Lifeboat Foundation

As summer approaches, electricity demand surges in the U.S., as homes and businesses crank up the air conditioning. To meet the rising need, many East Coast cities are banking on offshore wind projects the country is building in the Atlantic Ocean.

For electric grid operators, knowing how much wind power these offshore turbines can harvest is critical, but making accurate predictions can be difficult. A team of CU Boulder scientists and their collaborators are working to tackle the challenge.

In a paper published March 14 in Wind Energy Science, a team led by Dave Rosencrans, a doctoral student, and Julie K. Lundquist, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, estimates that offshore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean region, where the U.S. plans to build large wind farms, could take away wind from other turbines nearby, potentially reducing the farms’ power output by more than 30%.

Two weeks ago it was quietly announced that the Future of Humanity Institute, the renowned multidisciplinary research centre in Oxford, no longer had a future. It shut down without warning on 16 April. Initially there was just a brief statement on its website stating it had closed and that its research may continue elsewhere within and outside the university.

The institute, which was dedicated to studying existential risks to humanity, was founded in 2005 by the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom and quickly made a name for itself beyond academic circles – particularly in Silicon Valley, where a number of tech billionaires sang its praises and provided financial support.

Goldman Sachs said in a report late Thursday that Indian food delivery giant Zomato’s quick commerce arm Blinkit is now more valuable than its core food delivery business, as per the bank’s sum-of-the-parts analysis.

The investment bank estimates Blinkit’s implied value at 119 Indian rupees per share ($1.43) or about $13 billion, while Zomato’s food delivery business is valued at Rs 98 per share. Goldman previously pegged Blinkit’s valuation at $2 billion in March 2023.

Blinkit’s valuation surge is driven by its strong growth potential in India’s fast-growing quick commerce market. Goldman Sachs forecasts Blinkit’s gross order value (GOV) to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53% between the financial years 2024 and 2027, outpacing the overall online grocery market’s projected CAGR of 38% during the same period.

Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods.

Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta.

“Adversaries are using developing countries as a platform where they can test their malicious programs before the more resourceful countries are targeted,” the company told Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist.

Successful implementation of GenAI hinges on three main factors: financial value to the organization, availability of key data and impact on the workforce.

Building new financial market infrastructure with ‘safety by design’ will require a spirit of endeavour and effective public-private collaboration.

Construction is the world’s largest industry, employing seven percent of the planet’s working-age adults, contributing 13 percent of the world’s GDP and completing floor space equivalent to the city of Paris every seven days.

The construction industry is also the most inefficient, least digitised and most polluting industry (37% of ALL emissions), so change is imperative from macro economic necessity alone. For the builders of the world faced with a jigsaw puzzle of partial digital solutions and chronic labor and supply chain issues, the margins are growing ever-thinner and the necessity is to change or perish.

British company Automated Architecture (AUAR) has a thoroughly ingenious solution and it has enlisted an all-star cast of financial backers in short order: Morgan Stanley, ABB Robotics, Rival Holdings (USA), Vandenbussche NV (Belgium) with VCs such as Miles Ahead and Bacchus Venture Capital (Jim Horowitz et al) helping to get the initial idea off the ground.

Researchers have produced, stored, and retrieved quantum information for the first time, a critical step in quantum networking.

The ability to share quantum information is crucial for developing quantum networks for distributed computing and secure communication. Quantum computing will be useful for solving some important types of problems, such as optimizing financial risk, decrypting data, designing molecules, and studying the properties of materials.

“Interfacing two key devices together is a crucial step forward in allowing quantum networking, and we are really excited to be the first team to have been able to demonstrate this.” —

A collaboration of scientists from various universities in the UK and Europe have stored and retrieved data from quantum computers, marking a “crucial connection for ‘quantum internet,’” in a global first.

This is an essential step in quantum networking as the world gears up for the next generation of computing.

With its ultrafast computational speeds, quantum computing is touted to solve the world’s problems in designing new drugs, understanding the properties of materials, and optimizing financial risk.