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- DTN 114: China's Orbital Supercomputer
DTN 114: China's Orbital Supercomputer
Plus: UAE announces major AI projects, no boom supersonics, mini-satellite quantum messaging, new magnetic superconductor discovered, gene delivery system for brain cells, and more.

“If my goal is to make the world a better place, we need to solve energy… we've designed a solution that allows us to undercut the cost of energy across the board in any market anywhere.”

“China has launched the first 12 satellites of a planned 2,800-strong orbital supercomputer satellite network. The satellites, created by the company ADA Space, Zhijiang Laboratory, and Neijang High-Tech Zone, will be able to process the data they collect themselves, rather than relying on terrestrial stations to do it for them.
The satellites are part of ADA Space’s “Star Compute” program and the first of what it calls the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” the company writes. Each of the 12 satellites has an onboard eight-billion parameter AI model and is capable of 744 tera operations per second (TOPS) — a measure of their AI processing grunt — and, collectively, ADA Space says they can manage five peta operations per second, or POPS.”

China’s lithium city is a front line of the battery trade war
Single-atom quantum computer achieves breakthrough molecular simulations
A United Arab Emirates lab announces frontier AI projects—and a new outpost in Silicon Valley
Mini-satellite paves the way for quantum messaging anywhere on Earth
No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon
The Boring Company achieves "holy grail" zero-people-in-tunnel continuous mining
Nvidia-powered supercomputer to enable quantum leap for Taiwan’s research
Microsoft just launched an AI that discovered a new chemical in 200 hours instead of years
A new AI translation system for headphones clones multiple voices simultaneously


John Nees (left) and laser engineer Paul Campbell (right) work in Target Area 1, where the first 2 petawatt user experiment will take place. ZEUS is now the most powerful laser in the U.S. Credit: Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering
The ZEUS laser facility at the University of Michigan is now the most powerful laser in the United States, reaching a peak output of 2 petawatts, which is roughly double the power of any other U.S. laser. It supports advanced research in fields such as quantum physics, plasma science, medicine, and astrophysics, and is open to scientists worldwide through a proposal-based selection process. The team is working to achieve even higher energies using techniques like wakefield acceleration, aiming for a future experiment at zettawatt-equivalent levels. (via Phys.org)

Quantum eyes on energy loss: Diamond quantum imaging can enable next-gen power electronics
Nanoscale biosensor lets scientists monitor molecules in real time
Quantum heat circuits: A diode framework for quantum thermal transistors
An accidentally discovered class of nanostructured materials can passively harvest water from air
'Intercrystals' pave the way for greener electronics and quantum technologies
Scientists design gene delivery systems for cells in the brain and spinal cord
Spider eye development editing and silk fiber engineering using CRISPR-Cas
First successful demonstration of quantum error correction of qudits for quantum computers
Biosynthetic advance could halve the cost of widely used cancer drug
Smallest inorganic semiconductor enables eco-friendly hydrogen production
Laser-powered fusion experiment more than doubles its power output

Biotherapeutics company Fore Biotherapeutics raises $38M in Series D-2 financing
Saildrone bags $60M investment for AI-powered maritime security in Europe
Revolut CEO raises $250M for AI-powered VC firm QuantumLight
Stripe brothers and Harry Stebbings’ 20VC back synthetic fuel startup Rivan in $10M round
Sublime Systems, a cement technology company, receives investment from Suffolk Technologies
Therini Bio locks in another $39M for its fibrin-targeting immunotherapies
CellCentric raises $120M to treat multiple myeloma with capsule
AI start-up Intrepid Labs raises $11M to make drug formulations better
The Nuclear Company raises $46M to develop massive reactor sites
Laser technology company, LIS Technologies, raises $11.93M in funding
PHASE Scientific Raises $34M in Series A funding for early disease detection through urine-based diagnostics
Persist.AI, a startup using AI to streamline drug formulation development, raised a $12M Series A
Finwave Semiconductor, a semiconductor manufacturing company, raised an $8.2M round
Alt Carbon, a startup scale CO2 removal work in India, raised a $12M seed round

UAE’s AI University Aims to Become Stanford of the Gulf / Venture capital still likes cleantech / Tallest Wooden Wind Turbine / America is on the precipice of an academic brain drain / Deadly Fungi Are Here, and They’re Spreading / Esoteric Programming Languages Are Fun—Until They Kill the Joke / The Epic Rise and Fall of a Dark-Web Psychedelics Kingpin / A new atomic clock in space could help us measure elevations on Earth / Who’s to Blame When AI Agents Screw Up? / Usage of Semicolons In English Books Down Almost Half In Two Decades / Planet found orbiting backward between two stars / Building a giant catcher's mitt on the moon / Wow@Home – Network of Amateur Radio Telescopes / Living beings emit a faint light that extinguishes upon death, study / Urine-testing device turns toilets into health trackers / Do these Buddhist gods hint at the purpose of China’s super-secret satellites? / We Made Luigi Mangione’s 3D-Printed Gun—and Fired It / Physicists determine how to cut onions with fewer tears / Lower-frequency sonic booms from Falcon 9 launches can feel like mini-earthquakes / Nikola’s hydrogen trucks hit the auction block / Trump to sign bill criminalizing revenge porn and explicit deepfakes / Africa Establishes a Space Agency to Close Its Climate Data Gap / I was a Theranos whistleblower. Here’s what I think Elizabeth Holmes is up to / By putting AI into everything, Google wants to make it invisible