💻 Japan's Chip Revival, ⚡ Honda's Solid State Dream, and 🧠 Yale's Brain Breakthrough
Thomas's Innovation Wrap #105
Greetings,
Here’s your weekly wrap of technology, innovation, and finance news.
💻 Chips and Computing
Japan is investing heavily to strengthen its domestic semiconductor industry amidst growing geopolitical tensions. The country is pursuing a two-pronged strategy, backing both homegrown startup Rapidus and TSMC's Japanese subsidiary, JASM. Rapidus, a government-backed chip manufacturer aiming to produce cutting-edge 2nm chips, is set to receive significant funding alongside TSMC's expansion in Japan. This move is part of a larger JPY10 trillion (US$64.7 billion) package to bolster Japan's semiconductor and AI industries over the next seven years.
The Japanese government has offered substantial subsidies and removed regulatory barriers for TSMC, provided the company establishes operations in the country. While a typical wafer fab requires three to five years to develop, TSMC's first Kumamoto fab was completed in just two years.
In the US, Intel has finalised a $7.86 billion deal with the Biden administration to fund chip manufacturing across four states, underscoring the country's commitment to boosting domestic production.
Nvidia continues to dominate the AI chip market, with its latest earnings beating expectations and driving revenue up 94% year-over-year. The company's success is sparking an arms race among tech giants, who are competing to amass the most Nvidia chips in one place. This demand is creating a ripple effect throughout the supply chain, with server component makers gearing up for a production boom as Nvidia accelerates shipments of its next-generation Blackwell platform.
"The age of AI is upon us," Huang said on the call. "And it's large and diverse."
Advanced packaging is emerging as a critical frontier in semiconductor innovation. TSMC is quietly forming an advanced packaging supply chain cluster in Southern Taiwan, while the US government is investing up to $300 million in three advanced semiconductor packaging research projects.
"Advanced packaging is essential for developing the semiconductors that power emerging technologies like AI," said Laurie E. Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Microsoft is making significant strides in custom chips. The tech giant has unveiled two new custom chips for its data centres: the Azure Boost DPU for data processing and the Azure Integrated Hardware Security Module (HSM) for enhanced security, which aim to improve efficiency and security in cloud computing,
"Designed for scale-out, composable workloads on Azure, the Azure Boost DPU delivers efficiency across storage, networking, acceleration, and more for its cloud infrastructure," Microsoft wrote in a blog post shared with TechCrunch.
Bloomberg produced a 24-minute video exploring Japan's efforts to revive its semiconductor industry and reclaim its position as a global chip powerhouse.
Japan wants to revive its semiconductor glory days of the 1980s and it's mobilising everyone. The government, the private sector, academia, even international partners like TSMC and IBM. That means billions in investments, and billions more in subsidies.
💊 Health
A team at Yale School of Medicine has successfully revived pig brains hours after decapitation, and they're now applying similar techniques to human brains. While this isn't quite reanimation à la Frankenstein, it's forcing us to reconsider our definition of death. The technology, called BrainEx, could lead to improved treatments for conditions like Alzheimer's and better organ preservation for transplants.
"We're all conditioned to think of death as this binary thing," says Sam Parnia, a cardiopulmonary researcher at New York University. "You're alive and then you're dead. Most people aren't willing to accept that biology doesn't work that way."
Amgen's new weight loss drug MariTide is showing promise in early trials. The once-monthly injection helped patients lose up to 20% of their body weight in a year, potentially offering a less frequent alternative to weekly treatments like Wegovy and Zepbound.
Researchers have found that you can quite literally force a smile on your face to improve your mood. A study using electrical stimulation to manipulate facial muscles found that participants reported feeling more positive when their faces were contorted into smiles.
"Some people said we should forget about the hypothesis entirely," Korb says, "while others, like me, said, 'Wait a second—maybe we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.' I started thinking about how we could find other methods to manipulate muscles in a more controlled way than sticking a pen into your mouth."
On the cutting edge of mental health research, AI is helping unlock new genetic insights into psychiatric disorders. Stanford University researchers have used machine learning to identify complex genetic variants associated with conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This approach could pave the way for more personalised treatments and a deeper understanding of these complex conditions.
"Looking for only simple variations is like proofreading a book manuscript and searching exclusively for typos that change single letters. You are overlooking words that are scrambled or duplicated, or in the wrong order-you might even miss that half a chapter is gone."
🔬 Biology
Scientists are building a catalogue of every type of cell in our bodies. The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) consortium, involving over 3,600 collaborators across 102 countries, aims to identify and map all cell types in the human body. This ambitious project has already increased the known cell type count from 220 to over 5,000, with a first draft of the atlas expected next year.
Tools now exist that are capable of looking inside the cells, breaking them open one at a time to release their complements of messenger RNA (mRNA), the molecule which carries genetic information from a cell's nucleus to its protein factories. Molecules of mRNA indicate which genes are active, thus revealing a cell's inner nature.
