The European Commission president, 2020 World Leader for Peace and Security Award recipient, has pledged to boost the EU’s ability to compete with the U.S. and China.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-mission-europe-economy/
OpenAI saved its biggest announcement for the last day of its 12-day “shipmas” event.
On Friday, December 20, the company unveiled o3, the successor to the o1 “reasoning” model it released earlier in the year. o3 is a model family, to be more precise — as was the case with o1. There’s o3 and o3-mini, a smaller, distilled model fine-tuned for particular tasks.
OpenAI makes the remarkable claim that o3, at least in certain conditions, approaches AGI — with significant caveats. More on that below.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/20/openai-announces-new-o3-model/
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly discussed the security environment surrounding China and Taiwan when he met with Akie Abe, the widow of late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, earlier this month.
According to sources, Trump said during the meeting, with a Taiwan contingency in mind, that China and Taiwan are a major issue for world peace. This indicated his administration’s stance of placing importance on dealing with the situation in Taiwan.
Trump and his wife Melania invited Abe to dinner at their Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Dec. 15. Trump and Abe talked about their memories of Shinzo Abe, and the conversation also touched on global affairs, including Taiwan.
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20241222-229166/
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/world/us-canada/20241216-228130/
Professor Nazli Choucri, a member of the BGF Board of Directors, delivered a talk at the BGF Conference “AIWS – New Democracy” on November 25, 2024, at Harvard University’s Loeb House.
Watch her full discussion here.
Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab on Monday December 9, 2024 said that it has overcome a key challenge in quantum computing with a new generation of chip, solving a computing problem in five minutes that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.
Like other tech giants such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and International Business Machines (IBM.N), opens new tab, Alphabet’s Google is chasing quantum computing because it promises computing speeds far faster than today’s fastest systems. While the math problem solved by the company’s Santa Barbara, California quantum lab does not have commercial applications, Google hopes quantum computers will one day solve problems in medicine, battery chemistry and artificial intelligence that are out of reach for today’s computers.
In an X post on December 9, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the chip cracked “a 30-year challenge in the field.”
“We see Willow as an important step in our journey to build a useful quantum computer with practical applications in areas like drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design + more”.
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-unveiled-quantum-computer-chip-willow-2024-12