BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) Magna vehicles from its inception. The manufacturing process utilizes 1500MPa high-strength hot-formed steel, with high-strength steel and aluminum alloy accounting for up to 81% of the material, achieving a torsional stiffness of 47119 N·m/deg. The vehicle's chassis is equipped with a Magna-tuned chassis and suspension system, capable of sensing road surface changes in real time and filtering out bumps of all sizes.

The main selling model of the Jifox brand is currently the Jifox T1, which sold 10,096 units in September, accounting for more than 70% of the brand's total sales. The current Alfa T5 model has been criticized by the market for its short driving range and insufficient features. The addition of a range-extended version with urban NOA (Noise, Air, and Alert) functionality may alleviate some of the sales pressure on the Jifox T1.

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The leather-clad god of war is back to "crash the party" again! At the GTC 2025 Fall event that just ended yesterday, Jensen Huang's speech once again solidified Nvidia's position as the number one chip manufacturer. The entire presentation was a full-on barrage of attacks.

The strength and track record of the chip industry leader are verifiable.

NVIDIA delivered extremely strong revenue signals at the conference, further solidifying its absolute leading position in the global AI computing field. Among them, the Blackwell platform was undoubtedly the absolute focus of this GTC, with its unprecedented speed of large-scale deployment.

Jensen Huang revealed that the Blackwell platform is expected to ship up to 6 million processor units within just five quarters of starting production, a growth rate five times that of the previous generation Hopper platform, marking the entry of global AI infrastructure deployment into a period of ultra-high-speed growth.

This astonishing shipment volume fully reflects the market's urgent need for the high performance and energy efficiency of the Blackwell architecture, especially in training trillion-parameter models and large-scale inference applications.

According to the demonstration, the Blackwell platform achieved a nine-fold speedup compared to Hopper when running inference models. This performance leap significantly reduces the response time of large language models (LLMs), greatly improving the user experience and freeing up computing resources.

Regarding the operational costs of large-scale AI applications, NVIDIA promises to significantly reduce the generation cost of AI tokens through "extreme co-design," addressing a core operational pain point in AI factories. Currently, the Grace Blackwell NVLink 72 boasts the lowest token generation cost globally, offering a 10x performance improvement at a 10x cost reduction.

Based on the initial accelerated deployment of the Blackwell platform and its successor, Rubin (Vera Rubin super chip platform), Nvidia expects the combined revenue of these two new platforms to reach $500 billion by 2026.

Such ambitious financial targets are backed by NVIDIA’s annual update strategy for AI infrastructure, launching computing platforms at a rate of one generation per year to meet the industry’s demand for larger-scale, higher-performance AI model training and inference.

Jensen Huang emphasized that this $500 billion figure not only represents the sales of chip units, but also reflects the accelerated transformation of global computing infrastructure towards Nvidia's accelerated computing model, marking the arrival of a trillion-dollar computing inflection point.

The Future Computing Landscape of Superchips

On one hand, the Blackwell platform is driving the AI ​​wave; on the other hand, Nvidia has set its sights on the more distant future: the next-generation Vera Rubin super chip is included in its strategic portfolio.

The Vera Rubin superchip continues the superchip design concept of integrating CPU and GPU, with Vera serving as a custom CPU and Rubin serving as the next-generation GPU.

Technical details reveal that Vera Rubin will deliver a significant performance leap: compared to the Grace platform, Vera components will offer 4.2 times more memory capacity and 2.4 times more memory bandwidth.

It will house 6 trillion transistors, delivering up to 100 petaflops (PF) of AI computing performance, and will be equipped with 2 TB of cache/fast memory. These key specifications indicate that Vera Rubin will achieve efficiency and speeds unmatched by the Blackwell generation when dealing with trillion-parameter models and extremely large-scale AI inference tasks.

As the successor to Blackwell, Vera Rubin and Blackwell together will account for Nvidia's revenue of up to $500 billion, symbolizing the company's continuous iteration and investment in future computing architectures.

Under this ambitious computing strategy, NVIDIA also announced two significant collaborations. First, it launched the NVQ Link interconnect architecture, designed for high-speed hybrid simulation between quantum processors (QPUs) and NVIDIA GPU supercomputers, achieving microsecond-level computational latency.

The technology has garnered support from 17 quantum computing companies and eight U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories, marking a deep integration of quantum computing and classical AI computing.

