STEM

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Chinese Firm Trains Massive AI Model for Just $5.5 Million
Posted by msmash on Thursday December 26, 2024 @11:21PM from the bucking-the-trend dept.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has released what appears to be one of the most powerful open-source language models to date, trained at a cost of just $5.5 million using restricted Nvidia H800 GPUs.

The 671-billion-parameter DeepSeek V3, released this week under a permissive commercial license, outperformed both open and closed-source AI models in internal benchmarks, including Meta's Llama 3.1 and OpenAI's GPT-4 on coding tasks.

The model was trained on 14.8 trillion tokens of data over two months. At 1.6 times the size of Meta's Llama 3.1, DeepSeek V3 requires substantial computing power to run at reasonable speeds.

Andrej Karpathy, former OpenAI and Tesla executive, comments:

For reference, this level of capability is supposed to require clusters of closer to 16K GPUs, the ones being brought up today are more around 100K GPUs. E.g. Llama 3 405B used 30.8M GPU-hours, while DeepSeek-V3 looks to be a stronger model at only 2.8M GPU-hours (~11X less compute). If the model also passes vibe checks (e.g. LLM arena rankings are ongoing, my few quick tests went well so far) it will be a highly impressive display of research and engineering under resource constraints.

Does this mean you don't need large GPU clusters for frontier LLMs? No but you have to ensure that you're not wasteful with what you have, and this looks like a nice demonstration that there's still a lot to get through with both data and algorithms.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Nvidia Bets on Robotics To Drive Future Growth
Posted by msmash on Monday December 30, 2024 @10:22AM from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report:

Nvidia is betting on robotics as its next big driver of growth, as the world's most valuable semiconductor company faces increasing competition in its core AI chipmaking business. The US tech group, best known for the infrastructure that has underpinned the AI boom, is set to launch its latest generation of compact computers for humanoid robots [non-paywalled link] -- dubbed Jetson Thor -- in the first half of 2025.

Nvidia is positioning itself to be the leading platform for what the tech group believes is an imminent robotics revolution. The company sells a "full stack" solution, from the layers of software for training AI-powered robots to the chips that go into them. [...] Talla said a shift in the robotics market is being driven by two technological breakthroughs: the explosion of generative AI models and the ability to train robots on these foundational models using simulated environments. The latter has been a particularly significant development as it helps solve what roboticists call the "Sim-to-Real gap," ensuring robots trained in virtual environments can operate effectively in the real world, he said.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

In a First, Surgical Robots Learned Tasks By Watching Videos
Posted by msmash on Monday December 30, 2024 @11:01AM from the pushing-the-limits dept.

Speaking of robots, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University researchers say they trained robots to perform surgical tasks autonomously using video learning, marking a breakthrough in robotic surgery capabilities.

The robots successfully manipulated needles, tied knots, and sutured wounds independently, demonstrating ability to correct errors like dropped needles without human input. Testing has advanced to full surgeries on animal cadavers.

Researchers aim to address a projected U.S. surgeon shortage of 10,000-20,000 by 2036. The technology builds on decades of robot-assisted surgery, which recorded 876,000 procedures in 2020.

Saludos.

[pollo]

In a First, Surgical Robots Learned Tasks By Watching Videos
Posted by msmash on Monday December 30, 2024 @11:01AM from the pushing-the-limits dept.

Speaking of robots, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University researchers say they trained robots to perform surgical tasks autonomously using video learning, marking a breakthrough in robotic surgery capabilities.

The robots successfully manipulated needles, tied knots, and sutured wounds independently, demonstrating ability to correct errors like dropped needles without human input. Testing has advanced to full surgeries on animal cadavers.

Researchers aim to address a projected U.S. surgeon shortage of 10,000-20,000 by 2036. The technology builds on decades of robot-assisted surgery, which recorded 876,000 procedures in 2020.

Saludos.

Entrenado con vídeos... ¿Qué podría salir mal? 

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/tecnologia/noticias/13142609/12/24/navantia-contrata-los-gemelos-digitales-de-siemens-para-dos-buques-hidrograficos.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/telecomunicaciones/noticias/13142651/12/24/telefonica-comienza-a-evitar-averias-en-su-red-movil-alemana-con-la-inteligencia-artificial.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/tecnologia/noticias/13151421/12/24/tecnalia-disena-un-sistema-que-revaloriza-materiales-y-eleva-un-20-la-productividad.html

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/el-economista/20241230/page/11/textview

La industria marítima vasca se especializará en 'buques inteligentes'

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

China To Build Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor In 2025
Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday December 31, 2024 @05:00AM from the what-to-expect dept.

