The Morning Download: OpenClaw Infuses AI Agents With New Energy

Good morning. There’s a fury of activity at the heart of AI. Capital spending among public tech companies is soaring to a point where it is starting to exceed cash flow. Competition among developers is still leading to meaningful advances by Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and others.

Interesting things are happening beyond the main stage, too. In November, Austrian developer and startup founder Peter Steinberger launched an open-source agentic AI framework now known as OpenClaw. The framework, which can run locally on user computers, is used to handle a range of tasks such as managing email or schedules. It now has more than 1.5 million agents. It has gone through a series of name changes, starting with Clawdot and Moltbot.

The technology even gave rise to Moltbook, a social media platform where the agents can hang out. OpenClaw runs a variety of models, including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, and Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen.

"Moltbook maybe (is a passing fad) but OpenClaw is not," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last week at the Cisco AI Summit in San Francisco. "This idea that code is really powerful, but code plus generalized computer use is even much more powerful, is here to stay."

OpenClaw has raised concerns about security. It isn’t clear how many users are going to trust the framework with the sorts of personal information often necessary to complete transactions and other tasks. But masses of people already share that information with many digital platforms. If nothing else, OpenClaw shows what's possible as established platforms bring more advanced agentic capabilities to market.

Coming up this week...

I’m very excited to head to Palo Alto this week with my awesome colleagues from the WSJ Leadership Institute for the WSJ Technology Council Summit.

I’m  looking forward to my session on AI adoption with two subject matter experts, Stephen Carvelli, chief technology officer of Sonic Automotive, and Leigh-Ann Russell, CIO and global head of engineering at BNY. There will be many great discussions, which you can follow in The Morning Download.

We will be at The WSJ Technology Council Summit in Palo Alto, Calif., tomorrow and Wednesday, hosting panel discussions and, most importantly, meeting your peers. The Summit is a chance to learn from some of the brightest leaders in IT, and we’ll bring those insights back to you through stories, social posts and our newsletter.

And we want you to be part of the conversation. If you can’t attend the Summit but have an issue you’d like addressed, let us know. We’ll work your questions into discussions when possible and share key takeaways in the Morning Download.

The software is dead. Long live the software. Last week’s stock market send-off heralding the supposed end of the age of software—courtesy of a handful of plug-ins for Anthropic’s Claude—may have been premature.

Analysts and some executives who oversee technology procurement for their companies tell the Journal's Chip Cutter and Sebastian Herrera that plenty of incumbents are likely to survive and even thrive.

Among the arguments cited for the continued relevance of software: Vendors have proprietary data and deep industry expertise that’s not easily replicated. Also, ripping out software for AI is hardly worth the disruption, according to Anish Acharya, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz involved in enterprise investing. Software costs represent only about 8% to 10% of enterprise spending, he tells the Journal. 

One telling sign that vibe-coded software isn’t about to eat incumbents’ lunch: OpenAI and Anthropic are themselves customers of numerous large software-as-a-service platforms, said Box CEO Aaron Levie. He predicts a flourishing of new custom software that will work with existing platforms. 

“If you had a Claude agent go and review a contract, you still need a place to manage the contracts,” Levie said.

Memory chips were just the beginning. The AI boom is casting a light on its fragile, highly specialized supply chain. While chip makers get all the attention, providers of upstream semiconductor materials are just as critical.  Many supply chain nodes contain just a single firm.

The WSJ profiles Nittobo, a century-old Japanese textile company responsible for a cloth-like material known as T-glass used in advanced chips. 

Facing growing demand, Nittobo said it plans to raise prices this year as much as 25% or more. Such increases are likely to trickle down to consumer prices of smartphones and laptops.

T-glass isn’t the only example of advanced computing resting on overlooked materials.

• Japanese food company Ajinomoto makes a specialized film used in the underside layer of a chip alongside T-glass.
• Nvidia’s million-dollar server racks rely on a Taiwanese manufacturer of furniture components for drawer slide rails.

People in the industry say AI companies such as Nvidia have the deepest pockets and often get preferred access to parts. 

Up to $670 billion. How much Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet’s Google plan to spend this year to build out AI infrastructure. Translated as a percentage of GDP, it's a figure that costing a lot more than the moon landing

Over $30 billion. What Anthropic believes its annualised revenue will be by the end of this year, up from more than $9 billion by the end of 2025, FT reports.

China gives robots the EV treatment. Beijing has labeled “embodied AI”—the fusion of artificial intelligence with physical systems—the next big thing, hoping to do to humanoid robots what it did to the EV industry, namely, dominate it, the WSJ reports. China is offering land, subsidies and over $26 billion in funds, while state agencies serve as early adopters to generate data and demand. Chinese firms are already deploying robots in factories, hotels and public spaces, and announcing hundreds of millions in orders.

What about  the U.S.? While the U.S. leads in foundational AI models, it still depends on China's supply chain. Tesla’s Optimus will count on Chinese suppliers for components such as roller screws for robot joints and motors for robot hands for mass production, people familiar with the matter said.

Google employees get vocal. The New York Times reports that more than 800 Googlers signed a petition demanding greater transparency about how the company’s technology supports federal immigration agencies. Signers urged Google to disclose and potentially end cloud service contracts with agencies like ICE. 

Another tech warning from the EU. The EU is accusing Meta of blocking rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp’s business interface, WSJ reports. A Meta spokesperson said that the commission has wrongly assumed that WhatsApp’s business programming interface is a key distribution channel for chatbots. “There are many AI options," the spokesperson said. 

More job cuts. Block, parent company of Cash App and Square, is warning hundreds of employees that their jobs may be cut as part of annual reviews tied to a broader overhaul. Up to 10% of its roughly 11,000 staff are at risk, Bloomberg reports. 

Epstein, Reid and Elon. The latest Epstein files revealed that billionaires Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk had deeper connections with the sex offender than either previously acknowledged, WSJ reports. The two men were once part of the so-called PayPal mafia, a group that went on to invest or found successful Silicon Valley companies. 

A modest proposal. A pro-billionaire protest over the weekend in San Francisco's ritzy Pacific Heights neighborhood, motivated by a proposal to impose a one-time 5% tax on the state’s wealthiest residents, attracted more counterprotersters. The WSJ was there with the color: "A man on a unicycle brandished a sign, inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit,' which read, 'Smaug Did Nothing Wrong.'"

The snowballing retreat in software stocks that gathered up big tech, private credit, and even the corporate bond market this past week ended in a remarkable rebound, leaving investors bracing for more turbulence ahead. (WSJ)

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi led her party to a thumping victory in parliamentary elections, handing her a powerful mandate to deepen ties with the U.S. and rev up Japan’s economy. (WSJ)

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned Sunday, as the fallout from the Epstein files ripples through British politics. (WSJ)

A Hong Kong court sentenced former tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken 78-year-old critic of China’s Communist Party, to 20 years in prison, a ruling that adds further friction in U.S. relations with China. (WSJ)

The WSJ Tech Council brings together CIOs, CTOs and CISOs advancing innovation and shaping the future. Join this trusted community where tech executives connect with peers to explore emerging trends and gain the perspective they need to stay ahead of disruption.

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The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.