6G is coming? Will it revitalize Nokia's image?

Another significant collaboration takes place in the communications infrastructure sector: Nvidia announced a deep strategic partnership with telecom giant Nokia to jointly develop next-generation 6G technology.

Nokia will use NVIDIA's ARC platform as the core of its base stations in the future. This platform is compatible with Nokia's existing AirScale base stations, which means that millions of base stations around the world can be upgraded to 6G and AI capabilities through NVIDIA technology.

This collaboration focuses on two key areas: one is AI for RAN (AI-enabled radio access network). Nokia, with 7,000 fundamental 5G patents, will leverage NVIDIA's AI technology to utilize artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to adjust beamforming in real time and optimize spectrum efficiency in various environments.

Given that wireless networks consume approximately 1.5% to 2% of the world's electricity, improving spectrum efficiency not only increases data throughput but is also a crucial energy-saving measure.

Furthermore, AI on RAN transforms wireless networks into an "edge industrial robot cloud." Just as AWS is built on the internet, Nvidia and Nokia are extending cloud computing capabilities to the edge of base stations, creating a completely new, ultra-low-latency computing environment. This is crucial for industrial robots, autonomous vehicles, and edge AI applications that require real-time decision-making and response, opening up a potentially huge new market for edge computing.

AI is the way to work; the times are calling.

"Like electricity and the internet, artificial intelligence is a critical infrastructure."

This idea isn't new, but Huang emphasized it again. He pointed out that the current era's transformation began with a key observation: Dennard scaling has stopped for nearly a decade, and the performance and power consumption gains of transistors are limited by the laws of physics, with the benefits of the traditional Moore's Law fading.

This reality made accelerated computing, a completely new computing model, necessary. It leverages the ever-increasing number of transistors through GPUs and the CUDA programming model to achieve parallel computing, breaking through the performance bottleneck of general-purpose CPUs. Jensen Huang emphasized that maintaining compatibility with the CUDA programming model is NVIDIA's "treasure," a achievement that has been made possible after nearly thirty years of development.

"AI is not a tool. AI is work," Huang Renxun boldly asserted, implying that AI has evolved into a direct factor of productivity and is destined to be the core force driving economic growth and innovation.

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The world's first truly consumer-oriented humanoid robot capable of doing housework has arrived.

This time, instead of dancing ballet or showing off her kung fu, she really did clean for us and was available whenever we called.

All you need to do is call out, "Neo, fold my clothes," and a 1.68-meter-tall humanoid robot will turn around from the corner, gently bend down, and "nimbly" fold the clothes with its arms.

In March, it even bought Huang Renxun a leather jacket and personally delivered it to him.

This is the world's first truly consumer-oriented humanoid robot capable of doing housework.

All we need to do is call out, "Neo, fold my clothes," and a 1.68-meter-tall humanoid robot will turn around from the corner, gently bend down, and "nimbly" fold the clothes with its arms.

In March, it even bought Huang Renxun a leather jacket and personally delivered it to him.

After more than half a year of optimization, we can now buy it and take it home.

1X, a robotics company backed by giants such as OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Samsung, announced that its humanoid robot Neo is now officially open for pre-orders .

The service is available for a one-time purchase price of $20,000 (approximately RMB 145,000), or a subscription service at $499 per month (approximately RMB 3,600) . There are two payment options.

Pre-orders are now available on the 1X website, with initial support for US users and deliveries starting next year; global expansion is expected in 2027.

Although the monthly subscription fee may be cheaper than hiring a nanny, can Neo really handle those detailed and complicated household chores like a human?

Please treat it as a household appliance, not a "Terminator".

Neo is 1.68 meters tall and weighs about 30 kilograms. It is covered in a soft polymer shell and wears a knitted turtleneck and sneakers. The founder of 1X said that this makes it look less like a Terminator and more like a robot that can do housework, chat, and has a personality.

In terms of design, Neo's arm has 22 joints, which is close to human flexibility, and it can lift objects weighing about 45 kilograms.

In comparison, the parameters previously released by Unitree regarding the H2 were: 180cm tall, 70kg in weight, and 31 joints.

Neo is equipped with a 3D vision camera, microphone array, and NVIDIA Jetson platform, enabling it to recognize speech, understand objects, and even answer questions.

Based on these features and capabilities, 1X introduces Neo's core function: automating daily household chores. We can give it a task list or use simple voice commands to let it handle all sorts of trivial matters.

