🌞 Australia's Solar Superpower, 🚀 SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Mission, and 🎮 China's Gaming Milestone
🌞 Australia's Solar Superpower, 🚀 SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Mission, and 🎮 China's Gaming Milestone
Thomas's Innovation Wrap #92
Greetings,
Here’s your weekly wrap of technology, innovation, and finance news.
🌞 Renewables
Australia has approved the world's "largest solar precinct". The $30 billion Sun Cable project aims to construct a 12,400-hectare solar farm in northern Australia, exporting energy to Singapore via submarine cable. This project could deliver up to six gigawatts of green electricity annually, with four gigawatts used domestically and two gigawatts exported to Singapore, potentially supplying 15% of Singapore's energy needs.
"This massive project is a generation-defining piece of infrastructure," Plibersek said in a written statement on Wednesday. "It will be the largest solar precinct in the world – and heralds Australia as the world leader in green energy."
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are gaining traction globally. Scientific American wrote an article that serves as a reasonable introduction and overview: Can Pulling Carbon from Thin Air Slow Climate Change?
But even a trillion trees would not be nearly enough, and trees can burn or die of disease, emitting the carbon they’ve stored. In the 2000s the world wasn’t ready for DAC, Lackner says. “Now I think we are too late to do without it.”
In Australia, Rio Tinto and Woodside Energy are backing a $60 million research hub to convert waste emissions into lower-carbon products.
Hyundai is betting big on hydrogen, aiming to off-take 3 million tons annually by 2035. The company sees hydrogen as a solution for both clean energy and regional energy security.
In the lithium sector, Stanford researchers have developed a new, cost-effective extraction method from brines, potentially improving the supply chain crucial for renewable energy storage and electric vehicles (see the study).
The research team estimates that its approach costs $3,500 to $4,400 per ton of high-purity lithium hydroxide, which can be converted to battery-grade lithium carbonate inexpensively, compared with costs of about $9,100 per ton for the dominant technology for extracting lithium from brine. The current market price for battery-grade lithium carbonate is almost $15,000 per ton, but a shortage in late 2022 drove the volatile lithium market price to $80,000.
💻 Chips and Computing
TSMC has broken ground on its first European chip fab in Dresden. The €10 billion plant, set to begin production by 2027, will focus on automotive and industrial chips, aligning with the EU's goal to increase its global semiconductor market share to 20% by 2030.
"We are dependent on semiconductors for our sustainable future technologies, but we must not be dependent on other regions of the world for the supply of semiconductors," Scholz said.
AMD is bolstering its AI market position by acquiring ZT Systems for $4.9 billion and establishing two R&D facilities in Taiwan, investing up to $270 million and creating 400 jobs.
Shanghai has injected US$1 billion into its chip industry fund. SK Telecom is opening an AI data centre in Seoul, building Korea's largest GPU infrastructure, by partnering with US GPU-as-a-service company Lambda.
Researchers have demonstrated that DNA-based technology for data storage and computing is viable.
“You could put a thousand laptops’ worth of data into DNA-based storage that’s the same size as a pencil eraser,” Keung says.
CNBC showcased how Google makes the custom-made Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) that power Apple AI and Gemini in this 13-minute video.
🛰️ Space
SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission is set to make history this week as the most ambitious private spaceflight yet. Led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, the four-person crew will attempt the first commercial spacewalk and reach the highest Earth orbit since Apollo. The mission will test new slimline spacesuits and a modified Crew Dragon capsule.
"They're pushing the envelope in multiple ways," retired NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman said in an interview. "They're also going to a much higher altitude, with a more severe radiation environment than we've been to since Apollo."
After extensive training and preparations, including a successful static fire test, the mission is scheduled to launch on Tuesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, with an estimated cost to Isaacman of over US$100 million.
The two NASA astronauts stranded on the ISS due to Boeing Starliner issues will return to Earth in a SpaceX Dragon capsule. This decision underscores SpaceX's growing importance to the US space program.
NASA continues refining its planetary defence strategies, recently conducting its fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise.
During the exercise, participants considered potential national and global responses to a hypothetical scenario in which a never-before-detected asteroid was identified that had, according to initial calculations, a 72% chance of hitting Earth in approximately 14 years.
💊 Health
The world's first mRNA lung cancer vaccine trials have launched across seven countries, including the UK, US, and Germany, with the first administration of the cancer vaccine in London.
