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Trade Wars
AI-Driven Cyberattacks Are Coming. Here’s How To Prepare Now
The digital landscape in which all manufacturers operate is expanding, as are the threats. Bad actors are harnessing AI to execute exploits more quickly, automate attack reconnaissance and deployment, and weaponize older, unpatched vulnerabilities, among other advancements. While the skills required by hackers to deploy attacks used to be beyond what the average person knew how to do, AI is automating parts of the attack chain, and deep coding abilities are no longer necessary for malicious actors.
Heading into 2026, manufacturers must prepare for the acceleration of attacks spawned by AI and understand that the volume is more than human defenders can handle alone. One of the most pressing security concerns for manufacturers is the threat posed by unpatched vulnerabilities. Firstly, patching cycles within manufacturing organizations sometimes fall into a cyclical pattern—every few months, biannually, or even annually. Regardless, ad hoc patching is not the norm, and given that attackers are leveraging AI to scan for and exploit older, unpatched vulnerabilities, the norm of not patching lower-risk vulnerabilities until the next cycle is catching up with manufacturers.
Read more at Smart Industry
After a Big 2025 GM, Other Carmakers, Hint at Tough Year Ahead for U.S. Auto Sales
General Motors and several rivals reported year-end sales slumps, an ominous sign that U.S. auto sales will slow this year as consumers push back on higher prices. GM, the biggest automaker in the U.S. by sales and a bellwether for the U.S. industry, said Monday that sales fell 7% in the final quarter of 2025. Honda, Hyundai and Mazda also said on Monday that their U.S. sales fell toward the end of the year. For the year however General Motors reported a 5.5% increase in its annual U.S. sales. The Detroit automaker retained its position as the largest seller of vehicles in the U.S.
The slowdown is expected to extend into this year. Analysts and automakers predict U.S. annual sales will fall in 2026 following three straight years of gains as belt-tightening American car buyers collide with tariff costs that companies probably won’t keep absorbing. Consumers face not only higher new-car prices, but also more expensive insurance, financing and maintenance expenses. Executives at Toyota, which notched an 8% increase in U.S. sales during the fourth quarter, said they are preparing for a bruising year ahead. Toyota was able to maintain sales momentum at the end of last year by absorbing the costs of U.S. tariffs, and because car buyers gravitated toward the company’s entry-level models like the Corolla sedan. Yet executives said companies won’t be able to keep footing the bill for tariffs.
Read more at CNBC
Lucid, Uber And Nuro Unveil Jointly Developed ‘Global Robotaxi’ At CES
Electric automaker Lucid Group, autonomous driving technology developer Nuro and Uber Technologies unveiled a production-intent robotaxi based on the Lucid Gravity SUV at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday, the companies announced in a joint press release. Each vehicle will be outfitted with Nuro’s autonomous driving technology and an in-cabin passenger experience designed by Uber. The first Gravity robotaxi deployments on Uber’s ride-hailing network are planned for the San Francisco Bay Area later this year.
“Uber is proud to partner with Lucid and Nuro to bring a state-of-the-art robotaxi to market later this year,” said Sarfraz Maredia, global head of autonomous mobility and delivery at Uber. “By combining leading expertise in electric vehicles, autonomy and ride-hailing, we’re building a unique new option for affordable and scalable autonomous rides in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.” The companies also announced that on-road testing of the robotaxis began in the Bay Area last month. Nuro is leading the testing of the vehicles, which are being monitored by human safety drivers.
Read more at Ward’s Auto
AMD’s Lisa Su Says AI Isn’t Replacing People, But Is Changing Who Gets Hired
Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said Tuesday that artificial intelligence has not slowed the pace of hiring at her company, but the job candidates who have truly embraced the technology have become a priority. “I would say that we’re actually not hiring fewer people,” Su told CNBC’s Jon Fortt on Tuesday from the CES conference in Las Vegas. “Frankly, we’re growing very significantly as a company, so we actually are hiring lots of people, but we’re hiring different people. We’re hiring people who are AI forward.”
AMD is incorporating AI into how the company builds, designs, manufactures and tests chips, and Su said the candidates who “truly embrace” it are the ones getting hired. As of December 2024, AMD had roughly 28,000 employees worldwide, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “I would say that AI is augmenting our capabilities,” Su said. “It’s not replacing people, it’s actually just augmenting our productivity in terms of the number of products we can bring up at any given time.”
