Good morning, and happy new year! It’s good to be back. Today, robots are taking centre stage at the world’s largest electronics event. More on their creators’ wider ambitions below – plus, we cast a glance at the “good-looking tuna” that fetched a record $3.2-million at auction.
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In the news
Venezuela: Canadian oil tycoon Adam Waterous says building a new pipeline to the B.C. coast to expand access to overseas markets is now even more urgent.
Ukraine: Chrystia Freeland is stepping down as Canada’s special representative to Ukraine and in “the coming weeks” will resign as a member of Parliament after accepting a role as economic adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky.
Real estate: Minto Apartment REIT, a sizeable owner of rental properties across Canada, is going private in a deal valued at $2.3-billion.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a speech at the CES conference yesterday in Las Vegas.MIKAYLA WHITMORE/The New York Times
In focus
What happens in Vegas
If fears of a robot uprising are misplaced, organizers of this year’s largest electronics show don’t seem inclined to say so.
Today, “the invasion begins” with a keynote from Siemens chief executive Roland Busch on how “AI, digital twins and automation are driving a new era of AI.” In the afternoon, attendees at the Consumer Electronics Show can head to the Robot Pavilion “to witness the uprising of humanoid robots.”
How AI is driving AI is a bit circular – such is the world of 2026 – and adopting the language often associated with one of humanity’s worst existential fears is a bit of a head scratcher. But perhaps the most notable juxtaposition of this year’s event is how they’re being presented.
In recent years, keynote speeches from major tech companies promised the moon yet delivered meh; investors grew concerned over their massive spending, valuations and broader economic headwinds; and around the edges of the conference, held annually in Las Vegas, were a smorgasbord of phantasmagorical, AI-powered robots that attacked reporters (because of human error, in fairness), and looked something like what happens when a lapdog falls madly in love with a reading lamp.
Levelling up
Those gadgets are still present, but this year’s slate marks a sharpening scope in how robots are being branded. At the last couple of conferences, they were seen helping at home or providing companionship. Today, a larger slate of machines are being aimed squarely at the workplace – mainly warehouses, factories and logistics hubs where labour is harder to find.
That might make for a somewhat confusing message, considering unemployment remains elevated across North America. But analysts have projected steady growth in humanoid and service robots over the coming decade, driven by aging populations, reduced immigration, skills mismatches, and falling hardware costs.
Those projections hinge largely on human-driven improvements in reliability, safety and economics – areas where progress has been slow, at least relative to the technological leaps. But the humanoids are here, and they’re already working among us – if at a relatively small scale.
Hyundai Motor Group. announced plans yesterday to deploy humanoid robots at its U.S. manufacturing plant in 2028. Taiwan-based Foxconn and AI juggernaut Nvidia are putting robots to work at a factory in Houston this year. Such is the importance of “physical AI” to the U.S. chip-making giant that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent a good portion of his market-moving keynote speech yesterday laying out his vision of models that “understand the real world, reason, and plan actions.”
“The ChatGPT moment for robotics is here,” he said.
And the AEON humanoid, one of the buzzier bots at this year’s conference, is patrolling factory floors, inspecting equipment and working in industrial settings where downtime is costly and mistakes carry consequences. Its pitch is narrow and practical: spot problems early, reduce injuries, keep production moving.
Among us
It does not look like a machine designed to charm, even if its inventors hope it will ease discomfort among its humans colleagues. (Just look at how it stands up and tell me you wouldn’t have repeated jump scares throughout the day.)
But it represents a more disciplined focus on labour that seems to be resonating with investors. Late last year, for example, Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management invested in Figure AI, a California-based company developing humanoid robots for industrial and commercial use.
The investment fits with larger firms’ push into AI-related infrastructure – where land, power and computing capacity are emerging as key resources in a sector Nvidia’s Huang predicts will create trillions of dollars over the next few years.
And while institutional investors position around the physical requirements of scale, policymakers have begun encouraging adoption through funding for advanced manufacturing and AI-enabled technologies.
If this week’s CES is any indication, the result seems to be a cautious convergence of technology, capital and policy, with fewer sweeping claims and greater attention to where robots might fit first. Perhaps, with a more careful and considered approach, the uprising can wait at least another year.
Kiyoshi Kimura poses at his sushi restaurant in Tokyo with pricey bluefin tuna he bought at the auction yesterday. The fish was caught off the coast of Oma, known for producing some of Japan's best tuna.Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
Quoted
“It’s in part for good luck,” Kimura said. “But when I see a good looking tuna, I cannot resist ... I haven’t sampled it yet, but it’s got to be delicious.”
— Kiyoshi Kimura, owner of the Sushi Zanmai chain
A 243-kilogram bluefin tuna sold for a record 510-million yen (US$3.2-million) at the first auction of 2026 at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market.
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Morning update
Global stocks extended gains on momentum from Wall Street overnight as investors looked beyond upheaval in Venezuela.
Wall Street futures were mixed and TSX futures pointed lower after the Canada’s main stock index closed at a fresh record high yesterday.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.07 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.68 per cent, Germany’s DAX climbed 0.01 per cent and France’s CAC 40 declined 0.6 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.32 per cent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.38 per cent.
The Canadian dollar dollar traded at 72.61 U.S. cents.