Amazon-owned Zoox has begun offering free robotaxi rides to the public on and around the Las Vegas Strip, marking its most ambitious step yet in the push toward commercializing fully autonomous ride-hailing.

The service, which started on Wednesday, comes as Zoox awaits state approval to collect fares and formally compete with Alphabet’s Waymo and Tesla.

Unlike its rivals, Zoox’s vehicles stand out: purpose-built, carriage-style pods with no steering wheels, pedals, or driver seats. Passengers instead sit facing each other in a cabin that Zoox executives admit looks more like a “toaster oven on wheels” than a traditional car.

“This is a very differentiating experience that you want people to sort of get to understand and know the robotaxi, get used to it, and give us feedback too,” Zoox CEO Aicha Evans told Reuters. “That’s good for the community, that’s good for the riders, and that’s good for Zoox.”

Robotaxi Race and Rivalry

Zoox’s rollout underscores the increasingly crowded fight over robotaxi dominance. Waymo, with a fleet of roughly 2,000 vehicles, already runs fare-collecting services in parts of Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, and Atlanta.

Tesla, meanwhile, has begun offering rides in Austin, Texas, and has launched a small ride-hailing program in the San Francisco Bay Area using its driver-assistance technology — though with a safety driver still behind the wheel.

Traditional ride-hailing giant Uber is also fast emerging as a competitor, striking multiple deals to integrate autonomous vehicles into its network rather than building its own cars.

Why Zoox Looks Different

The design difference is Zoox’s biggest gamble. While Tesla retrofits its existing vehicles with self-driving systems and Waymo adapts Chrysler and Jaguar models, Zoox has pursued a ground-up redesign of the car itself. The all-electric pods are symmetrical, able to drive in either direction, and rely entirely on sensors and AI for navigation.

The absence of manual controls highlights Zoox’s commitment to a future where passengers won’t need to think of “drivers” at all. But it also makes the company more dependent on regulatory approval, as safety standards for such unconventional vehicles are still evolving.

Testing, Expansion, and Rider Feedback

Over the past month, Zoox has been quietly testing its vehicles on a loop from a Las Vegas casino, attracting thousands of weekly riders.

“We’ve actually been getting thousands of riders every week just from this one location, which actually quite exceeded our expectations,” Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson said.

Zoox currently operates about 50 vehicles, the majority in Las Vegas, and plans to “very soon” expand public rides to San Francisco, where testing has been underway for months. A rider wait list is already open. Further expansions are mapped out for Miami, Austin, Atlanta, and Los Angeles over the coming year.

The company envisions fleets running mostly on their own, with remote human assistance only stepping in when vehicles request help.

The High-Stakes Backstory

Commercializing robotaxis has proven far more difficult than promised. Across the U.S., rollout efforts have faced tight regulations, safety investigations, and public protests from communities wary of autonomous cars sharing the road. Several well-funded ventures — including Ford and Volkswagen-backed Argo AI — have already collapsed under the weight of high costs and slow regulatory progress.

Amazon’s 2020 $1.3 billion acquisition of Zoox signaled its long-term commitment to the space, giving the project deep-pocketed backing that many rivals lacked. For Amazon, the bet is about more than transportation: successful robotaxi fleets could generate huge returns by reshaping logistics, delivery, and mobility at scale.

Still, even with Amazon’s backing, Zoox faces stiff competition from Waymo’s head start, Tesla’s aggressive rollout strategy, and Uber’s vast ride-hailing network.

However, Zoox is pushing for regulatory clearance to begin charging fares in Las Vegas in the coming months. If approvals come through, the company will directly compete with Waymo in key U.S. cities while Tesla attempts to scale its own vision of robotaxis.

Currently, Zoox is betting that offering free rides will help the public grow comfortable with a very different kind of car — one where the driver’s seat no longer exists.

The S&P 500’s record-setting run has prompted major investment banks to recalibrate their outlooks, with both Barclays and Deutsche Bank raising their year-end targets.

On Wednesday, Deutsche Bank lifted its forecast to 7,000 from 6,550, while Barclays moved its projection to 6,450 from 6,050. The upgrades underscore the market’s resilience, which has been fueled by stronger-than-expected corporate earnings, sturdy U.S. economic growth, and investor enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence.

The index climbed to an all-time high of 6,555.97 earlier in the day and has already risen 11.2% this year, buoyed by a rally that has lifted stocks more than 30% from their April lows. Both banks’ revisions add to a growing chorus of Wall Street firms that have raised their outlook despite persistent worries over President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and the risks they pose to both corporate profits and broader economic momentum.

“We expect equity valuations to remain elevated by historical standards, driven by higher payout ratios, perceptions of higher trend earnings growth…and earnings resilience with fewer significant drawdowns,” said Binky Chadha, chief global strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Barclays echoed that sentiment but injected a note of caution, saying, “Corporate earnings are solid and global GDP growth is stabilizing, but U.S. labor market risks are worsening.”

Fresh labor market data released Friday showed U.S. job growth weakening sharply in August, with the unemployment rate rising to 4.3%, its highest in nearly four years. Those figures, combined with tame inflation readings, have heightened expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, a factor that could continue to buoy equities. Barclays is betting on three rate cuts before year-end, which it argues would help offset labor market weakness. In addition to its year-end revision, Barclays also raised its 2026 target for the S&P 500 to 7,000 from 6,700.

For investors, the debate now shifts toward what 2026 might hold. Analysts see two sharply divergent scenarios.

