Lifeboat Foundation

“Batteries are the crux of many of the most important emerging technologies in both the civilian world and, important to our profession, on the battlefield,” said United States Military Academy Cadet Michael Williams. “More energy dense batteries allow, for instance, greater range on electric vehicles, longer battery lives for radios, and longer flight times for drones. Our work helps make manufacturing these batteries easier.”

Cadets Michael Williams, Avery Patel, and Nancy Astable have been working on a long-term project with their faculty mentors Dr. Enoch Nagelli, Dr. Simuck Yuk, and Army Col. John Burpo to develop new ways to maximize energy storage and generation for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Armaments Center. In collaboration with Cornell University, the team at USMA’s Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences is pursuing innovative approaches to increasing the quality and use of batteries and fuel cells.

The value of conducting scientific research to solve real-world problems is clear to the cadets.

Join our newsletter to get the latest military space news every Tuesday by veteran defense journalist Sandra Erwin.

In a statement May 22, the Space Force said this specialized environment will be crucial for training service personnel, known as guardians, to defend critical satellites and other spacecraft from electronic attacks. Satellites rely on electromagnetic signals for communication, navigation, and data transmission, making them vulnerable to jamming and cyberattacks.

The US Armed Forces are working closely to integrate and adapt different missile systems within their inventories.

Most recently, the US Army sand Lockheed Martin launched a Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) missile segment enhancement interceptor from a US Navy (USN) ground-based, containerised Mk70 launcher platform against a cruise missile target mid-flight for the first time.

This change ‘is analogous to changing the direction of a new battleship in a few minutes,’ researcher Gerrit Schellenberger said.

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of speculation about what would happen to TSMC’s semiconductor fabs in the event of an invasion by the Chinese military. TSMC makes the world’s most advanced chips at its Taiwan facilities, so the prospect of those fabs being taken over or controlled by a hostile force is not a pleasant scenario to consider. However, now it’s been revealed for the first time that the machines have remote kill switches, which would render them idle in the case of Chinese aggression.

This revelation about TSMC’s machines comes from Bloomberg reporters, who say they spoke with several people “familiar with the matter.” Dutch company ASML makes the machines TSMC uses and has built a kill switch directly into the hardware TSMC uses. The report says US officials approached ASML with concerns about Chinese aggression against TSMC, and ASML has assured them it can disable the machines remotely if necessary. The Dutch company has also been running simulated shutdowns on its machines to understand better how such a scenario would play out in the real world and what risks it included.

So dl what you can…

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) — The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to advance a bill that would make it easier for the Biden administration to restrict the export of artificial intelligence systems, citing concerns China could exploit them to bolster its military capabilities.

The bill, sponsored by House Republicans Michael McCaul and John Molenaar and Democrats Raja Krishnamoorthi and Susan Wild, also would give the Commerce Department express authority to bar Americans from working with foreigners to develop AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security.

Continue reading “US lawmakers advance bill to make it easier to curb exports of AI models” »

China has officially showcased its machine-gun armed robodog drones during a 15-day military exercise with Cambodian forces.

A British consortium with funding from the UK government has successfully tested what it calls “un-jammable” quantum navigation tech in flight.

Geopolitical tensions and warfare have introduced GPS jamming as a means of messing with enemy communication and navigation. This can cause disturbances for both military and civilian transportation and location services.

The quantum-based navigation system is called Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). Its developers are quantum technology firm Infleqtion’s UK subsidiary in collaboration with aerospace company BAE Systems and defence tech contractor QinetiQ, among others.

Micius is considered quantum’s “Sputnik” moment, prompting American policymakers to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into quantum information science via the National Quantum Initiative. Bills such as the Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 have provided $1.5 billion for communications research, including quantum technology. The Biden Administration’s proposed 2024 budget includes $25 billion for “emerging technologies” including AI and quantum. Ultimately, quantum’s awesome computing power will soon render all existing cryptography obsolete, presenting a security migraine for governments and corporations everywhere.

Quantum’s potential to turbocharge AI also applies to the simmering technology competition between the world’s superpowers. In 2021, the U.S. Commerce Department added eight Chinese quantum computing organizations to its Entity List, claiming they “support the military modernization of the People’s Liberation Army” and adopt American technologies to develop “counter-stealth and counter-submarine applications, and the ability to break encryption.”

These restrictions dovetail with a raft of measures targeting China’s AI ambitions, including last year blocking Nvida from selling AI chips to Chinese firms. The question is whether competition between the world’s top two economies stymies overall progress on AI and quantum—or pushes each nation to accelerate these technologies. The answer could have far-reaching consequences.