The UK government is not satisfied with the initial investigation into NVIDIA's purchase of ARM. Culture and Digital Media Minister Nadine Dorries will direct the country's Competition and Markets Authority to conduct a "phase two" investigation of the NVIDIA deal on national security issues.
This second investigation was reported to last about six months. After that, officials could block the deal, approve it as is, or demand concessions.
The country's Ministry of Culture, Digital Media and Sports declined to comment on these events for the time being. For its part, NVIDIA has focused its efforts on downplaying concerns about ARM's neutrality if the deal closes , promising an open license model that treats customers fairly.
Any second investigation would not necessarily mean that the acquisition of NVIDIA is canceled. However, I would suggest that the British government has some qualms and that NVIDIA might have to make some sacrifices. At the very least, the company would have to be patient - it wouldn't get UK approval until 2022 at the earliest, and it would still have to wait for other regulators before finalizing the merger.
It sure looks like China is turning Cold War fighters into flying drones. Dozens of Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, seen in satellite photos, are still present at China's military airfields, despite the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) retiring the model in 2010. China could use the planes in a conflict, either by disguising them. as modern aircraft, or using drones to carry out their own combat missions.
The J-6 is a copy of the Soviet Union's MiG-19, a single-seat twin-engine fighter that made its debut in the mid-1950s. The fighter was delivered to the People's Republic of China, where at least 2,000 were manufactured under licensed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. The J-6 was China's first supersonic fighter jet, but it had several limitations, and early versions lacked air-to-air radar.
According Defense news , In 2013 China reports appeared that the PLAAF was turning the aircraft drones , "to use them as decoys to overwhelm opposing air defenses for its large number, or a rudimentary unmanned combat aircraft".
Speaking of J-6s, the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command recently released photos showing the PLAAF’s J-6 unmanned aircraft conversion. Blurred serials suggest active service; at least 50 can be seen in @planet imagery from September at 1 of 2 bases known to be operating the type pic.twitter.com/HvvMrpnjtB
— Mike Yeo 杨启铭 (@TheBaseLeg) October 20, 2021
IBM claims that it has taken an important step towards the practice of quantum computing . On Monday, the company unveiled Eagle, a 127 qubit quantum processor. IBM claims that it is the first processor of its kind that cannot be simulated by a classic supercomputer. To understand what that means, the company assures that to simulate Eagle it would take more classical bits than atoms in every human being on the planet. IBM attributes the breakthrough to a new design that places processor control components on multiple physical layers, while qubits are located on a single layer. It is a design that, according to the company, allows a significant increase in computing power.
One aspect of Eagle that the company is not talking about at the moment is quantum volume. Created by IBM, it is a metric that attempts to measure the performance of a quantum computer by taking a holistic view of its different parts . It not only takes qubits into account, but also how they interact with each other. The larger the quantum volume, the more capable a quantum computer is at tackling difficult problems.
Without knowing the quantum volume of the Eagle processor, it is difficult to say exactly how it compares to what already exists. Last October, Honeywell claimed that its System Model H1 had a quantum volume of 128 with only 10 qubits connected . For reference, earlier this year IBM announced an industry leading 27 qubit system with 64 quantum volume.
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