Nvidia, Dell to supply next US Department of Energy supercomputer
FILE PHOTO: A NVIDIA logo is shown at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 31, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
BERKELEY, California - (Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday said its "Doudna" due in 2026 will use technology from Nvidia and Dell.
The computer, named for Nobel Prize-winning scientist Jennifer Doudna who made key CRISPR gene-editing discoveries, will be housed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
At an event at the lab attended by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, officials said that the system will use Nvidia's latest "Vera Rubin" chips built into liquid-cooled servers by Dell and will be used by 11,000 researchers.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in Berkeley, California)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
7 hours ago
- The Star
Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity, Bloomberg News reports
FILE PHOTO: A man walks past an Apple logo outside an Apple store in Aix-en Provence, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Manon Cruz/File photo (Reuters) -Apple executives have held internal talks about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, the report said, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management. "We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity," Perplexity said in response to a Reuters' request for comment. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment. Big tech companies are doubling down on investments to enhance AI capabilities and support growing demand for AI-powered services to maintain competitive leadership in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Bloomberg News also reported on Friday that Meta Platforms tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Meta announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit. Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, as per the report. The iPhone maker reportedly plans to integrate AI-driven search capabilities - such as Perplexity AI - into its Safari browser, potentially moving away from its longstanding partnership with Alphabet's Google. Banning Google from paying companies to make it their default search engine is one of the remedies proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice to break up its dominance in online search. While traditional search engines such as Google still dominate global market share, AI-powered search options including Perplexity and ChatGPT are gaining prominence and seeing rising user adoption, especially among younger generations. Perplexity recently completed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, Bloomberg News reported. A deal close to that would be Apple's largest acquisition so far. The Nvidia-backed startup provides AI search tools that deliver information summaries to users, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. (Reporting by Niket Nishant and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Juby Babu and Rhea Rose Abraham; Editing by Maju Samuel and Tom Hogue)
The Star
17 hours ago
- The Star
Green light hoped for gene-edited rice
Since 2021, several scientists have been developing new genetically edited rice varieties with targeted traits, such as resistance to disease and tolerance to climate challenges like extreme heat and drought. Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) principal research officer Dr Zulkifli Ahmad Seman said they now had a potential gene-edited (GE) padi line currently undergoing the screening phase. He said their research so far had shown that blight would only affect 11% of the leaves of GE padi. Laid side by side in a research glasshouse at Mardi in Serdang, Selangor, the two padi leaves look alike at first glance. But one leaf is almost all yellow, a sign of bacterial blight – a disease that has afflicted Malaysian rice fields for decades and caused losses amounting to hundreds of thousands of ringgit. The other is almost entirely green, save for a faint yellowing at the tip. It comes from a rice line Zulkifli and his team edited using CRISPR-CS9 technology. Zulkifli showing a photo of the padi leaves that are disease-resistant. 'So with the host, the protein (blight) can't attach because of where we have mutated it. 'When it cannot attach, that is where it will stop,' he told Bernama at Mardi headquarters. The line is not just a scientific breakthrough; it is the first GE plant for Mardi and Malaysia. But as Zulkifli's team approaches the fifth generation of the disease-resistant seed, they are coming closer to another challenge: Malaysia's regulatory grey zone. Grey zone Malaysia is one of Asia's highest per capita consumers of rice, but it does not grow enough padi. In 2023, per capita consumption was 76.7kg per year, according to Agriculture and Food Security Ministry. The rice production numbers have decreased from 2022, showing a 4.7% decrease from 2.28 million tonnes in 2022 to 2.18 million tonnes in 2023. According to the same statistics, local rice production can only meet 56.2% of local demand, leaving the country vulnerable to price shocks and supply disruptions. For padi farmers like 57-year-old Puteh Hassan in Kedah, the worsening weather patterns and recurring disease outbreaks have made harvests increasingly uncertain. 