Nvidia pitches GPUs as investable assets while Unitree's humanoid robot IPO surges 620%

Nvidia is working with major financial institutions to securitize compute infrastructure, positioning GPUs as revenue-generating assets comparable to real estate or equipment leases. The $500 billion financing initiative involves Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR.

"This is really the first time that technology chips have become an investable asset class," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC. "These are revenue-generating assets now. They're productive, they're long-lived, they're fungible, they're flexible."

The framing represents a sharp reversal from Huang's messaging last year, when he claimed Hopper-generation chips would become worthless once Blackwell architecture shipped. Rental prices for older GPU models have been rising, and Silicon Data projects continued increases through 2028. One cloud provider nearly doubled its Blackwell B200 rental rates during a contract renewal.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink compared the initiative to the development of mortgage-backed securities in the 1970s—a parallel that may raise concerns given how that market eventually failed when mortgages were overproduced. The AI infrastructure market faces similar saturation risks as data centers proliferate and Chinese open-source models demonstrate reduced compute requirements.

Humanoid robotics sees first mainland China IPO

China's Unitree Robotics surged as much as 620 percent in its Shanghai market debut, ending the day up 460 percent. The Hangzhou-based company's market capitalization reached 445 billion yuan ($66 billion) at peak, marking the first listing of a humanoid robotics company in mainland China.

Unitree priced its IPO at 50.8 yuan per share for an initial valuation of approximately 61 billion yuan ($9 billion). The company, founded in 2016 by engineer Wang Xingxing, reported shipping more than 5,500 humanoid robots globally last year. Its latest model, dubbed Superman, is marketed as capable of jumping two meters high and running 12.66 meters per second.

The company competes with China's AgiBot and U.S.-based Tesla and Boston Dynamics. "It is one of the few companies in humanoid robotics with genuine revenue," said Rinat Mirzaitov, founder of Humanoid Analytics.

Amazon expands drone network, upgrades Fire TV

Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery service will reach nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by year-end, a sixfold increase from current coverage. New metro areas include Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Boise, with each site serving approximately 175 square miles.

Prime Air vice president David Carbon said the service has delivered "hundreds of thousands of packages" this year, with most orders arriving within 60 minutes of checkout. The drones handle packages up to five pounds and use what Amazon calls an "industry-leading Detect-and-Avoid system," though the aircraft have previously crashed into cranes, internet cables, and buildings.

Separately, Amazon is rolling out its Alexa Plus AI assistant to all U.S. Fire TV device owners at no charge. The upgrade was previously limited to Prime or Alexa Plus subscribers. The assistant can provide mood-based recommendations, jump to specific scenes, answer on-screen questions, and control connected smart home devices.

Moderna reports Phase 3 cancer therapy milestone

Moderna and Merck announced positive Phase 3 results for intismeran autogene, an individualized mRNA neoantigen therapy for melanoma, when combined with Merck's KEYTRUDA. The study met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival in patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma.

This marks the first positive Phase 3 result for an individualized neoantigen therapy and the first for an mRNA-based cancer therapy. Moderna co-founder Noubar Afeyan noted the milestone represents progress on technology that "was outright rejected" when the company launched in 2010.