Salim Ismail

Founder @OpenExO
Partner @ Member @XPrize
Founding Exec Dir @SingularityU.

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@HowToAI_ @grok is this real, and how material is this?

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

This article is a must read. The implications are profound: TL;DR.. AI is essentially a new source of sovereign power. Those that treat it as “digital transformation” will fall behind those that treat it as energy/compute/talent/security. This is not minor.. !

[Dario Amodei @DarioAmodei]

Today I'm publishing a new essay, Policy on the AI Exponential. AI is progressing extremely fast—much faster than the policy process was built to handle. The essay lays out where I think the technology is now, and the action needed to close the gap: https://t.co/Lh6PWae178

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

That may have been the craziest ending in NBA history ever. #NBA #knicks

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

We live for anecdotes like this.. I'll repeat.. instead of future shock, use AI to Future shape. It gives everybody radical agency

[LeverBiz @LeverBiz]

I wanted to share a thank you to @PeterDiamandis, @salimismail , @alexwg and @DaveBlundin.

A few months ago I discovered the Moonshots podcast. Admittedly, I was not in a great place after a 2 year divorce battle and two young kids.

Hearing your conversations about entrepreneurship, AI, abundance, and building the future, lit a fire in me. Instead of just listening, I decided to start my own business on the side after 20+ years in corporate tech and operations.

Today, my first 3 clients are live, 4 more are in the pipeline, and I've already received thank you calls from these businesses that are seeing real results.

Those calls reminded me that impact compounds. The value I'm creating for my clients traces back to the inspiration and conviction your podcast gave me to take the leap. Of course I work my ass off too, ha!

You guys spend your time discussing ideas. But those ideas turn into actions, businesses, jobs, and opportunities for people you'll never meet.

Just wanted to pass along some gratitude and remind you that your work matters. Thanks for helping create one more entrepreneur.

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@markrich2209 Yes, Islam is the same. But I don't relate to it as delusional. It's a very simple category error where people have a belief system, but they relate to that belief system as truth. Scientists, by the way, can be as delusional and get stuck refusing to change their views

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@Cyber_Stag Now that is what I'm talking about. Look at that dexterity!

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

Now this is what I'm talking about!

[Lukas Ziegler @lukas_m_ziegler]

Six arms instead of two! 🤯

Midea Group humanoid robot has six arms instead of two.

It handles heavy components with lower limbs and performs fine assembly work with upper limbs. Full 360-degree rotation, stable vertical lifting, rapid tool-swapping.

The robot handles workstation transitions that would typically require multiple human workers or separate machines.

So no idle-time between stations. Pretty cool.

But I'm really curious about the cost, and how this 6-arms robot compares to a regular robot arm, and then to a regular humanoid

What do yo think? Overcomplicated?

~~

♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → https://t.co/GoA3ZuwoPB

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

If you're in Canadian policy making.. pls read. This is very well articulated

[Lucy Hargreaves @lucyhargreaves4]

Canada’s not going for gold with this strategy.

On the consumer side, this strategy gets a lot of things right and this government deserves credit for that.

But from a digital and economic sovereignty perspective I think it falls short. What the AI industry most needs is for governments to create the free market conditions for AI companies to start, scale and thrive here.

There are important elements in the strategy: sovereign compute, a public supercomputer, AI Missions starting in health care, a fund to scale Canadian champions, commercializing the Photonics Fabrication Centre, and the government as an anchor customer. Members of the Build Canada community have publicly written about many of these ideas and it's good to see these show up in the plan.

But we have to be honest about what this strategy is – and what it isn't.

This is primarily a strategy to help Canada use artificial intelligence, with government in a main character role in framing public perception.

It is not a strategy to make Canada the best place on earth to build it. Its own organizing goal – adoption, moving Canadian businesses from 12% to 60% uptake – is necessary but not sufficient to make Canada a global AI leader.

The strategy says it wants Canadian champions. But you don't build champions with government cheques and deferred studies – you build them by making Canada the best place on earth to start and scale a company.

Using AI and Building AI are different goals, and they require different instincts.

The companies that will define this century will get built where four things are true:
1. founders and engineers keep what they create;
2. capital is deep enough to write billion-dollar cheques; 3. energy and compute are cheap and fast to build; and 4. the rules are light enough to move at the speed of the technology.

Measure this strategy against those conditions and the pattern is clear:

On founder and employee economics – the single biggest reason talent leaves Canada – it does nothing now. The one capital-gains idea it raises, a reinvestment rollover, is deferred to a study due by Budget 2026.

On capital, it makes the government the venture capitalist instead of unleashing private capital to back Canadian companies.

On energy, it promises to double the grid by 2050. The build is needed this decade – and the strategy offers no permitting reform to get there.

On regulation, it adds a new layer – a trusted-AI certification program, watermarking, plus new privacy and online-safety laws – and compliance always lands hardest on the startups least able to carry it.

And it adds a dozen new programs on top of the 130-plus innovation programs founders already can't navigate. The answer was always fewer and faster, not more.

