Healthcare

Jensen Huang called out OpenEvidence as an example of what’s working in healthcare with AI

OpenEvidence is the leading medical information platform.The company positions itself as a leader in organizing and expanding medical knowledge, making it more useful for healthcare professionals. It was launched during the Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate program and is backed by major investors like Sequoia and Google.

This retina implant lets people with vision loss do a crossword puzzle. Competition to deploy commercial brain-computer interfaces is heating up

The implant produces a form of “artificial vision” that lets some patients read text and do crosswords, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine today. The implant is a microelectronic chip placed under the retina. Using signals from a camera mounted on a pair of glasses, the chip emits bursts of electricity in order to bypass photoreceptor cells damaged by macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in elderly people. “The magnitude of the effect is what’s notable,” says José-Alain Sahel, a University of Pittsburgh vision scientist who led testing of the system, which is called PRIMA. “There’s a patient in the UK and she is reading the pages of a regular book, which is unprecedented.”  

Eli Lilly Partners With Nvidia to Build AI Supercomputer for Drug Discovery

Drugmaker Eli Lilly has teamed up with artificial-intelligence chip designer Nvidia to build what the companies say will be the most powerful supercomputer run by a pharmaceutical company to boost the discovery of new medicines. Lilly, which makes the popular weight-loss drug Zepbound and treatments for diabetes and cancer, said the supercomputer and its AI capabilities will allow it to identify new molecules and to speed up the typical yearslong development timelines.

Quantum Computing

Google says it has developed landmark quantum computing algorithm

Google said it has developed a computer algorithm that points the way to practical applications for quantum computing and will be able to generate unique data for use with artificial intelligence. The new algorithm called Quantum Echoes, which runs on the company’s quantum chip, is 13,000 times faster than the most sophisticated classical computing algorithm on supercomputers, Google said. In the future, the Quantum Echoes algorithm may be able to help measure molecular structure in molecules which could aid in drug discovery and help material science through identifying new types of materials.

Robotics

I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Was Wild.

1X Neo is an early humanoid home robot priced at $20,000 (or $499/month later). It stands 5’6”, weighs like a golden retriever, and uses AI with tendon-driven motors for smooth movement. Marketed to do chores like dishes and laundry, it currently relies on human teleoperation via VR. WSJ’s Joanna Stern spent time with the humanoid—and its creator—to see what it can really do and how much still requires a human operator’s help.

Semiconductor

Scientists turn common semiconductor into a superconductor

Researchers have made germanium superconducting for the first time, a feat that could transform computing and quantum technologies. Using molecular beam epitaxy to embed gallium atoms precisely, the team stabilized the crystal structure to carry current without resistance. The discovery paves the way for scalable, energy-efficient quantum devices and cryogenic electronics.

The Hot, Hot Future of Chips And 4 big ideas to cool things down

Future Chips Will Be Hotter Than Ever: Technologies coming into production now mean new problems with handling heat; Diamond Blankets Will Keep Future Chips Cool: A micrometers-thick integrated layer spreads out the heat; Next-Gen AI Needs Liquid Cooling: Here are four new ways to get it done; You Can Cool Chips With Lasers?!?! Startup plans to cool data centers by converting heat to light; Chips Need To Chill Out: The semiconductor industry seeks radical cooling solutions.