Archives for September 2025

Puck News hosted its latest Power Breakfast at the Riggs Hotel on Thursday morning, September 18, with chief Washington correspondent Leigh Ann Caldwell in conversation with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN). The wide-ranging Q&A—featured in Puck’s The Best & The Brightest—spanned free speech in media, crypto legislation, and the path to avoiding a shutdown. 

SPOTTED: Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Kristin Smith, Jon Kelly, Dave Grimaldi, Mary Streett, Lee Brennen, Ben Cantrell, Jonathan Cousimano, Yemisi Egbewole, Riley Kilburg, Rachel Green, Ian McKendry, Colin Moneymaker, Lila Nieves-Lee, Amy Roberti, Kristin Sharp, Liz Gough, Alex Bigler, Tina Anthony, and Ali Hattamer.

On free speech and media censorship

Emmer, in the wake of the political fallout from Charlie Kirk’s assassination, criticized network decisions to cut and edit political interviews:

“We don’t need somebody at CBS deciding that they’re going to edit a presidential candidate’s interview because she can’t put a sentence together and she doesn’t make any sense… Regardless of your political persuasion, you would want that.”

On cryptocurrency legislation

Calling digital assets a “nonpartisan” issue, Emmer pushed back on efforts to frame crypto as partisan:

“This is not about Republicans. This is not about Democrats. This is about Americans and what’s best for our country… This is the number one thing in terms of the golden age of digital assets that [the president] is going to be responsible for creating.”

He noted younger voters, ages 18–40, see crypto as their issue, and warned against politicians using it as a wedge.

On avoiding a government shutdown

With government funding again on the line, Emmer stressed pragmatism:

“The animals in the watering hole tend to look at each other differently as the water recedes… We’ve been figuring out how to get through it.”

He pointed to bipartisan progress on appropriations bills and said Speaker Mike Johnson will push a short-term continuing resolution to buy seven more weeks.

Since launching in May, Puck’s salon series has hosted Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN). Each conversation draws a curated crowd of administration officials, Hill insiders, and business leaders, with insights appearing in Caldwell’s must-read newsletter The Best & The Brightest and on Puck’s Powers That Be podcast.

The Washington AI Network hosted a power breakfast and podcast taping at the House at 1229, where Tammy Haddad interviewed Nvidia’s Deepu Talla. 

Washington, D.C. — In the latest episode of the Washington AI Network Podcast, host Tammy Haddad sat down with Deepu Talla, NVIDIA’s Vice President of Robotics and Edge AI, to dive deep into the future of physical AI and its potential to reshape industries from robotics to manufacturing.

Recorded live at The House at 1229 in Washington, D.C. on September 8, the conversation shed light on how AI breakthroughs—from general-purpose models to next-generation simulation—are rapidly transforming robotics. But Talla was quick to point out that these innovations are just the beginning, and their impact is poised to revolutionize U.S. manufacturing in the coming decades.

The Unique Challenges of Physical AI

Talla highlighted the inherent difficulties of working with physical AI, emphasizing the high safety and accuracy standards needed when robots interact with the real world. “The physical world is extremely challenging,” Talla noted. “The safety needs, the accuracy that’s needed in order to be safe is extremely high.” For decades, robots were relegated to simple, high-volume tasks—mainly in controlled environments like factories.

But the future, Talla believes, lies in empowering robots to take on tasks in small and medium enterprises—where labor shortages and dangerous jobs have long been a significant barrier. “The technology to solve these difficult problems did not exist, until very recently,” he added, pointing to recent breakthroughs as key drivers of change.

The “ChatGPT Effect” for Robotics

A particularly exciting development in this space, according to Talla, is the potential to create a “ChatGPT for the physical world.” He noted, “Can you believe it? ChatGPT is not even three years old. Can you imagine the world before ChatGPT? The whole world is on a similar quest for ‘can we create a ChatGPT for the physical world?’”

This analogy underscores the power of general-purpose AI models—like the one driving language processing in ChatGPT—and their potential to be adapted for robotics, creating machines that can perform a wide array of tasks in an intelligent, adaptable way.

