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Can Light Solve AI’s Energy Bottleneck? by Nick New

William Attardi on June 12, 2026

The increasing energy requirements to power AI is unsustainable, with concerns also growing about the environmental damage that supplying such energy could cause. We are now at an inflection point. Traditional electrical data transfer methods are reaching their limits, with NVIDIA showing its hand by recently investing $4 billion in two photonics companies, Coherent Corp. and Lumentum. NVIDIA is betting on a future where data is transmitted via light (photons) rather than electricity.  Photonics can be integrated directly onto silicon chips to enable scalability and efficiency improvements over electricity. The crux of photonics’ efficiency gain is simple: Light travels faster and carries more information, while producing less heat than electrons. This results in dramatically higher compute density, lower power consumption, and superior thermal performance to overcome the limits imposed by the rise of dark silicon on conventional chips.  Can light solve AI’s energy bottleneck? | Laser Focus World

Nvidia to Increase Spend in Taiwan by $150 Billion

William Attardi on May 28, 2026

Nvidia announced its plan to expand spending on chip manufacturing in Taiwan to $150 billion, up from $10 billion just a few years ago. By the end of the year, Nvidia will have a brand-new office complex called Constellation, and could have as many as  4,000 employees in northern Taipei when it opens by the end of the decade. Right now, Nvidia has about 1,000 employees in Taiwan. Nvidia will design the new AI computer chips. TSMC, the world’s largest chip maker, will manufacture them. As a result, Nvidia will be TSMC’s largest customer, surpassing Apple. Business News Today – tEDmag

Scientists Create Robots Smaller Than a Grain of Sand by Daniel Akst

William Attardi on January 11, 2026

They run on light and are the world’s smallest, fully programmable, autonomous devices. Now researchers at Penn and the University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest, fully programmable, autonomous robots, packing significant capacities into a device smaller than a grain of salt. These are parsimonious little things, barely visible to the naked eye yet able to sense their environment, respond to it and move around in complex patterns. As described in a new paper in the journal Science Robotics, they run on infinitesimally small quantities of energy and gain power from light. Tiny robots do have potential medical functions and a second area of potential use could be in manufacturing tiny devices such as computer chips with intricate circuitry. Scientists Create Robots Smaller Than a Grain of Sand – WSJ

Nvidia Becomes First $5 Trillion Company

William Attardi on November 1, 2025

It seems nothing can stop Nvidia. This week it became the first company ever to smash through a $5 trillion market value—thanks to a frenzy of AI deals spanning everyone from OpenAI and Oracle to Nokia and even drugmaker Eli Lilly. CEO Jensen Huang’s MAGA-friendly speech in D.C. also juiced gains. Sure, many are whispering “AI bubble,”but for now Nvidia is worth more than entire chunks of the S&P 500, like utilities, industrials or consumer staples. Basically, everything that doesn’t require a GPU.  Nvidia Becomes First $5 Trillion Company – WSJ

Trump Sets 100% Chip Tariffs Unless Firms Invest in U.S.

William Attardi on August 7, 2025

President Trump said he would impose roughly 100% tariffs on all chips coming into the U.S. but exempt tech companies that have promised to manufacture domestically, a big win for Apple and other electronics firms worried about new trade challenges. Trump’s announcement came at an event trumpeting a new $100 billion investment pledge from Apple. The company has increased its commitments in the U.S. but stopped short of moving iPhone production to the U.S. as Trump wants. The company’s $100 billion promise adds to a $500 billion, four-year commitment Apple made in February that repackaged much of Apple’s existing spending plans in the U.S. Nearly every major tech firm has promised to put more into their U.S. operations, resulting in over $2 trillion in new pledges in the past seven months. f16AjRmObp1pmp4xDQAH-WSJNewsPaper-8-7-2025.pdf

Remembering the Solemn Purpose of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States observed on the last Monday in May to honor and mourn U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the armed forces. The holiday traces its roots to the years immediately following the American Civil War (1861–1865), which caused massive casualties—roughly 620,000 soldiers dead, about 2% of the U.S. population at the time. Communities across the North and South began spontaneously decorating the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers, wreaths, and flags, a practice that gave rise to the original name: Decoration Day. On May 5, 1868, Major General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—a powerful Union veterans’ organization—issued General Order No. 11. This proclaimed May 30, 1868, as a nationwide “Decoration Day” to honor those who died in the Civil War. After World War I, the holiday expanded to honor all American service members who died in any war, not just the Civil War.  In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create more three-day weekends for federal employees. This moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, effective in 1971, when it was also officially named “Memorial Day.” As one 1868 quote put it: “That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.”