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--FILE--Chinese workers check tungsten ore at a factory
Why is the Pentagon funding a Canadian tungsten mine?
Most Americans are likely unaware that the Department of Defense has morphed into a major mining investor but it is becoming a significant backer of Canada’s critical minerals sector. Last Friday, the DoD announced it is investing $15.5 million in a feasibility study at a tungsten mine in eastern Yukon owned by Fireweed Metals. The Canadian government is a partner in the project, upgrading roads and transmission lines.
The investment falls under the Defence Production Act, which is intended to streamline critical defense supply chains. Under the DPA, Canada is considered a domestic source of resources for the US, hence the DoD cash. This is the sixth such investment in a Canadian company and comes at a time when concerns are growing about stockpiles of minerals used in aerospace components, munitions and ground-vehicle armour.
China has dominated the sector, extracting 60 % of rare earth elements and processing 90% of global supply. Prices for many minerals have tanked because of Chinese oversupply, leaving North American companies struggling to attract capital. Canada’s production of minerals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc has declined as a result.
The US and Canada have a new strategy: partner up to address unfair competition and deliberate over-production in the sector. The Fireweed deal is unlikely to be the last.
Hard Numbers: NVIDIA rising, the magician’s assistant, indefensible budget lags, Make PDFs sexy again
3: NVIDIA is now the third-most valuable company in the U.S. after reporting rosy financial returns. The AI-focused chipmaker’s market capitalization is now $1.812 trillion, surpassing Google parent company Alphabet, and trailing only Microsoft and Apple. How things change: just one year ago, NVIDIA’s market cap was a paltry $580 billion.
1: A New Orleans magician says he was paid $150 by a Democratic operative supporting presidential longshot Dean Philipps to create the fake Joe Biden robocall sent to New Hampshire voters in January. Creating the fake audio took him 20 minutes and cost $1, the magician said. The incident sparked national outrage, including an investigation by the New Hampshire attorney general and the Federal Communications Commission banning unsolicited AI-generated robocalls.
1.8 billion: The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking $1.8 billion in the federal budget solely for AI. But with congressional budget talks still ongoing, Craig Martell, the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, said his office needs to make tough decisions about what projects to prioritize. AI-related defense projects range from the simple—such as making administrative tasks more efficient—to the complex, like building new advanced weapons systems.
400 billion: Adobe has lots of cutting-edge products: Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects; but there’s nothing sexy about PDFs. On paid versions of Acrobat and Reader, which people use to view 400 billion PDFs each year, an AI chatbot will soon summarize and search your document. Adobe wants users to have a “conversation” with their PDFs—summaries sound nice, but does anyone want a full dialogue?