Lifeboat Foundation

New research presented early ahead of this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, 27–30 April) from a team of researchers in the Netherlands shows how the latest CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology can be used to eliminate all traces of the HIV virus from infected cells in the laboratory, raising hopes of a cure.

Compared to healthy volunteers, affected U.S. government personnel did not exhibit MRI-detectable brain injury or biological abnormalities that would explain symptoms.

Using advanced imaging techniques and in-depth clinical assessments, a research team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury, nor differences in most clinical measures compared to controls, among a group of federal employees who experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs).

These incidents, including hearing noise and experiencing head pressure followed by headache, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, and other symptoms, have been described in the news media as “Havana Syndrome” since U.S. government personnel stationed in Havana first reported the incidents. Scientists at the NIH Clinical Center conducted the research over the course of nearly five years and published their findings on March 18 in two papers in JAMA.

India is walking back on a recent AI advisory after receiving criticism from many local and global entrepreneurs and investors.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT shared an updated AI advisory with industry stakeholders on Friday that no longer asked them to take the government approval before launching or deploying an AI model to users in the South Asian market.

Under the revised guidelines, firms are instead advised to label under-tested and unreliable AI models to inform users of their potential fallibility or unreliability.

India will lower import taxes on certain electric vehicles for companies committing to invest at least $500 million and setting up a local manufacturing facility within three years, a policy shift that could potentially bolster Tesla’s plans to enter the South Asian market.

Companies must invest a minimum of $500 million in the country and will have three years to establish local manufacturing for EVs with at least 25% of components sourced domestically, according to a government press release on Friday. Firms meeting these requirements will be allowed to import 8,000 EVs a year at a reduced import duty of 15% on cars costing $35,000 and above. India currently levies a tax of 70% to 100% on imported cars depending on their value.

The policy change is likely going to pave the way for Tesla to enter India, as the Elon Musk-led company has been in talks with the government to lower import duties on its electric cars for years. The move also aligns with India’s goal to boost the adoption of EVs and reduce its dependence on oil imports, with the country setting a target of achieving 30% electric car sales by 2030.

Just like Taylor Swift’s wildly successful Eras tour, Nvidia has taken center stage in their own widely successful AI Era tour. From Wall Street to Main Street, everyone is talking about Nvidia, and rightfully so. By powering the latest innovations in AI, Nvidia has achieved 126% revenue growth and 286% net income growth in the past fiscal year, an achievement most companies can only dream about, to become one of the most world’s most valuable companies. All of this is a result of being able to take existing core competencies like their GPU expertise and successfully applying it to an adjacent, yet still emerging use case like artificial intelligence (AI).

Much of Nvidia’s success can be attributed to one of its founders and the only CEO the company has ever had, Jensen Huang. Mr. Huang was recently recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished engineers with his election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a nonprofit organization with more than 2,000 peer-elected members from industry, academia, and government that “provides engineering leadership in service to the nation.” This is a huge career achievement, one of the highest professional distinctions possible for an engineer.

Mr. Huang likes to say that “Nvidia innovates at the speed of light.” To his credit, Mr. Huang has continued to drive this kind of innovation at Nvidia since its inception. Nvidia was one of many companies developing graphics in the early days of PC gaming and one of the few to survive. Nvidia pioneered the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and was the first company to promote the concept of using GPUs for general computing purposes, which became known as GPGPU compute and led to the development of the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) software framework aimed at fully utilizing the massively parallel processing capabilities of Nvidia GPUs. With the advent of deep-learning techniques to train neural network models, Nvidia quickly adapted both its hardware and software solutions to enable an exponential growth in processing capabilities that led to the traditional and generative AI innovations that are sweeping the world today.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking trillions of dollars in investments to overhaul the global semiconductor industry, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Altman has long talked of the supply-and-demand problem with AI chips — many AI giants want them, but there aren’t enough to go around — and that it limits OpenAI’s growth. He’s considering a project that would increase global chip-building capacity, according to a Thursday evening report in The Wall Street Journal, and is reportedly in talks with different investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Altman could need to raise between $5 trillion and $7 trillion for the endeavor, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing one source. CNBC could not confirm the number. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

The advisory followed a mini-scandal over Gemini and the Indian government last month. The AI tool, responding to a query about whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a fascist, responded that Modi had been accused of implementing policies that some had characterized as fascist. India’s deputy IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar called it “direct violations” of the IT Rules, 2021.

Last month, Google also suspended Gemini’s ability to generate people’s images after it showed historical inaccuracies. The company then said it would soon re-release an improved version to address the issues.

It is unclear whether Google will unblock Gemini for answering election-related queries after the elections end later this year. We have contacted Google about this and will update this story when the company responds. We are also awaiting a full list of countries where the update is live now, and we will update the post as we learn more.

China is testing an AI assistant for neurosurgeons at seven hospitals in Beijing and other cities in coming months, one of many initiatives the government is backing to try and harness the technology.

TikTok faces an uncertain fate in the U.S. once again.

After a surprise flurry of activity in the House this week, TikTok is the target of a new government push to separate the company from its Chinese ownership or force it out of the country.

TikTok is based in Los Angeles and Singapore, but is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. That relationship that has raised eyebrows among U.S. officials, who warn that the app could be leveraged to further the interests of an adversary.