In the best case, the AI-driven productivity boom continues to spread beyond big tech into manufacturing, healthcare, and financial services, fueling a broad-based rise in earnings. If Federal Reserve rate cuts succeed in engineering a soft landing—stabilizing growth without triggering a deeper labor market shock—the S&P 500 could not only meet but surpass Barclays’ 7,000 forecast. Under this trajectory, equity valuations would remain elevated, supported by strong global GDP growth and an environment where corporate payout ratios stay high.

The worst-case, however, casts a more fragile picture. If Trump’s tariffs intensify and escalate into broader trade conflicts, corporate margins could erode even as input costs climb. A more pronounced downturn in the U.S. labor market could sap consumer demand, forcing companies to cut back on hiring and investment.

Combined with the risk of a policy misstep by the Fed—either cutting rates too late or too aggressively—the S&P 500 could falter, erasing much of its recent rally and sinking well below current levels. In such a scenario, today’s optimism around AI could prove to be overstated, leading to painful corrections in valuations.

All eyes now turn to the Fed’s policy meeting next week, where investors hope to glean clues on the trajectory of rate cuts and the broader market direction. For now, Wall Street banks remain broadly bullish, betting that resilient earnings and AI momentum will keep the S&P 500 elevated.

But with job growth slowing and political risks simmering, 2026 could yet test how durable this record-setting rally really is.

Quantum computing startup PsiQuantum has raised $1 billion in a Series E funding round at a valuation of $7 billion, marking one of the largest financing hauls ever in the quantum sector.

The Palo Alto-based company also announced a strategic collaboration with Nvidia to accelerate development of its silicon-photonics quantum machines.

The fundraising was led by BlackRock, Temasek, and Baillie Gifford, with participation from NVentures (Nvidia’s venture capital arm), Macquarie Capital, and Ribbit Capital. PsiQuantum said the fresh capital will support its Brisbane, Australia, and Chicago, Illinois, sites while funding the rollout of large test systems to prove the company’s design.

PsiQuantum is pursuing a photonic approach to quantum computing, manipulating particles of light on silicon chips. The company argues this method offers a clearer path to scaling, leveraging semiconductor manufacturing techniques and fiber-optic networking.

As part of its Nvidia partnership, PsiQuantum will integrate its systems with the chipmaker’s advanced processors. The collaboration aims to make Nvidia’s chips interoperable with quantum machines, while simultaneously advancing PsiQuantum’s light-based silicon-photonics chips.

The startup’s long-term ambition is nothing short of building the world’s first million-qubit, fault-tolerant quantum computer — a scale far beyond today’s experimental systems, which typically operate with hundreds of qubits and struggle with high error rates. To achieve this, PsiQuantum has also partnered with GlobalFoundries, which fabricates its chips at the company’s New York factory.

Contrast with Industry Peers

PsiQuantum’s $7 billion valuation positions it as one of the most valuable quantum startups globally. It also underscores the widening gulf between well-capitalized players and smaller rivals. For example, U.S.-based IonQ, which went public via SPAC in 2021, has a market capitalization hovering around $2 billion and raised significantly less than PsiQuantum in its early rounds. Rigetti Computing, another U.S. quantum hopeful, has struggled with both financing and execution, with a market cap under $200 million as of this year.

By contrast, PsiQuantum’s latest funding round rivals levels more commonly seen in AI hardware. Nvidia itself, whose data center sales hit $41.1 billion in its most recent quarter, is flush with cash and continues to dominate AI chip markets. Anthropic, one of the leaders in AI models, raised $4 billion from Amazon in 2023, but in quantum computing, a single $1 billion round is rare and signals how investors view the technology as strategically important despite its longer time horizons.

Government Stakes in Quantum

For governments and investors, quantum represents both an economic opportunity and a matter of national security. Quantum systems could eventually crack today’s encryption, model new materials, and revolutionize drug discovery. Unlike the gradual slowdown in conventional computing, quantum offers the promise of leaps in processing power.

Currently, governments are pouring billions into quantum research. In the United States, the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act allocated over $1.2 billion in funding for quantum R&D, with additional billions committed through the Department of Energy and Department of Defense for quantum-secure communication and computing.

In China, state-led investments dwarf private rounds, with analysts estimating more than $10 billion committed to national quantum programs, including facilities in Hefei focused on quantum communication and computing. The country has already demonstrated leadership in quantum satellite communication and has sought to tie advances to strategic military and industrial applications.

The European Union has launched the Quantum Flagship Program, a €1 billion, 10-year initiative to boost the bloc’s competitiveness, funding university labs, startups, and collaborative projects across member states. Several European governments, including Germany and France, have also announced national programs worth billions more to accelerate industrial adoption of quantum technology.

This dual-track strategy — large state-backed initiatives alongside deep-pocketed private investors — highlights how quantum is being treated as both a commercial frontier and a geopolitical race. PsiQuantum’s $1 billion raise signals that private capital is willing to match some of the scale governments are already deploying, especially when tied to heavyweight partners like Nvidia.

By securing Nvidia’s backing, PsiQuantum is ensuring that its photonic design remains tethered to the world’s dominant chip ecosystem, potentially smoothing the path to commercialization.

With more than 30 investors and a newly confirmed $1 billion war chest, PsiQuantum is now among the best-funded deep-tech startups on record. Its success or failure could help determine whether quantum computing shifts from hype to practical reality within the next decade.