AI: The Energy Challenge

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AI: The Energy Challenge

“My guess is that we’ll have AI that is smarter than any one human probably around the end of next year,” Elon Musk said during an interview on Monday. This will depend, however, on an adequate supply of electricity. On this note, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm [ARM], said on Tuesday that a major push was needed to reduce AI’s huge energy usage. Haas was speaking ahead of the announcement of a $110m program to fund AI research at universities in Japan and the US; Arm’s parent, SoftBank [9984:T] will contribute $25m of this total.

Cruise: Back on Track?

After grounding its fleet last year, General Motor’s [GM] Cruise has been in talks with officials from 20 metropolitan areas about resuming or commencing testing, Bloomberg reported. The autonomous driving firm is now warming up to restart tests in Phoenix. Cruise is a key component of GM CEO Mary Barra’s plan to double revenue to $280bn by 2030.

New Space Force Job for Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab [RKLB] has won a $14.5m US Space Force task order to launch an Electron mission from Launch Complex 2. The mission, called Space Test Program-30, is part of Orbital Services Program-4, directed by the Space Systems Command (SSC) Assured Access to Space organisation. The launch of the Electron, Rocket Lab’s third for Space Force, is scheduled for 24 months from now.

Big Boost for South Korea Chip Sector

According to Reuters, the US government is to award more than $6bn to Samsung [005930.KS], which will go towards will go toward construction of four facilities in Taylor, Texas — among them a $17bn chipmaking plant. Elsewhere, South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol said that South Korea will invest some $6.94bn in AI by 2027. “Current competition in semiconductors is an industrial war and an all-out war between nations,” Yoon said at a meeting with chip industry executives Tuesday.

BlackBerry Pairs with AMD on Robotics Innovation

At the Embedded World conference, BlackBerry [BB] said it is to collaborate with Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] on an integrated software and hardware platform, with a view to revolutionising the robotics industry. Grant Courville, VP Product & Strategy at BlackBerry QNX, said that the platform will “ensure that critical robotic tasks are executed with the same level of precision and responsiveness every single time.”