Brian Buntz

Run the numbers 1,000 ways, and the outcome never flips: China overtakes the United States on PPP-adjusted R&D spending well before 2030. Our 1,000-run Monte Carlo model, seeded with OECD and World Bank data, puts the narrowest gap at 30%, the median at 58% when considering recent cuts to the National Science Foundation. Tariff hikes,…

A Georgia Tech robot skips wheels, legs and compressed gas; it relies on geometry, elasticity and a carbon-fiber spine to vault 10 feet, the height of a basketball rim. By turning a “kink,” normally a structural failure, into an elastic spring that releases about10⁴ W kg⁻¹ of power, the team shows a compact way to…

Less than five hours. One large-language-model co-pilot. Zero hand-drawn sprites. That’s all it took for SPACE SHOOTER DX, a mash-up of Space Invaders and Galaga complete with parallax starfields, multi-type UFOs, Stranger-Things-inspired synth loops and a laser that goes pew instead of meh. Roughly three-fifths of the 2.3k lines of TypeScript Claude 3.7 Sonnet’s idea.…

TSMC has flipped the switch on its performance-tuned N3P process, bringing the 3-nm node into volume production after Q4 2024 pilot runs. Next up is the higher-voltage, speed-focused N3X variant, now slated to sample by Q3–Q4 2025. “N3P started production late last year, in 2024,” Kevin Zhang, TSMC’s deputy COO, told Tom’s Hardware at the…

SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission has swapped gravity for R&D, hauling a toolkit of particle-tracking, protein-clumping and Janus-base nanomaterial experiments the ISS National Lab says could speed up viral diagnostics and build lighter, hotter-running electronics back on Earth. Crew-10 commander Anne McClain, pilot Nichole Ayers, JAXA mission specialist Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos mission specialist Kirill Peskov reached…

The University of Miami’s Systems Drug Discovery Lab routinely runs large-scale, physics-based simulations to study protein–ligand binding and support early-stage therapeutic modeling for research. In a proof-of-concept study, the Lab incorporated ALAFIA’s AIVAS Supercomputer, powered by Ampere’s 192-core AmpereOne processor, reducing simulation times from over 24 hours to just a few. This enabled more efficient…

Over the past two years, 218-year-old publisher Wiley has repositioned itself in the AI landscape, focusing on specialized “vertical” models over general chatbots. Explaining the company’s proactive strategy, SVP Josh Jarrett stated Wiley’s view is “we learn more by doing and potentially help shape AI’s development, rather than just be shaped by it.” This approach…

Follow the money and you’ll spot the biology that paid off in 2024. PD-1 immunotherapy kept oncology on top, with Keytruda ringing up $29.5 billion in revenue​​. In obesity and diabetes, the top five GLP-1/GIP incretins (Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, Rybelsus and Trulicity) pulled in **$46.1 billion**, up a remarkable **37.8 %** year over year. And…

A 21‑year‑old who was tossed from Columbia University last month just banked a $5.3 million seed round for “Cluely,” an AI sidekick that feeds real‑time code and answers during job interviews, undetected by Zoom or Google Meet. The startup already tops $3 million in annual recurring revenue and charges $60 a seat, forcing companies like Google and Amazon…

Throughout April, the Harvard–White House standoff has morphed from a quiet threat into a multi‑front brawl. Harvard sued the Trump administration for unlawful political coercion, the NIH quietly froze routine grant payments, Massachusetts’ governor warned of an East‑Coast “brain drain.” House GOP committees opened probes, and Harvard earlier moved to float $750 million in bonds to keep…

“If you are not having a conversation with your research data, you’re still operating in analog mode.” That’s the stark assessment from Mikael Hagstroem, CEO of LabVantage. While many labs possess vast amounts of data, more isn’t always better if scientists struggle to access and contextualize it effectively. For Hagstroem, the ability to converse with…

Thermo Fisher Scientific has rolled out three floor‑model centrifuge families—Cryofuge, BIOS and LYNX—that use a natural refrigerant with a global‑warming potential (GWP) of 1, roughly 1,400 times lower than the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) blends found in the company’s previous Sorvall line. The change brings the instruments in line with the European Union’s 2024 F‑gas Regulation, which begins quota cuts…

