All posts tagged: computing

Estonia digital innovation in high-performance computing

Estonia digital innovation in high-performance computing

Published by skeptic

Estonia is considered one of the most advanced digital societies in the world. For further innovation, a carefully developed e-infrastructure must be a central pillar When Estonia’s first computer cluster became available in 2008, its capacity was relatively modest by global standards – 42 Sun Fire nodes with eight cores each, 32 GB of RAM, 10 TB of shared storage, and only a small team responsible for maintaining the system. However, this marked only the beginning. A few years later, the computing clusters of Estonian universities were merged into a shared national infrastructure. This development led to the creation of the consortium called the Estonian Scientific Computing Infrastructure (ETAIS). This consortium represents a nationwide e-infrastructure that provides cloud services, classical high-performance computing (HPC), and data repository resources. Its aim is to enhance the competitiveness of Estonian research in computing- and data-intensive disciplines by providing access to a modern scientific computing environment. All ETAIS services are also open to businesses and the public sector. Today, ETAIS has grown to become the largest provider of computing power …

Amazon Reports Increased 1Q Profits and Net Sales Fueled by Cloud Computing Demand

Amazon Reports Increased 1Q Profits and Net Sales Fueled by Cloud Computing Demand

Published by Sam Flores

New York (AP) — Amazon on Wednesday reported strong increases in profits and net sales during its fiscal first quarter, helped by surging growth in its prominent cloud computing unit. The e-commerce and technology company said that sales in its cloud computing unit were up 28% in the January-March period, the fastest increase in 15 quarters. Amazon Web Services had 24% sales growth in the fourth quarter, which followed the division’s 20% growth in the third quarter. The Seattle-based company also offered a bullish outlook for net sales in the current quarter, surpassing analysts’ estimates. However, shares slid nearly 2% in after-hours trading before rising about 3%. Investors were closely watching Amazon’s quarterly earnings to see if the company’s $200 billion investment in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors and satellites is starting to pay off. The planned expenditure for the year marked a 60% increase from Amazon’s $128 billion in capital spending last year and spooked investors, sending the stock down 11% in after-hours trading when it was announced in February. CEO Andy Jassy defended the …

The 6 Board That Built Apple: How the Apple I Changed Computing 50 Years Ago

The $666 Board That Built Apple: How the Apple I Changed Computing 50 Years Ago

Published by José Betancourt

Amer­i­cans of a cer­tain age may well remem­ber grow­ing up with an Apple II in the class­room, and the per­pet­u­al temp­ta­tion it held out to play The Ore­gon Trail, Num­ber Munch­ers, or per­haps Lode Run­ner. More than a few recess gamers went on to com­put­er-ori­ent­ed careers, but only the most curi­ous sought an answer to the ques­tion implied in the machine’s name: was there an Apple I? Half a cen­tu­ry after the foun­da­tion of Apple, Inc., then known as Apple Com­put­er, the prod­uct that launched what’s now one of the world’s most valu­able com­pa­nies remains very much an obscu­ri­ty. Unless you fre­quent com­put­er muse­ums, you’re unlike­ly ever to have laid eyes on an Apple I, let alone used one. Even if one of the exist­ing mod­els were to come on the mar­ket, you’d need about half a mil­lion dol­lars to buy it. It’s actu­al­ly eas­i­er to buy the parts that went into an Apple I and build it your­self — which, as demon­strat­ed by the 8‑Bit Guy in the video above, still isn’t easy at all. Yet …

NPL deploys NVIDIA Ising AI to scale quantum computing

NPL deploys NVIDIA Ising AI to scale quantum computing

Published by skeptic

The UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has deployed NVIDIA Ising AI to streamline quantum calibration. NPL is introducing NVIDIA-powered artificial intelligence into the measurement and calibration of quantum computers, in a step designed to support the technology’s progression from experimental systems to scalable platforms. At the centre of this effort is the integration of NVIDIA Ising tools into NPL’s existing quantum measurement infrastructure. As the UK’s National Metrology Institute, NPL is responsible for establishing reliable, precise measurement standards for emerging technologies. Within its Institute for Quantum Standards and Technology (IQST), researchers are focused on improving the characterisation, calibration, and benchmarking of quantum devices – particularly quantum computers. Automating a bottleneck in quantum calibration A key challenge in quantum computing lies in managing qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information. These systems are highly sensitive, with performance influenced by environmental noise, instability, and device-level imperfections. As quantum processors scale up, the complexity of maintaining stable qubit behaviour increases significantly. NPL’s adoption of NVIDIA Ising technology targets this issue directly. By embedding AI-driven tools into calibration workflows, …

Apple Execs Say Spatial Computing Is ‘Inevitable’ and AI Is a ‘Marathon, Not a Sprint’

Apple Execs Say Spatial Computing Is ‘Inevitable’ and AI Is a ‘Marathon, Not a Sprint’