'There was one season we were badly hit (by bacterial blight). We lost 60% of our padi,' she said over the phone. Zulkifli's research could save Puteh's field from another disastrous attack. But the issue putting the research in limbo is whether current regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should apply to GE crops. Unlike GMOs, GE crops do not contain foreign DNA. Instead, they involve precise deletions or tweaks to existing genes – a process some researchers argue is closer to accelerated natural selection. As such, scientists and biotechnologists argue they cannot be judged according to the same standards. So far, the regulatory framework has not caught up. Malaysia's Biosafety Act 2007 governs GMOs but when the law was passed, there was no effective way to edit the genome. The scientists are in a quandary – they are doing ground- breaking work with the potential to help the nation feed its people, but will their GE rice see the light of day? Yellow fields Puteh remembers the season her padi fields turned yellow. Managing her own padi field for the past 15 years, she has seen plenty of bad years. She still remembers when the blight wiped out almost all of her income in 2019. 'I lost one tonne of padi that season,' said Puteh. She had hoped the ensuing seasons would be better but her yields either improved only marginally or got worse. In recent years, extreme temperatures and sudden floods have become more common. On top of that, blight is still there. Bacterial blight, caused by Xanthomonas oryzae, spreads quickly in flooded padi fields and thrives in warm, humid environments like Malaysia's. It browns padi leaves and cuts grain production, leaving farmers with rotten fields. At the same time, farmers are growing less rice. According to National Association of Smallholders Malaysia president Adzmi Hassan, many smallholders have shifted to more lucrative crops like oil palm. He said Malaysia should not just look at technology, it should also look at encouraging padi farmers to grow the staple crop. One way would be to ensure there is a consistent and predictable yield year by year. For two years in a row, beginning in the 2023/24 season, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had predicted Malaysia's rice production would be below average. The GE padi stands as a potential solution. Until they get more information, these researchers are operating under the assumption that their GE rice will not be subject to the same approval process that stymied past biotech efforts involving GMO products. But still, the fear is there. The scientists remember efforts to conduct open field trials of a pesticide-resistant strain of GMO padi in Perlis in 2019. Nearby communities and environmentalists protested against holding the trials. In the end, the project was shelved. Mardi senior research officer Dr Mohd Waznu Adlyl said Malaysia should follow Japan's and a few other countries' lead, which exempts certain gene- edited crops from GMO regulation if no foreign DNA is present. These countries treat GE crops as normal crops as the gene- editing process works just like natural mutations, only faster. Mohd Waznul says the benefits of growing the new GE variety outweighs any potential risks. He also said the benefits outweighed any potential risks. 'We hope this rice that we produce can somehow help our (scientists) to produce new varieties because there are many issues, like climate change and new emerging pests,' he said. But many see GE foods and GMOs as the same. Third World Network biosafety programme coordinator Lim Li Ching was prepared to start a protest should GE crops be allowed to stage open field trials without any oversight. 'Just because we can do it doesn't mean we should,' she said in an online interview from her home in the UK. While CRISPR technology might work within a plant's own genome, she warned that it could bypass the slow, regulated nature of evolutionary change – introducing traits or gene interactions that might not have natural precedents. She added that even seemingly minor edits could cause unintended effects at molecular level. CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing tool that allows scientists to make precise changes to an organism's DNA. In plants, the process involves several steps, including causing a break or deletion of a DNA strand, and allowing the plant's natural repair mechanisms to fix the break. This method enables the development of crops with improved traits, such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, and increased yield. Global GE or GMO While Malaysia grapples with regulatory uncertainties, other countries are moving forward with GE crops. India has released two genome-edited rice varieties aimed at enhancing yield and resilience against environmental stresses. These varieties were developed using genome-editing techniques that allow for precise modifications in the plant's DNA. In contrast, Mexico has taken a more cautious approach. In March, the Mexican government amended its constitution to prohibit the use of genetically modified corn seeds, citing concerns over biosafety and the protection of native corn varieties. The ban just applies to GMOs, however, not GE foods. For Malaysia, the adoption of GE crops like Mardi's blight- resistant rice could play a crucial role in enhancing food security. However, without clear regulatory guidelines, these innovations may remain confined to research facilities. Malaysia has set the target of a rice self-sufficiency rate of 80% by 2030, but without intervention, be it via technology or other methods, the nation will likely not meet its goal anytime soon.
