According to Forbes, CES 2026 kicks off on Monday, January 5th, showcasing AI-driven hardware like household robots, AI wearables, and Android XR headsets from Samsung. In major deals, Nvidia is acquiring chip designer Groq for an estimated $20 billion to bolster its AI inference capabilities, and has also completed a $5 billion purchase of Intel stock. Netflix acquired cross-game avatar platform Ready Player Me to build a persistent identity system across its games. Elsewhere, OpenAI is hiring a Head of Preparedness to mitigate AI risks, and SpaceX’s Starlink just passed 9 million active customers, adding about 21,000 users per day.
CES 2026: AI’s Hardware Party
CES is basically the world’s biggest gadget carnival where hope and hype collide. This year’s theme is unmistakable: AI you can touch. We’re not just talking about software updates. We’re talking about physical objects—robots that might (or might not) fold your laundry, drones that watch your pets, and a flood of camera-equipped pins and brooches. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses proved people might wear this stuff, so now get ready for the budget-bin versions. The real interesting play is Android XR finally showing up in force. If Samsung and others get it right, it could finally create a real, non-walled-garden competitor to Meta’s Quest dominance. And foldables? They’re becoming a serious product category, not just a novelty. Fewer creases, better hinges—it’s the slow, steady march of engineering finally making a crazy idea workable.
nvidia-s-20-billion-inference-engine”>Nvidia’s $20 Billion Inference Engine
So Nvidia is spending $20 billion on Groq. That’s a staggering number. But here’s the thing: it’s not really about buying a product line. It’s an “acquihire and licensing deal.” Translation: Nvidia is buying a team and some brilliant, specialized chip architecture to solve its biggest looming challenge. Everyone knows Nvidia dominates the AI training market. But inference—the part where a trained model actually answers your questions—is a different beast. It needs to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient to run in everyday apps and devices. Groq’s whole raison d’être is low-latency inference. This buy is Nvidia plugging the one hole in its AI empire before anyone else can sail a ship through it. And that Intel stock purchase? That’s just a fascinating side bet. It’s a $5 billion vote of no-confidence in Intel’s own turnaround, while also giving Nvidia a strategic seat at a rival’s table. Ruthless.
Netflix’s Avatar Gambit
Netflix buying Ready Player Me is a quietly huge move for its gaming ambitions. Think about it. Netflix games are kind of a scattered archipelago right now. This gives them a unified identity layer—a “Netflix-verse.” You create an avatar once, and it can hop from their puzzle game to their RPG to whatever they build next. It’s a classic platform lock-in strategy, but for play. It builds persistent engagement in a way individual games can’t. They’re not just selling you games; they’re selling you a digital *you* that lives inside their walled garden. Combined with other moves like the GTA title coming to subscribers, it shows they’re playing the long, expensive game. They want to be a gaming ecosystem, not just a distributor.
The Safety Race and Starlink’s Momentum
OpenAI hiring a Head of Preparedness is the definition of “better late than never,” right? This is the company building the most powerful AI models on the planet, and they’re *just now* creating a senior exec role to systematically look at cybersecurity, bioweapons, and mental health risks? It feels reactive, like they’re scrambling to address the fears everyone else has been shouting about for years. It’s a necessary step, but it underscores why external pressure and regulation seem inevitable. You can’t just trust this to goodwill. Meanwhile, in a completely different realm of tech infrastructure, Starlink’s growth is insane. A million net adds in under seven weeks? That’s the kind of scaling that makes a future IPO look like a printing press for capital. They’re building a global utility, one rocket launch at a time.
And if you want to hear more on all this, the folks behind this column have a great podcast. You can find the This Week in XR Podcast on Spotify and YouTube, with guests like CTA’s Gary Shapiro talking CES.