Closing the “Sim-to-Real” Gap with AI and Synthetic Data

Talla also pointed to simulation as a game-changer in the development of robotics. Historically, testing robots in real-world environments was too costly and unsafe. “It’s not fast, it’s not safe, it’s too expensive to build and test robots in the physical world,” he said. But simulation technology has improved dramatically, helping bridge the sim-to-real gap.

In tandem, synthetic data generation—the use of AI to create vast quantities of realistic training data—has emerged as a key enabler. Talla explained, “Can we use AI itself… to create a thousand times more data or a million times more data? The hope with all of this is the more data you create, the better the data, then you can train this general-purpose brain.”

The Rise of Humanoid Robots

One of Talla’s most compelling predictions was the rise of humanoid robots. “It’s quite likely that humanoids will be the largest opportunity for humanity,” he remarked. Given that human-centered design has shaped infrastructure for centuries, humanoid robots make perfect sense as a general-purpose AI form factor. “Humanoids provide us the best opportunity to create that general-purpose brain,” Talla said, revealing his excitement for the potential of humanoid robots to operate seamlessly in human-built environments.

U.S.-China Robotics Race and the Future of Manufacturing

The conversation also touched on the increasingly competitive landscape of robotics between the U.S. and China. Talla emphasized that both nations are pushing ahead aggressively, but U.S. reshoring policies and AI-driven robotics are giving American manufacturers a unique advantage.

“The golden age of manufacturing for the United States has started,” Talla declared. “With the policy of reshoring manufacturing and with robotics solving the ultimate problem of small and medium general-purpose robotics… I genuinely believe it’s going to completely change the trajectory of how United States manufacturing happens in the next 20 years.”

This shift is particularly significant for smaller businesses that had previously been unable to afford automation. Thanks to advances in robotics, these companies will now be able to tap into AI-driven manufacturing solutions, making the U.S. manufacturing sector more competitive and efficient.

Energy Efficiency: The Next Frontier for AI

As Talla discussed, energy efficiency is the final frontier in AI development. “Power, energy is relatively fixed… Which means if that’s the constraint, it’s all about what’s the max performance at the lowest cost that you can deliver in that energy budget,” he said. NVIDIA is focused on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible within these energy constraints, highlighting the massive leap in compute power over the past decade. “Within the same energy… a million times more compute has been delivered in the last 10 years,” he shared.

Human-Robot Collaboration in the Future

Looking ahead, Talla painted an exciting picture of human-robot collaboration. “What’s easy for humans to do is hard for robots… What’s easy for robots to do is hard for humans,” he said. In the future, he believes, humans and robots will work side by side, with robots taking on tasks that are too dangerous or repetitive for humans, while humans provide the higher-level reasoning and adaptability that robots still lack.

“Every human in the future will be teaching or instructing or working alongside robots, and the more intelligent the robots become, the more you can trust them to do jobs that you don’t want to do,” he said, offering a glimpse into a future of collaborative, intelligent machines.

Looking Ahead to GTC D.C.

Before signing off, Talla teased NVIDIA’s GTC D.C. conference in October, promising a sneak peek at the future of robotics. “I’m a hundred percent sure we are bringing many robots to the [Washington Convention Center’s] expo hall at GTC D.C., including for manufacturing,” he said, leaving listeners eager to see what’s next for AI-driven robotics.

SPOTTED: Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Machalagh Carr, Reggie Love, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Cecilia Kang, Ashley Callen, Helen Toner, Shane Tews, Maryam Mujica, John Rizzo, Ashley Lerner, Shailagh Murray, Kristin Sharp, Marc Gustafson, Ali Nouri, Asad Ramzanali, Yemisi Egbewole, Tyler Kendall, Nathan Bomey, Miranda Nazzaro, Joanna Guy, Katy Balls, Sarah Weinstein, Ruth Berry, Sophie Shulman, Angela Krasnick, Mariel Garcia, Jaisha Wray and Gabriel Coupeau.