Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. I’m Kyle Kellams. You can find planes landing and taking off at the Bentonville Municipal Airport, Thaden Field, every day. Sunday there will be planes there, but also drones, flying cars, jet cars, rockets, and spaceships.
The future—and in many cases, what’s believed to be the near future—of how we move people and things will be on display at the annual Up.Summit Sunday from 11 until 5. Products from firms like Tesla, Loft Dynamics, and Jetson will be available to see and watch.
Cyrus Sigari is the mission commander for the annual Up.Summit, and he says this celebration of what’s next in transportation is expected to draw a crowd of about 20,000 people for Sunday’s public day. The first Up.Summit, about 10 years ago, he says, was much more modest.
Sigari: The very first one only had 40 people at it, and it was hosted in someone’s home. We were all just getting together, the leaders of this future mobility world, to share ideas about what everybody was working on in a time where it was still very nascent. Now it’s expanded into both a public event—which this year we’re expecting about 20,000 people—and our closed-door event with just the entrepreneurs, about 350 people.
That includes heads of state, multiple governors, trillions in capital, 50 different assets physically here. When a lot of these conversations started in 2017, they were just ideas or drawings on a piece of paper. Now we’ve gone from a piece of paper to reality. You can touch it and feel it, kiss it, taste it. It’s been quite a journey to see this whole world change very rapidly.
Kellams: For the public event Sunday, a lot of of the assets will be on display?
Sigari: All of the assets will be on display —from rocket ships to space stations, flying cars to drones, next-generation airliners to autonomous cars, humanoid robots to satellites. You name it. All the things we were promised as kids, they will all be in one place here in Northwest Arkansas, and they will be in no other place in the world.
Kellams: Speaking of things we were promised, or at least became entranced with when we were children—when you look at the roster of who’s here, there’s something called Jetson.
Sigari: That’s right. We’ve got a company called Jetson with a very novel, small flying car-looking thing. It’s hard to even have the right words for these things, but it’s a single-person vehicle that looks like it’s straight out of Star Wars. We’ll have close to four of them here flying and doing demonstrations. That’s one of a handful of vehicles you can actually buy today and operate.
A company called Pivotal has another vehicle flying today that you can buy, and there are customers flying from their backyard to their office with it as we speak. These are relatively small numbers today, but it’s showing that the future we’ve been promised is here today—just not equally distributed.
Kellams: How will all of these assets be displayed for the public?
Sigari: We’ve got two ways. The most exciting way is in the air. We’ve got one heck of an air show that’s going to include everything from the past, present, and into the future.
From the past, we’ll have World War II fighters. To the present, we’ll have present-day fighter jets and aerobatic displays. Jetson will be flying. Pivotal will be flying. Another company called Beta, with their Alia vehicle, will be flying—a fully electric airplane, one of the coolest-looking things you’ve ever seen. We’ll have jet cars and drones as part of the air show at the Bentonville airport.
In addition, we’ll have displays and activations on the airfield for people to experience this really exciting future.
Kellams: I’m sorry, Cyrus, what’s a jet car?
Sigari: It is a car with a jet engine behind it. It should make you tilt your head and ask, “Is that what I think it is? And the answer is yes. It’s an afterburning, smoke-throwing, just awesomeness. There’s not really a good purpose to it other than to make you go, “Hell yes, that’s awesome, and I want more of it.”
Kellams: Some glimpses into the future are like that: pretty cool, something that probably will not touch my life, but others we will be seeing that some things will be part of our lives.
Sigari: Well, I want to challenge that many of the things that you’re going to see will be part of our lives. In some cases, like the drone deliveries, we’re already seeing that. Really scale at an unprecedented rate. Like Walmart. It’s the largest consumer and user of drone technology in the world outside of the defense community. They’ve been at the forefront of pushing that industry forward with their drone partners, and they’ll all be here. The autonomous vehicle world—the leaders from Waymo and Tesla—will have their vehicles here. That’s reality, that’s happening now. I’d be surprised if, by the end of next year, robotaxis aren’t available throughout Arkansas. Humanoid robots will also be there. That’s straight out of a sci-fi movie, never would’ve thought it’s a real thing. I’d say perhaps it’s the most exciting thing. There are probably 50 companies building some version of a humanoid robot. It’s considered to be the single largest investment technology genre for growth for the entire tech world. Elon predicts the cost to operate one of the Optimus robots will be about $1 to $2 an hour. They'll do things like firefighting or sanitation. The list goes on and on around human labor stuff. By next year, you’ll start to see these products in the hands of small groups, but eventually in much larger groups going forward.
