Here’s the scoop: AI is still on fire, despite bubble talk, and OpenAI’s rumored $40B capital raise—driving its valuation up to $340B—could be one of the biggest bets yet. But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. Competition from China’s DeepSeek, fresh AI model launches by Alibaba, and rumored next-gen offerings from Google and others mean…
How trade secrets, green tech, and Asia’s rise redrew the 2024 USPTO patent map
Artificial intelligence is everywhere—yet AI patents aren’t exploding the way you might expect. Could it be that innovators are keeping their best secrets out of the USPTO’s public view? “When we look at AI patents, we see machine learning going down, likely because AI is absorbing it. It’s not necessarily that there’s less AI activity;…
9 major R&D moves this week: NVIDIA expands, Google targets 500M Gemini users, plus J&J’s $15B bid and more
Welcome to our weekly briefing on R&D headlines that are shaping technology, healthcare, and industry. In this edition, we explore NVIDIA’s global expansion plans (plus a sharp rebuttal to new U.S. AI policy), Google’s ambitious Gemini user goals, a big-ticket pharma acquisition, tighter U.S. chip controls, and more. Keep reading for the latest developments and…
Asian tech giants lead U.S. patent rankings
Who is leading in terms of U.S. patents? Asia. While U.S. patent grants rebounded by 4% in 2024 after a four-year decline, the real story is who’s driving innovation: Samsung Electronics maintained its crown for the third straight year with 6,377 patents, TSMC claimed second place with 3,989 patents, according to IFI Claims’ roundup of…
R&D Market Pulse: $29B energy mega-merger, new CHIPS Act hub at ASU, and more AI restrictions on China
In this week’s R&D Market Pulse, the $29.1 billion Constellation-Calpine mega-merger promises to reshape U.S. energy, the Commerce Department awards a third CHIPS for America facility to Arizona State University, and new AI export restrictions put China on notice. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s xAI rolls out a consumer app, BlackRock withdraws from a major climate initiative,…
Chiplet technology and advanced SoCs are shaping the future of software-defined vehicles
Recent advancements in the semiconductor and automotive sectors indicate a growing reliance on advanced technologies to meet the evolving needs of software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Honda Motor Co. and Renesas Electronics Corporation, an embedded semiconductor provider, have announced a partnership at CES 2025 to develop high-performance System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for future vehicles. Meanwhile, chiplet technology is…
Sandia Labs joins with other institutions to tackle AI energy challenges with microelectronics research
Sandia National Laboratories has partnered with leading research institutions to tackle a potential energy crisis driven by the increasing energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies. Jeffrey Nelson, a principal investigator at Sandia, highlighted the issue’s urgency: “Computing alone is projected to consume a significant portion of the total planetary energy production…
An overview of the late 2024 supercomputing landscape in 6 charts
Over the past couple of years, the world’s most powerful supercomputers have experienced a sizable leap in performance. The combined processing power of the computers on the TOP500 list surged from 5.24 exaflops in June 2023 to 11.72 exaflops in November 2024, representing a 123.7% increase. Meanwhile, the anticipated Colossus supercomputer from Elon Musk’s xAI—if…
Stretchable batteries and body-conformable electronics poised to advance in 2025
Stretchable, wearable gadgets took a significant stride in 2024, thanks to a flurry of breakthroughs that could make soft, body-conformable electronics and power sources a reality. Researchers worldwide have unveiled improvements in flexible, high-precision sensors and displays, while engineers in China revealed a self-healing, stretchable lithium-ion battery that could power next-generation wearables. Meanwhile, LG Display…
US and China sign five-year amended Science and Technology Agreement
The State Department has announced that the United States and China have amended and extended their bilateral Science and Technology Agreement (STA) for five years. Initially signed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, the deal was designed to foster cooperation in agriculture, energy, space, health, and the environment. U.S. officials…
Researchers report significant advancements in semiconductor device technology
The Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) has announced an advancement in semiconductor technology. Researchers from KIMS, in collaboration with Professor Hyun-Sang Hwang’s team at POSTECH, have developed a new heterojunction technology that combines tungsten disulfide (WS₂), a two-dimensional (2D) material with hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO), a ferroelectric material. The breakthrough addresses interfacial stability and…
Top 15 R&D spenders of 2024
Each year, the top 2,500 or so international R&D spenders collectively invest more than $1 trillion in R&D. The roster of R&D heavyweights is shaping up to look broadly similar to prior years, but NVIDIA is poised to crack into the top 15 given its recent AI-driven growth. If anything, NVIDIA’s ascent into the ranks…
Google’s Willow achieves 10 septillion-year quantum speedup, though more breakthroughs in fault-tolerance needed
Google’s unveiling of the Willow quantum processor could go down in history as a big moment in the pursuit of fault-tolerant quantum computing. A BBC article called the advance “mind-boggling.” And in many respects, it is. The processor completed a specialized computation in five minutes that would theoretically take today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years—a…
Who were 2024’s top patent and R&D leaders in computing, pharma, medtech and beyond?
