Remarkable 17
A decades-long (and counting) study reveals happiness lies not necessarily in the achievement, but in the pursuit.
Nvidia introduced the DGX Station at GTC 2026, a desktop supercomputer with 20 petaflops of AI performance and 748GB of coherent memory that can run trillion-parameter AI models locally without the cloud.
Nvidia’s KV Cache Transform Coding (KVTC) compresses LLM key-value cache by 20x without model changes, cutting GPU memory costs and time-to-first-token by up to 8x for multi-turn AI applications.
Nvidia says it can shrink LLM memory 20x without changing model weights
The idea is to use glass as the substrate, or layer, on which multiple silicon chips are connected. This form of “packaging” is an increasingly popular way to build computing hardware, because it lets engineers combine specialized chips designed for specific functions into a single system. But it presents challenges, including the fact that hardworking chips can run so hot they physically warp the substrate they’re built on. This can lead to misaligned components and may reduce how efficiently the chips can be cooled, leading to damage or premature failure.
Future AI chips could be built on glass
But in Washington and in capitals around the world, officials are preparing for a much longer crisis. Axios’ Barak Ravid tells us he’s heard from three different people in the administration and in allied countries who believe the instability in the Middle East and U.S. involvement could continue until September, even if the war shifts to a low-intensity conflict.
Behind the Curtain: Trump’s escalation trap
Trump could pull out tomorrow. But the Iranians could keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and push oil prices so high that America would have to re-engage. The Iranians have made it clear in private and in public that even if Trump decides to end the war, they could continue shooting missiles and rockets until they get guarantees that this is the end of the war, not just a temporary ceasefire.
Behind the Curtain: Trump’s escalation trap
Bull markets take a while to exhaust themselves (and usually longer than the sceptics think). The top tends to come slowly, as optimists refuse to believe the party is over, and novel justifications are made to support lofty valuations and expectations of “the new normal”.At the same time, central banks or governments look to provide a helping hand. In the end, the combination of valuations that are too high and earnings disappointment proves too much. By contrast, bottoms tend to be fast and furious, as sellers run out of things to sell and valuations get so low that the news cannot really get worse, just in time for corporate earnings and cash flow to become less bad. Buyers swiftly move in and take advantage.
A financial storm is still brewing beyond the Middle East war
Huang said OpenClaw is the “operating system for personal AI” and likened it to the importance of the Mac and Window operating systems. “OpenClaw is the number one. It is the most popular open-source project in the history of humanity, and it did so in just a few weeks,” Huang said.
The world’s most valuable company just sent another signal that AI agents are going to be everywhere
“There is an interesting possible interaction between the Middle East conflict and the AI boom, in part because the boom is very energy-intensive,” said the WTO’s chief economist, Robert Staiger. “If the price of energy continues to be elevated for the whole year, that could put a crimp on the AI boom.” He added: “Because that investment is very concentrated in a number of very large firms, and the technology is still ultimately unproven in terms of how much it can deliver, there is a bit of uncertainty there in terms of where the future’s going.” Underling the importance of the sector, the WTO calculated that in the first three quarters of last year, about 70% of all investment growth in North America was accounted for by AI-related goods. By comparison, in the three years before the catastrophic US housing crash of 2008, property made up 30% of investment growth.
Prolonged high oil prices could ‘crimp’ AI boom, WTO warns
The closure of the strait of Hormuz is causing a “paralyzing, real-time problem” for any prospective manufacturing surge in the US defense industrial base, and even for the repair of defense equipment damaged by Iranian attacks, according to analysis published by West Point’s Modern War Institute. In particular sulphur, a vital upstream input in the extraction of critical minerals including copper and cobalt, has seen a “near total” disruption of seaborne trade in the straits, which makes up half the world’s total shipments, and prices have spiked nearly 25% since the war began, and seen a 165% rise year on year, the report said. According to the analysis, these minerals – used in everything from microprocessors to jet engines to drone batteries – “dictate how fast things can be built and scaled under the pressure of an ongoing war”, and the effects of a sudden supply shock on US defense readiness have never been modeled.
President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly considering the deployment of thousands of additional US troops to the Middle East, as Washington prepares for potential next steps in its campaign against Iran. The proposed deployments could offer President Trump further options for expanding US operations, amid an escalating campaign against Iran, now in its third week. These options include ensuring safe passage for oil tankers through the critical Strait of Hormuz, a mission primarily envisioned to be carried out by air and naval forces, according to sources familiar with the matter. However, securing the Strait could also necessitate deploying US troops directly to Iran's shoreline, four sources, including two US officials, indicated.
A former British naval minehunting captain said countermeasures for getting rid of the mines are a “slow and grinding business”. Explaining how the mines operate, he said: “They wait to be activated by unwary ships passing overhead. This can be done magnetically, acoustically or by pressure, or by a combination of those. “They can target individual types of ships by their signature. They can count the ships going over and let the first 10 or 20 go and then explode under the next one, when everybody had thought it was safe.” The mines can be placed by aircraft, ships, submarines or even individual swimmers. They can be cheap, with some costing as little as $1,500 (£1,124), according to the Strauss Center. At least 30 countries produce, and more than 20 export, the mines, which have inflicted 77 per cent of all US ship casualties since 1950.