Read more at CNBC
Ford Reports Best Annual U.S. Vehicle Sales Since 2019
Ford Motor on Tuesday said its U.S. vehicle sales last year increased 6% to achieve the company’s best annual sales since 2019. The Detroit automaker reported sales of 2.2 million vehicles in 2025, including a 2.7% uptick to more than 545,200 units during the fourth quarter. In 2019, the automaker sold 2.42 million vehicles in the U.S. Ford finished the year as the third-largest automaker in the U.S. behind Toyota Motor and domestic sales leader General Motors.
Ford’s fourth-quarter performance came as it continues to battle production troubles with its F-Series pickup trucks due to two separate fires at a New York plant of key aluminum supplier Novelis. F-Series sales, including the popular F-150, were up 8.3% in 2025. Like many automakers, Ford’s all-electric vehicles business notably declined 14.1% last year, including a roughly 52% plummet during the fourth quarter. A nearly 22% increase in sales of Ford’s hybrid vehicles, which the company expects to grow, assisted in offsetting those losses. Traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines continued to dominate Ford’s sales, representing about 86% of the company’s volume in 2025.
Read more at CNBC
Honda Buying LG Energy Solution’s Stake In Ohio EV Battery Plant For $2.85B
Battery maker LG Energy Solution has agreed to sell its stake of its electric vehicle joint venture battery plant in Ohio to Honda Development and Manufacturing of America for $2.85 billion, according to a Dec. 23 regulatory filing. The plans for the joint venture EV battery plant were announced in August 2022 and included an initial investment commitment of $3.5 billion by Honda and LG Energy Solution to produce lithium-ion batteries for electric Honda and Acura models for the North American market beginning in 2026.
The transaction includes the building and infrastructure assets related to the joint venture, but excludes the land and equipment. The JV will continue to use the facility under a lease agreement, with no changes to production or operational plans, according to the Korea Herald. The deal is scheduled to close on Feb. 28. According to LG Energy Solution’s regulatory filing, the deal to divest its stake in the battery facility is intended to “increase the operational efficiency” of its joint venture with Honda. However, the plant may expand production of batteries for energy storage system applications, according to the Korea Herald.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Nvidia Unveils Faster AI Chips Sooner Than Expected
On Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nvidia triangle Chief Executive Jensen Huang unveiled the company’s newest AI server systems, known as Vera Rubin, which go on sale in the second half of this year. Usually, Nvidia details the specs and capabilities of its latest chips at its spring developer conference in Silicon Valley. This year, Huang said, the complexity of computing required by AI and the immense demand for advanced processors to train and operate models has prompted the semiconductor industry to move faster.
Nvidia has long argued that the next phase of AI is what the company refers to as the “omniverse”—a type of model-training that allows AI to use simulations of reality to learn how to navigate real-world situations. For example, autonomous vehicles guided by AI models can be refined more quickly using simulations of on-the-road driving situations, rather than spending thousands of hours doing real-world training. The company’s new Vera Rubin servers—named for a midcentury American astronomer who made groundbreaking discoveries in observing how heavenly bodies move—are designed to be able to handle the enormous computing loads needed to create those simulations and use them in model-training.
Read more at The WSJ
Boston Dynamics Is Training An AI-Powered Humanoid Robot To Do Factory Work
Today's AI-powered humanoids are learning movements that, until recently, were considered a step too far for a machine, according to Scott Kuindersma, who is the head of robotics research at Boston Dynamics. "A lot of this has to do with how we're going about programming these robots now, where it's more about teaching, and demonstrations, and machine learning than manual programming." Kuindersma said.
Boston Dynamics is testing a new generation of its humanoid robot, Atlas. Atlas has an all-electric body and an AI brain powered by Nvidia's advanced microchips, making it smart enough to master hard-to-believe feats. Atlas learns in several ways. At Boston Dynamics, machine learning scientist Kevin Bergamin demonstrated an example of supervised learning. Wearing a virtual reality headset, Bergamin took direct control of the humanoid and guided its hands and arms through each task until Atlas succeeded. "That generates data that we can use to train the robot's AI models to then later do that task autonomously," Kuindersma said.
Read more at CBS News
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