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Category: robotics/AI – Page 912

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says his AI powerhouse is ‘always in peril’ despite a $1.1 trillion market cap: ‘We don’t have to pretend…we feel it’

Nvidia is on a tear.

But “there are no companies that are assured survival,” Huang warned Thursday at the Harvard Business Review’s Future of Business event.

Nvidia in its 30-year history has faced several existential threats, which helps explain why Huang recently told the Acquired podcast that “nobody in their right mind” would start a company. For example, it almost went bankrupt in 1995 after its first chip, the NV1, failed to attract customers. It had to lay off half its employees before the success of its third chip, the RIVA 128, saved it a few years later.

“We have the benefit of building the company from the ground up and having not-exaggerated circumstances of nearly going out of business a handful of times,” Huang said this week, as Observer reported. “We don’t have to pretend the company is always in peril. The company is always in peril, and we feel it.”

Humane’s AI Pin up close

We spent 90 minutes with the pin and its founders at Humane’s SF offices.

A few hours after this morning’s big unveil, Humane opened its doors to a handful of press.

A few hours after this morning’s big unveil, Humane opened its doors to a handful of press. Located in a nondescript building in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, the office is home to the startup’s hardware design teams.

An office next door houses Humane’s product engineers, while the electrical engineering team operates out of a third space directly across the street. The company also operates an office in New York, though the lion’s share of the 250-person staff are located here in San Francisco.

Today, much of the space is occupied by a series of demo stations (with a strict no filming policy), where different AI Pins are laid out in various state of undress, exposing their external machinations. Prior to attending these, however, Humane’s co-founders stand in front of a small group of chairs, flanking a flat screen that lays out the company’s vision.

AI-powered traffic signs can reduce emissions from vehicles

“This is the first project of its kind to incorporate a social component into a traffic control system.”

Vehicle pollution is a significant contributor to air pollution worldwide making it both a global and local problem.

A researcher is using machine learning to create traffic light management systems that are socially and environmentally conscious making them ideal at lessening emissions from vehicles.

Jim Chanos Calls Tesla Just A ‘Hopes-And-Dreams’ Company

Kynikos Associates founder and legendary short seller Jim Chanos has highlighted the disparity between the public perception and actual performance of Tesla Inc. TSLA.

What Happened: In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Chanos pointed out a common misbelief held by many Tesla admirers. He said the electric vehicle giant is seen as a multi-faceted entity — an AI firm, an alternative energy business, and a robotics organization.

This image, Chanos argues, is a result of Elon Musk’s compelling portrayal of Tesla as a future-focused company.

Revolutionizing CRISPR: Quantum Biology and AI Merge to Enhance Genome Editing

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s research in quantum biology and AI has significantly improved the efficiency of CRISPR Cas9 genome editing in microbes, aiding in renewable energy development.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) used their expertise in quantum biology, artificial intelligence, and bioengineering to improve how CRISPR Cas9 genome editing tools work on organisms like microbes that can be modified to produce renewable fuels and chemicals.

CRISPR is a powerful tool for bioengineering, used to modify genetic code to improve an organism’s performance or to correct mutations. The CRISPR Cas9 tool relies on a single, unique guide RNA.

A hyped AI-based restaurant opened to fanfare last month in San Francisco; now its empty

A San Francisco smoothie startup promised to create customers “one-of-a-kind” recipes, but two months after opening, the store was shuttered.

The shop, BetterBlends, used artificial intelligence to generate custom smoothies based on customer preferences. The company only offered one menu item called “Your Smoothie, powered by AI” and claimed to be “the most personalized restaurant, ever,” according to its site.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

NVIDIA may soon announce new AI chips for China to get around US export restrictions

The new chips were designed to be less powerful than the models sold in the US, according to sources.

NVIDIA really, really doesn’t want to lose access to China’s massive AI chip market.

NVIDIA really, really doesn’t want to lose access to China’s massive AI chip market. The company is developing three new AI chips especially for China that don’t run afoul of the latest export restrictions in the US, according to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Last year, the US government notified the chipmaker that it would restrict the export of computer chips meant for supercomputers and artificial intelligence applications to Russia and China due to concerns that the components could be used for military purposes. That rule prevented NVIDIA from selling certain A100 and H100 chips in the country, so it designed the A800 and H800 chips specifically for the Chinese market.

However, the US government recently issued an updated set of restrictions that puts a limit on how much computing power a chip can have when it’s meant for export to the aforementioned countries. The A800 and the H800 are no longer eligible for export under the new rules, along with NVIDIA’s other products, which include its top-of-the-line RTX 4090 consumer GPU. Some reports even suggest that the company could end up canceling over $5 billion worth of advanced chip orders in China.

The new chips meant for the Chinese market are called the HGX H20, the L20 and the L2, based on the specs sent to distributors. While the H20 is supposed to be the most powerful model out of the three, all of them don’t go beyond the computing power threshold set by the US government’s new export rules. That means customers using them for AI applications may need more chips than they would if they had access to higher-spec models.

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