In 2025, China plans to start building a demonstration thorium-based molten-salt reactor in the Gobi Desert. IEEE Spectrum reports:

The 10-megawatt reactor project, managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), is scheduled to be operational by 2030, according to an environmental-impact report released by the Academy in October. The project follows a 2-MW experimental version completed in 2021 and operated since then. China's efforts put it at the forefront of both thorium-based fuel breeding and molten-salt reactors. Several companies elsewhere in the world are developing plans for this kind of fuel or reactor, but none has yet operated one. Prior to China's pilot project, the last operating molten-salt reactor was Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, which ran on uranium. It shut down in 1969.

Thorium-232, found in igneous rocks and heavy mineral sands, is more abundant on Earth than the commonly used isotope in nuclear fuel, uranium-235. But this weakly radioactive metal isn't directly fissile -- it can't undergo fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei that produces energy. So it must first be transformed into fissile uranium-233. That's technically feasible, but whether it's economical and practical is less clear. The attraction of thorium is that it can help achieve energy self-sufficiency by reducing dependence on uranium, particularly for countries such as India with enormous thorium reserves. But China may source it in a different way: The element is a waste product of China's huge rare earth mining industry. Harnessing it would provide a practically inexhaustible supply of fuel. Already, China's Gansu province has maritime and aerospace applications in mind for this future energy supply, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Scant technical details of China's reactor exist, and SINAP didn't respond to IEEE Spectrum's requests for information. The Chinese Academy of Sciences' environmental-impact report states that the molten-salt reactor core will be 3 meters in height and 2.8 meters in diameter. It will operate at 700 C and have a thermal output of 60 MW, along with 10 MW of electricity. [...] But many challenges come along with thorium use. A big one is dealing with the risk of proliferation. When thorium is transformed into uranium-233, it becomes directly usable in nuclear weapons. "It's of a quality comparable to separated plutonium and is thus very dangerous," says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. If the fuel is circulating in and out of the reactor core during operation, this movement introduces routes for the theft of uranium-233, he says.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-12-30/un-experimento-recrea-el-mundo-sin-vida-y-surgen-protocelulas-un-paso-previo-a-los-seres-vivos-no-hay-un-soplo-divino.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

How AI is Unlocking Ancient Texts
Posted by msmash on Wednesday January 01, 2025 @06:00PM from the rewriting-history dept.

AI is unlocking ancient texts previously thought unreadable, potentially revolutionizing historical research, according to a Nature article. Neural networks have successfully decoded burned Roman scrolls from Herculaneum, deciphered ancient Chinese oracle bones, and translated vast Korean royal archives.

In a breakthrough achievement, researchers used AI to reveal 16 columns of Greek philosophical text from a charred Herculaneum scroll that had been unreadable for 2,000 years. The technology could help scholars access hundreds more unopened scrolls from Herculaneum and other historical collections worldwide.

Saludos.

[pollo]

https://www.eleconomista.es/tecnologia/noticias/13142609/12/24/navantia-contrata-los-gemelos-digitales-de-siemens-para-dos-buques-hidrograficos.html

Saludos.

TVs transparentes. El detectabobos definitivo. Presten atención a la palabrería con la que venden el cacharro en cuestión, mejor que la segunda venida de Jesucristo.

Ojo al subtítulo del artículo. Se maneja tecnología puntera aquí, pero sobre todo unos procesos de edición muy elaborados.

La palabrería también salpica el primer artículo del barco, con pinceladas de palabras juntatrocolistas como "IA", "última generación", "sostenible", "desarrollos interoperables y flexibles", "transformación digital"... que algunas vienen al caso y otras no, pero da lo mismo, que lo mismo te vendo chorizos que barcos. Chorizos sostenibles con IA, USB y blockchain, por supuesto.

Es llamativo cómo se distinguen perfectamente los trozos de texto que parten de información técnica y los que parten de palabrería de los engominaos.

Observen también en la foto complementaria del artículo del gemelo digital del barco, cómo vender tecnología se ha transformado literalmente en "lo que sale que mola tanto en las primeras escenas de Minority Report" y sólo apela a la estética de cine, sin ninguna otra consideración. Es el modelo predominante en todo (venta de ciencia ficción estética), desde coches con elementos caros (y no opcionales) objetivamente peores que nadie pidió, hasta smart TVs, informática...

