Welcome to the November 20, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Finland and Lithuania Report Severed Undersea Data Cables
• U.S. Congressional Commission Pushes Manhattan Project-style AI Initiative
• El Capitan Now the World's Fastest Supercomputer
• Former Minister to Lead Japanese Semiconductor Group
• 1,000 Days of War Spurs an Automation Boom
• Biden, Xi Agree Not to Give AI Control over Nuclear Weapons
• Robots Struggle to Match Warehouse Workers on ‘Really Hard’ Jobs
• It's a Legacy Agriculture Company — and Your Newest AI Vendor
• Seven-Year-Old Gets Job Offer from Russian IT Firm
• Four-Legged Robot Finishes Marathon
• Pitt Wins Olympics of Assistive Technology
• Judge Rejects Efforts to Shutter Bitcoin Mine over Climate Concerns
• Robot Mechanic for In-orbit Satellite Repair

Finland and Lithuania Report Severed Undersea Data Cables

An undersea data cable connecting Finland and Germany was severed Monday. The 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) high-speed fiber optic Helsinki-Rostock link serving datacenters is damaged in the Baltic Sea east of southern Sweden, and there’s a high likelihood that it’s completely cut as all of its fiber connections are down, executives of its owner and operator Cinia Oy said. Lithuania has also reported a broken subsea data cable to Sweden.
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U.S. Congressional Commission Pushes Manhattan Project-style AI Initiative

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Tuesday proposed a Manhattan Project-style initiative to fund the development of AI systems as smart as (or smarter than) humans, amid intensifying competition with China over advanced technologies. The commission stressed that public-private partnerships are key in advancing artificial general intelligence (AGI), but did not offer any specific investment strategies.
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El Capitan Now the World's Fastest Supercomputer

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's El Capitan has dethroned Frontier as the top-ranked device in the Top500 ranking of the world's fastest supercomputers. In a recent verified test, El Capitan achieved 1.742 exaFLOPs of performance or 1.742 quintillion calculations per second. The U.S. Department of Energy said it will use the machine to conduct computer simulations testing nuclear weapons. El Capitan also will be used for research on fusion energy, climate science, and drug discovery.
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Former Minister to Lead Japanese Semiconductor Group

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has named Daishiro Yamagiwa (pictured) to chair a group that promotes semiconductors. Yamagiwa, formerly economic revitalization minister, replaces Akira Amari, who championed Tokyo’s renewed push for chips until he lost his seat in parliament in last month’s national election. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pledged more than ¥10 trillion ($65 billion) of public support for Japan’s semiconductor and AI sectors.
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1,000 Days of War Spurs an Automation Boom

The vast majority of the more than 800 companies in Ukraine's burgeoning defense production sector were launched after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, which entered its 1,000th day on Tuesday. Many were set up in response to rapidly evolving battlefield conditions, developing drones, anti-drone technology, and AI. Ukraine and Russia are each on track to produce around 1.5 million drones this year.
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Biden, Xi Agree Not to Give AI Control over Nuclear Weapons

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed that neither nation would turn over control of nuclear weapons to AI, the White House announced. Said White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the agreement is “an important statement about the intersection of artificial intelligence and nuclear doctrine, and it is a reflection of how, even with the competition between the US and the PRC, we could work on a responsible basis to manage risk in vital areas.”
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Robots Struggle to Match Warehouse Workers on ‘Really Hard’ Jobs

While robots have proven capable of doing repetitive tasks like loading and unloading trucks at warehouses, they are stymied by other jobs. For example, Sparrow, one of Amazon’s most advanced robotic arms, performs “top-picking,” taking the item at or near the top of a container; it is not adept at rummaging around many items to get one that might be buried or obscured. Said Tye Brady of Amazon Robotics, “That’s kind of the next frontier."
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It's a Legacy Agriculture Company — and Your Newest AI Vendor

Microsoft is working with a handful of companies on specialized AI models fine-tuned with industry-specific data. The models, based on Microsoft's Phi family of small language models, are preloaded with industry data. The approach has enabled Bayer, for example, to create an AI model capable of answering questions about agronomy and crop protection.
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Seven-Year-Old Gets Job Offer from Russian IT Firm

Russian software security company Pro32 invited a seven-year-old to join its management team, as soon as he is old enough for paid employment. Sergey, from the Russian city of St Petersburg, has built a following by uploading videos that explain how to write software since he was five. His YouTube channel has more than 3,500 subscribers interested in learning programming languages Python and Unity, or who want to hear more about neural networks.
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Four-Legged Robot Finishes Marathon

RAIBO 2, developed by a research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, is reportedly the first four-legged robot to finish a full marathon. RAIBO 2 participated in the 22nd Sangju Marathon on Nov. 17, completing the 42.195-km. (29-mile) course in four hours, 19 minutes, 52 seconds, on a single battery charge. The team used an advanced learning algorithm to train RAIBO's walking mechanism, replicating diverse terrains such as slopes, stairs, and icy paths.
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Pitt Wins Olympics of Assistive Technology

A team from the University of Pittsburgh's (Pitt) Rehab Neural Engineering Lab finished in first place at last month's Cybathlon, scoring a perfect 100 points to beat competitors from Italy, Thailand, Hungary and elsewhere. The competition, run by a nonprofit affiliated with Switzerland's ETH Zurich, encourages teams to develop assistive technologies for everyday use by people with disabilities.
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Judge Rejects Efforts to Shutter Bitcoin Mine over Climate Concerns

New York Supreme Court Justice Vincent M. Dinolfo ruled that a cryptocurrency plant in the state can continue operating. Greenidge Generation, a large-scale crypto mine in the Finger Lakes region, uses a former coal-burning power plant that was converted to natural gas in 2017 after years of disuse. In 2022, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation denied a required air permit to the plant on the grounds that its greenhouse gas emissions ran afoul of the state’s climate goals.
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Robot Mechanic for In-orbit Satellite Repair

The Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites Integrated Robotic Payload (IRP) was developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to repair satellites in orbit. The system, which resembles two large robotic arms, will be integrated with Northrop Grumman’s Mission Robotics Vehicle spacecraft bus. Said NRL's Glen Henshaw. "We intend to demonstrate that we can upgrade and repair these valuable assets using robots."
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