To Reignite the U.S. Chip Industry, Invite More Chefs into the Kitchen

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June 06, 2023

Even the most impressive software breakthroughs, like the current wave of artificial intelligence programs, are built on hardware. That's why the U.S. government is incentivizing manufacturers to ramp up their production of that hardware: computer chips. In this week's main story, electrical engineering professor H.-S. Philip Wong explains what still needs to be done to make sure this goal succeeds.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology

Electronics To Reignite the U.S. Chip Industry, Invite More Chefs into the Kitchen A "more-is-merrier" approach to computer chipmaking would create the vibrant and fast breakthroughs that America needs to succeed By H.-S. Philip Wong

Energy What Is the Future of Fusion Energy? Nuclear fusion won't arrive in time to fix climate change, but it could be essential for our future energy needs By Philip Ball

Biotech Ultrasound Puts Animals into a Curious Hibernation-Like State A state of torpor might rescue oxygen-starved brain cells or aid extended human space missions By Emily Willingham

Arts When a Wildfire Burns a City Built for Extracting Oil A wildfire rages against the Alberta tar sands, aliens induce existential crises for people (and cats), the hype and potential of MDMA, and more books out now By Amy Brady

Space Exploration Crewed Starliner Launch Delayed by Flammable Tape, Botched Parachutes Boeing's first Starliner flight for NASA astronauts was scheduled for July 21, but is now delayed—perhaps indefinitely By Tariq Malik,SPACE.com

Energy Why Nuclear Fusion Won't Solve the Climate Crisis Nuclear fusion will scale up too late to avoid climatic catastrophe By Naomi Oreskes

Artificial Intelligence Car-Free Cities Are the Future, Biometrics Reveal Advanced tools for tracking people's eye movements and facial expressions can be used to design better places By Justin B. Hollander,Johanna Riddle,Eliandro Tavares,Jenna Van Holten,Jenna Whitney

Materials Science New Material Is Squishy, Conductive and Self-Healing A new electrically conductive material could lead to better self-healing soft robots By Sophie Bushwick

Biotech Bionic Finger 'Sees' Inside Objects by Poking Them A robotic finger's supersensitive touches could probe inside body parts and circuits By Simon Makin

Genetic Engineering Synthetic Morphology Lets Scientists Create New Life-Forms The emerging field of synthetic morphology bends boundaries between natural and artificial life By Philip Ball

QUOTE OF THE DAY "AI chatbots have a problem: They lose money on every chat. The enormous cost of running today's large language models, which underpin tools like ChatGPT and Bard, is limiting their quality and threatening to throttle the global AI boom they've sparked." Will Oremus, The Washington Post

FROM THE ARCHIVE 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: June 2023 Computer chess master; private bathing for birds By Mark Fischetti | June 2023

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