The Obtain: The following anti-drone weapon, and powering AI’s progress

Think about: China deploys lots of of hundreds of autonomous drones within the air, on the ocean, and beneath the water—all armed with explosive warheads or small missiles. These machines descend in a swarm towards army installations on Taiwan and close by US bases, and over the course of some hours, a single robotic blitzkrieg overwhelms the US Pacific pressure earlier than it may even start to battle again.

The proliferation of low-cost drones means nearly any group with the wherewithal to assemble and launch a swarm might wreak havoc, no costly jets or huge missile installations required.

The US armed forces at the moment are trying to find an answer—they usually need it quick. Each department of the service and a number of protection tech startups are testing out new weapons that promise to disable drones en masse. 

And one in every of these is microwaves: high-powered digital gadgets that push out kilowatts of energy to zap the circuits of a drone as if it had been the tinfoil you forgot to take off your leftovers once you heated them up. Learn the total story.

—Sam Dean

This text is a part of the Huge Story collection: MIT Expertise Evaluate’s most essential, formidable reporting that takes a deep take a look at the applied sciences which can be coming subsequent and what they may imply for us and the world we stay in. Try the remainder of them right here.

What is going to energy AI’s progress?

Final week we revealed Energy Hungry, a collection that takes a tough take a look at the anticipated power calls for of AI. Final week on this publication, I broke down its centerpiece, an evaluation I did with my colleague James O’Donnell.

However this week, I wish to speak about one other story that I additionally wrote for that package deal, which targeted on nuclear power. As I found, constructing new nuclear crops isn’t so easy or so quick. And as my colleague David Rotman lays out in his story, the AI growth might wind up counting on one other power supply: fossil fuels. So what’s going to energy AI? Learn the total story.

—Casey Crownhart