The Morning Download: Robots Enter the Enterprise

Good morning. Agility Robotics, a startup that makes humanlike robots used in manufacturing facilities and warehouses, is set to go public in a deal valuing it at about $2.5 billion, the WSJ reports.

Agility will go public via a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI. Its Digit robots help automate tasks such as moving and stacking heavy containers. The company’s customer base includes enterprise customers and it has the manufacturing capacity to serve them, all signs that robotics development is shifting emphasis from research and development to large-scale production.

Amazon.com uses Agility’s products in warehouses, and other customers include logistics company GXO, car-parts manufacturer Schaeffler and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, according to the company.

It’s a well-developed market with ample players including Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI and Apptronik. Germany’s Neura Robotics said earlier this month that it secured up to $1.4 billion in funding to build a physical artificial intelligence platform, in a funding backed by Amazon, Nvidia and the European Investment Bank, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Agility CEO Peggy Johnson, a former Microsoft executive who was previously CEO of augmented-reality company MagicLeap, said the combination of older workers retiring and the Trump administration’s focus on reshoring manufacturing jobs will continue to create demand. Agility’s factory in Salem, Ore., should be able to make 10,000 units annually once fully up and running.

Tech leader takeaway. Companies wrapping their heads around the concept of hybrid teams that include humans and AI agents now have something else to consider. They need to make room for physical robots, too. Robotics will be put to use in  areas such as logistics, manufacturing, healthcare and consumer applications.

As we noted earlier this month, an August 2025 blog post from Nvidia cited a Goldman Sachs forecast that “the global market for humanoid robots is expected to reach $38 billion by 2035, a more than sixfold increase from the roughly $6 billion for the period forecast nearly two years ago.”

The race among hyperscalers increasingly hinges on securing electricity. So who's winning? Amazon's U.S. data centers consume up to roughly 9 gigawatts of power, the WSJ's Heard on the Street reports, citing data from Aterio, a data provider. By comparison, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google each have self-built data centers that use up to about 5 gigawatts of power, while Meta Platforms’ data centers have a roughly 4 gigawatt capacity.

Looking ahead, Aterio expects Amazon to add the most U.S. data center and power capacity through 2030. But Google is projected to expand fastest, and once leased capacity from third-party operators is included, it will have significantly narrowed the gap with Amazon by 2030.

• Alphabet will replace Verizon in the Dow Jones Industrial Average next week, the WSJ reports. Explaining the move, S&P Dow Jones Indices cited Alphabet's larger market capitalization, higher share price and exposure to areas like AI, cloud infrastructure, and advertising. Verizon accounted for just half a percentage point of the price-weighted index.

• Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future took a win Tuesday with the defeat of New York state lawmaker Alex Bores, the FT reports. Bores, who helped pass an AI safety bill, narrowly lost a Democratic congressional primary in Manhattan.

• The Trump administration is pressing Meta Platforms to voluntarily submit its AI models to the government's Center for AI Standards and Innovation for safety and vulnerability review, the New York Times reports. Meta is the only major U.S. AI developer that has not yet agreed to share its models with the federal government.

• South Korea's SK Hynix is planning a U.S. listing on July 10, aiming to raise about $29 billion to fund fabrication plants and equipment as it competes with Micron and Samsung amid soaring AI-driven memory chip demand, Barron's reports.

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Follow Isabelle Bousquette on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, and TikTok for more behind the scenes on her tech and AI coverage, and lately, her contributions to the WSJ Leadership Institute's new Executive Resilience series, where she's profiling America's top execs about their fitness and wellness habits.

Follow Belle Lin on LinkedIn and X for her latest reporting on enterprise technology and AI.

Steven Rosenbush is chief of the enterprise technology bureau at the WSJ Leadership Institute. He also has a column. You can follow him on LinkedIn.

Tom Loftus is the editor of The Morning Download. He suggests following Isabelle, Belle and Steve on their various social channels. But if you insist, here's his LinkedIn.