Industrial and commercial sectors often measure innovation by market capitalization and R&D spending, but these metrics fail to capture the full picture. Tech companies dominate market headlines with AI product launches and chip releases — and our own ranking of most innovative firms of 2024. In addition, tech firms currently hold the top market cap…
The 25 most innovative companies of 2024
Yes, questions remain about whether AI chipmaker NVIDIA can maintain its momentum in 2025. NVIDIA’s upcoming Blackwell AI chips have encountered thermal problems when integrated into server racks designed to house up to 72 units. Despite these recent technical hurdles, the company remains an innovation juggernaut. 1. Why NVIDIA is the R&D leader of 2024…
R&D Market Pulse: Investors retreat despite spikes in AI and biotech investments
The R&D World Index plummeted last week, dragged down by significant losses across most of its constituents, despite a surge in AI chip demand and major R&D investments signaling continued industry shifts. The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending November 15, 2024, closed at 3,708.90 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The…
This week in AI research: High-stakes investments and job cuts amid market cooling signals
From AMD cutting 4% of its workers as it continues an AI push to LAMs, AI continues to shake up the technology landscape. While a Reuters report suggests that genAI progress may be cooling, several prominent figures such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt have refuted it. OpenAI explores novel…
Hardware giants cut 20,000+ jobs in 2024 as industry double down on AI
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for hardware companies. For a handful of hardware companies, 2024 was a tough year. Intel, Dell, AMD, IBM jointly cut more than 23,000 jobs this year. Intel alone slashed 15,000 positions as it targeted $10 billion in cost savings by 2025. The PC…
24 R&D trends that redefined 2024
In many respects, 2024 was a year of building upon the foundations laid by previous technological and scientific advances. While AI continued to evolve at a rapid clip, progress was in many ways more incremental than last year when GPT-4 redefined expectations for genAI. But AI continues to make definable improvements across a range of…
UK research grant backs Alphawave Semi’s AI network efficiency project
Alphawave Semi has been awarded a research grant from the UK’s Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), to remove networking bottlenecks that are limiting AI’s growth. Data from Meta indicates that AI processors can be idle roughly two-fifths of the time waiting for data from the network, wasting costly resources. ARIA is driving a shift toward…
This week in R&D: Samsung lags in AI chip race, OSTP urges R&D overhaul, DOJ set to file antitrust suit against Google
The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending October 11, 2024, closed at 4.049.72 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was up 1.11% (or 44.32 basis points). Fourteen RDWI members gained value last week from 0.06% (Microsoft) to 5.06% (Eli Lilly & Co.). Eleven RDWI members lost value last week from…
Oak Ridge National Lab leads R&D 100 Awards with 218 wins since 1979
An analysis of 45 years of R&D 100 Awards reveals a clear leader: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with more than two hundred winning products. National labs dominate the top ranks, demonstrating the staying power of consistent government investment in R&D. All of the top 10 organizations since 2010 are federally-backed entities. ORNL Frequently featured…
This week in R&D: ULA launches second rocket, Microsoft sets up AI in Italy, and India and U.S. form R&D partnerships
The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending October 4, 2024, closed at 4.005.40 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was up 0.62% (or 24.71 basis points). Eight RDWI members gained value last week from 1.07% (Eli Lilly & Co.) to 6.71% (Alibaba). Seventeen RDWI members lost value the previous week…
This week in R&D: Slight increase in global economic growth expected in 2024, Korean chipmakers visit UAE, and AstraZeneca mapping immune cells with AI
The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending September 27, 2024, closed at 3,980.69 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was down -0.66% (or -26.26 basis points). Thirteen RDWI members gained value last week from 0.03% (Sanofi SA) to 20.30% (Alibaba). Twelve RDWI members lost value the previous week from -0.21%…
MIT physicists directly observe frictionless ‘edge state’ flow in ultracold atoms, offering a glimpse of super-efficient electronics
Physicists at MIT have directly imaged the frictionless flow of atoms along the edges of a material, confirming long-held theories about electron behavior in the quantum Hall effect. By recreating the effect’s conditions with ultracold atoms, the team observed these particles effortlessly navigating around obstacles, defying everyday experience with friction. In the everyday world, friction is…