Most Learn – Imec priorities, Flying taxi, Donut’s battery

And there’s additionally Nvidia launching its Rubin platform and a solid-state electrical car battery at CES…

As is customary, let’s take them in reverse order, in accordance with Google Analytics…

5. Imec’s priorities and techniques for 2026
The CEO and CEO-elect of imec have talked about their priorities and techniques for 2026. “The tempo at which AI has permeated just about each facet of society has been nothing wanting mind-blowing,” says CEO Van den hove, including that it’s far much less predictable than transistor scaling. “Let’s take giant language fashions (LLMs) for instance,” he provides. ““Whereas they might nonetheless play a job in enabling future AI breakthroughs, they arrive with a big limitation: they don’t actually be taught…”

4. UAE to launch world’s first flying taxi service
The UAE is making ready to steer the world in eVTOL industrial flying taxi providers in 2026, stories the Nikkei. Joby Aviation of the US, backed by Toyota Motor amongst others, has signed a six-year unique contract with the Roads & Transport Authority of Dubai. In November, on the Dubai Air Present, Joby demo-ed 15 minute flight by a six-propeller electrical plane taking off from Al Maktoum Worldwide Airport. The fare for the ten minutec 37km flip from the airport to Palm Jumeirah will value $95.

3. Nissan sinks to lowest market share for 32 years
Final yr, Nissan’s new car gross sales in Japan hit their lowest market share since 1993 – 9% – in accordance with the Japan Vehicle Sellers Affiliation (JADA) and the Japan Gentle Motor Automobile and Motorbike Affiliation (JLMVMA). New Nissan gross sales in Japan have been down 15% to 403,105 items, decrease even than 2022’s 449,458 items when the trade was hit by a chip scarcity. Gross sales of the Notice, the best-selling compact automobile in Japan, have been 20% down within the January to November interval.

2. Nvidia launches Rubin
Nvidia has launched the Rubin platform comprising six new chips designed to ship one AI supercomputer. The platform makes use of excessive codesign throughout the six chips – the NVIDIA Vera CPU, NVIDIA Rubin GPU, NVIDIA NVLink 6 Swap, NVIDIA ConnectX-9 SuperNIC, NVIDIA BlueField-4 DPU and NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Ethernet Swap – to slash coaching time and inference token prices. “Rubin arrives at precisely the correct second, as AI computing demand for each coaching and inference goes by way of the roof,” stated Jensen Huang.

1. Up to date: CES: Donut’s solid-state electrical car battery
Finland-based Donut Lab proclaims a solid-state electrical car battery at CES. “Not like typical lithium-ion batteries, the Donut battery experiences minimal capability fade over its lifetime, with a design lifetime of as much as 100,000 cycles,” stated the corporate. “Security is inbuilt: no flammable liquid electrolytes, no thermal runaway chains and no metallic dendrites.” Replace: it won’t be a battery in any respect – extra info on the finish.