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Earth Intelligence

10 Dec 2023 — 7 min read

Trending:

AMD’s New AI Chips
TBI Brain Implants

Week Recap:

Alaska Air Group Inc. has agreed to acquire Hawaiian Holdings Inc.'s Hawaiian Airlines in a notable $1.9 billion deal. This agreement includes taking on about $900 million of Hawaiian's existing debt. In terms of the purchase price, Alaska Air Group is offering $18 per share in cash, significantly higher than Hawaiian Holdings' closing share price of $4.86 on the preceding Friday.
Google's DeepMind AI lab has made a significant breakthrough by identifying 2.2 million new types of crystals. Crystals, defined as compounds with repeating atomic structures like diamonds or quartz, are fundamental in various technological applications. Of the newly identified crystals, 380,000 are stable, meaning they can maintain their structure under specific conditions.
American retailer Staples recently experienced a cyberattack, prompting the company to shut down some of its systems to limit the breach's impact and safeguard customer data. Staples, with 994 stores in the U.S. and Canada and 40 fulfillment centers, faced operational disruptions reported by employees on Reddit.
Spotify, the music streaming service based in Sweden, is reducing its workforce by 17% as part of cost-cutting measures. CEO Daniel Ek communicated to employees about the financial challenges, including high expenses and rising interest rates, leading to this decision. This move marks Spotify's third layoff this year, impacting approximately 1,500 employees.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, a prominent aircraft in the U.S. military arsenal, has recently been authorized to carry the B61-12 nuclear bomb, marking a significant development in nuclear armament. This clearance, outlined in the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan for Fiscal Year 2024, positions the B-2 as the first of its kind to be equipped with this advanced nuclear weapon.
Google announced Gemini, DeepMind's latest AI model, positioning it as the top competitor to OpenAI's GPT-4. This multimodal large language model, which can process text, audio, image, and video prompts, is set to revolutionize Google's suite of products, including the Bard chatbot. Gemini comes in three versions: Ultra, Pro, and Nano, each tailored for specific applications.
Last week, leading Wall Street bankers testified before the Senate Banking Committee, voicing concerns over the Biden administration's proposed regulatory changes for banks. The heads of major banks, including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, and Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, warned that these changes could adversely affect the economy, particularly during current challenges like geopolitical unrest and inflation.
Last year, U.S. 15-year-olds recorded the lowest ever math scores in the history of the international assessment known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This exam, which assesses students from 81 countries in mathematics, reading, and science, was conducted last year for the first time since 2018. Despite the decline in math scores, the U.S. improved its global ranking in this subject, moving up from 29th in 2018 to 26th.
xAl's latest chatbot, Grok, has started its selective rollout to X's Premium Plus subscribers in the United States. This phase marks the beginning of a broader deployment strategy, with the subscription-based service priced at $16 per month. Grok's distinct advantage lies in its ability to harness real-time data from X, offering dynamic and updated interactions that reflect the latest social media trends.
Reliable Robotics Corp., in partnership with FedEx Corp., has successfully completed a pilotless flight of a small cargo plane, marking a significant advancement towards regulatory approval for its remote-pilot system. On November 21st, the company conducted a 12-minute autonomous flight of a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan at Hollister Municipal Airport in Northern California.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the U.S. Department of Defense’s R&D arm, has initiated the LunA-10 study, selecting 14 companies to develop technological frameworks for a future lunar economy.
Google has recently announced two major advancements in AI technology: the Cloud TPU v5p and the AI Hypercomputer. The Cloud TPU v5p is a highly powerful and scalable AI accelerator, designed to significantly enhance the training and operation of AI models. This latest TPU model is a leap forward in Google's AI technology, providing greater speed and efficiency compared to its predecessors. Alongside the Cloud TPU v5p, Google introduced the AI Hypercomputer, a groundbreaking supercomputer architecture.

AMD’s New AI Chips:

AMD's recent unveiling of its new MI300X AI chip platform has garnered significant attention and backing from major AI industry players like Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI. Touted by AMD's CEO Lisa Su as their most complex creation yet, the MI300X boasts a staggering 153 billion transistors, far surpassing Nvidia's H100 GPU which has 80 billion transistors.
The MI300X's advanced design includes 12 chiplets using 5nm and 6nm technology, featuring four IO dies and eight CDNA 3 accelerator chiplets. This setup delivers a remarkable 1.3 petaflops of FP16 compute power, complemented by 192GB of memory from eight HBM3 memory modules. The MI300X claims to outperform Nvidia's H100 in several aspects, including memory capacity, bandwidth, and raw compute power.
However, AMD's challenge lies in competing with Nvidia's well-established CUDA platform in terms of software support. Despite this, AMD's MI300X demonstrates a significant memory capacity advantage, potentially offering more capabilities than Nvidia’s H100. While the support from industry giants like Microsoft and Meta is promising, the real impact of the MI300X in the market remains to be seen.
Its success will largely depend on how many units these companies will actually purchase and how AMD's new offering will influence Nvidia's market position. For PC gaming, AMD's progress in AI chips could potentially boost its position in gaming GPU technology, though it's unclear how this will affect AMD's focus and resource allocation. Overall, AMD's venture into AI with the MI300X marks a significant step in the evolving landscape of AI technology and its applications.

TBI Brain Implants:

In a study featured in Nature Medicine, scientists have made remarkable strides in enhancing cognitive functions of individuals suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) using brain implants. Millions in the U.S. are impacted by TBI, typically resulting from accidents or injuries. In this study, researchers implanted specialized brain devices in five TBI patients. Remarkably, after three months of using these devices, the patients showed a 32% improvement in cognitive tests.
Beyond these measurable gains, they experienced significant qualitative life improvements, regaining abilities like reading, driving, and maintaining focus. Some participants even expressed reluctance at the trial's conclusion, attesting to the treatment's profound effectiveness in improving their daily lives. This research marks a significant step forward in TBI treatment, offering hope for enhanced recovery and quality of life for those affected.

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