The Star
a day ago
- The Star
DC outlook intact for now
Sunway University economics professor Dr Yeah Kim Leng. PETALING JAYA: There is a possibility that the firms involved in the alleged breach involving Nvidia-powered artificial intelligence (AI) chips may face US sanctions, but such measures are unlikely to be applied to Malaysia, says Sunway University economics professor Dr Yeah Kim Leng. Yeah said this is given that many existing data centres (DCs) and those in the pipeline are US-based companies. 'Nvidia, a US company, is seeking new markets to offset its loss of China's market as the Chinese government has banned the use of its chips. 'China is accelerating development of home-grown AI chips, thereby offering an alternative supply unless companies that use them are also sanctioned by the United States,' he told StarBiz. Yeah opined that despite the uncertainties caused by the technological rivalry between China and the United States, the outlook for DCs in Malaysia remained positive given the rising local and global demand for cloud and AI services. 'Malaysia will also benefit from the global firms' diversification of DCs that leveraged on each country's growth opportunities and cost advantages such as availability of cheap energy, land and skilled manpower resources,' he said. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Chinese engineers reportedly flew to Malaysia in March with suitcases full of hard drives containing around 80 terabytes of data to train AI models at local DCs equipped with advanced Nvidia chips. In addressing the alleged breach, the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) said, in a statement on Wednesday, it is in the process of verifying the matter with relevant agencies. It reiterated that servers using Nvidia chips and AI chips are not classified as controlled goods under the Malaysian Strategic Trade Act 2010. 'Malaysia will cooperate with any government that requires assistance in monitoring trade in sensitive goods under the export control of their respective countries,' it said. Given that the allegations were made in March, MIDF Research said it could be a move to 'speed up the process', before the eventually rescinded AI Diffusion Framework that was expected to come into force on May 15. The research house is of the view that the pipeline of DC jobs in Malaysia is unlikely to be impacted by the alleged breach. It noted there is no slowdown or delay in ongoing projects and contractors are actively bidding for new DC construction jobs. 'Just last month, Gamuda Bhd sold 389 acres of land in Port Dickson to Google-linked Pearl Computing Malaysia Sdn Bhd and signed a RM1.01bil external infrastructure contract for enabling works for DC development, while Sunway Construction Group Bhd secured a RM1.16bil contract from a US tech giant to build two DCs,' MIDF Research said in a report yesterday. Microsoft recently reaffirmed its commitment to a RM10.5bil investment in cloud and AI infrastructure in Malaysia, including the development of hyperscale DCs in the Klang Valley. 'We also reiterate that not all DCs are AI DCs and while most of them are AI-ready, they may eventually be utilised for non-AI purposes,' MIDF Research said. It cited the example of YTL Power International Bhd which previously allocated 100MW for AI from its 500MW DC in Kulai, Johor. iFAST Capital research analyst Kevin Khaw Khai Sheng said the long-term prospects of the country's DC sector remains 'quite intact'. 'Ultimately, Malaysia continues to benefit from several competitive advantages –such as abundant water resources for cooling, land, skilled labour and a relatively weak ringgit, which makes the country cost-effective,' he said. Khaw added that, due to Singapore's limited access to such resources, he expected closer collaboration between Malaysia and the city-state. Asked if the alleged breach would affect ongoing tariff negotiations between Malaysia and the United States, Khaw said it would unlikely be a decisive factor given that the country is already negotiating from a weaker footing. 'The alleged breach may add a bit more pressure to our position in negotiations. But ultimately, it depends on how our government handles the situation and works toward securing the best possible outcome. 'From the United States' perspective, Malaysia is not their major competitor. It is actively trying to diversify its supply chain risks – especially in light of tensions with China – and is looking for more allies and partnerships with other countries. Given Malaysia's 'neutral' stance and our geographical advantages, we could still be seen as a potential partner for the United States,' he said. Khaw said the construction sector's outlook remained optimistic with the order book environment set to improve heading into the second half of 2025.