Published by skeptic

Apple hardware engineering chief John Ternus and marketing chief Greg Joswiak recently did an interview with Tom’s Guide, where they shared new insights into the MacBook Neo, AI, and spatial computing. Ternus and Joswiak made it clear that the ‌MacBook Neo‌ isn’t your average low-cost device. Apple doesn’t typically put a lot of focus on its more affordable devices, but marketing for the Neo has been expansive, and that’s because Apple sees it as a “reinvention” of the entry-level laptop. From Ternus: I think maybe another one from our past is this idea that Steve talked about is the Mac being the bicycle for the mind, right? And you know, from the very beginning, the vision was let’s make personal computing as accessible to as many people as possible. And that was the mission of the MacBook Neo. Ternus said the ‌MacBook Neo‌ required “building something completely new from the ground up” to provide customers with quality at a low price. “We never want to ship junk,” he said. “We want to ship great products …

Allbirds Is Pivoting to AI Compute. Sure, Why Not

Allbirds Is Pivoting to AI Compute. Sure, Why Not

Published by skeptic

On April 7, Allbirds sent out a press release celebrating its new “canvas cruiser” collection and a partnership with Pantone, the color company. One week later, on April 15, Allbirds sent out a press release announcing that the brand will “pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure.” AI comes at you fast. In fairness, it’s been an eventful month for Allbirds. The startup’s fall from grace has been long-brewing and well-documented, but here’s the short version. While its comfortable-yet-presentable footwear propelled it to a $4 billion valuation when it went public in 2021, its sales never quite matched the hype. After years of financial losses, it finally sold whatever was left of its intellectual property to American Exchange Group, a “brand management” company that also owns the likes of Aerosoles and Ed Hardy. The price: $39 million. That was March 30. And now? American Exchange Group will presumably work to revitalize the Allbirds apparel business, starting with those canvas cruisers. But Allbirds itself will focus its efforts on turning a $50 million cash infusion (or …

Scientists unlock scalable entanglement for next-generation quantum computing

Scientists unlock scalable entanglement for next-generation quantum computing

Published by Jenni Sidey

Light moving through a tiny silicon structure does not look dramatic. It slips down narrow waveguides etched onto a chip, guided by geometry too small to see with the naked eye. Yet in those channels, researchers at the University of Central Florida say they have found a way to build more complex quantum states of light without making the system itself more cumbersome. Their study, published in Science, centers on a problem that has lingered in quantum photonics. Entangled states of light can help power quantum computing and quantum sensing, but making those states both scalable and resistant to imperfections has been difficult. Andrea Blanco-Redondo, an optics and photonics professor at CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, said her group has now shown a method for entangling multiple topologically protected modes of light in silicon photonic superlattices. CREOL doctoral student Javad Zakeri while performing the photonic quantum experiments at UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics. (CREDIT: UCF) Where the robustness comes from Topological modes are unusual because they depend on the overall structure of …

The Download: Quantum computing for health, and why the world doesn’t recycle more nuclear waste

The Download: Quantum computing for health, and why the world doesn’t recycle more nuclear waste

Published by skeptic

The prize will go to the quantum computer that can solve real health care problems that conventional “classical” computers are unable to solve. But there can be only one big winner—if there is a winner at all. Read the full story.  —Michael Brooks  Why the world doesn’t recycle more nuclear waste  There’s still a lot of usable uranium in spent nuclear fuel when it’s pulled out of reactors. Recycling could reduce both the waste and the need to mine new material, but the process is costly, complicated, and not fully efficient.  Find out why it’s such an issue. —Casey Crownhart  This story is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.  The must-reads  I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.  1 The FBI has confirmed it’s buying Americans’ location data  Director Kash Patel said it’s led to “valuable intelligence.” (Politico) + What AI “remembers” about you is privacy’s next frontier. (MIT Technology Review)  2 The first draft of a federal AI bill has been introduced It aims to protect “children, creators, conservatives, and communities.” (Engadget) + A war is brewing over AI …

Multiverse Computing pushes its compressed AI models into the mainstream

Multiverse Computing pushes its compressed AI models into the mainstream

Published by skeptic

With private company defaults running at upwards of 9.2% — the highest rate in years — VC firm Lux Capital recently advised companies relying on AI to get their compute capacity commitments confirmed in writing. With financial instability rippling through the AI supply chain, Lux warned, a handshake agreement isn’t enough. But there’s another option entirely, which is to stop relying on external compute infrastructure altogether. Smaller AI models that run directly on a user’s own device — no data center, no cloud provider, no counterparty risk — are getting good enough to be worth considering. And Multiverse Computing is raising its hand. The Spanish startup has so far kept a lower profile than some of its peers, but as demand for AI efficiency grows, this is changing. After compressing models from major AI labs including OpenAI, Meta, DeepSeek and Mistral AI, it has launched both an app that showcases the capabilities of its compressed models and an API portal — a gateway that lets developers access and build with those models — that makes …

How to Set Up Your Own NAS Server for Backups and Content Streaming

How to Set Up Your Own NAS Server for Backups and Content Streaming

Published by skeptic

I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up my own network-attached storage (NAS) server for a long while, but I figured it would be a hassle. Lured by the idea of automatic backups and centralized content sharing that are detached from big tech’s increasingly untrustworthy servers, and further motivated by the creep of ads and ever-rising prices for streaming services, I finally did it. It turned out to be easy. As you get your digital life in order, you should do it, too. Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today. Why Would I Want a NAS Server? While it’s not for everyone, there are a few good reasons you might consider setting up your own server for personal file storage, even in an era where cloud backup services are convenient and inexpensive. A NAS server is like your own private cloud, enabling you to store files and backups at home instead of on a third-party cloud server that could be …