While some scientists map our cellular landscape, others are putting genetic data to work in the criminal justice system. Investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) is emerging as a powerful tool not only for catching criminals but also for exonerating the wrongly convicted. In a recent case, the Bintz brothers were freed after 25 years in prison when IGG identified the true perpetrator of a 1987 murder. The technique involves uploading DNA profiles from crime scenes to consumer genetic databases. While these profiles often don't directly match the perpetrator, they can link to relatives, allowing investigators to build family trees and identify potential suspects.
Since 1989, 3,615 individuals convicted of crimes have been exonerated in the U.S., freed after their conviction was reversed. Post-conviction DNA testing played a part in 606 of these exonerations.
Scientists have created what may be the world's first piece of lab-grown wood from stem cells. While currently only the size of a splinter, this breakthrough could potentially reduce our reliance on logging rare hardwood trees.
"As far as we know, our early prototype is the first piece of interconnected wood-like tissue ever produced from cell culture," says Tom Clement at start-up New Dawn Bio.
⚙️ Mobility
Stellantis is revving up the EV game with its new STLA Frame platform, promising a 1,100-kilometre range for extended range electric vehicles (EREVs) and 800 kilometres for pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs). To put that in perspective, a car with the EREV frame could drive from Sydney to Melbourne on a single charge with 200 kilometres left over. The platform will underpin future Jeep and Ram models, offering a compelling solution for range anxiety sceptics.
"With full EV and extended-range EV tech coming soon, we're bringing 'no compromise' solutions to buyers who may be hesitant on trying their first electric vehicle," Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in a statement.
Chinese tech giant Baidu is making autonomous driving more accessible by bringing down the production cost of its Apollo RT6 self-driving vehicle to US$34,525 per unit. Baidu claims the RT6 is now the world's only mass-produced Level-4 autonomous driving vehicle, potentially giving it an edge over competitors like Tesla.
The incoming Trump administration is reportedly paving the way for broader deployment of autonomous vehicles on America's roadways, which could benefit companies like Tesla and create a more coherent regulatory framework for the industry.
Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration only allows companies to launch as many as 2,500 self-driving cars per year under a granted exemption, though car manufacturers want to up those numbers exponentially.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has entered the EV market with a bang, selling nearly 90,000 of its SU7 electric sedans within 24 hours of launch. The company has already raised its 2024 delivery forecast three times, now aiming for 130,000 units. It seems Xiaomi has managed to do what Apple couldn't - successfully pivot from phones to cars. Even Ford CEO Jim Farley couldn't help but gush about the newcomer:
“Everyone was talking about the Apple car. But the Xiaomi car, which now exists and it’s fantastic—they sell 10,000, 20,000 a month. They are sold out for six months. That is an industry juggernaut, and [it comes from] a consumer brand that is much stronger than car companies.”
🔋 Batteries
Honda is investing heavily in solid-state battery technology, unveiling a demonstration production line in Japan with plans to begin production in January 2025. Solid-state batteries are considered the "holy grail" of EV technology, promising to double driving ranges while reducing costs and charging times. These batteries use solid electrolytes instead of liquid ones, making them safer and more energy-dense. Honda aims to integrate these batteries into new EVs by the late 2020s, with plans to extend their use to motorcycles and even aircraft. The company is targeting a 25% cost reduction for these batteries by the late 2020s, ramping up to 40% by the 2040s, potentially making EVs both more capable and more affordable.
"The all-solid-state battery is an innovative technology that will be a game changer in this EV era," said Keiji Otsu, president of Honda R&D, in a statement.
⚛️ Quantum Mechanics
Microsoft and Atom Computing have made a quantum leap, entangling 24 logical qubits using neutral atoms held by lasers. This breakthrough paves the way for more stable quantum computing, addressing error detection and correction issues. The duo plans to deliver commercial quantum computers based on this tech in 2025, boasting over 1,000 physical qubits and the ability to detect and correct for missing atoms without halting computations.
"We've run that algorithm in this hardware out to 20 logical qubits in that computation and shown that we can get better than physical performance there. You also get better than classical, it turns out, for this algorithm," said Krysta Svore, the technical fellow and vice president of advanced quantum development for Microsoft Azure Quantum.
💎 Artificial Intelligence
Amazon has invested an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, bringing its total investment to $8 billion. This deal positions Amazon Web Services (AWS) as Anthropic's primary cloud provider and training partner for its AI models. The collaboration extends to hardware development, with Anthropic working closely with AWS's chipmaking division, Annapurna Labs.
Our engineers work closely with Annapurna's chip design team to extract maximum computational efficiency from the hardware, which we plan to leverage to train our most advanced foundation models.
