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Category: computing – Page 338

Elon Musk/courtesy of Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In 2022, Elon Musk’s Neuralink tried – and failed – to secure permission from the FDA to run a human trial of its implantable brain-computer interface (BCI), according to a Reuters report published Thursday.

Citing seven current and former employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, Reuters reported that the regulatory agency found “dozens of issues” with Neuralink’s application that the company must resolve before it can begin studying its tech in humans.

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In work that could lead to important new physics with potentially heady applications in computer science and more, MIT scientists have shown that two previously separate fields in condensed matter physics can be combined to yield new, exotic phenomena.

The work is theoretical, but the researchers are excited about collaborating with experimentalists to realize the predicted phenomena. The team includes the conditions necessary to achieve that ultimate goal in a paper published in the February 24 issue of Science Advances.

“This work started out as a theoretical speculation, and ended better than we could have hoped,” says Liang Fu, a professor in MIT’s Department of Physics and leader of the work. Fu is also affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory. His colleagues are Nisarga Paul, a physics graduate student, and Yang Zhang, a postdoctoral associate who is now a professor at the University of Tennessee.

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Just in case people are curious how accurate the news is, the following article says “Nvidia, AMD, and TSMC will still bear the bulk of the risk for establishing manufacturing within the United States.” The reality is that neither Nvidia or AMD makes chips. In that list, only TSMC is a chip manufacturer.

The U.S. Secretary of Commerce reminds investors that the federal government supports a sweeping shift in how and where chips are made.

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Trying to make computers more like human brains isn’t a new phenomenon. However, a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University argues that there could be many benefits in taking this concept a bit more literally by using actual neurons, though there are some hurdles to jump first before we get there.

In a recent paper, the team laid out a roadmap of what’s needed before we can create biocomputers powered by human brain cells (not taken from human brains, though). Further, according to one of the researchers, there are some clear benefits the proposed “organoid intelligence” would have over current computers.

“We have always tried to make our computers more brain-like,” Thomas Hartung, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Environmental Health and Engineering department and one of the paper’s authors, told Ars. “At least theoretically, the brain is essentially unmatched as a computer.”

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The Commerce Department opened up its application process for companies vying for a share of chip funding to boost US competitiveness with China.

The Biden administration launched its massive effort to outcompete China in semiconductor manufacturing Tuesday, offering $39 billion in funding incentives for companies seeking to build manufacturing plants in the US.

Authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act last year, the Commerce Department opened the application process Tuesday for companies jockeying for a share of the funding.

The $39 billion Chips for America program is Biden’s plan to outcompete China.

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In an interview with EE Times, Classiq CEO Nir Minerbi said Classiq’s academic program is an essential part of its broader strategy to expand the platform’s reach and promote the quantum computing business.

“We believe that offering this program will give students the tools and knowledge they need to learn practical quantum software-development skills while also providing researchers with a streamlined means of developing advanced quantum computing algorithms capable of taking advantage of ever more powerful quantum hardware,” he said. “In addition, our program enables students and researchers to test, validate and run their quantum programs on real hardware, providing valuable real-world experience. Ultimately, we think that our academic program will have a significant impact on the quantum computing community by promoting education and research in the field—and helping to drive innovation and progress in the industry.”

Classiq and Microsoft are among the top companies developing quantum computing software. The quantum stack developed by the firms advances Microsoft’s vision for quantum programming languages, which was published in the 2020 issue of Nature.

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