The week's developments in AI, quantum, and biotech, explained | 10.01.24

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Some exciting developments in DeepTech this week: AI can now predict significant life events — including the time of death — with remarkable precision. Plus, genetically engineered plants can now communicate with you through fluorescence. 

Meanwhile, in the world of semiconductors, growing geopolitical tensions have led ASML to restrict chip exports to China, and researchers have achieved the impossible with the first graphene-based chip.

Plus, check out the CES 2024 highlights: Samsung's Ballie home robot, Nvidia's long-awaited graphic cards release, and LG's transparent TV. 

And, there’s more where that came from – keep reading for LLM’s new replacement MAMBA, and the coolest AI tools to build, hire, and unwrap!

— Charlie and the Research and Intelligence Team

Innovation and Releases

🌱You can finally talk to your plants. InnerPlant's new genetically engineered plants communicate fungal infections through fluorescence. The tech promises more sustainable and efficient farming, with commercial availability expected by 2026.

🤖CES 2024 highlights include: Samsung's enhanced Ballie home robot, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 Super series graphics cards, and LG's transparent, wireless OLED TV. More info and releases here, including air-purifying houseplants and in-car eye-tracking technology.

💊GSK has acquired Aiolos, a 3-month-old biotech startup, for $1.4 billion,gaining access to their mid-stage trial asthma treatment, AIO-001. This strategic acquisition, following similar 2023 deals, will enhance GSK’s position in the pharmaceutical market.

🌐 Industry-leading chipmaker ASML will restrict exports to China, following Dutch government restrictions. The move aligns with US and EU efforts to curb China's access to advanced semiconductor tech, highlighting continuing geopolitical tensions over chips

AI Tools of the Week

🚀 Hire: Potis.AI automates hiring fairly and efficiently, providing unbiased scores and personalised feedback. 

🛠️ Build: Imagica is a sleek no-code AI app dev tool offering multimodal interactions, real-time data analysis – monetisation options available

🎁 Unwrap: ChatGPT UnWrapped allows users to easily create year-in-review summaries for their ChatGPT conversations.

Latest Research

⏳A new AI model can predict significant life events including time of death, with high accuracy. The model uses large datasets to analyse and forecast life sequences, and offers insights into human behaviour, with potential applications in both health and social sciences.

⚛️Researchers have developed the first graphene semiconductor, promising smaller, faster electronics and quantum computing potential. This innovation resolves graphene's band gap issue, allowing it to operate like silicon, but with ten times the mobility.

🦠Researchers have created cancer-treating nanodrones that activate natural killer cells to target and eliminate cancer cells. This innovative method shows promising tumour suppression in mice, and offers new avenues for treating difficult cancers.

📦Is the solution to AI's black box problem, a white box? Researchers have found that combining symbolic AI and “logic cellular automata" — coined the white box solution — can helps us understand how AI makes decisions, addressing the issue of opacity in AI systems.

In case you missed it

MAMBA is a new form LLM, that uses selective state space models (SSMs) to improve sequence modelling efficiency and power. Is it better than the traditional Transformer?

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