Hard takeoff — where robots build robots, data centers, and chip fabs autonomously — is less than 10 years away, and my current bet is 3 years.
Bernt Børnich predicts that within 3 to 10 years, robots will be building other robots, running data centers, and operating chip fabrication plants — creating a self-sufficient system of physical intelligence that he calls 'hard takeoff.' ✦ AI generated
Bernt Børnich · All-In Podcast · 2026-07-29 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 30:40
“When do the robots become recursive in nature and they are teaching themselves, building themselves... When does that come to robotics where you don't have to actually worry about making the robots better?”
I am extremely sure that we're less than a decade away from hard takeoff. And when I say hard takeoff, I mean robots building the robots, the data centers, the chip fabs, doing the mining and refining. actually a true abundance of labor, a self-sufficient system that is just — Under 10 years. my current bet would be 3 years. But like if it takes 10 like in the in the history of humanity, right? It's still like a blip. It doesn't really matter.
verbatim transcript · starts at 30:40
30:40>> No, no, it's not sci-fi. It's actually something we think a lot about, but it's also incredibly hard to answer because, you know, >> the development now is going like this and you're here on the curve. So when you asked me a year ago, I was way more bearish on how long far along we would be today on the AI >> and like every time I kind of sample
31:01things have moved faster than I think. So it's easy to get like carried away, right? But I think if I try to answer it broadly, I am extremely sure that we're less than a decade away from hard takeoff. And when I say hard takeoff, I mean robots building the robots, the data centers, the chip fabs, doing the mining and refining. actually a true abundance of labor, a
31:21self-sufficient system that is just >> under 10 years. >> Under 10 years, my current bet would be 3 years. >> Got it. >> But like if it takes 10 like in the in the history of humanity, right? It's still like a blip. It doesn't really matter. That gets back to like what is 1x, right? Because >> and you call this the industry term hard launch or >> hard takeoff.
31:40>> Hard takeover. >> Takeoff. Not take over. We're going to do it right. So it's going to be hard take off. Hard takeover. Yes. >> But you know I've heard the term right this is a industry term >> RG and you can't really get this without the physical part right like the digital intelligence can never create its own substrate you need the physical part >> right >> and I think also this is going to have
32:04>> incredible impact on humanity with respect to for example progressing science right >> like a lot of the demand that we're seeing now on our platform is people who want to automate lab work >> because if your if your AI model can't actually build and carry out his experiments and observe the results. How are they going to progress science? Right. >> So all of these things will happen in
32:24the coming years as AI becomes physical and exact timeline is a bit hard but it's years not decades. >> Yeah. I mean, if you if you believe it's three, and I know you're an optimist, you have to be to do what you're doing, a crazy optimist for sure, and you think the outer, you know, uh, estimate is 10, you know, we'll we'll we'll be fine with five, six or seven, uh, burnt, you've
32:48got to catch a flight. This is amazing. Continued success. If people want to order a Neo and give you $500 a month to be part of this absolute lunacy that you're doing, what do they do? How do they get in? Well, you go to our website and you order a Neo. >> That's it. It's that simple. That It's 2026. It should be that simple. >> It It kind of should, right? If you can