Shimmy Says: Quantum, Robots and AI — The Real State of Play
Quantum, robots and AI are the three most over-promised technologies in tech — and in this Shimmy Says, Alan Shimel walks through the real state of play. Alan breaks down two Techstrong Special Reports (quantum computing and humanoid robots) and separates what has actually shipped from what is still under construction — real humanoid deployments at GXO, BMW and UBTech, $12.6 billion poured into quantum startups, post-quantum cryptography already here, and AI quietly becoming the connecting tissue between all of it.
Humanoid robots: the bodies are arriving
Roughly 13,318 humanoids shipped globally in 2025. Real deployments at GXO, BMW, Longcheer and UBTech. China is scaling manufacturing while the U.S. concentrates investment and AI intelligence. Most robots remain narrow, supervised and dependent on humans for exceptions. The framework Alan uses: body, intelligence, deployment. The question: can the robot deliver useful work at a lower cost per productive hour?
Quantum: the market arrived before the machine
A $550 million market in 2025, about $300 million from enterprise customers, and $12.6 billion invested in quantum startups. Real technical progress, but no broadly useful fault-tolerant quantum computer yet. Quantum supremacy, error suppression, logical qubits, fault tolerance and commercially useful quantum advantage are not the same milestone. One part has already arrived — post-quantum cryptography — and enterprises need to inventory vulnerable encryption now.
AI is the connecting tissue for quantum, robots and AI
AI gives software the ability to understand, generate, plan and decide. Robotics gives that intelligence a body. AI is already helping quantum systems with calibration, control, simulation and error correction. The near-term shape is not a “quantum robot” — it is a classical AI system that knows when to call a quantum resource, then sends instructions to a robot or industrial system.
The tests that matter
Funding is not utility. Demonstrations are not deployments. AI must perform reliably without constant human correction. Robots must be paid repeatedly for productive work. Quantum must beat the best classical alternative after every cost is included. The future arrives when intelligence, computation and physical action work together reliably enough for people to depend on them. That’s what Shimmy says.
Transcript
Shimmy says, Shimmy says, Shimmy, Shimmy, Shimmy says, ask me almost anything. Hey everyone, it's Thursday, so you know what time it is. " I wanted to continue this week with the theme I was talking about last week, which was, as part of this forward media kind of strategy we're going to pursue here.
It's about getting closer to our audience, about giving you more, better information if you want it. I get it that some people are just looking for the 10-second soundbite, and that's okay. But I think there's people out there who don't want just the 10-second soundbite.
They want more than that. And so we've been doing these Techstrong special reports that I want to talk about a little bit more today. I really want to highlight two today, though, because they're kind of related.
And while we were writing the reports, I didn't get it, what was the obvious connection between the two. But when I looked at it in terms of putting it together for "Shimmy Says" today, it became really obvious to me what was the connection here. So there's two reports.
One is on the current state of quantum computing, and one is on the current state of humanoid robots. But when you look at the two of them, it's two different reports, one larger story, right? Because first of all, quantum and robots, they've been 5 to 10 years out for a lot longer than 5 to 10 years, right?
It's probably been 20 years or more right there with nuclear fusion, and quite frankly, AI for a long time. But just like AI is here now, so is quantum and robotics, humanoid robots, because that's what we're talking about today. They're right at the cusp.
We can just about grab them. And the funny thing is, AI may be the catalyst that brings both of these to us much quicker than they would without it. I want to talk first about humanoid robots, right?
And the way the report-- I think the report does a great job, and it's actually a beautiful report. You could go download that report on our site. I think it's on Techstrong IT or possibly Digital CXL.
You don't even have to register. You could just go download the report. But the state of humanoid robots today, there are three kind of factors to them.
Number one, the bodies, right? We need to build the parts that make these humanoid robots up, the arms, the legs, the sensors, the motors, the optics, and everything else. And quite frankly, we've made tremendous progress here.
If you've ever seen the latest generation, especially of the Chinese humanoid robots, Unitree just went public this week. They do amazing things. They can do kung fu fighting with each other and stuff.
Some of the American robots, too, Figure, the Tesla ones, they can do pretty neat-- The Boston Scientific, though not as much humanoid. They all are much more agile, much more balanced, much more fluid, much more dynamic in their moving. So we've come a long way in the moves.
The second piece of it, though, is the brain, the AI, right? And this is where China seems clearly out in front on body parts, if you will. In terms of the brain, I think the American AI industry is probably still ahead there.
And also, we've put a lot of investment into this, right? How do we embed that intelligence, embed that AI into these humanoid robots? Because quite frankly, I don't care whether you watch the Figure robots or the Unitree, the Chinese robots, a lot of what you see them do is very scripted or quite frankly, AI'd, kind of staged.
They really aren't as autonomous as we need them to be to do the kinds of tasks we think they could do, with some exceptions, right? We've seen real deployments in companies like GXO, BMW, Longchair, USXtech. BMW especially, as the Figure robots at a BMW plant here in the US, they're doing some amazing world work.
But last year, the whole humanoid robot industry accounted for about a little over 13,000 units shipped. And quite frankly, they're still expensive, right? The idea is if we're going to be able to afford to get a robot into each house at some point, we've probably got to bring that price point down to 15 grand or $10,000.
