Designing the Physical World with AI

I want to be able to spin up a hardware company the same way that my friends spin up b two b SaaS. Like, you should be able to say, I want to do something that's considered very hard and just go and do it. We basically built a compiler that gives the model enough hints that it feels like it's writing a Python program instead of designing a circuit board. It's basically this combination of a very model led approach that allows you to use these agents to write code, which is what they know how to do. Put on rails. Mhmm. Everything is code. The last frontier standing is we don't have enough data. The data is, like, the thing that we need to generate as a society if we want circuit boards to be automated by AI. Making sure that you design the system to actually be fully autonomous and to not be human in the loop. I think for us at least, it feels like it's driven a very different architecture. What happens when intelligence gets cheap, but the physical world stays slow? In the twentieth century, industrial power came from the ability to design and build at scale. From assembly lines to semiconductor fabs, progress meant compressing time between idea and output. Software accelerated that loop to near zero. But in construction and manufacturing, timelines still stretch into years shaped by fragmented workflows, fixed incentives, and systems that resist change. Now that's starting to shift. AI can write code, run simulations, and generate designs across thousands of permutations. The question is whether that translates into faster builds or just better plans. I want to understand what it takes to actually move atoms, not just bits. A sixteen z general partner, Aaron Price Wright, speaks with Alex Boden, cofounder and CEO at Unlimited Industries, and Davide Asnagi, CEO at Diode Computers. We're thrilled to be here today with Davide Asnagi and Alex Modin. Davide is the CEO of Diode Computers, and they're using AI to design and manufacture custom circuit boards faster and better than before and faster than ever possible in The United States. Alex is the CEO of Unlimited Industries, an AI native firm that vertically integrates design, engineering, procurement, and construction for big infrastructure projects. So we're here today to talk about physical world AI. And when I say that, I think a lot of people probably think about things like humanoids and robotics foundation models. But while I think robotic housekeepers holding your laundry is still a few years away, or maybe if you're really optimistic, a few months, AI is already starting to cross this chasm with use cases that move atoms. So these companies are working on physical world AI at two very different scales from the micro to the macro. And I'm excited to get your perspectives about where we are and what's ahead. So, Alex Davide, welcome to the show. Yeah. Excited to be here. Thank you. Yeah. …