AI-driven bulldozers? This startup is making it a reality

Autonomous bulldozers and excavators — can you dig it? AIM Intelligent Machines is retrofitting existing heavy construction and mining equipment with an AI-powered platform that takes control of the machines for a variety of earthmoving operations. Inside the rapidly growing startup’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters (formerly occupied by SpaceX) terraforming on Earth is the immediate goal, but the moon and Mars are a far-off vision. Read more. 

Anduril's $100B talks: The defense tech company is discussing a new funding round at a valuation of roughly $100 billion, Reuters reports, which would put it above Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin by market value. Anduril has been expanding in downtown Seattle, Bellevue and at the Foss Maritime shipyard — drawing protesters to its Seattle offices last weekend. Read more.

Seattle cropped out of “The Odyssey” in IMAX 70mm: Seeing the summer’s biggest film, on the biggest screen possible, will take a journey. The theater at Pacific Science Center — now owned by the Space Needle — isn’t showing it, and other formats and theaters trim the frame of what director Christopher Nolan intended when he shot the epic. Read more.

Hot Links:

• A new industry coalition — including Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, IBM, Palantir, Mistral, Hugging Face, and others — is urging U.S. policymakers to protect and expand open‑weight AI models, arguing they boost competition, lower costs, strengthen security, and are essential for broad American technological leadership. (Microsoft)

• Amazon is requiring sellers to label any photos or videos that include AI‑generated people after New York’s new “synthetic performer” law took effect, requiring disclosure when ads use photorealistic AI humans instead of real actors. (CNBC)

• Portland‑based hardware‑security company Eclypsium (#109 on the GeekWire 200) launched InfraTrust, a public database that gathers vendor alerts and known device flaws so IT teams can quickly spot and fix hardware risks. (Eclypsium Blog)

Thanks for subscribing, and have a great weekend. — GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, [email protected], and reporter Kurt Schlosser, [email protected].