Connect with us

Technology

China’s CATL to develop new battery materials to improve energy density -chairman

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: August 26, 2022 BEIJING, Aug 27 (Reuters) – China’s CATL (300750.SZ) is working on new battery materials that can improve energy density by 10% to 20% compared to iron phosphate batteries, the company’s chairman said, as the battery giant scrambles to retain its top position amid competition.

The new material technology known as M3P can enable an electric vehicle to run 700 km (430 miles) per charge combined with CATL’s next generation of battery pack technology, Zeng Yuqun said at the World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Beijing on Saturday.

The new materials will also lower the costs compared to nickel and cobalt-based batteries, he added.

Zeng, however, didn’t say what metals M3P batteries will use or when mass production could start.

CATL, whose clients include Tesla(TSLA.O), Volkswagen(VOWG_p.DE), BMW(BMWG.DE) and Ford(F.N), is the world’s biggest battery maker accounting for more than a third of the sales of batteries for electric vehicles (EV) worldwide.

It aims to increase the lead over rivals such as LG Energy Solution (373220.KS) and BYD by accelerating expansions globally and innovation in new battery technologies.

Wan Gang, Vice Chairman of China’s national advisory body for policy making, said the global market size of EV batteries is expected to reach $250 billion by 2030, with demand exceeding 3.5 terrawatt hours. read more

CATL said in a separate announcement on Saturday that it will supply Qilin batteries with its latest battery pack technology to power Geely Automobile Holdings ‘s Zeekr cars due to hit the market in early 2023.

CALT launched the Qilin battery in June and touted a 13% higher energy density compared to the same size of pack of Tesla’s 4680 cylindrical battery cells– denoting 46 millimetres in diameter and 80 millimetres in length, while using same type of materials.

Internet

France’s Planisware IPO targets price range of 16 to 18 euros per share

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: October 1, 2023

Oct 2 (Reuters) – French software company Planisware launched on Monday an initial public offering as part of its aim to become a leading provider of multi-specialist project management solutions.

The group said 15.1 million shares will be sold, priced between 16 and 18 euros each, and it hopes to raise 241 million euros ($254.52 million) from the share sale.

The pricing of the offering is expected to take place on Oct. 11.

($1 = 0.9469 euros)

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Continue Reading

Cryptocurrency

Crypto exchange Coinbase obtains Monetary Authority Of Singapore licence

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: October 1, 2023
By Reuters | Updated: October 1, 2023

Oct 2 (Reuters) – The Singapore arm of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN.O) said on Monday that it had obtained a Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence from the city-state’s central bank.

The licence, granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), will allow the largest U.S. crypto exchange to offer digital payment token services to individuals and institutions in Singapore.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Continue Reading

Laptops

EU examines Nvidia-dominated AI chip market’s alleged abuses, Bloomberg reports

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: October 1, 2023

Sept 29 (Reuters) – (This Sept. 29 story has been corrected to add ‘alleged’ in the headline)

The European Union is examining alleged anticompetitive practices in chips used for artificial intelligence, a market that Nvidia (NVDA.O) dominates, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The European Commission has been informally collecting views on potentially abusive practices in the sector for graphics processing units (GPU), used for AI work as well for gaming, to understand if there’s need for future intervention, the report said.

The early-stage investigation may never result in a formal probe or penalties, the report added.

Nvidia, which has a near-monopoly on the GPU market with its 80% market share, declined to comment, while the European Commission did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

French authorities have also been interviewing market players on Nvidia’s key role in AI chips, its price policy, the shortage of chips and its impact on prices, the report added.

France’s competition authority on Tuesday conducted a raid on a company in the “graphics cards sector”, which a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters was Nvidia.

Nvidia’s stock and demand for its chips shot up after generative AI chatbot ChatGPT’s stellar rise last year.

The company’s chips are found in almost all systems globally that power applications like ChatGPT, the reason Nvidia is the only trillion-dollar semiconductor firm in the world.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Continue Reading

Internet

Robinhood sees $100 million finance costs tied to regulatory issues in third quarter

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: 30 June 2022

Sept 29 (Reuters) – Robinhood Markets (HOOD.O) expects a $100-million charge in the third quarter to resolve some legal and regulatory matters that were previously disclosed, the trading app operator said on Friday.

