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Kuavo is the latest humanoid to carry the torch for China’s robotics ambitions, running 100 metres to pass the baton at the National Games

In a world first, China has taken further strides in showcasing its prowess in robotics and artificial intelligence after a humanoid robot completed a torch relay segment with lifelike running movements.

The 1.47-metre-tall biped, named Kuavo, ran about 100 metres while holding a 1.6kg torch in its right hand.

It received the flame from retired badminton champion Yu Yang at Shenzhen’s Civic Centre on Sunday and passed it to the next runner, Wang Yuning, a local high school student with a passion for rocket science.

The event formed part of the 2025 National Games torch relay, which spans Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau, and features 200 participants drawn from sports, education and technology circles.

While this was not the first time robots have joined a games relay, none of the previous displays could hold a torch to Kuavo.

A bipedal machine featured at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea’s Pyeongchang, but its role was largely a controlled demonstration – walking briefly and cutting through a wall on cue.

Robots were showcased at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic relay and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics – the first using a wheeled design and the second an underwater model – however, neither matched Kuavo’s advanced autonomy, stability or motion control.

Kuavo was developed by Shenzhen-based start-up Leju Robot, part of a new generation of Chinese firms pushing humanoid design towards real-world application.

Leju chief executive Chang Lin told state broadcaster CCTV that the robot relied on the 5G-Advanced network for communication during the relay and ran fully autonomously, with no human operator nearby.

Leju vice-president Ke Zhendong said engineers had fine-tuned the robot’s load-balancing algorithm to keep its centre of gravity stable during running, counteracting the extra weight of the torch, according to the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper.

The company is now preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) on a mainland stock exchange, with Orient Securities acting as its adviser. It aims to complete its listing preparations by June 2026, according to a filing with regulators.

Its move follows that of industry leader Unitree Robotics, which plans to file IPO documents by the end of this year.

Last week, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing and AgiBot co-founder Peng Zhihui joined an advisory board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, underscoring Beijing’s growing interest in nurturing its domestic robotics champions.

China’s robotics industry has been extending its reach into sports.

In September, Beijing hosted the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, attracting 280 teams from 16 countries to compete in 26 events from sprinting to gymnastics and football. Earlier this year, the capital also staged the world’s first half-marathon featuring humanoid robot participants.

The Trump administration has begun taking direct equity stakes in American companies, not as temporary crisis measures, as in 2008, but as permanent fixtures of industrial policy.

The moves raise interesting questions, including what happens when the White House appears on a cap table.

At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last week, Sequoia Capital’s global steward Roelof Botha fielded exactly that query, and his response drew knowing laughter from the packed house: “[Some] of the most dangerous words in the world are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Botha, who describes himself as “sort of libertarian, free market thinker by nature,” said that industrial policy has its place when national interests demand it. “The only reason the U.S. is resorting to this is because we have other nation states with whom we compete who are using industrial policy to further their industries that are strategic and maybe adverse to the U.S. in long term interests.” In other words, China’s playing the game, so the U.S. has to play along.

Still, his discomfort with government as co-investor was unmistakable during his appearance. And that wariness extends beyond Washington. In fact, Botha sees troubling echoes of the pandemic-era funding circus in today’s market, though he stopped short of using the word “bubble” on stage. “I think we’re in a period of incredible acceleration,” he offered more diplomatically, while also warning about valuation inflation.

He told the audience that, on the very morning of his appearance, Sequoia had debriefed about a portfolio company whose valuation soared from $150 million to $6 billion in twelve months during 2021, only to come crashing back down to Earth. “The challenge you have inside the company for the founders and the team, [is] you feel as though you’re on this trajectory, and then you end up being successful, but it’s not quite as good as you hoped at one point.”

It’s tempting to keep raising money to maintain momentum, he continued, but the faster a valuation climbs, the harder it can fall, and nothing demoralizes a team quite like watching a paper fortune evaporate.

His advice for founders navigating these frothy waters was two-pronged: if you don’t need to raise for at least twelve months, don’t. “You’re probably better off building because your company will be worth so much more 12 months from now,” he said. On the other hand, he added, if you’re six months from needing capital, raise now while the money’s flowing, because markets like the one we’re in can sour quickly.

Being the sort of person who studied Latin in high school (his words), Botha reached for classical mythology to drive the point home. “I did read the story of Daedalus and Icarus in Latin. And that stuck with me, this idea that if you fly too hard, too fast, your wings may melt.”