This investment signals Amazon's ambition to compete with Microsoft and Google in the evolving AI landscape.
Meanwhile, the AI model race is heating up globally. Chinese lab DeepSeek has unveiled a "reasoning" AI model, DeepSeek-R1-Lite-Preview, claiming performance that rivals OpenAI's o1 model on key benchmarks.
According to DeepSeek, the model exceeds OpenAI o1-preview-level performance on established benchmarks such as AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) and MATH.
A new report by Wharton and GBK Collective reveals that 72% of senior business leaders now use AI weekly, up from 37% in 2023. The highest use is in document and proposal writing (64%), followed by data analyses and analytics (62%). Companies are increasingly experimenting with AI to optimise their operations, as exemplified by Siemens' AI tools for industrial maintenance and worker assistance.
The big rewards [from AI] are not going to come from doing things better; the big rewards are going to come from doing better things.
In academia, mathematicians are increasingly turning to AI assistants to help develop proofs, potentially enabling humans to tackle problems currently beyond our reach. These AI co-pilots can propose next steps in a proof and help complete intermediate mathematical goals.
Publishing giants are striking deals with AI companies to both protect copyright and provide for the AI industry's rapidly increasing data needs. These agreements represent a step towards balancing the use of copyrighted material for AI training with fair compensation for content creators.
In other news, Meta has hired Salesforce's CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new Business AI group, aiming to make cutting-edge AI accessible to businesses using Meta's apps. Additionally, OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Samsung to power AI features in their electronic devices.
💲 Finance
Elon Musk's AI startup xAI has reportedly achieved a valuation of $50 billion, surpassing the $44 billion he paid for Twitter (now X) in 2022. This figure comes as xAI raised $5 billion in a funding round that saw its valuation double from just a few months ago. Meanwhile, X has struggled financially, with its value dropping to $9.4 billion according to one of its investors.
The new valuation means xAI has surpassed the $44 billion Musk paid for Twitter back in October 2022. X was valued at $9.4 billion by Fidelity, one of its investors, in September.
The AI boom is turning unlikely companies into stock market darlings. Fujikura Ltd., a 139-year-old Japanese cable maker, has seen its shares surge over 400% this year, making it the best performer on the Nikkei 225. The company specialises in fibre optic cables for data centres, riding the wave of infrastructure spending needed to support AI development. With global data centre capacity expected to grow at an average rate of 33% annually through 2030, Fujikura's success highlights the far-reaching impact of AI on the global economy.
"The demand for data centers has skyrocketed since around 2022," said Kazuhito Iijima, Fujikura's chief financial officer, in an interview. "We didn't quite understand it that well at that time, but it became clear this year that it was all about AI."
📱 Devices
Smart ring maker Oura has secured a $75 million investment from glucose device maker Dexcom, valuing the company at $5 billion. The partnership aims to integrate glucose monitoring into Oura rings by early 2025, potentially making blood sugar tracking as common as step counting.
"Ninety-seven percent of Oura Members have expressed interest in understanding how the food they eat impacts their health," said Oura CEO Tom Hale in a press release.
Industry expert Mark Gurman believes this could mainstream blood sugar monitoring, similar to how heart rate tracking became widespread with devices like the Apple Watch. Apple is reportedly working on its own noninvasive glucose monitoring technology.
🔗 Blockchain and Crypto
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Bakkt, a cryptocurrency exchange owned by Intercontinental Exchange. This potential deal had a significant market impact, with Bakkt's shares skyrocketing by 162% before trading was temporarily halted (it has since given back 13%).
In a related development, the president-elect's transition team is considering the creation of a first-ever White House crypto role, potentially establishing a position to oversee policy and regulation across the federal government. This comes as the crypto markets rally, with Bitcoin reaching $98,000 last Friday, up from $37,000 a year ago.
Discussions about the crypto role have included the person leading a small staff, and acting as a liaison between Congress, the White House and the various agencies with jurisdiction over crypto, including the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the people said.
🌞 Energy
The Port of Los Angeles is testing hydrogen fuel cell-powered top handlers to meet its 2030 zero-emissions goal. These machines consume 60-80 kg of hydrogen daily and aim to operate for 16 hours like diesel counterparts.
"Our major concern is the health of our neighbors," said Lisa Wunder, acting director of environmental management for the Port of Los Angeles. "But also very important is greenhouse gas and the contribution that worldwide shipping has to greenhouse gas emissions, and wanting to do our share to reduce that as well."
Arevon Energy has launched a $529 million solar peaker plant in California with 157 MW of solar power and 150 MW of Tesla Megapack battery storage. The project will power nearly 1 million customer accounts.
Vikings Solar-plus-Storage is designed to take cheap daytime solar power and store it for use during more expensive peak demand times, like late afternoons and evenings. The battery storage system can quickly respond to changes in demand, helping tackle critical grid needs.
