From Raptors to Rebar: SpaceX Alums Bet on Robot Welders
Three former SpaceX engineers who once helped build Raptor rocket engines just launched 1872, a Cincinnati startup using AI software and robots to automate steel fabrication. Their first target isn't rockets, it's steel skids, the frames used as foundations for modular buildings, aimed at customers building AI data centers and small nuclear reactors. With America short over 300,000 welders by 2029 and immigration crackdowns squeezing labor further, they're betting robots can fill the gap, aiming for up to 80 percent autonomous production by 2027.
Turns out the real space race was always for who runs out of welders first.