But it's coming there, right? And as the body production gets cheaper and as we get better with that. And that's really the third leg of the robot stool here.
It's distribution, right? And again, the Chinese are out in front of us, I think, on distribution and deployment. But there's still plenty of time.
Once the intelligence, once the AI gets embedded here, I think deployment becomes kind of an easily attainable goal. So the real question then becomes is, can the robots that we deliver do useful work at a lower cost than a person? It's the same thing we see with AI now.
If it costs me more in AI token fees than a person to do the job, I might as well have the person do it. If it costs me more for the robot to do the job, I might as well have a person do it. And I think that's where we are.
And again, just being able to walk, pick up a box, and drop it somewhere, that's not proof of something that's really going to work in real business. Let me next move to quantum. Quantum's another thing, right?
That we've been promised a long time and potentially just highly disruptive. Right? We'll be able to solve problems we never contemplated being able to solve.
Now, robots, we really don't have the goods yet either, but it's close. Quantum's the same thing. The markets arrive before the machine arrive.
We really don't have working quantum computers yet. Nevertheless, there was about a half a trillion, over a half a trillion, $550 million market in quantum last year. That's a lot of money to be spending in a market where we don't even have the product yet.
About $300 million of that came from enterprise customers. But here's the flip side of that, right? 5 billion invested in quantum technology startups last year.
And the US government just announced, I forget how many more billion dollars they're investing in the quantum because it's that close, it's becoming that real, and we know how important it really can become. So we've been making real technical progress on quantum. I don't know how much you guys know about fault-tolerant qubits and all of that.
It's all in the article. You could go in the research report, you could go read it. But there's a lot to quantum in terms of the progress we've made.
And there is clearly some companies that are leading the way here, one of which is IonQ. Niccolo de Masi is the CEO there. He's affiliated with Futuri.
He used to be chairman of the board here. So I get to follow that pretty closely, and they're doing great things. They made some great acquisitions.
And then there's a company that's actually just moving right down the block from us here in Boca Raton. They're moving into the old IBM PC campus that's now called The Brick, Boca Raton Innovation Center, and that's D-Wave. And they're also making a lot of noise and doing some great things.
The thing about quantum, though, is this truly is something that I think AI can help us achieve quicker than we would without it. " Some say 2028. I don't know.
I don't pretend to know enough about quantum technologies other than what I've been told and what I've read to tell you how realistic those dates are. I do know it's not five to 10 years out anymore, though. It's that real.
One part of the quantum puzzle is real today, and that's post-quantum cryptography. And kudos to NIST and the industry, the private partners in industry, for bringing post-quantum cryptography to market before we had a disaster. And so today, you can already buy algorithms that are quantum-proof.
Quantum-proof algorithms to make sure that your encrypted data, your certificates, do not get compromised when and if there's a working quantum computer. And again, NIST, companies like DigiCert and others, MITRE is another organization that's been involved in it. They've really gotten out ahead of this thing, and it's good to see.
Just as with robotics, though, AI is the connecting tissue here because AI will give us the ability to tie together quantum computers and traditional computers. It's already helping us with calibration, control, simulations, and stuff in quantum computers. And again, this quantum computing report we did is a really great report.
All kinds of great information, charts. If you're interested in quantum computing, I highly recommend it. But when we look at the two of these, I feel like this isn't a couple, it's a ménage à trois.
You got to put AI into the equation. And when you look at the three of them, it gets really exciting. I'm not saying we're going to have quantum-powered robots.
We're going to have AI-powered robots, and the AI may be using quantum computing on the back end. But this combination is just so disruptive. It's almost "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Buck Rogers" like in terms of what it could be for us that it gets me excited.
Working on these reports, reading them and writing them and then reviewing them, I'm like a kid in a candy store with this stuff. They're that good. But as I said, both of them, quantum and robotics, they're right in front of us, but not quite here yet.
And I think that's the important thing to remember. We're seeing these growing pains with AI now. AI hate, people hating on AI, and I think that's just part of the natural evolution.
But maybe we avoid some of that with quantum. Maybe we avoid some of that. " Well, we're talking about new drug protein folding, material discovery, optimizing our supply chains, climate modeling.
Maybe we'll finally get the weather right. So many different things that we could do here that working quantum can bring to us. So, hey, if this is the kind of stuff you're interested in, that next-gen stuff, do me a favor, go check out both of these articles in the notes when we post this not live, on demand, we'll have them all in there.
But I highly recommend going to do it. And we have more of these reports. I put out, actually, there's a third one about the AI mirror, possible outcomes of AI.
Is it going to create some sort of utopia for us? Is it going to create a doomsday for civilization? Is it going to be something in between?
Probably something in between, but we'll have to wait and see. Also, I write about this in my "Indispensability Trap," the book I have coming out next month. But for now, hey, go check out these special reports.
They really are great, and I hope you find them interesting. And they're actually really pretty to look at, too. But quantum computing, robotics, AI, they're going to rock your world.
" I'm Shimmy. That's what I say, and I'm out this week. Shimmy says, Shimmy says, Shimmy, Shimmy, Shimmy says, ask me almost anything.
