President Trump has ordered a 15% tariff on imported products made with polysilicon, a key material for semiconductors and solar panels. The new tariff will take effect on December 4th. The Guardian reports: The executive order signed by the president on Thursday evening said: "The plan of action in this proclamation will, among other things, help ensure the commercial viability of United States production of polysilicon and its derivatives that is necessary to meet United States economic and national security requirements." Polysilicon, an ultra-pure form of silicon, is an important ingredient in making the semiconductors vital for AI processing power, datacentres and solar power generation. US solar factories have long accused Chinese rivals of dumping cheaper panels on the market, which they say have been enabled by excessive government subsidies and by moving manufacturing to other countries to dodge US tariffs.
[...] The US has two main polysilicon factories, including Hemlock Semiconductor, which operates a plant in Michigan and is a joint venture between the US tech company Corning and Japan's Shin-Etsu Handotai. The Munich-based Wacker Chemie runs a factory in Tennessee. Trump said in the order that he had accepted recommendations by the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to set minimum import prices of $21 a kilogram for polysilicon, $100 a kilogram for polysilicon ingots and wafers, $0.22 a watt for solar cells, and $0.38 a watt for solar modules or panels. The order also allows the commerce department to create an incentive program for companies that invest in factories to produce polysilicon or derivative products.
[...] The US has two main polysilicon factories, including Hemlock Semiconductor, which operates a plant in Michigan and is a joint venture between the US tech company Corning and Japan's Shin-Etsu Handotai. The Munich-based Wacker Chemie runs a factory in Tennessee. Trump said in the order that he had accepted recommendations by the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to set minimum import prices of $21 a kilogram for polysilicon, $100 a kilogram for polysilicon ingots and wafers, $0.22 a watt for solar cells, and $0.38 a watt for solar modules or panels. The order also allows the commerce department to create an incentive program for companies that invest in factories to produce polysilicon or derivative products.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: On Thursday, AMD said it's entered into an agreement to acquire Taalas, a Toronto-based startup that makes chips for inference. Taalas' accelerators are customized, or hard-wired for a single AI model, rather than being general purpose. In exchange for that loss of flexibility, Taalas' technology promises a less-expensive chip that it says can produce output for specific models thousands of times faster than a traditional GPU. An AMD representative declined to provide a purchase price for the transaction. Taalas has raised a total of $219 million in venture funding since its 2023 founding.
Taalas' current chip runs a small version of Meta's Llama 3.1 model, though the company is working on chips for bigger and more advanced models. It's manufactured using an older Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. process, and uses speedy SRAM memory on the chip itself. Taalas CEO Ljubisa Bajic says on the startup's website that the company "developed a platform for transforming any AI model into custom silicon." "From the moment a previously unseen model is received, it can be realized in hardware in only two months," Bajic wrote.
Taalas' current chip runs a small version of Meta's Llama 3.1 model, though the company is working on chips for bigger and more advanced models. It's manufactured using an older Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. process, and uses speedy SRAM memory on the chip itself. Taalas CEO Ljubisa Bajic says on the startup's website that the company "developed a platform for transforming any AI model into custom silicon." "From the moment a previously unseen model is received, it can be realized in hardware in only two months," Bajic wrote.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Het alcoholische aperitief de Hugo Spritz is populair in de Verenigde Staten en Engeland. Deze zomer groeit de vraag naar de vlierbloesemlikeur St-Germain zelfs sneller dan die naar Campari’s Aperol. Gaan we dit drankje in Nederland ook meer zien?
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Het belastingbouwwerk is door de vele uitzonderingen onnodig complex, daarover zijn experts en politici het eens. Ook het kabinet-Jetten wil het stelsel weer vereenvoudigen. Vijf redenen waarom dat tot nu toe steeds niet lukte.
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Hiring a convicted antisemite as an adviser; rabble rousing at a time of violent unrest. She is still in a race to the bottom and making too many mistakes
The Keminaissance will be delayed. For nearly a year, Conservative optimists and a clutch of supportive pundits have been forecasting an upturn in the fortunes of Kemi Badenoch, confident that her party will emerge from the crater it fell into in 2024, overtake Reform UK to become once again the main party of the right and, who knows, maybe, with a following wind, even push Labour aside and return to government. Every sign of strength from the Tory leader – a robust conference speech here, a viral clip on social media there – has been hailed as evidence of the coming Keminaissance. On the evidence of the past week or so, we will have to wait a little longer.
It’s quite true that Badenoch’s personal ratings are better than those of her party. True, too, that she ended a long losing streak when the Tories won a Westminster seat at the Aberdeen South byelection in June. But there is a more recent election result that should temper the boosters’ enthusiasm, along with a series of decisions that confirm that, when it comes to both strategy and judgment, Badenoch is badly lacking.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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Continue reading...Group calls for ‘thorough and transparent investigation’ of hiring of professor who resigned after his claims came under scrutiny
The University of Cambridge has announced a review into the way it vets and hires senior academic staff in an effort to fend off external and internal criticism of its appointment of Jason Arday as a professor.
But a group of Cambridge academics quickly rejected the university’s response, saying: “We strongly believe that a thorough and transparent investigation into the wider circumstances of this damaging episode is essential.”
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De juridische twist tussen de profs en amateurs van Sparta hoeft nog niet door de rechter te worden beslecht. Beide partijen hebben twee maanden extra de tijd gekregen om te proberen hun geschil op te lossen. Lukt dat niet, dan zal de Rotterdamse rechtbank begin oktober alsnog uitspraak doen.
MONT VENTOUX (ANP) - Demi Vollering is teleurgesteld na haar tweede plek in de koninginnenrit van de Tour de France Femmes naar de Mont Ventoux. Dat zei de Nederlandse renster van FDJ United-Suez vrijdag na afloop van de etappe tegen de NOS.
Vollering leek verwikkeld in een tweestrijd met de Zwitserse Marlen Reusser, terwijl de Poolse Kasia Niewiadoma er alleen vandoor ging op weg naar de overwinning. "Waarschijnlijk kon ik ook gewoon niet helemaal, en achteraf ga je daar altijd een beetje over twijfelen, of je echt niet kon of dat je dat op dat moment dacht", zei Vollering.
"Daar zit dan vooral ook de teleurstelling, dat ik het toch eerder had moeten proberen voor mijn idee", zei Vollering. "Uiteindelijk wint Kasia (Niewiadoma) supersterk hier, dus dat is superknap."
Met nog twee dagen te gaan staat Vollering 15 seconden achter Niewiadoma in het algemeen klassement. Reusser staat derde op 39 seconden. De Tour eindigt zondag in Nice met een etappe rond de Col d'Èze, bekend van Parijs-Nice.
