DARPA -- America's reliable source of game changing technology

Last update: Tuesday 3/10/26 12:38

DARPA develops new technologies that have dual use, then engages leading experts in our universities and other research institutions as consultants and/or contractors in a cluster of interrelated component projects, each of which develops selected aspects of the needed new technology. DARPA also alerts some production companies of its new tech from time to time and obtains their input as to how the new tech could be enhanced to achieve greater commercial success.

Full text ➡ HERE

Apple's iPhone as the prototype for China's future success via its dominance of rare earth processing

 Last update: Monday 3/8/26 11:05am

Deng Xiaoping, the 'father of modern China', implored his country's leaders in 1992 to greatly enhance its power by attaining a position of unchallengeable dominance of the world's markets rare earth elements (REEs).  Rare earths would be for China what oil was for the Middle East. Ever since then, China has been developing an ecosystem that is centered on its rare earth mining and processing assets. 

China's evolving ecosystem facilitated the phenomenal success that Steve Jobs achieved by locating the production of his visionary iPhone in China. In other words, China's successful production of Jobs' vision was a 'proof of concept' for Deng's vision. China's ecosystem would ensure that the iPhone's success would be a prototype for future success, not a never-to-be-repeated one-off. 

Full text ➡ HERE

China vs. Obama at the WTO 2015

Last update: Monday 3/8/26 11:00am

Deng Xiaoping's image appears on this page because, as the 'father of modern China', he inspired his country to greatly enhance its power by leveraging its abundant rare earth resources.  In 1992 he famously declared, "The Middle East has its oil, China has rare earth: China’s rare earth deposits account for 80 percent of identified global reserves, you can compare the status of these reserves to

that of oil in the Middle East: it is of extremely important strategic significance; we must be sure to handle the rare earth issue properly and make the fullest use of our country’s advantage in rare earth resources." 

Full text ➡ HERE

America’s bipartisan pursuit of the wrong rare earth strategies

Last update: Monday  3/9/26 11:00am

The original title of this first in a series of installments that was posted on this blog in January 2026 was "America's unlikely but successful bipartisan path to a reliable rare earth supply chain " -- a title that reflected its editor's optimism. He was optimistic because he didn't yet know that China was really leveraging its dominance of the tiny $4 billion global market for rare earths by embedding them in innovative high tech products worth hundreds of billions as exports, e.g., iPhones and 'cPhones' (a/k/a Huawei smartphones) and Teslas and 'cTeslas' (a/k/a BYD's) . 

-- Note: Huawei's smartphones grossed larger sales than iPhones in 2025; BYD's EVs grossed larger sales than Teslas in 2025.

Full text ➡ HERE

The PJM Part 2 … Negative Externalities, Data Center Alley, and future historically high electricity bills throughout the PJM

Last update:  7:36am Wednesday 11/26/25

This note, Part 2 in what was originally planned to be a three part series, will now be the final installment. It highlights some operational structures of the PJM that facilitated the stunning success of Virginia’s Data Center Alley. Then it sketches a strategy that might enable the founding members of the PJM -- Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland -- to join Virginia as major national and international data center hubs via consortiums that would also guarantee stable lower electricity bills for their regular customers, i.e., households, businesses, schools, government agencies, etc. 

Unfortunately, recent surprising announcements from two powerful utilities — Dominion and Exelon — threaten to burden regular customers throughout the 13 states in the PJM with historically high electricity bills.  Exelon’s announcement requires extensive revisions to Section F and Dominion’s requires the addition of a forthcoming Section G to this note.

Op-Ed ➡ HERE

TL;DR 4Nov25 ... (1) Big Tech Quarterly reports, and (2) Innovative data center proposal from governors of Pennsylania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia

Last update: Wednesday 11/5/25

Welcome to our 4Nov25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 2 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) Big Tech Quarterly reports, and (2) Innovative data center proposal from governors of Pennsylania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR 28Oct25 ... (1) How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power, (2) Anthropic's chatbot can now remember your previous conversations without prompting -- like ChatGPT and Gemini, and (3) OpenAI’s Atlas Browser Takes Direct Aim at Google

Last update: Tuesday 10/28/25

Welcome to our 28Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power, (2) Anthropic's chatbot can now remember your previous conversations without prompting -- like ChatGPT and Gemini, and (3) OpenAI’s Atlas Browser Takes Direct Aim at Google Chrome

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR 21Oct25 ... (1) "Nvidia Targets AI Data Centers And All-Renewable Electricity" ... and Critique

Last update: 9:46:pm Thursday 10/23/25

Welcome to our 21Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top story on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) "Nvidia Targets AI Data Centers And All-Renewable Electricity" ... This TL;DR is different. ChatGPT's summary of the article that reported last week's top story is followed by the blog editor's detailed critique of Nvidia's claim that was reported in the article that "we achieved and will maintain 100% renewable electricity for offices and data centers under our operational control." Nvidia's claim that it will maintain 100% renewable electricity is the stuff of grand satires, like Orwell's masterpieces -- Animal Farm and 1984. The primary reason why data centers have such an insatiable need for ever more massive flows of electric power is because Nvidia's chips are so energy-inefficient. By comparison, Apple has recently paid billions of dollars to TSMC to produce chips that have dramatically higher energy-efficiency. How many billions has Nvidia paid anyone to dramatically reduce the energy demands of its gluttonous chips? 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

What is the PJM Interconnect? How does it work? And why you should care? ... 1-Basics

Last update:  Saturday 3:27am 10/25/25

This note, Part 1 in a three part series, will provide an introduction to the PJM Interconnect that directs the transmission of electric power across thirteen states and the District of Columbia. Part 2 will highlight features of the PJM that provide persistent advantages — lower electricity bills — for households and enterprises in some states, while imposing persistent penalties — higher electricity bills — on households and enterprises in other states. Part 3 will analyze the ironic causes of the persistent penalties, i.e., the negative externalities,  that are being reported by the media with increasing frequency and stridency. 