Te vendemos un futuro tecnosuperchachi con todo tipo de supuestos lujos chorras, mientras el presente es una puta basura en la que disponer de lo más básico es una esclavitud.

[Cadavre Exquis]

New battery technology promises an additional 621 miles for electric cars and enough power for electric planes
Instead of just making lithium-sulfur batteries more durable, a new breakthrough in battery chemistry has resulted in increased charge and discharge rates, which could give electric mobility a much-needed boost.

Mario Petzold · 2024.11.28

Flying like today, only electrically? Hard to imagine with existing technology. (Image source: pixabay)

Dowanol is a versatile solvent that can be used for practically all resins and oils. It has low toxicity, a minimal environmental impact and an affordable price tag of just $10 per liter. A recent study from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, has now found a potentially groundbreaking new use case for this broadly available substance.

Basically, all shortcomings that are currently preventing the widespread adoption of zinc-sulfur batteries in electric cars, large-scale energy storage systems and mobile devices can be addressed through the utilization of 1-methoxy-2-propanol, which is the chemical nomenclature for Dowanol. This was achieved by including a second additive, namely zinc iodide.

Laboratory tests showed that these battery cells have an enhanced conductivity and competitive stability. Moreover, the formation of dendrites, which are crystalline structures that can cause short circuits in batteries and potentially catastrophic fires in the worst case, can be effectively suppressed.

As an added benefit, the already impressive energy density of zinc-sulfur batteries has been increased by another 20%. This results in an energy density of almost 470 Wh per kilogram, which is pretty much on par with the currently best solid-state batteries and significantly superior to regular commercial lithium-ion batteries.

Furthermore, the production of zinc batteries is already quite cost-effective. Their cell structure is relatively straightforward, and the raw materials – zinc and sulfur – are readily available at reasonable prices of just a few dollars per kilogram. The utilization of the widely available and affordable Dowanol makes this new battery technology even more viable from an economic perspective.

The enhanced safety, coupled with the lightweight nature and high capacity of these batteries, makes them particularly attractive for battery-powered cars and many other applications. The primary challenge is to convert these promising research findings into a commercially viable, industrially produced zinc battery for the mass market.

Source(s)
Case Western Reserve University, Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Sodium-ion battery vanadium breakthrough brings energy density parity with lithium as it delivers higher continuous voltage
More than a decade of research into cheap sodium-ion batteries that don't need expensive lithium is slowly bearing fruit.

Mario Petzold · 2025.01.03

CATL is already investing into next-gen sodium battery production (Image source: CATL)

The scientific push to make cheap sodium-ion batteries a viable alternative to the packs with lithium cells that go into electric cars and energy storage systems can only be compared to the R&D rush that went into LFP batteries in the past decade or so.

The phosphate cells that don't use expensive nickel or cobalt slowly fell down in price, leading to proliferation of portable power stations like the Anker Solix series that sell for less than a grand on Amazon. Their energy density also increased, and charging performance in cold weather improved. So much so, that LFP is increasingly the battery chemistry of choice when it comes to mass electric vehicles and energy storage.

Something similar is happening in the field of sodium-ion batteries. The base material is 50 times cheaper than lithium, and so abundant it can be distilled from seawater. The more than a decade of research into creating a viable sodium-ion alternative to lithium in batteries is now starting to bear fruit. The first electric cars and grid-level energy storage systems are coming online, and the two biggest battery makers CATL and BYD are increasingly prioritizing their production, despite the precipitous drop in the price of lithium in the past year or so.

The weakest point of sodium-ion batteries - their energy density - is slowly being addressed, too, with more and more lab-level research seeping through into production lines. The latest case in point is the breakthrough discovery of a sodium vanadium phosphate compound (NaxV₂(PO₄)₃) that a group of scientists from the University of Houston and a number of French universities managed to take from the theoretical to the practical realm.

The vanadium phosphate material increases the theoretical energy density from the current 396 Wh/kg average to 458 Wh/kg, closing in on lithium-ion batteries. What's more, the use of vanadium allows the cells to remain stable during rapid charging and discharge, while delivering a higher, 3.7 V voltage than the typical cells used now.