When founders hear Botha opine on the market, they pay attention, and understandably so. The firm’s portfolio includes early bets on Nvidia, Apple, Google, and Palo Alto Networks. Botha also kicked off his Disrupt appearance with news about Sequoia’s two newest investment vehicles: new seed and venture funds that give the firm $950 million more to invest and are “essentially the same size as the funds we launched six, seven years ago,” said Botha onstage.

Though Sequoia changed its fund structure in 2021 in order to hold public stock for longer periods, Botha made clear it is still very much an early-stage shop at its core. He said that over the last twelve months, Sequoia has invested in 20 seed-stage companies, nine of them at incorporation. “There’s nothing more thrilling than partnering with founders right at the beginning.” Sequoia is “more mammalian than reptilian,” he continued. “We don’t lay 100 eggs and see what happens. We have a small number of offspring, like mammals, and then you need to give them a lot of attention.”

It’s a strategy rooted in experience, he said. “In the last 20-25 years, 50% of the time we’ve made a seed or venture investment, we fail to fully recover capital, which is humbling.” After his own first complete write-off, Botha said he cried at a partner meeting out of shame and embarrassment. “But unfortunately, that is part of what we have to do to achieve outliers.”

What accounts for Sequoia’s success? After all, a lot of firms invest in seed-stage companies. Botha partly credited a decision-making process that even surprised him when he joined two decades ago: every investment requires partnership consensus, with each partner’s vote carrying equal weight regardless of tenure or title.

Each Monday, he explained, the firm kicks off partner meetings with an anonymous poll to surface the range of opinions about materials the partners are asked to digest over the weekend. Side conversations are verboten. “The last thing you want is alliances to form,” Botha said. “Our goal is great investment decisions.”

The process can test patience — Botha once spent six months lobbying partners on a single growth investment — but he’s convinced it’s essential. “No one, not even me, can force an investment through our partnership.”

Despite Sequoia’s success, or perhaps because of it, Botha’s most provocative position is that venture capital isn’t really an asset class or, at least, it shouldn’t be treated as one. “If you take out the top 20 or so venture firms out of the industry’s results, we [as an industry] actually underperformed investing in an index fund,” he said flatly onstage. He pointed to the 3,000 venture firms now operating in America alone, which is triple the number when Botha joined Sequoia. “Throwing more money into Silicon Valley doesn’t yield more great companies,” he said. “It actually dilutes that. It actually makes it harder for us to get the small number of special companies to flourish.”

The solution, in his view, is: stay small, stay focused, and remember that “there are only so many companies that matter.” It’s a philosophy that has served Sequoia for decades. And in a moment when Uncle Sam wants on your cap table and VCs are throwing money at anything that moves, it might be the most contrarian advice of all

OpenAI’s revenue could reach $100 billion in 2027, Sam Altman said on a podcast published Friday with Altimeter Capital and OpenAI investor Brad Gerstner.

Altman said the ChatGPT maker was already “doing well more revenue,” than $13 billion, an apparent reference to its annualized pace, which had reached $12 billion in July.

OpenAI has projected generating $13 billion in total revenue this year. It also previously forecast generating $100 billion in total revenue in 2028. Altman’s comments on the podcast suggest the company could reach those milestones more quickly than it previously anticipated.

The OpenAI CEO said the company didn’t have a time frame for an initial public offering, and he dismissed critics who doubted the company would be able to pay for the $1.4 trillion OpenAI has committed to spend on computing capacity.

He also envisioned a time when “we will make an incredible consumer device that can run a GPT-5 or GPT-6 capable model completely locally.”

Why the Future of Coffee Doesn’t Belong to Starbucks

Younger drinkers love it icy, sweet and made for a drive-through selfie. One upstart chain is capitalizing on that shift.

Coffee is one of the most profitable and habit-forming products in the restaurant business. Yet few have cracked the code to become ubiquitous.

Ever since Howard Schultz transformed a small Seattle coffee retailer into a global powerhouse—now with just under 17,000 stores in the U.S.—few have managed the leap from regional favorite to national brand. The numbers tell the story: Despite dozens of smaller chains and thousands of independents, Starbucks SBUX -2.74%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Dunkin’ Brands still control about 85% of the U.S. coffee market measured by sales, according to Morgan Stanley.

There are signs that might be changing. A wave of coffee chains with national ambitions—not to mention fast-food chains including McDonald’s and Taco Bell—are undercutting Starbucks’s dominance. This competition reflects both the category’s growth and the realization across the restaurant industry that caffeinated beverages are simply too profitable to ignore. It is also being driven by evolving tastes, especially among members of Gen Z.

