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That is partly because AI businesses are not consumer-facing. Because they are mostly providers of back end hardware and software to other businesses, or, more critically, to governments, AI business will not become giant platform companies servicing billions of users.


Nina Xiang is the founder of China Money Network, a media platform tracking China’s venture and tech sectors.

In 10 years no one will remember the names of China’s artificial intelligence unicorns. While many aspects of the coming AI revolution remain unpredictable, one thing is clear: no AI company will emerge as a Big Tech brand.

While the internet era of the 2000s, and the mobile internet era of the 2010s, created the Chinese tech giants of today, such as Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding, and Tencent Holdings, collectively referred to as BAT, as well as Toutiao, Meituan, Didi-Chuxing, together known as TMD, the AI era is unlikely to produce anything like that by comparison — even if overly zealous investors have nursed over a dozen AI unicorns in China worth tens of billions in total.

JILA researchers have developed tools to “turn on” quantum gases of ultracold molecules, gaining control of long-distance molecular interactions for potential applications such as encoding data for quantum computing and simulations.

The new scheme for nudging a down to its lowest energy state, called quantum degeneracy, while suppressing that break up finally makes it possible to explore exotic quantum states in which all the molecules interact with one another.

The research is described in the Dec. 10 issue of Nature. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Lifeboat Foundation congratulates Guardian Award Winner Elon Musk and SpaceX on their latest accomplishment with the Starship, the world’s first reusable space vehicle. The Starship will transform our world, starting with making Starlink the first non-bankrupt LEO constellation, later bringing us to the Moon and then hopefully Mars.

We recommend that NASA redirect their funds from the dead-end SLS system towards Starship. Even if NASA continues to waste tens of billions of dollars on SLS, it is unlikely that it will ever do more than a handful of launches as the low-cost Starship program makes it obsolete.

Also, here’s an appeal to Guardian Award Winner Elon Musk:

Somewhat as a voice in the wilderness, we would like to pass on a few thoughts on matters that have been of deep concern to us over recent months. 1) A Great Filter stands in the path of Human Civilization 2) The lack of a fast Nuclear Thermal Engine will stop us from building a self-sustaining civilization on Mars for the foreseeable future.

Since no one is putting a lot of resources into completing a Nuclear Thermal Engine and you are now a huge success with a lot of resources, it is time for SpaceX to build such an engine and get us past this Great Filter. SpaceX could easily handle any financial challenges or legal challenges that stand in the way. Do we want to get a self-sustaining civilization on Mars or not?

Boston Dynamics Atlas robot.

Hyundai Motor will acquire Boston Dynamics. The acquisition will be finalized at Hyundai’s December 10 board meeting. News about the deal was first reported by The Korea Economic Daily, which said the deal is for $921 million (1 trillion won). The Robot Report has also confirmed the news with a source familiar with the deal. The source said the acquisition is for about $1 billion.

The Robot Report has reached out to Boston Dynamics but has yet to hear back. We will provide updates as more information becomes available.

The observation of a chemical reaction at the molecular level in real time is a central theme in experimental chemical physics. An international research team has captured roaming molecular fragments for the first time. The work, under the supervision of Heide Ibrahim, research associate at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), was published in the journal Science.

The research group of the Énergie MatĂ©riaux TĂ©lĂ©communications Research Centre of INRS, with support of Professor François LĂ©garĂ©, has used the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS). They have succeeded in shooting the first molecular film of “roamers”—hydrogen fragments, in this case—that orbit around HCO fragments) during a chemical reaction by studying the photo-dissociation of formaldehyde, H2CO.

For decades, one material has so dominated the production of computer chips and transistors that the tech capital of the world—Silicon Valley—bears its name. But silicon’s reign may not last forever.

MIT researchers have found that an alloy called InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) could hold the potential for smaller and more energy efficient . Previously, researchers thought that the performance of InGaAs transistors deteriorated at small scales. But the new study shows this apparent deterioration is not an intrinsic property of the material itself.

The finding could one day help push computing power and efficiency beyond what’s possible with silicon. “We’re really excited,” said Xiaowei Cai, the study’s lead author. “We hope this result will encourage the community to continue exploring the use of InGaAs as a channel material for transistors.”