In pain management, Vertex Pharmaceuticals' suzetrigine (VX-548) shows promise in blocking pain signals before reaching the brain. This potential opioid alternative targets sodium channels in peripheral nerve cells, matching the effectiveness of drugs like Vicodin without addiction risks.
Eli Lilly's weight loss drug tirzepatide significantly reduced diabetes risk in pre-diabetic patients, demonstrating a 94% reduction during treatment, and an 88% reduction after treatment has stopped.
AI continues to advance healthcare. RTDetective, a new computational model, predicts effective drugs for diseases caused by protein synthesis-halting mutations. Additionally, scientists are using AI to analyse 1.6 million brain scans to develop a dementia risk prediction tool.
The biotech industry is shifting towards more ethical research methods. Next-gen techniques are making some lab animals obsolete, with alternatives like organs-on-chips and AI-powered drug discovery tools promising more accurate results in human biology studies.
Finally, new research suggests video games can boost well-being. A study during the COVID-19 pandemic found that gaming console lottery winners had slightly better mental well-being scores.
🎮 Gaming
Black Myth: Wukong, a highly anticipated RPG based on "Journey to the West," has become a milestone for China's video game industry after breaking Steam’s concurrent single-player record within hours of launch (peaked at 2.4 million concurrent players) and selling 10 million copies in three days. This is China’s first successful AAA game and as Robert Wu points out, it demonstrates that Chinese culture can resonate globally when presented effectively, potentially reshaping perceptions of Chinese creativity and innovation.
First, I think it's highly likely that the success of Wukong will single-handedly bring about a complete recognition of the value of the video game sector by authorities and whole of the society in China.
At the other end of the specturm, and demonstrating how difficult the video game industry can be, PlayStation's Concord faced a disastrous launch, failing to break 700 concurrent players on Steam despite spending eight years in development.
Matthew Ball wrote about Roblox's complex path to profitability, with high costs eating into revenues despite strong user growth and cash flow. The company faces challenges in balancing developer payouts, platform fees, and operational expenses.
💎 Artificial Intelligence
Ideogram's 2.0 model boasts dramatically improved text rendering, an area that generative AI has historically struggled with. Meshy's latest AI-powered 3D modelling tool offers improved mesh geometry, impacting industries from game development to architecture.
Adobe's "Magic Fixup" automates complex image adjustments while preserving artistic intent, learning from millions of video frame pairs to understand nuanced changes in objects and scenes.
"Our method transfers fine details from the original image and preserve the identity of its parts. Yet, it adapts it to the lighting and context defined by the new layout," the paper states.
Google's new Prompt Gallery in AI Studio enhances tools for developers working with the Gemini API, potentially accelerating AI adoption and innovation.
Meanwhile, University of British Columbia researchers have created an "AI scientist" capable of inventing and running its own experiments, a step towards AI learning through novel exploration.
The project demonstrates an early step toward what might prove a revolutionary trick: letting AI learn by inventing and exploring novel ideas. They’re just not super novel at the moment. Several papers describe tweaks for improving an image-generating technique known as diffusion modeling; another outlines an approach for speeding up learning in deep neural networks.
Microsoft's new Phi-3.5 models outperform competitors while being faster and cheaper.
Chinese scientists have developed a brain-inspired network model to address challenges faced by traditional models, such as high resource consumption (see the study).
Researchers have trained a blob of ion-laced jelly to play Pong, demonstrating a rudimentary form of memory in an inanimate material. This simple experiment could lead to more efficient problem-solving algorithms or even analog computers for controlling robots.
"Instead of it just knowing what's immediately happened, it has a memory of the ball's motion over the entirety of the game," says Strong. "So it sort of gains an experience of the ball's general motion, not just its current position. It sort of becomes a black-box neural network that has a memory of the ball's behaviour, how it behaves and how it moves."
Salesforce is introducing AI-powered sales agents to help automate and enhance the sales process. These new tools aim to qualify leads, engage prospects, and coach salespeople, potentially improving how sales teams operate.
Amazon's internal AI tool, Amazon Q, has dramatically reduced the time needed for software upgrades, saving an estimated 4,500 developer-years of work.
"The average time to upgrade an application to Java 17 plummeted from what's typically 50 developer-days to just a few hours," he wrote. "We estimate this has saved us the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years of work (yes, that number is crazy but, real)."
Skyfire is launching a new payment network that allows AI agents to autonomously make and receive payments on behalf of users.
A new San Francisco startup, Skyfire, is launching today in beta with $8.5 million in seed round funding to become the “Visa for AI” by allowing you to equip autonomous AI agents made by other companies with your money and let them spend it while they go off on and work for you.
