🕸️ China's 300MW gas turbine, xAI expands world’s largest AI supercomputer, Spider-Man slinging gets real

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A heavy-duty gas turbine has passed a key ignition test in China. Set to generate power, the 300-megawatt machine is the first heavy-duty gas turbine to be domestically built in China.

The turbine is also used to power warships. The ignition test is claimed to be a significant milestone for China. When it began the project eight years ago, the Asian giant was reportedly 30 years behind the West in this technology. Dive deeper into this Must-Read.

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⚡️ China’s massive 300MW gas turbine could power warships, generate electricity

Jin Zhuanglong, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, stated that the breakthrough follows over eight years of intensive research and development.

He underlined that this successful ignition is another milestone following the rollout of the first prototype in February, officially advancing the program into full machine testing and validation.

This 300-megawatt F-class heavy-duty gas turbine consists of five major systems and over 50,000 components with the highest power output and technical grade in China. It will serve as an important force driving the development of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry, reported China Daily.

🖥️ Elon Musk’s xAI expands Colossus, the world’s largest AI supercomputer

On October 4, 2024, the Greater Memphis Chamber approved the expansion of xAI’s AI training facility and supercomputer, Colossus. Launched just a month prior, Colossus quickly gained recognition as the world’s largest GPU supercomputer, initially featuring 100,000 Nvidia GPUs.

Led by Elon Musk, xAI aims to double Colossus’s capacity to 200,000 GPUs, including 50,000 advanced H200s. This ambitious growth, occurring merely 122 days after the facility’s initial announcement on June 5, showcases the rapid pace and scale typical of Musk’s ventures.

Built in Memphis, Tennessee, in just four months, Colossus utilizes Nvidia’s H100 GPUs, offering up to nine times the speed of the previous A100 models, with each H100 GPU delivering up to 2,000 teraflops of performance. The initial setup integrates 100,000 H100 GPUs, with plans to add 50,000 more H100s alongside 50,000 new H200 GPUs.

🕸️ Spider-Man slinging gets real: Lab’s web silk fiber shooter lifts 80x its own weight

Researchers at Tufts University have taken inspiration from the world of comic books and nature to create a groundbreaking web-slinging technology. This innovative system allows a fluid material to be shot from a needle.

The material solidifies into a string that can adhere to and lift objects, much like the web-slinging abilities of Spider-Man.

The sticky fibers are produced at the Tufts University Silklab, using silk from moth cocoons. These cocoons are boiled in a solution and broken down into proteins known as fibroin. This silk fibroin solution can be extruded through narrow needles to create a stream that solidifies into a fiber when it comes into contact with air, especially with the right additives.

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