Always Be Curious #244: Hyper Moore's Law, the multiverse, and D&D pinball
This week in ABC: Jensen is outdoing Moore's Law, a quantum innovation undermindes the multiverse theory, and an awesome Dungeons & Dragons pinball machine
Sup Curious Clan! ✌️ This week was all about Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where tech companies of all shapes and sizes gave keynotes, demos and sneak peeks. Check out the video from The Verge below for a good amount of amazing electronics. 👇 But one of the most anticipated keynotes was NVIDIA’s. Techies around the world were still reeling from the earlier announcement over the holidays of the “Jetson Orin Nano Super”, a compact AI computer for developers working on robotics and generative AI, retailing at an accessible $250. So when CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage at CES, the room was crowded, anticipation was palpable and stakes were high. And boy did he deliver. Among many innovations, one of my favorite moments was when Jensen unveiled “Project DIGITS”, basically the world's smallest supercomputer. It has the blazing speed and power of the Grace Blackwell platform--but in the form factor of a Mac Mini. 🔥 Retailing at $3,000, the desktop computer provides a whopping petaflop of power-efficient AI performance, so users can run up to 200-billion-parameter large language models. NVIDIA is now enabling the world to supercharge AI innovation from a desktop. 😎✨
Have a good week, stay safe and sound,
👨💻The round-up in sci-tech💡
🥇 The Verge Awards at CES 2025 (The Verge)
These are the favorite innovations and products as noted by The Verge.
🤯 How a quantum innovation may quash the idea of the multiverse (New Scientist)
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics invokes alternative realities to keep everything in balance. Has solving a century-old paradox now undermined their existence?
🔮 Sam Altman on ChatGPT’s first two years, Elon Musk and AI under Trump (Bloomberg)🔐
An in-depth interview with the OpenAI co-founder.
⚛️ Scientists create split-electrons, unlocking the future of quantum computing (Scitechdaily)
Electrons, once thought to be indivisible, may display behaviors suggesting they can split into two halves under quantum interference.
✍️ How journalism will adapt in the age of AI (Bloomberg)🔐
The news business is facing its next enormous challenge. Here are eight reasons to be both optimistic and paranoid.
🚀 Why Elon Musk’s Starship rocket is beating NASA in the space race (The Guardian)
The SpaceX chief’s powerful new system is set to slash the cost of missions, leaving NASA in the dust.
🧙♀️ Why computer scientists consult oracles (Quanta)
Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory.
⚡️ A new electricity supercycle is under way (The Economist)🔐
Why spending on power infrastructure is surging around the world.
⚙️ Bend it like Bhoite: circuit sculptures shatter the bounds of flatland (Hackaday)
Electronics hobbyists live in a somewhat two-dimensional world. The craft is so centered around the printed circuit board. Breaking out of this self-imposed Flatland are Mohit Bhoite’s free-form circuit sculptures, which he spoke about at length at the Hackaday Superconference this year.
😴 Why don’t new memories overwrite old ones? Sleep science holds clues (Nature)
Research in mice points towards a mechanism that avoids ‘catastrophic forgetting’.
🤓This week in chips⚠
📈 Exclusive: Nvidia CEO says his AI chips are improving faster than Moore's Law (TechCrunch)
“Hyper Moore’s Law” is real.
😎 NVIDIA puts Grace Blackwell on every desk and at every AI developer’s fingertips (NVIDIA)
NVIDIA unveiled Project DIGITS, a personal AI supercomputer that provides AI researchers, data scientists and students worldwide with access to the power of the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell platform.
🎌 Rapidus aims to supply cutting-edge 2-nm chip samples to Broadcom (Nikkei)
Rapidus is seeking major customers ahead of 2nm mass production.
🤐 Samsung needs 'new design' for HBM to pass NVIDIA test (Korea Joong Ang Daily)
Samsung "has to engineer a new design" to pass Nvidia's verification test for its high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday.
🇰🇷 Samsung’s Q4 profit misses expectations; stock rises (KED)
Samsung flagged weaker-than-expected earnings for the last quarter of last year due to a fall in memory chip prices and soft demand for its smartphones and other mobile devices.
🇺🇸 American lab is developing a BAT laser that could enable 'beyond EUV' lithography (Tom’s Hardware)
“The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on a petawatt-class thulium laser that is said to be 10 times more efficient than the CO2 lasers used in EUV tools and could replace CO2 lasers in lithography systems many years down the road.”
📄 Intel extends leadership in AI PCs and edge computing at CES 2025 (Intel)
“Intel unveiled the new Core Ultra Series 2 processors, designed to revolutionize mobile computing for businesses, creators and enthusiast gamers. The latest additions to the Intel Core Ultra family feature cutting-edge AI enhancements, increased efficiency and performance improvements.”
📄 AMD announces expanded consumer and commercial AI PC portfolio at CES (AMD)
“AMD announced the new Ryzen AI Max Series processors, exceeding the demands for high-performance computing in premium thin and light notebooks; new Ryzen AI 300 Series “Zen-5”-based processors, rounding out the stack with additional models; and to continue the legacy of AMD “Zen 4” architecture, AMD also announced Ryzen 200 Series processors for everyday productivity.”
📈By the numbers📉
📈 TSMC's Q4 revenue handily beats market forecast on AI demand (Reuters)
The world's largest contract chipmaker reported Q4 revenue that easily beat market forecasts and hit its own expectations as it reaped the benefit of artificial intelligence demand.
📉 Samsung's preliminary Q4 profit falls far short of estimates as chip issues drag (Reuters)
Samsung’s preliminary Q4 operating profit missed estimates by a large margin, with the South Korean tech giant hit hard by extra costs as it works towards providing high-end chips to NVIDIA.
✅ 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025 (MIT Technology Review)
What will really matter in the long run? That’s the question that MIT tackles each year as they compile this annual list.
❤️For the love of tech❤️
Who doesn’t love an awesome pinball machine? Especially one that’s been built from scratch by the epic pinball gods at Stern Pinball around a D&D theme. Just look at this beauty!
Always Be Curious is the personal newsletter of Sander Hofman, Senior Creative Content Strategist at ASML. Opinions expressed in this curated newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.