According to the researchers, "the continuous voltage change is a key feature" because it makes the battery more energy-efficient without affecting the electrodes' stability. The team even goes as far as calling this "a game-changer" for the commercialization of the sodium-ion battery chemistry and says that the proprietary process can be applied to other potential electrode materials, too.

Source(s)
Nature Materials

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Plasma reactor produces fuel of the future without CO₂ emissions
The production of ammonia is considered to be energy-intensive and harmful to the environment. However, the molecule is essential for global food production and a potential energy source for hydrogen-based systems.

Mario Petzold · 2025.01.04

The plasma reactor's tiny capacity is supposed to increase (Image source: Douglas Levere, University of Buffalo)

The Haber-Bosch process is irreplaceable for industrial agriculture, as it makes large-scale synthesis of ammonia possible. Under extreme pressure and temperatures of around 500°C, it produces ammonia from nitrogen, the main component of air. It also produces hydrogen, typically from fossil sources.

Approximately 1% of the world's energy consumption can be attributed to this process. Its share of global CO₂ emissions is even higher than that. Up to this point, the negative environmental impact of agriculture that depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has not even been mentioned.

It’s time to reconsider this process which was developed over 100 years ago, as ammonia plays an integral role in more than just food production. After all, the molecule consisting of one nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms can also be produced naturally.

Light splits bound nitrogen in the atmosphere. After that, rain carries nitrogen oxides to the earth's surface and into the soil. That’s where bacteria and fungi convert them into ammonia with the help of water. It then acts as a natural plant fertilizer, which briefly describes organic farming.

Independent and free of CO₂

A plasma reactor that has been developed at the University of Buffalo, New York, now imitates this exact process. It uses electricity from solar cells to heat up the air to a plasma. A catalyst made of copper and palladium causes various nitrogen oxides to react with water and to form ammonia.

At room temperature, this tiny test setup currently produces 1 gram of ammonia per day, directly from the air and without any CO₂ emissions. Researchers are already working on a bigger-scale plasma reactor, which could provide local and sustainable nitrogen fertilizer, especially in regions where conventional industrial production has not been possible.

In addition, ammonia is also considered to be easier to store and process than hydrogen. It also has a significantly higher energy density per liter. Corresponding fuel cells have existed for many years and large-scale industrial storage systems have also been tested for a long time, even though they are not entirely safe. However, the same could be said of hydrogen, oil, and natural gas.

Source(s)
University of Buffalo, Journal of the American Chemical Society

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Fireproof lithium solid-state battery developed
High energy density meets increased risk of explosion. This applies to many batteries with a solid polymer electrolyte, namely solid-state batteries. A new development aims to change this without compromising on the advantages.

Mario Petzold · 2025.01.05

From petrol to hydrogen to batteries in electric cars, there is always a certain risk of fire. (Image source: pixabay)

For gasoline, it is just under 11 kilowatt hours per kilogram. For hydrogen, it is even 33 kilowatt hours. A high-performance accumulator, on the other hand, only manages a dismal 0.5 kilowatt hours with a lot of effort. Although rechargeable, which is naturally a big advantage, the battery cell's major disadvantage is its gigantic weight.

Hardly surprising then that the solid-state battery, which can at best store three to four times as much power as standard electric car batteries, is of great interest. From compact and economical electric cars to powerful tractor units, the potential applications are very promising.

At the same time, there are structural problems. This starts with optimum contact with the electrodes, which is difficult to achieve. And it continues with the formation of dendrites. These fine formations of lithium ions act like tiny branches of crystals and, in the worst case, cause short circuits within the battery that can trigger fires and explosions.

Promising division of tasks make for a more efficient battery   

To prevent such scenarios, researchers at the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) in South Korea have developed a three-layer solid-state battery, with each layer having a very specific function. These layers are comprised of 1) the tried-and-tested flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether; 2) zeolites, which are excellent ion exchangers and; 3) highly concentrated lithium salt for accelerated movement of the charge carriers.

The results are impressive. According to the recently published study, the capacity after 1,000 charging cycles is still 87.9% of the initial value with the efficiency almost unchanged.

Furthermore, the now-fireproof cell does not lose any energy density. Depending on the cell voltage, this is more than 700 watt hours per kilogram. Still much less than with conventional energy sources, but more than enough to be used very effectively in electromobility. The fact that it does not immediately burst into flames, unlike gasoline or H2, is also an advantage.

Source(s)
Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, Nano Micro Small 2406200

Saludos.