Click HERE to view full report

TL;DR 13Oct25 ...(1) OpenAI Agrees to Use Computer Chips From AMD, (2) OpenAI Wants ChatGPT to Be Your Future Operating System, and (3) One company is behind most of Virginia's data center construction boom .

Last update: Monday 10/13/25

     OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AMD CEO Lisa Su 

Welcome to our 13Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡ (1) OpenAI Agrees to Use Computer Chips From AMD, (2) OpenAI Wants ChatGPT to Be Your Future Operating System, and (3) One company is behind most of Virginia's data center construction boom. 

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR 7Oct25 ... (1) OpenAI’s Sora Makes Disinformation Extremely Easy and Extremely Real, (2) California Governor Signs Sweeping A.I. Law, and (3) Data center boom sparks sticker shock for PJM ratepayers

Last update: Tuesday 10/7/25

Welcome to our 7Oct25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) OpenAI’s Sora Makes Disinformation Extremely Easy and Extremely Real, (2) California Governor Signs Sweeping A.I. Law, and (3) Data center boom sparks sticker shock for PJM ratepayers

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE 

A closer look at the potential world-wide benefits of Apple Silicon

Substantial Revisions: 7:19pm Friday 10/24/25

This second note in an occasional series explores an emerging solution to a global disaster. It takes a closer look at the potential world-wide benefits of Apple’s forthcoming sales of energy-efficient inference servers to its customers. It also corrects a few misconceptions in the first note 

To read more of this blog note click ➡ HERE

TL;DR 29Sep25 ... (1) OpenAI Building 5 New Data Centers in U.S., (2) Nvidia Invests Up to $100 Billion in OpenAI, and (3) Nvidia to Invest Up to $100 Billion in OpenAI

Last update: Monday 9/29/25

Welcome to our 29Sep TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) OpenAI Building 5 New Data Centers in U.S., (2) Nvidia Invests Up to $100 Billion in OpenAI, and (3) Alibaba Integrates Nvidia Robotics Software in Its AI Platform"

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE 

TL;DR 22Sep25 ... (1) China bans tech companies from buying Nvidia’s AI chips, (2) Nvidia to Invest $5 Billion in Intel, and (3) Harvard researchers weigh AI’s climate and health impact

Last update: Monday 9/22/25

Welcome to our 22Sep25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡ (1) China bans tech companies from buying Nvidia’s AI chips, (2) Nvidia to Invest $5 Billion in Intel, and (3) Harvard researchers weigh AI’s climate and health impact

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TLDR 15Sep25 ... (1) Apple Introduces New, Slimmer iPhone, (2) Microsoft to Buy AI From Anthropic, and (3) EPA Proposes to End Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

Last update: Monday 9/15/25

Welcome to our 15Sep25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) Apple Introduces New, Slimmer iPhone, (2) Microsoft to Buy AI From Anthropic, and (3) EPA Proposes to End Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TLDR 8Sep25 ...(1) Google Dodges Worst Penalties in U.S. Antitrust Case, (2) Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion to authors in landmark AI settlement, and (3) NAACP presents guiding principles for data centers

Last update: Monday 10/8/25

Welcome to our 8Sep25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) Google Dodges Worst Penalties in U.S. Antitrust Case, (2) Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion to authors in landmark AI settlement, and (3) NAACP presents guiding principles for data centers

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE 

TL;DR 1Sep25 ... (1) AI super PACs, (2) Nvidia Predicts Cooler Growth After Sales Record, and (3) Data centers will cause higher electricity prices

Last update: Monday 9/1/25

Welcome to our 1Sep25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) AI super PACs, (2) Nvidia Predicts Cooler Growth After Sales Record, and (3) Data centers will cause higher electricity prices

 

TL;DR ➡  HERE

Sometimes ChatGPT does not connect the dots. Sometimes it does not follow its "plans".

Last update: Tuesday 8/26/25

Everybody knows that chatbotmake mistakes. This misbehavior has given rise to the fundamental guideline that users should always doublecheck everything a chatbot says. The  implicit assumption of this guideline is that a chatbot’s incorrect response to a prompt, a/k/a an “error” reflects the chatbot’s incorrect knowledge. This note challenges that assumption. 

The editor of this blog can document situations wherein ChatGPT “knew” the correct response to a prompt, but delivered an incorrect response anyway. In other words, ChatGPT failed to connect the dots, failed to give the response that it “knew” that it should have given. 

To read more of this blog note click ➡ HERE

TL;DR 25Aug25 ... (1) MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilot projects are failing", (2) The Trump-Intel Deal Is Official, and (3) AI data centers are leading to big electricity bills in NY and NJ

Last update: Monday 8/25/25

Welcome to our 25Aug25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 3 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilot projects are failing, (2) The Trump-Intel Deal Is Official, and (3) AI data centers are leading to big electricity bills in NY and NJ

 

TL;DR ➡ HERE

TL;DR ... 18Aug 25 ... (1) Question: Does Nvidia sell chips to China: Yes or No? ... Trump says "Yes", China says "No" ... and (2) Local negative consequence of the data center boom

Last update: Tuesday 8/19/25

Welcome to our 18Aug25 TL;DR summaries by ChatGPT of the past week's top 2 stories on our "Useful AI News" page ➡  (1) Question: Does Nvidia sell chips to China: Yes or No? ... Trump says "Yes", China says "No" ... and (2) Local negative consequence of the data center boom: Higher electricity bills for everyone and lower air quality

TL;DR ➡ HERE