Prosperity is not something that the state can spend into existence. Prosperity is what happens when you clear the runway and let the free market work. No government can subsidize its way past the friction it is responsible for creating.

Playing to win would look different. It would look like:

--> Let founders defer capital gains reinvested in Canadian companies, and fix how we tax employee equity – now, not in a future budget.
--> Treat energy and permitting like the emergency they are. Approve power and data centres in months, not years, and build at wartime speed.
--> Set a hard speed limit on regulation: apply the laws we have, and clear new products fast.
--> Collapse the ~130-plus innovation programs into fewer than ten – and cut the friction founders hit at every step.

Canada invented modern AI. We have the talent, one of the cleanest grids in the world, and the research base to win. The opportunity is ours to lose.

This strategy is a genuine start – but a country that wants to win doesn't plan to be the world's best customer. It plans to build the companies the world cannot live without.

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

Thanks Rob. Really great summary!

[Rob Dickson @showmerob]

Today at the Ad Astra Technology Summit at Wichita State University’s Barton School of Business, I had the chance to hear Salim Ismail (@salimismail) deliver two powerful keynotes on exponential technologies, AI, and the future of our institutions—and to share a session on the State of Kansas Tech in Education alongside that conversation. 🚀📚

In his first talk, he argued that we are not moving toward a technological singularity—we’re already in it. 🤖 Drawing on more than a century of data behind Moore’s Law, he showed how once a field becomes “information‑based,” its price‑performance begins to double on a predictable curve, and that now a dozen technologies—AI, biotech, neuroscience, genomics, drones, solar, and more—are all doubling on their own timelines. 📈 He connected this to XPRIZE work on space, carbon removal, and longevity, suggesting that breakthroughs in areas like aging could push us toward “escape velocity” for human lifespan within the next decade, forcing us to rethink everything from pensions to religion to governance. 🌍⏩

The second session shifted from diagnosis to design. 🧠 Salim described how most 20th‑century organizations were optimized for efficiency and predictability, but the new requirement is agility, adaptability, and speed—especially as the “organizational immune system” in both corporations and the public sector resists needed change. He then turned directly to education, critiquing 200 years of “supply‑side” schooling organized around fixed jobs and credentials at a time when the half‑life of skills has shrunk from roughly 30 years to about 3. His proposed shift: move to a “demand‑side” model where we ask learners what problem they want to solve, help them define a massive transformative purpose, and continually assemble and refresh the skills, tools, and collaborators they need in that problem space. 🎯

Against that backdrop, I was able to share how Kansas is approaching K‑12 technology—from workforce pipelines and apprenticeship urgency to district‑level innovation in AI, virtual learning, and new school models—as part of the broader State of Kansas Tech in Education. 🇺🇸💻 Across the day, the through‑line was clear: exponential technologies are colliding with institutions that were never designed for this pace of change. Whether in business, government, or education, the challenge now is to redesign our systems so they can keep up—and to see this disruption not only as a risk to manage, but as an opportunity to move from scarcity to abundance in areas like energy, healthcare, and learning. 🌱⚡

@FlagshipKansas @WichitaState
#AdAstra2026 #WichitaState #FlagshipKansas #AI #EdTech #K12 #FutureOfWork #FutureOfLearning #ExponentialOrganizations #KansasEducation #AIinEducation #WPSProud

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

This was such a great conversation

[Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis]

Catch up with the latest WTF: https://t.co/GI1IDtVBtH

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

Yes, that's what we were trying for!

[Raspy Camper🌲 @Raspycamper]

@salimismail It’s more than a “how to” guide, it’s a complete skill that bakes in how NOT to step on land mines as you transform your business.

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

This is wonderful..

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Group performs Beethoven’s symphony No.5 a cappella

[🎼 HotPlaysMusic]

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

You're welcome! Everybody, take note of Raspy's comment below. Get the skill and start transforming your companies. It's frickin' free! Register at https://t.co/7kXGqpO7TS and go to Tools/Resources. Boom.

[Raspy Camper🌲 @Raspycamper]

@salimismail I downloaded the Claude ExO skill template. Wow, what a gift. I am using it to transform my commercial cleaning company into an AI first company. Thank you, Salim!

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@KevinVuongxMP @ruffoloj @ddebow @TOtechweek Wish I had seen this. Big fan of all three of you

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

For my crazier followers.. John Hagel and I are doing a webinar in 15m on 'Shaping Luck'. We can define it very clearly for the first time ever, and more importantly, measure it. (yes, we claim to measure luck). Come join if you dare: https://t.co/L5osDifuVs

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@brandoninNY [Looks out window]. Calgary !!

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

Boom, Peter and I dropped the full interview on The Organizational Singularity. Maybe the most important piece of work I've ever released. https://t.co/qvjlxWRC0Q

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

Much more on this in the next few days. One needs to focus on the moats

[Salim Ismail @salimismail]

@Scheiter @orbitrobotics @PeterDiamandis Now this is more like it.. thanks !