Welcome to QX Snapshots - a weekly recap of the key news on emerging technologies. In this newsletter, you will get a "digest" of the latest info on Enterprise Blockchain, AI, Quantum Technology, and Metaverse. Hope it brings you value :)
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Every Friday we share key snapshot news on AI, Quantum Technologies, Metaverse, and Enterprise Blockchain/DLT.
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[Blockchain] Italy's CDP Issues €50M Digital Bond on Polygon, Backed Finance Launches Tesla, Amazon, Apple Tokens; BNP Paribas Partners with Ant, Chainlink launches Digital Assets Sandbox. Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) has issued a €50 million digital bond on Polygon. This marks the first digital bond issuance under Italy's new law allowing the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) for specific financial instruments. The bond was issued in collaboration with Societe Generale - FORGE and settled using a digital euro issued by Banque de France. Meanwhile, Backed Finance has expanded its tokenized equity offerings with the launch of five new tokens representing shares of major tech companies. The new tokens include bGOOGL (Google), bTSLA (Tesla), bGME (GameStop), bAAPL (Apple), and bAMZN (Amazon). And, BNP Paribas and Ant International have formed a strategic partnership to enhance cross-border payment solutions for merchants and consumers in Europe. The collaboration aims to enable BNP Paribas' merchants to accept payments from Alipay+'s mobile partners and explore innovations in tokenized deposits for global treasury management through Ant International's Whale platform, a DLT-based treasury management solution. Also, PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin supply on Solana has ballooned to $569 million, a 96% increase over the past month. This growth is primarily driven by PayPal's partnership with Solana lending market Kamino, offering users a 17% annual yield on PYUSD deposits, significantly higher than the 9% yield on USDC. And, State Street is exploring the creation of its own stablecoin. The bank is actively engaging with regulators to understand the necessary requirements and compliance measures for such a venture. Chainlink has launched its Digital Assets Sandbox (DAS) is a turnkey solution designed to accelerate digital asset innovation in financial institutions. Powered by the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), DAS allows institutions to create and test new revenue opportunities, enhance efficiencies, and reduce time-to-market. It provides pre-built workflows for digital assets, such as tokenized bonds, enabling end-to-end trials across multiple blockchains. The sandbox features customizable environments and expert consultancy.
[AI] OpenAI Launches GPT-4o Mini, Hugging Face Debuts SmolLM, and Mistral AI Introduces Codestral Mamba & Mathstral Models. OpenAI has introduced GPT-4o mini, a smaller and more affordable version of its AI model, replacing GPT-3.5 Turbo. Available now for free users and subscribers, it offers improved performance on academic benchmarks and supports function calling. The new model is part of OpenAI's strategy to provide both cutting-edge and accessible AI solutions. Meanwhile, Hugging Face has unveiled SmolLM, a family of high-performing small language models with 135M, 360M, and 1.7B parameters. Trained on a meticulously curated dataset called SmolLM-Corpus, these models outperform others in their size categories across various benchmarks. The corpus includes Cosmopedia v2 (synthetic textbooks), Python-Edu (educational code samples), and FineWeb-Edu (filtered web content). SmolLM models are designed for local device operation, balancing performance with efficiency and privacy considerations. Also, Mistral AI just launched Codestral Mamba and Mathstral, two new small, specialized language models. Codestral Mamba is a 7B model offering fast inference and advanced coding capabilities that surpass open-source rivals like CodeGemma and CodeLlama. The model can handle context lengths up to 256k tokens (doubling GPT4o). Mathstral, also a 7B parameter model, achieves SOTA performance on math reasoning benchmarks. Both were released under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing for free use, modification, and distribution. And, Google has unveiled 'Vids', a new AI-powered video creation tool integrated into Google Workspace. Designed to simplify video production, Vids allows users to generate, edit, and share professional-quality videos using text prompts and AI assistance. The tool offers features like automatic storyboard creation, voiceover generation, and seamless integration with other Google Workspace apps. And, Anthropic and Menlo Ventures have partnered to create the $100 million Anthology Fund for AI startups. Eligible companies can receive investments of at least $100k, along with access to Anthropic's AI models, $25k in Anthropic credits.
