📍 Know Where You Stand

Happy Friday once again! Ever been worried about robots taking your job? Same.

That’s why we built The Relay, to help you (and us) own a piece of the infrastructure powering this new, tech-integrated future.

And for us, it’s been an action-packed week. A stellar conversation with Mike Horton on The Relay and several stories backed up the thesis that autonomy isn’t coming; it’s already here.

We’ve got a lot to unpack, so let's get into it.

🛰️ On the Radar

📡 Mike Horton on why position is the foundation of everything autonomous.

📈 NVIDIA and Uber just gave us 100,000 reasons to pay attention.

🚗 Tesla FSD shows up where the skeptics said it never could.

🤖 A humanoid swapping its own batteries and what that means for coordination.

🛰️ AI guides a robot through the ISS, but even up there, it still requires infrastructure.

📡 The Relay

This week's episode of The Relay featured Mike Horton, co-founder of GEODNET, the world's largest RTK correction network, built by everyday people.

You may be asking, "What is RTK correction?" Great question. RTK stands for real-time kinematics. It’s basically a correction layer for GPS signals beamed down from satellites. As those signals travel through Earth's atmosphere, they get fuzzed up. Ground-based reference stations fix that, and they do it with centimeter-level accuracy.

That precision is important because it’s the difference between a robot lawnmower cutting pretty green lines and that robot ending up in your flowerbed. It also determines where your drone-delivered package lands: on the porch or in the mud.

GEODNET’s global network of reference stations is built and run by everyday people who deploy them on rooftops and poles around the world. The network already powers a meaningful chunk of the robotic lawnmower market. It’s the reason your robot mower knows the lawn from the flowerbed, the same reason a self-driving tractor knows the row from the ditch.

Mike walked us through how GEODNET is scaling its revenue, where remaining coverage gaps provide opportunity for deployers, and why decentralization is the only model that gets us there. If you want to own a piece of the railway the autonomy train is going to travel on, this one's for you.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode | 📍 Check GEODNET coverage in your area

📈 100,000 Reasons

We also have 100,000 reasons to care, as NVIDIA and Uber just gave the thesis a massive demand signal. 

These giants just announced a partnership to deploy 100,000 autonomous vehicles starting in 2027. Several major automakers are signed on to build autonomous passenger fleets, with others building long-haul freight rigs.

The takeaway here: demand for precise positioning, real-time mapping, and machine coordination is about to skyrocket.

All of these vehicles rely on infrastructure. Not just the roadways themselves, but centimeter-accurate positioning, reliable connectivity (a lag on the road is the difference between life and death), and coordination between machines that don’t share an operator.

Distributed infrastructure networks are the answer to all three. 

The robots may get the spotlight. The real value, though, is in owning the networks on which they operate.

🔗 Read the full NVIDIA announcement

🔊 Signal Boost

Three more stories from the week that prove the point:

🚗 Tesla FSD in the UK — A driver shared footage of Tesla's Full Self-Driving navigating a UK roundabout, a scenario skeptics swore would never work outside the US. Autonomy keeps showing up, and the infrastructure question follows wherever it goes. 🔗 Watch the clip

🤖 UBTECH's self-swapping humanoid — UBTECH demoed a humanoid robot autonomously swapping its own batteries for continuous operation. A machine running 24/7 coordinates, communicates, and identifies itself across networks. Who's making that happen? 🔗 See the demo

🛰️ Stanford's AI on the ISS — Researchers used machine learning to help NASA's Astrobee robot navigate the International Space Station 50-60% faster. But even in the most controlled environment humans have ever built, autonomy still needs infrastructure. On Earth, that means distributed networks. 🔗 Read the research

👋 Signing Off

The autonomy train isn't a question of if anymore, but a question of who.

Who owns the railway it travels on? A hundred thousand reasons just rolled in for you. A hundred thousand reasons to know where you stand.

Share this with someone who needs to catch the train. Tune into The Relay live on X every week. And follow Matt and Will for more on the distributed future.

Until then, keep deploying.

We'll catch you next Friday!