In the U.S., no brand captures that shift better than Dutch Bros BROS 0.02%increase; green up pointing triangle, another Pacific Northwest chain. If you live on the East Coast you might not have heard of it, but chances are you soon will. Dutch Bros now has about 1,000 drive-through shops mostly in the West and South, with a long-term goal of more than quadrupling that as it expands around the country. Founded in the 1990s by two brothers who left dairy farming to sell espresso from a pushcart in Grants Pass, Ore., its formula is simple: brightly flavored, highly customizable drinks served by upbeat “broistas” who try to remember your name and are probably on too much caffeine.

Dutch Bros has tapped into Gen Z tastes. More than food, coffee preferences diverge sharply by generation, says Logan Reich, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “Everyone likes a chicken sandwich,” he notes, but while older consumers still drink hot, black coffee, younger ones gravitate toward colorful energy drinks and iced concoctions that look perfect drizzled with caramel on TikTok.

Dutch Bros says it is positioned at the crossroads of those shifting habits. The company says about half its frequent customers are Gen Z (roughly ages 13 to 28) or millennials (roughly 29 to 44), with Gen Z especially drawn to iced and customizable drinks: 94% of their orders are cold and a third are energy-based—the core of the Dutch Bros menu. Options range from iced coffee with protein powder to the Annihilator, with chocolate macadamia-nut syrup and half-and-half. For those courting cardiac adventure, there’s the 911: six espresso shots with half-and-half and Irish-cream syrup.

Starbucks repackaged Italy’s coffee ritual for American tastes, popularizing the iced coffee craze through its Frappuccinos. Dutch Bros takes that culture to an extreme. Its drinks are sweet, customized and served in oversize plastic cups meant to go. That suits the U.S. market well, where roughly 80% of beverage occasions are consumed on the go, according to Dutch Bros.

While Dutch Bros has grown rapidly, doubling its stores from about 500 in 2021 to more than 1,000, it still has plenty of room to run.

The company has only recently rolled out mobile ordering, is testing food options, and expects to double its footprint again to more than 2,000 stores by the end of the decade.

Revenue at Dutch Bros has risen from $498 million in 2021 to $1.3 billion last year, and analysts on FactSet expect it to reach nearly $3 billion by 2028. The stock trades at an enterprise value of just under 23 times forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That doesn’t look so expensive compared with other high-growth dining peers such as Cava, at over 30, and Wingstop, at about 24, according to FactSet.

The recent challenges plaguing Starbucks, which last week reported flat U.S. comparable-store sales after seven straight quarters of declines, are a reminder that growth brings risk. Size can erode quality. Some customers already complain that Dutch Bros’ hallmark friendliness—“broistas” who remember names—is fading as stores multiply. Drive-through lines sometimes snake around parking lots, testing its balance between service and speed.

And Dutch Bros is just one of many upstarts growing fast, especially in the drive-through area. Private-equity-backed 7 Brew, a Dutch Bros look-alike, is adding stores quickly while Black Rock Coffee, with roughly 150 stores, just went public and is aiming for 1,000 stores in the next 10 years.

Not everyone will meet investors’ growth expectations. Many coffee companies have tried and failed to grow from midsize chains to national powerhouses. But the $50 billion away-from-home coffee market has room for more than one giant. Dutch Bros and others could keep rising even as Starbucks, under new leadership, tries to rediscover its footing.

Either way, Starbucks no longer owns the neighborhood. The next coffee era will be far more diffused—and more competitive.

Chipotle’s Big Bet on Younger Consumers Is Unraveling

Chain’s sales slide as younger Americans feel economic pinch; ‘I’m not getting double meat anymore’

Chipotle’s customer traffic declined in the three months ended Sept. 30, and the company made a third consecutive cut to its same-store sales growth forecast.

Consumers ages 25 to 35, accounting for about a quarter of Chipotle’s sales, are reducing visits due to economic pressures like student-loan payments.

More than 50% of Gen Z consumers recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers plan to cut back on restaurant spending in the next six months.

An uncertain U.S. economy is catching up to younger Americans—and Chipotle.

The Mexican-inspired chain has spent years cultivating a younger clientele, pitching its burritos and bowls as nutritious, protein-packed meals for gym bros and healthy eaters. Chipotle Mexican Grill CMG -2.58%decrease; red down pointing triangle sponsors videogame competitions, and some dedicated fans dub themselves “Chipotle Boys.”