The company has had several run-ins with regulators. It was also at the center of the “meme stock” trading frenzy in early 2021, when a group of retail investors on social media bought shares of highly-shorted stocks such as GameStop (GME.N).

However, a stormy economic climate last year spooked retail traders, Robinhood’s chief customer base.

The company beat revenue expectations during the second quarter and reported a profit for the first time as a public company in August.

Robinhood’s shares were marginally higher after the bell.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

Continue Reading

Internet

UK’s CMA says examining Qualcomm’s buyout of Israel’s Autotalks

Avatar

Published

on

By Reuters | Updated: 30 September 2023

Sept 29 (Reuters) – Britain’s antitrust regulator on Friday said it was examining whether Qualcomm’s (QCOM.O) purchase of Israeli auto-chip maker Autotalks would lessen competition in the UK market.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has invited comments on the deal, which was announced in May.

Qualcomm had said it would acquire Autotalks, a maker of chips used in crash-prevention technology in vehicles, but had not disclosed the terms of the deal.

Autotalks, which makes dedicated chips used in the V2X communications technology sector for manned and driverless vehicles, would help Qualcomm expand its automotive business.

Last month, EU regulators said that the U.S. chipmaker would have to seek antitrust approval for the planned takeover, while Politico reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to open an in-depth probe into the deal.

Qualcomm and Autotalks did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Continue Reading

Social Networking

Meta Used Public Instagram, Facebook Posts to Train Its New AI Assistant

Avatar

Published

on

Meta also said it did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the AI model.
By Reuters | Updated: 29 September 2023

Meta Platforms used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train parts of its new Meta AI virtual assistant, but excluded private posts shared only with family and friends in an effort to respect consumers’ privacy, the company’s top policy executive told Reuters in an interview.

Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company’s annual Connect conference this week.

“We’ve tried to exclude datasets that have a heavy preponderance of personal information,” Clegg said, adding that the “vast majority” of the data used by Meta for training was publicly available.

He cited LinkedIn as an example of a website whose content Meta deliberately chose not to use because of privacy concerns.

Clegg’s comments come as tech companies including Meta, OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google have been criticized for using information scraped from the internet without permission to train their AI models, which ingest massive amounts of data in order to summarize information and generate imagery.

The companies are weighing how to handle the private or copyrighted materials vacuumed up in that process that their AI systems may reproduce, while facing lawsuits from authors accusing them of infringing copyrights.

Meta AI was the most significant product among the company’s first consumer-facing AI tools unveiled by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday at Meta’s annual products conference, Connect. This year’s event was dominated by talk of artificial intelligence, unlike past conferences which focused on augmented and virtual reality.

Meta made the assistant using a custom model based on the powerful Llama 2 large language model that the company released for public commercial use in July, as well as a new model called Emu that generates images in response to text prompts, it said.

The product will be able to generate text, audio and imagery and will have access to real-time information via a partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The public Facebook and Instagram posts that were used to train Meta AI included both text and photos, Clegg said.

Those posts were used to train Emu for the image generation elements of the product, while the chat functions were based on Llama 2 with some publicly available and annotated datasets added, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

Interactions with Meta AI may also be used to improve the features going forward, the spokesperson said.

Clegg said Meta imposed safety restrictions on what content the Meta AI tool could generate, like a ban on the creation of photo-realistic images of public figures.

On copyrighted materials, Clegg said he was expecting a “fair amount of litigation” over the matter of “whether creative content is covered or not by existing fair use doctrine,” which permits the limited use of protected works for purposes such as commentary, research and parody.

“We think it is, but I strongly suspect that’s going to play out in litigation,” Clegg said.

Some companies with image-generation tools facilitate the reproduction of iconic characters like Mickey Mouse, while others have paid for the materials or deliberately avoided including them in training data.

OpenAI, for instance, signed a six-year deal with content provider Shutterstock this summer to use the company’s image, video and music libraries for training.

Asked whether Meta had taken any such steps to avoid the reproduction of copyrighted imagery, a Meta spokesperson pointed to new terms of service barring users from generating content that violates privacy and intellectual property rights.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Continue Reading

Trending