[Adobe Stock] OpenAI has just announced the gradual release of o3 and o4‑mini, two new reasoning models focused on combining larger test‑time compute with full tool access. As OpenAI President Greg Brockman stated during the launch event, some models “feel like a qualitative step into the future,” and OpenAI believes “today is going to be…

[Updated with quotes from Matthew Asbell, an IP attorney and partner at Lippes Mathias.] When tech heavyweights Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk recently advocated to “delete all IP law,” the exchange on X caused ripples beyond social media. The comment originated with Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, to which Musk—X’s owner—replied, “I agree.” This taps into long-standing…

“We are on the cusp of systems that can do new science.” That line, on page 3 of OpenAI’s latest “Preparedness Framework” (Version 2, updated on April 15, 2025), signals a potential paradigm shift for the R&D ecosystem,  which is quickly moving from being an eager if not always accurate intern stage to a a…

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an architect of Project 2025’s telecom agenda and President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, delivered a recent blunt message to Europe: adopt Elon Musk’s Starlink or inevitably align with Chinese tech. Accusing EU regulators of “anti-American bias,” Carr’s “time for choosing” ultimatum injects geopolitical tension into transatlantic tech policy. It…

When venture capitalist Tim Draper backs a startup, it usually hints that something potentially transformative is brewing. His latest move: a $4.5 million investment in Potato, a company developing autonomous AI scientists to accelerate research through agent-driven workflows. Potato’s ambitious goal is shifting scientific discovery from painstakingly slow lab work toward what Potato CEO Nick…

Uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariff policy impacted R&D sectors this week, even as the broader market showed gains. The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending April 11, 2025, closed at 3,585.25, up 2.25% (or 78.98 basis points). Performance among the 25 RDWI member companies was mixed, with twelve gaining value. Leading the pack was…

OpenAI has unveiled its latest flagship AI model, GPT-4.1, which, counterintuitively, is positioned as an optimized successor replacing the experimental GPT-4.5. Michelle Pokrass, OpenAI’s post-training research lead, noted in the launch live stream that “Actually, the decision to name these 4.1 was intentional,” with Kevin Weil, CPO at OpenAI, joking, “It’s not just that we’re…

Reducing performance-killing noise from chip substrates is key for advancing quantum computing. Addressing this challenge, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists developed a practical chemical etching process that precisely lifts vital superconducting components, superinductors, just above the wafer surface. This suspension method directly targets stray capacitance and substrate-related loss channels by minimizing physical contact. The research…

Berkeley Lab’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has released a dataset mapping a whopping 18.7 million celestial objects. The dataset is the largest 3D cosmic survey ever made available to the scientific community. This astronomical treasure trove, containing information on roughly million stars, 13.1 million galaxies, and 1.6 million quasars. The newly released 270-terabyte dataset…

The AI race hinges not just on algorithms and silicon, but increasingly on raw power. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that global electricity consumption by data centers will more than double by 2030, with AI-specific data centers alone expected to quadruple in consumption. By then, the energy used for AI processing in the U.S.…

This year’s AI Index Report from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) paints a picture of an AI landscape accelerating at a startling pace, challenging simple narratives of an ‘AI bubble’ or progress deceleration. While the compute used in the largest training runs continues its exponential climb (historically doubling roughly every 3–4 months), the…

President Trump’s recent tariff actions exempted key consumer electronics like smartphones and computers, and thus have shielded average consumers. Yet R&D groups that are planning on investing in GPUs for local inference face a potential cost shock, as graphics card imports are now subject to steep duties—reaching up to 145% if assembled in China. While…

San Francisco–based DoorDash has entered the robotics field by launching sidewalk deliveries using Coco Robotics’ remotely-piloted robots in Los Angeles and Chicago, as the LA Times has reported. This initiative represents a pragmatic approach to last-mile automation, utilizing teleoperation rather than pursuing full autonomy for complex city environments immediately. This strategy acknowledges the difficulties of…