Kellams: It is interesting because many of these things that we're talking about, the first time we see them, there’s a wow factor and a little bit unease. I’m thinking about the robotic machines that take care of floors in places like Walmart. Now, it’s just commonplace. I imagine for someone like you, Cyrus because you’ve been privy to seeing these things develop that it’s been very interesting.
Sigari: It’s extremely interesting. I spend a lot of time in California, in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Autonomous Waymo cars are super normal now. I remember thinking, when they were first talking about launching these autonomous robo taxis, “Man, how long is it going to take for people to get comfortable with this idea?”
It turns out, as soon as you ride in one, you find out it’s a better experience. The safety numbers are close to ten times safer than a human driver, at least in the current areas where they are testing and operating.. So, really in a short period of time you see what was sci-fi becomes real. And I think you’re going to continue to see it happen faster and in more areas.
It’s really exciting. There is this world of abundance created by virtue of technology giving us more options to live higher quality life at reduced costs and not be limited by physical constraints the way we have been in the past.
Kellams: Maybe it’s my age, but sometimes when I hear these things like “humanoid robots that are fightfighter and not putting other humans in danger is great,” but it also gives me pause.
Sigari: And that’s normal, it should. There are consequences to new technologies and how they’re adopted—safely and equitably in terms of how they are being used. AI is a great example.
From a regulatory perspective, our leaders need to be really thoughtful. These technologies have the capability to do exceptionally good things, but if you’re not careful, they could do some damage as well. We’re all kind of learning. A good example is that it’s like putting the engine on the airplane while you’re flying at the same time. It’s rational for people to have concerns, but in balance, it’s really exciting. It gives me hope for the future.
Kellams: Someone’s bringing a jet car to exhibit. How do they get it here?
Sigari: They put it on the back of another truck.
Kellams: And I know that the closed part is closed for a reason. There are proprietary reasons for that. But just what’s the sense of those sorts of meetings in those days?
Sigari: So really the purpose of the closed portion is we’re bringing together the top entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, corporate executives, leaders from the defense community into an intimate environment. And it’s highly saturated with a lot of these entrepreneurs giving TEDx talks on what it is that they’re building and telling their stories of perseverance and the challenges and the opportunity, and really humanizing this incredible work that they’re all doing.
So there’s probably close to 50 of those talks happening. We’ve got governors flying in. We’ve got minister-level folks from around the world flying in. We’ve got investors coming in. Keeping that intimate space is important so we can really create connections for these folks, for them to inspire one another, to partner with one another, to invest with one another, to share ideas.
One really cool success story from last year is a company by the name of Commonwealth Fusion, which is building fusion technology to power our homes and states and cities. They gave a presentation, and in the crowd was Gov. Glenn Youngkin from Virginia. This is a little-known fact, but close to 30% of the energy consumed in Virginia right now is being consumed by data centers. They are thirsty for as much energy as they can get. And when Bob got off stage, the governor grabbed him, and 60 days later they signed a deal to put a fusion reactor in the state of Virginia.
Those are the things you can’t plan that just happen by virtue of creating these collisions and sharing ideas and solving problems that you didn’t even know needed to be solved. And so our hope when we bring these people together is to have more of those stories that can ultimately increase the quality of life for all of us.
Kellams: All right. It’s taking place Sunday, Sept. 28. What is the website again?
Sigari: upsummit.day. Get on there. Sign up, we’re going to sell out. Bring your family and get ready to have a day full of electricity and jet cars and flying things and inspiration. We are also going to be doing the world record launch for the largest balloon helicopter launch. So many of the schools in the area will be getting these balloon-powered helicopters. We’re planning to launch 20,000 of them collectively at the opening of the air show. So, hopefully, those that get them in school get to bring them to the event.
Kellams: Do they make a sound, helicopter balloons?
Sigari: It makes a whistle. It’s a really fun sound. They fly about probably 20, 30 feet in the air. But it doesn’t matter if you’re a 5-year-old or 85-year-old, you giggle and smile when you see it take off.
Kellams: Well, Cyrus, thank you so much. I can’t wait to talk to you next year to find out what else has developed.
Sigari: Oh, we’ll look forward to that and appreciate you, and we’ll look forward to seeing your listeners at our event.
Kellams: Cyrus Sigari is the mission commander for Sunday’s public day of the Up Summit in Bentonville. It’s taking place Sunday from 11 until 5 at the Bentonville Municipal Airport. The air show itself is scheduled to start at 2. It’s all free, but you must register for your tickets ahead of time at UpSummit.day. Parking will be available at the old Walmart Home Office off Walton Boulevard in Bentonville. Shuttles will then take people from that lot to the airport.
I spoke with Cyrus via Zoom last week.
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