The artwork Sundaresan ultimately paid $69,346,250 for in March 2021 was not a Van Gogh or a Picasso. It was a jpeg called “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” a collage of 5,000 satirical, often dystopian virtual drawings by Beeple, the moniker of a little-known South Carolinian graphic designer called Mike Winkelmann. Or more precisely: It was a non-fungible token (NFT) denoting ownership of the 319-megabyte image.
He spent $69 million on an NFT. Five years on, he believes in digital art more than ever
The current Middle East conflict could escalate rapidly, potentially driving oil prices above $200 per barrel if disruptions persist for multiple months, according to Francisco Blanch, head of Commodities and Derivatives Research at Bank of America Global Research. In an interview with CNBC, Blanch emphasized that high energy prices and supply disruptions are creating significant risks of a global recession, with current estimates showing an eight-percentage-point gap in global energy supplies. Blanch identified two critical factors that must be addressed to prevent a global economic downturn: protecting critical energy infrastructure from further strikes and immediately reopening the Strait of Hormuz. “When I say quickly, I mean days, not weeks or months,” Blanch said, underscoring the urgency of the situation. He noted that roughly one percentage point of energy is needed for every percentage point of global GDP, making the current supply gap particularly alarming. The analyst explained that soaring commodity prices are essentially forcing what he called “demand destruction” across the global economy.
The benchmark TTF contract for gas in Europe was €29 (£25) per megawatt-hour (MWh) in mid-February. Bank of America says it could reach €500 this winter if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for 10 weeks, as it may well do
This is an energy emergency: entire countries may run out of oil
Three weeks into a war in the Middle East that is roiling energy markets, Asia is confronting one of the first major consequences of an oil shortage, as jet fuel prices surge to record levels and governments scramble to keep flights running. Airlines have canceled thousands of flights, stranding tens of thousands of passengers. Major regional energy suppliers, including China, South Korea and Thailand, are restricting exports, while import-dependent countries like Vietnam are forced to ration and call on others for help. The accelerating crisis offers a first glimpse of what happens when oil supplies are suddenly choked off by an unexpected crisis with no clear end in sight. The pain is most acute in Asia, where countries rely on Middle Eastern oil and have limited stockpiles, and experts warn that it may foreshadow more disruptions if the war drags on. “We’re peering into what our gasoline and diesel future is going to look like if this doesn’t get resolved,” said James Noel-Beswick, the head of commodities at Sparta Commodities, a data firm. “Jet is kind of a canary in the coal mine,” he said.
Scramble for Jet Fuel Shows How Energy Shortages Are Rippling Across Asia
Van der Poel and Pogačar have dominated the Monuments for the last three years, swapping turns to win and lose, beating each other but dominating the biggest one-day races on the men's calendar. The two have won 13 of the last 15 Monuments, plus the last three UCI Road World Championships, leaving little on the table for their rivals.
The paradox at the heart of gold’s collapse is this: the same war that should theoretically be sending investors rushing into safe-haven assets is also the reason central banks are slamming the door on interest rate cuts. The Federal Reserve held rates steady and cited uncertain impacts from the conflict, while the Bank of Japan kept rates unchanged, noting that inflation risks are now tilted to the upside. Central banks across Europe — including the U.K. and the eurozone — followed suit. Market expectations for Fed rate cuts have shifted dramatically, with traders now pricing in no cuts until as late as June 2027 — a full twelve months later than pre-war projections. That matters enormously for gold, which pays no yield. When bonds and other interest-bearing assets become more attractive, gold loses its competitive edge almost immediately. The Dollar Is Doing Gold No Favors Either The U.S. dollar has rebounded approximately 2.2% since the Iran war began, halting a months-long slide. Because gold is priced in dollars, a stronger greenback makes the metal relatively more expensive for international buyers, dampening global demand.
Gold Just Had Its Worst Week Since 1980 — Here’s the Uncomfortable Reason Why - Channelchek
A worrying health pattern for some of the Gen X and Millennial crowd has been highlighted by a new study: people born between 1970 and 1985 are experiencing worse mortality rates than the generations before them, across multiple causes.
Study Reveals a ‘Turning Point’ in US Life Expectancy : ScienceAlert
Get up, after a restless sleep. Shower, using products that contain plastic and are in plastic containers. Fix your hair and deodorise your body using sprays smoothed by plastics, before putting on clothes woven from synthetic (plastic) fibres, picking up your plastic phone and heading out, sipping water from a plastic bottle. Chew plastic gum. Buy a snack wrapped in plastic and receive a receipt printed on plastic-covered paper. Come home, take food out of its plastic packaging, cook it with plastic utensils, then store the leftovers in plastic tubs and clean up with detergents that contain plastics and come in plastic bottles. Clean your teeth with a plastic toothbrush and plastic-infused toothpaste.
The Plastic Detox review – a film so terrifying you will want to change your life immediately