Jensen Huang took the stage at Nvidia's GTC conference this week in his signature leather jacket to deliver a two-and-a-half-hour keynote, projecting $1 trillion in AI chip sales through 2027, declaring that every company needs an “OpenClaw strategy,” and closing with a rambling Olaf robot that had to get its mic cut. The message was hard to miss: Nvidia wants to be foundational to everything, from AI training to autonomous vehicles to Disney parks.
On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane break down what Nvidia's growing web of AI infrastructure partnerships actually means for startups, and more of the week's headlines.
Listen to the full episode to hear about:
- Travis Kalanick’s return building a "wheelbase for robots" with his new startup Atoms, and the crew has questions about Kalanick’s acquisitions along the way
- Rivian’s partnership with Uber to build robotaxi versions of its R2 in a deal worth up to $1.25 billion, while pushing back its EBITDA target to do it
- Frore landing a $1.64 billion valuation for its AI chip cooling systems
- xAI rebooting, again, with only two of its original eleven co-founders still standing
- Garry Tan's Claude Code setup went viral at SXSW (Spoiler: the crew is not impressed).
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Chapters:
Intro
Garry Tan's Claude Code setup goes viral at SXSW
Travis Kalanick is back with a new startup
Uber and Rivian's $1.25B RoboTaxi deal
Chip cooling startup Frore becomes a unicorn
Nvidia GTC recap: $1 trillion in sales projections
Elon Musk is rebooting xAI...again
Outro
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