20VC: Why Robotics Will be 100x Bigger than Coding Agents | Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Why Software Investors are F***** Today with Naveen Rao, Unconventional

Energy and hardware represent the most critical bottlenecks and essential frontiers for the future of artificial intelligence. Current infrastructure is insufficient to meet the exponential demand for intelligence, making energy-first design and co-designing models with physical hardware necessary for sustainable scaling. While software-focused investment faces diminishing returns, the hardware layer offers significant opportunities for efficiency gains through specialized architectures that move beyond general-purpose computing. Naveen Rao, founder of Unconventional AI, argues that the inference market will reach a $10 trillion valuation within a decade, driven by the need to convert energy into intelligence more effectively. Rather than relying on commoditized models, the future of AI lies in deep technical innovation, where specialized hardware and high-quality data curricula dictate success in an increasingly adversarial global landscape.