[Quantum Technology] UK Installs First 100-Qubit Quantum Computer; DARPA and Illinois Invest $280M in Chicago Quantum Hub; European Innovators Push Quantum Tech Boundaries. Infleqtion has achieved a significant milestone by installing the first quantum computer at the UK's National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC). The 100-qubit system, based on neutral atom technology, marks a crucial step in the NQCC's mission to accelerate the UK's quantum computing capabilities. This installation is part of a larger collaboration between Infleqtion and the NQCC, which includes plans for future upgrades and the development of advanced quantum technologies. Meanwhile, DARPA is set to invest up to $140 million in a new quantum-testing facility in Chicago, matched by an equal amount from Illinois' state budget. This initiative aims to establish Chicago as a quantum hub, despite losing a federal technology hub bid to Colorado. The facility will be part of a $20 billion quantum campus, potentially attracting companies like IBM and leveraging expertise from local universities and national laboratories. This investment could significantly boost Chicago's quantum ecosystem and broader regional economy. Also, QC Design, a leader in quantum design automation software, has been selected for the EIC Accelerator program and secured €4 million in funding. Their software, Plaquette, aids hardware manufacturers in developing efficient logical qubits for fault-tolerant quantum computing. This funding will accelerate the development of their tools for scalable and reliable quantum computing. The EIC Accelerator, a €1.1 billion top deep-tech funding program in Europe. And, Researchers from C2N, Télécom Paris, and STMicroelectronics have achieved a significant breakthrough in integrated photonics for quantum technology. They developed silicon ring resonators that can generate and control frequency-bin entangled photon pairs, enabling the simultaneous operation of 34 single qubit-gates using just three electro-optic modulators. This advancement paves the way for scalable quantum computing and ultra-secure communications networks, leveraging existing telecom infrastructure and offering improved noise resilience and parallelization capabilities.
[General technology] Hacktivist Group NullBulge Leaks 1.1TB of Disney Data; Atlassian’s Trello Hit by 15M Emails Data Breach; Infostealer Malware Rampant; Hadrian X Robot Begins US Construction Trials. NullBulge, a self-described hacktivist group, claims to have breached Disney's Slack account, releasing over 1.1TB of stolen data. The dump allegedly includes unreleased projects, raw images, code, and internal API links. While the full extent of the breach remains unconfirmed, some material appears legitimate. Disney has not yet commented on the incident. Meanwhile, a threat actor has released over 15 million email addresses associated with Atlassian’s Trello accounts on a hacking forum. The data was collected in January using an unsecured API that allowed querying public profile information. Atlassian has since secured the API to prevent unauthenticated access. The leaked data includes email addresses and public account information, posing risks for targeted phishing attacks and potential doxxing. Also, Infostealer malware is causing widespread data breaches, with over 10,000 new victims daily. This cybercriminal ecosystem involves various specialized roles, from malware developers to log resellers. Threat actors can easily access valuable data from Fortune 100 companies for as little as $10. With 45,758,943 infected devices detected over four years, organizations are urged to check for compromises and implement protective measures against this growing cybersecurity threat. And, the world's fastest brick-laying robot arrives in America for construction trials. The Hadrian X, a robotic truck with a 105-ft telescopic boom arm, has arrived in Florida from Australia for construction trials. Developed by FBR, the robot can stack 500 USA-format masonry blocks per hour. The machine uses quick-dry adhesive instead of mortar and can work 24/7. Following initial tests, FBR aims to become CRH Ventures' exclusive "Wall as a Service" provider in the US, potentially leading to the purchase of 300 Hadrian X units for large-scale community construction projects.
Moody’s Announces Participation in Project Guardian to Explore Asset Tokenization - Moody’s
Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) Introduces The First Standard for DeFi Protocols - Hacken
Honda, Mazda, Nissan Among 9 Companies Complete First Phase of Web3 Battery Passport MVP - Mobi
Introducing the Coalition for Secure AI (Amazon, Anthropic, Cisco, Nvidia, Google, IBM, OpenAI, Microsoft) - Oasis Open
Einstein Service Agent: Autonomous AI Agent for Chatbot Experiences - Salesforce
China deploys censors to create socialist AI - Financial Times
Quantum Industry Funding Gains Momentum In Q2 2024 - Quantum Insider
Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available - Google
AWS App Studio turns text into enterprise apps in minutes - VentureBeat
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By: The Rollup
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