Household chores : such as folding clothes, organizing bookshelves and desks, and tidying up clutter.

Daily assistance : helping us fetch things, greeting guests at the door, and turning off the lights at night.

Intelligent Interaction : Neo is more than just "hands-on". It also has a large built-in language model that can converse with us naturally, just like a smart speaker.

Contextual awareness : It is equipped with visual and auditory intelligence. This means it can see the ingredients on the kitchen countertop and suggest recipes, and it also knows when to interrupt and when to remain silent when we are chatting with others.

Memory ability : It can remember past conversations and provide coherent, personalized assistance, such as helping us manage schedules, set reminders, or track your language learning progress.

It's worth mentioning that Neo also features built-in triple-speaker units in its chest and pelvic areas . When not in use, it functions as a portable home entertainment system, a walking smart speaker.

Not only the robot, but also the person operating it from behind the scenes.

After reading this, you might really be ready to check if you can place an order. But note that Neo's ability to be delivered in 2026 has a key "shortcut" behind it: it is not entirely self-developed.

1X frankly admits that Neo can only handle some basic tasks upon delivery. What happens when it encounters a complex task it doesn't know how to handle, such as operating a unique model of washing machine in your home?

The answer is: "Call for help".

Neo has a killer feature: users can summon a remote "1X Expert".

This highly trained human operator will take over and remotely control Neo in real time via the internet (Neo supports WiFi and 5G), using its camera to capture the current environment and control its body to complete the task.

The advantage is that Neo can "learn by doing." After observing a human operator complete a task, the robot learns that skill so that it can perform the task autonomously in the future.

The downside is that this raises significant privacy concerns.

Imagine a stranger using a robot's camera and microphone to freely roam your living room and bedroom, observing everything in your home. Netizens have already gone so far as to hack into the system and control the robot to cause all sorts of destruction.

This robot is very similar to the vending machines you often see online. They say that there is a person controlling it behind the scenes, and it doesn't rely on the machine to identify what the buyer has taken.

During a test run, a Wall Street Journal reporter asked Neo to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. It could walk over, but couldn't open the door, requiring remote human intervention. It ultimately took a minute to retrieve the bottle.

In another demonstration, it attempted to vacuum, but gave up because the vacuum cleaner ran out of power. Neo can currently handle mostly predictable, low-complexity tasks. Scenarios that truly require judgment still need to be handled remotely by humans.

The subscription fee of 3,600 yuan per month is paid to the "human expert" who controls the robot behind the scenes.

The CEO of 1X spent a great deal of time explaining the reliability of this matter, such as that users can designate areas where the behind-the-scenes operator cannot allow Neo to enter; that the behind-the-scenes operator must obtain user permission before taking any action; when Neo's microphone will be activated; and data encryption, etc.

He also mentioned that this is for training purposes ; Neo doesn't need to practice millions of times in a lab like other robots. It can learn directly in real homes, using countless details of daily life to train more general intelligence.

1X is also outspoken about this, stating that early users are actually "Beta testers" who will purchase products whose capabilities will be expanded through continuous software updates and training.

So today's launch is essentially recruiting guinea pigs to collect users' images, voices, and private information as learning material.

Currently, their X account's official announcement tweet has garnered tens of millions of views, and in the comments section, some users have also shared screenshots of their pre-order records.

The humanoid robot market is just as hot as the AI ​​language model market. Musk has repeatedly emphasized that his Tesla Optimus robot may account for 80% of the company's future revenue.

Figure AI, also backed by OpenAI and NVIDIA, raised $1 billion in September at a staggering $39 billion valuation. On the 9th of this month, it also released its third-generation humanoid robot, Figure 03. The presence of domestic robot manufacturer Unitree Robotics is also undeniable.

Just like the reporter in the demo video said. Although it can do housework, it feels really strange to have someone remotely controlling it from behind.

Just as humans need an AI copilot to help them, robots also need a pilot to guide their actions.

I can only regard this as the first step in the development of household robots. We have written a lot about world generation models before, mentioning that AI-generated worlds can serve as training environments for tasks such as autonomous driving .

It seems that the same applies to the field of robotics. Without a virtual training environment, they are first released into the real world to undergo complex training and then gradually grow.

Finally, here's a link to the Wall Street Journal's review video: https://youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so

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