Millennials and Gen Zers have helped power Chipotle’s sales despite rising menu prices and slowdowns at rival chains. In recent months, though, a harsher economic reality has set in: Rising student-loan payments, stagnant wage growth and rising health-insurance costs have bumped burritos down younger consumers’ priority lists.

“They’re just eating with us less frequently, and they’re eating at home more often,” Chipotle Chief Executive Scott Boatwright said in an interview.

One is Sean Chopra, a 23-year-old law-school student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chopra typically stopped at Chipotle several times a week for rice, bean, chicken and corn bowls, but lately decided he could make more Mexican-style food at home.

“It isn’t that difficult to replicate what you get there,” Chopra said. He has cut back his Chipotle habit to twice a month.

Chipotle said last week that its customer traffic slid over the three months ended Sept. 30, and for a third consecutive quarter the company cut its forecast for same-store sales growth. Consumers from 25 to 35 years old, who account for roughly a quarter of Chipotle’s sales, are pulling back on visits, Boatwright said.

The company’s shares have swooned since the Oct. 29 report and are down about 47% so far this year. Other fast-casual restaurant stocks, including Cava and Sweetgreen, also declined ahead of their own earnings reports scheduled for the week ahead.

Thrifty eaters

Eating out less is one way young Americans are looking to save. More than half of Gen Z respondents, or those in their teens and 20s, cited restaurants as an area of spending where they planned to cut back in the next six months, according to an online survey of 1,000 young people by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

That is where Chipotle’s strength with younger consumers has become a vulnerability. Market-research firm Numerator said that millennial and Gen Z members account for a higher proportion of consumers at Chipotle than many other restaurant chains.

Jack Saia, a 21-year-old senior at Massachusetts’ Bentley University, said he still goes to Chipotle but feels increasingly budget-conscious. Saia said he is looking for a job and, given the tough labor market, many of his friends also are counting their pennies.

“This is directly linked to less spending among people my age,” said Saia, who typically orders a bowl with white rice, chicken, queso and pico de gallo. “There is more thought behind small decisions like eating out.”

Chipotle rapidly raised menu prices after the Covid-19 pandemic, pointing to growing costs for food and labor. While other chains lost traffic, Chipotle until recently had hung on to many of its customers, who tend to earn higher incomes than fast-food regulars.

Executives said last week that some eaters might think Chipotle’s prices are higher than they are—in the $15 neighborhood, versus the $10 price point the chain said is more common. Still, Chipotle plans to step up digital deals and avoid steep price hikes.

Kemari Ombonga, a 32-year-old San Francisco resident, said he has gotten more judicious about his Chipotle orders, and online coupons for free guacamole or drinks are mandatory.

“I’m not getting double meat anymore,” said Ombonga, who typically orders a chicken burrito with guacamole and toppings.

Push and pull

Some of Chipotle’s younger customers are spending their food dollars elsewhere. Sit-down restaurants such as Chili’s are drawing more customers with their deals and generating buzz online.

Last year, teens posted TikTok videos pulling apart Chili’s fried cheese planks, helping bring in crowds of new customers that are still showing up, said Kevin Hochman, chief executive of parent company Brinker International EAT 0.53%increase; green up pointing triangle.

“I know a lot of folks have said, ‘Hey, that’s going to peter out.’ We really haven’t seen that,” Hochman said during an investor call last week.

Visits to casual-dining restaurants rose 1.1% from the start of the year through Oct. 5, while traffic to fast-casual chains such as Chipotle declined 1.4%, according to market-research firm Black Box Intelligence.

Boatwright said Chipotle is stepping up promotions aimed at younger consumers, including a rewards program focused on college students called Chipotle U. Chipotle in recent months has also rolled out deals through digital games, including awarding food for correctly answering Chipotle trivia.

Spencer Winston, 26, a self-described “Chipotle Boy,” has a desk drawer stuffed with the chain’s napkins. He said the recent deals have kept him going back for his preferred order of brown rice, black beans, chicken and mountains of toppings.

“It honestly felt like Chipotle was paying attention to its regulars,” said Winston, a development manager at a hotel company in Raleigh, N.C.

Nigel Farage to drop tax-cut plans to focus on slashing public spending

Reform leader will set out party’s ‘economic vision’ for Britain in bid to boost credibility on economy

Nigel Farage will shelve an earlier Reform UK pledge to deliver massive tax cuts in order to prioritise bringing down public spending, as his poll-leading party looks to boost its credibility on the economy.