Texas is set to host a $100 million wind-powered carbon capture plant using technology from Dutch startup Skytree. The facility aims to remove 50,000 tonnes of carbon annually.
"Project Concho is a first-of-its-kind collaboration that opens the door to even more ambitious and transformative carbon removal projects," said Elena Nikonova, VP of Skytree's recently opened offices in the US and Canada.
Amid a two-year slump in gas prices, US natural gas producers are exploring AI-driven data centres to boost demand. S&P Global Ratings estimates this could increase gas demand by 3-6 billion cubic feet per day.
"Expectation of a step change in power demand has created opportunities for increasing dialogue around the potential for power generation and data projects within the Permian Basin" of West Texas and New Mexico, Permian Resources co-CEO James Walter said earlier this month.
🛰️ Space
NASA has selected SpaceX and Blue Origin for lunar missions as part of the Artemis program. SpaceX will deliver a pressurised rover to the Moon in 2032, while Blue Origin will transport a lunar habitat in 2033. These missions aim to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon.
"Based on current design and development progress for both crew and cargo landers and the Artemis mission schedules for the crew lander versions, NASA assigned a pressurized rover mission for SpaceX and a lunar habitat delivery for Blue Origin," Human Landing System program manager Lisa Watson-Morgan said in the statement.
SpaceX has also received FCC approval for its Starlink direct-to-phone service, partnering with T-Mobile. The service will operate at altitudes between 340-360 kilometres, lower than Starlink's current 530 km orbit. While the launch date is unconfirmed, the technology has already been used during hurricanes Helene and Milton for emergency services.
💪 Augmented Humans
Elon Musk's Neuralink has announced a new feasibility trial to test whether its N1 brain implant can control a robotic arm using thoughts alone. This project aims to extend brain-computer interface (BCI) capabilities beyond digital interfaces, potentially offering new levels of independence for people with paralysis.
“We’re excited to announce the approval and launch of a new feasibility trial to extend brain-computer interface (BCI) control using the N1 Implant to an investigational assistive robotic arm,” Neuralink said in a post on X on Monday.
While Neuralink has already implanted its device in two patients with some success, challenges remain, as evidenced by a malfunction in the first volunteer's implant weeks after surgery.
Bloomberg produced a 25-minute video exploring the potential benefits and risks of BCIs, from restoring abilities for those with disabilities to concerns about privacy and mental autonomy.
What you're seeing here is a mouse drinking, not out of desire, but because it was ordered to do so by scientists manipulating its neurons - proof that the brain can be controlled from the outside. That, for me, was an Oppenheimer moment. Because I mean, on the one hand we were super excited, like, "Oh my God, we finally got into the brain!" But of course, what you can do in a mouse today, you can do in a human tomorrow. And that's when I started to be worried.
⚡ Short Snippets
Australia’s House of Representatives has passed a bill requiring age verification for social media and banning users under 16, despite receiving 15,000 submissions in the 24 hours that was allowed for public comment. Most organisations dealing with vulnerable youth or youth mental health oppose the bill. You can read some of those submissions here.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed an innovative yellow powder called COF-999 that can absorb carbon dioxide from the air at record rates. The powder releases captured CO2 at lower temperatures than current methods, potentially reducing energy consumption in carbon capture processes.
Social psychologists are proposing the use of AI-powered chatbots to simulate the cultural attitudes of ancient civilizations. By training language models on historical texts, researchers aim to gain insights into the mentality and behaviour of long-gone societies.
What would be amazing is if we could actually get the kind of data we get from folks today, just from, say, you know, ancient Romans or Vikings or medieval Persians. And one thing that really excited me in the past year or two is folks started to realize that you could simulate at least modern participants with programs like ChatGPT and surprisingly, and I think excitingly, replicate a whole host of classic effects in the behavioral sciences.
Graph databases are becoming crucial in combating multidomain cybersecurity threats. Microsoft's Security Exposure Management Platform (MSEM) uses graph technology to map relationships across digital estates, enabling more effective threat detection and risk management.
"Defenders think in lists, cyberattackers think in graphs. As long as this is true, attackers win."
Bluesky has surpassed 20 million users. While still dwarfed by X's user base, Bluesky is rapidly closing the gap, with its daily active users now just 1.5 times less than X's, up from 5 times less before the U.S. elections. The platform's appeal isn't just about numbers though - it's become a haven for the scientific community, with over 40,000 influential scientists flocking to its digital shores.
"There is this pent-up demand among scientists for what is essentially the old Twitter," Young says.
I’m still not using Bluesky much, but I’m there at @thomasrice.bsky.social.
Have a great week,
Thomas
About Thomas Rice
Thomas Rice co-founded Minotaur Capital, a technology-driven, AI-led global equities fund, and is based in Sydney, Australia. He can be found on the X at @thomasrice_au.
