Think about: China deploys a whole bunch of 1000’s of autonomous drones within the air, on the ocean, and below the water—all armed with explosive warheads or small missiles. These machines descend in a swarm towards navy installations on Taiwan and close by US bases, and over the course of some hours, a single robotic blitzkrieg overwhelms the US Pacific power earlier than it might probably 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 large missile installations required.
The US armed forces are actually trying to find an answer—and so they need it quick. Each department of the service and a bunch of protection tech startups are testing out new weapons that promise to disable drones en masse.
And one in all these is microwaves: high-powered digital units 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 complete story.
—Sam Dean
This text is a part of the Large Story sequence: MIT Expertise Evaluation’s most necessary, formidable reporting that takes a deep take a look at the applied sciences which can be coming subsequent and what they are going to imply for us and the world we dwell in. Try the remainder of them right here.
What is going to energy AI’s progress?
Final week we revealed Energy Hungry, a sequence that takes a tough take a look at the anticipated power calls for of AI. Final week on this e-newsletter, 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 bundle, which centered 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 increase might wind up counting on one other power supply: fossil fuels. So what’s going to energy AI? Learn the complete story.
—Casey Crownhart