The Reform leader is expected to signal a shift in fiscal policy in a speech in the City of London on Monday as the party sets out its “economic vision”, dropping plans for sweeping tax cuts until the party restores confidence in the public finances.

The move marks a departure from its previous election pledge to reduce taxes by £90bn, and comes after Farage in October promised that Reform UK would “never borrow to spend” if it came to power.

The party has since been forced to abandon its £90bn tax-cutting pledge, describing it as an “aspiration”.

Farage will promise on Monday that Reform will control public spending and reduce the nation’s borrowing costs. “Then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth. We must get the economy growing,” he will say.

Reform UK has previously pledged sweeping tax cuts — including lifting the income tax personal allowance to £20,000, reducing corporation tax to 15 per cent and abolishing inheritance tax on estates worth less than £2mn — arguing that lower taxes would boost growth and reward work.

But economists, including at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have warned that the numbers do not add up, estimating that the plans would cost tens of billions of pounds more than the party claimed.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the party was making a “desperate attempt” to appear economically credible.

“It’s impossible to take Reform seriously on the economy when their promises disintegrate after five minutes . . . they are a one-man band and have resorted to junking promises,” he said.

The Labour party said: “Nigel Farage says he is offering something new, but for all his talk, his plan would take us back to austerity.”

Reform has yet to set out any detailed plans on spending cuts, although it has signalled there will be big reductions in spending on net zero policies, welfare benefits, asylum support for migrants, foreign aid and the civil service.

Instead, the Reform leader will argue that both the Tories and Labour have “wrecked the public finances”, and that his party “will restore them. In doing so, we can stop this doom-loop of raising taxes on people every year”.

He will also look to position Reform as a pro-business party, and point to digital assets such as cryptocurrencies as a route to growth.

“We will reduce the size of the bloated state. We will bring expertise into government. We will reduce regulation and the power of the regulators . . . But I know we can only cut taxes once the deficit is under control,” he will say.

Researchers say advance could make early screening for structural heart disease possible on a large scale

Scientists have uncovered structural heart problems by using an artificial intelligence tool to vet smartwatch data, in the latest advance in the fast-evolving field of cardiology diagnostics.

The new technique found conditions including weakened pumping ability, damaged valves and thickened muscle, promising to expand the potential of wearable devices beyond detecting rhythm disorders.

The work harnesses simple readouts of heart electrical activity, known as single-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs), that can be recorded by smartwatches without the need for extra equipment. The preliminary study was unveiled at the American Heart Association’s annual scientific sessions in New Orleans.

The innovation has the “potential to transform structural heart disease screening in communities”, says the research, which hasn’t yet been peer reviewed.

“This could make early screening for structural heart disease possible on a large scale, using devices many people already own,” said Rohan Khera, the study’s senior author and director of the Cardiovascular Data Science Lab at Yale School of Medicine.

The study used single-lead ECGs that Apple Watch owners can take using sensors on the device’s back and digital crown. Smartwatch heart data is already used to spot warning signs for atrial fibrillation, or irregular rhythm.

The scientists assembled 266,000 more sophisticated heart activity measurements, known as 12-lead ECGs, gathered from 110,006 patients at Yale New Haven Hospital between 2015 and 2023. They used these to develop an AI algorithm to detect heart conditions, which they then validated externally in more than 45,000 patients.

Their idea was that the AI boost would enable use of the single-lead ECG to screen for some conditions previously identifiable only with the 12-lead measurements. They made the AI model more resilient by adding in “noise” during its training, to simulate the imperfect signals and data it would be likely to receive from the watches.

The researchers then tested the AI tool’s performance on 600 Yale outpatients. The participants all used the same type of Apple Watch to measure single lead ECGs for 30 seconds on the same day they received a heart ultrasound.

The AI algorithm accurately identified the people with structural heart disease 86 per cent of the time. It correctly ruled it out 99 per cent of the time in the participants who didn’t suffer from it.

The researchers acknowledged limitations in their work, including the small sample size of patients with structural heart problems, and the occurrence of some false positive results.

The study is part of a growing effort to widen the use of AI analysis of ECGs beyond clinics and hospitals and into the general population, said Fu Siong Ng, cardiology professor at Imperial College London.

“There is a currently [a] lot of interest in developing and testing AI-enhanced electrocardiogram — heart tracing — algorithms to diagnose hidden disease, such as heart failure and valve disease,” Ng said. “This work is very much in line [with] ongoing prospective clinical studies testing our own such models on the ability of smartwatches to detect hidden heart disease.”