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In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at a new optical chip for data centers that converts fossil fuels into EV batteries, Google’s quantum breakthrough, and more. You can sign up here to receive the prototype in your inbox.
IBM
This weekIBM announced that it has developed a new way to build co-packaged optics that could enable fiber-optic connectivity within data centers, which currently still rely on electrical cables. The company published its first prototype design in a technical paper also.
The company said this could potentially increase connectivity bandwidth in a data center, which in turn could significantly reduce the amount of energy consumed by generative AI applications. The company’s calculations suggest that the energy saved from training a large language model would be equivalent to the annual power consumption of 5,000 homes – and would do so up to five times faster than conventional training.
“If we can reduce this communications bottleneck, GPUs can talk to each other much faster, and that can really save us power,” Mukesh Khare, general manager of IBM Semiconductors, said in a media briefing.
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Yesterday’s coal can become tomorrow’s battery
Making graphite from coal
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The world is becoming more and more dependent about electronics and batteries for everyday life. And that means turning to a material you can find in your old school box: graphite. The same material that makes your pencil possible is also a crucial part of lithium-ion batteries and other electronic devices.
But graphite supplies are beginning to show their limits, and shortages are expected early in the next decade. And the world is largely dependent on China for the material: it produces almost 80% of the world’s supply, both from mines and from artificial graphite production.
While the transition to renewable energy has been positive overall, it has come at an economic cost in the coal-producing regions of the United States in the meantime as demand has declined. But researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory may have a solution: They have evolved two new processes which can convert coal in many of its forms into graphite to power next-generation technology.
There are two separate processes for this, project leader Edgar Lara-Curzio explained to me. The first is heating coal to about 800 degrees Celsius, after which the volatile chemicals turn into gases, leaving behind char, which is crushed and ground into small particles. They are then loaded into an electrochemical reactor which heats it to approximately 1500 degrees Celsius, resulting in the production of graphite. The process is similar to what happened when car bumpers were galvanized, Lara-Curzio added.
The second method is applied to coal slurries, where coal is mixed with water or other liquid. These are filtered and treated to create pitch, which is then added to a solvent to dissolve. The resulting mixture is sprayed through a nozzle, causing the solvent to evaporate, leaving spherical particles that are then electrochemically treated in the same manner as the ground coal.
Both processes, when scaled up, will likely be cheaper than current graphite production methods, Lara-Curzio said. “If you compare the cost per kilogram of our process to conventional processes, you use less energy, that’s probably the biggest factor,” he said. “In terms of capital goods, they can also be cheaper.”
So far, scientists can produce graphite from coal in the laboratory using a batch process. The next step, says Lara-Curzio, is to develop a scalable, continuous production process together with the industry. This is important not only to meet the growing demand for the material, he said, but also for the coal-producing communities on which the U.S. economy is built.
“This country became a superpower thanks to cheap coal,” Lara-Curzio said, adding. “It would be an incredible story if we could bring back some of those coal-related jobs, but to support new industries and new technologies.”
DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK: GOOGLE’S NEW QUANTUM CHIP
Google revealed Willowit’s new quantum computer chipthat has the ability to quickly correct calculation errors, an important barrier to scaling up quantum computing. Google’s chip architecture creates a lattice of qubits which, interestingly, are better at correcting mistakes as they grow. The company published his experimental results in Nature.
FINAL BORDER: BLUE ORIGIN LAUNCHES ITS FIRST SATELLITE
Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue origin announced that it first Blue Ring satellite is ready to launch on the New Glennthe company’s orbital rocket. Blue Origin said the rocket will reach its target inaugural flight later this month, although an exact date has not yet been set. This is one demonstration mission for Blue Ring to test several of its capabilities.
WHAT ELSE I WROTE THIS WEEK
With my colleagues Sarah Emerson, Emily Baker-White and Amy Feldman, I reported on the Reddit account of Luigi Mangionewhere he talked a lot about his back pain.
In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, I spoke to experts about the as-yet-unidentified disease circulating in a remote area of the world. Democratic Republic of Congo.
SCIENCE AND TECHNICAL SCIENCE
Biotech startup Everything is developing technically tRNA moleculeswhich the body uses to ‘read’ DNA to build proteins, which are designed to ignore mutations in the DNA that falsely tell it to stop. This week it is announced laboratory data demonstrate potential effectiveness of one of its engineered tRNAs in ignoring such mutations.
Earlier this week, Googling showed off a prototype of a pair of glasses that uses its AI model, Gemini, to give users information about their environment in real time.
Researchers genetically engineered E. Coli bacteria produce layers bioglass on their surfaceallowing them to act as living optical devices.
A team of scientists developed kind of microparticle for delivering drugs that can be precisely targeted to a specific part of the body ultrasound.
Scientists from Rockefeller University exposed a new class of antiviral molecules which could potentially be used against a wide range of viruses.
PRO SCIENCE TIP: CERTAIN JOB DESCRIPTIONS ATTRACT NARCISSISTS
When you have a job description To recruit someone to your company, you may not have to put too much thought into how you formulate the qualities you want in a candidate. But according to researchers at the University of Mississippi, certain expressions in a job placement, such as looking for candidates who are “result-oriented” or “convincing” or “think outside the box”– will tend to attract applicants who are more willing to engage in unethical behavior, especially narcissists. The findings were published in Management sciences.
WHAT’S BUILDING ME THIS WEEK
I’m currently working my way through it Crotchthe latest adaptation of the James Patterson books. This TV series shines Aldis Hodge as the titular detective, whose psychological training allows him to get into the minds of serial killers. Show runner Ben Watkins has constructed a timely and current version of the character and Hodge gives a virtuoso performance as a single father traumatized by grief and struggling to keep it together as he races against time to save a killer’s latest victim. All episodes are currently streaming Amazon.
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