💲 Finance
In Vietnam, DNSE Securities' virtual stock assistant, Ensa, has won an award for AI innovation in finance.
(translated) "In the stock market, timely information and data analysis are key factors for success. Ensa has the advantage of being a specialised AI assistant, a pioneer in the Vietnamese market, and we expect that with increasingly high-quality data analysis infrastructure and the ability to provide personalised information and investment ideas for each customer, Ensa will become a supportive companion for investors," Mr. Binh shared.
The AI boom is fuelling tech IPOs. Japanese memory chip maker Kioxia applied to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with the filing docs suggesting a A$17 billion valuation. Chinese autonomous-driving firm Westwell plans a Hong Kong debut, aiming to raise up to $100 million.
Science discusses how synthetic biology companies are struggling, with some declaring bankruptcy.
"There has been a reckoning," says Jay Keasling, a synthetic biologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and co-founder of Amyris.
The Economist discussed the takeover offer for Japan's 7-Eleven means, and how it reflects the growing influence of foreign investors and a shift towards more shareholder-friendly practices in Japanese businesses.
⚙️ Mobility
The autonomous mobility race is heating up, with Uber partnering with Cruise for robotaxi rides and Waymo operating over 100,000 paid driverless trips weekly.
The FAA is set to rule on beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations by September 16, potentially expanding drone deliveries. In China, Meituan is already delivering snacks to Great Wall hikers via drone for just 56 cents.
Delivery time is short — just about five minutes, CNN reported.
Toyota is following Tesla's lead, testing a gigacasting machine for EV production. This tennis court-sized equipment could streamline EV manufacturing by creating large vehicle modules in one step.
🔗 Blockchain and Crypto
E-commerce giant Mercado Libre is launching "Meli Dólar," a dollar-pegged stablecoin in Brazil. Users can trade the token through Mercado Pago, potentially hedging against regional currency fluctuations.
Russia is set to trial cryptocurrency exchanges and cross-border payments from September 1st, seeking to ease payment difficulties for sanctioned companies. This marks a stark reversal from the central bank's pre-invasion proposed crypto ban.
Sony is launching Soneium, a new blockchain platform that could potentially integrate with its music catalog. This move suggests Sony is exploring how blockchain technology could be used to protect creators' rights and offer new ways for them to profit from their work.
"Specifically, we will study the protection of rights to creativity created by creators, new mechanisms for returning profits to support creators and fans, and opportunities for creators to be active across the digital and real worlds."
🍔 Alternative Foods
A new study could see cultivated meat competing with organic chicken on price. Professor Yaakov Nahmias and his team at Hebrew University have developed a continuous manufacturing process using tangential flow filtration (TFF), expanding biomass to 130 billion cells per litre and tackling scalability and cost-effectiveness challenges.
"We were inspired by how Ford's automated assembly line revolutionized the car industry 110 years ago," stated Prof. Nahmias. "Our findings show that continuous manufacturing enables cultivated meat production at a fraction of current costs, without resorting to genetic modification or mega-factories."
The team also created an animal component-free culture medium costing just $0.63 per litre. With this recipe, a 50,000-litre facility could theoretically produce cultivated chicken at $6.20 per pound, matching organic chicken prices.
⚡ Other Snippets
Scientists at the University of Arizona have developed the world's fastest electron microscope, the "attomicroscope," capable of capturing electrons in motion, which could lead to significant advancements in our understanding of ultrafast chemical and physical processes at the atomic scale.
Samsung SDI plans to produce solid-state batteries for 600-mile range EVs by 2027, potentially doubling current EV ranges.
ByteDance's video-editing app CapCut and chatbot Doubao have surpassed ChatGPT in global downloads, with CapCut boasting 323 million monthly active users in July.
Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui, known for gene-edited babies, now claims to be researching embryo editing to prevent Alzheimer's, reigniting debates on human genetic modification.
China showcased 27 humanoid robots at the 2024 World Robot Conference in Beijing, demonstrating capabilities from industrial work to playing musical instruments.
Snap is developing new AR Spectacles with improved features, primarily for developers.
Spotify reported a 395% increase in anime music streams since 2021, partnering with Crunchyroll for curated content.
Have a great week,
Thomas
About Thomas Rice
Thomas Rice co-founded Minotaur Capital, a technology-driven, AI-led global equities fund, and is based in Sydney, Australia. He can be found on the X at @thomasrice_au.