South Korea firms Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their Chinese factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals. Reuters reports: "Uncertainties about South Korean semiconductor firms' operations and investments in China have been greatly eased; they will be able to calmly seek long-term global management strategies," said Choi Sang-mok, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs. The U.S. has already notified Samsung and SK Hynix of the decision, indicating that it is in effect, Choi said.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is updating its "validated end user" list, denoting which entities can receive exports of which technology, to allow Samsung and SK Hynix to keep supplying certain U.S. chipmaking tools to their China factories, the presidential office said. Once included in the list, there is no need to obtain permission for separate export cases. Samsung and SK Hynix, the world's largest and second-largest memory chipmakers, had invested billions of dollars in their chip production facilities in China and welcomed the move.

Amy Hawkins reports via The Guardian: A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China's "great firewall." The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on August 18. The notice said Ma had used "unauthorised channels" to connect to international networks to work for a Turkish company. The police confiscated the 1.058m yuan ($145,092) Ma had earned as a software developer between September 2019 and November 2022, describing it as "illegal income," as well as fining him 200 yuan ($27). Charlie Smith (a pseudonym), the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website that tracks internet censorship in China, said: "Even if this decision is overturned in court, a message has been sent and damage has been done. Is doing business outside of China now subject to penalties?"

China aims to grow the country's computing power by more than a third in less than three years, a move set to benefit local suppliers and boost technology self-reliance as US sanctions pressure domestic industry. From a report: The world's second-largest economy is targeting more than 300 exaflops of computing capacity across its tech sector by 2025 from 220 this year, according to a joint statement from several agencies including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The goal marks Beijing's latest attempt to construct digital infrastructure to spur a sluggish economy. China also plans to build an additional 20 smart computing centers in two years. Bigger optical networks and more advanced data storage will be installed in the years until 2025, the regulators said. The additional computational power will support manufacturing, education, finance, transportation, healthcare and energy, they added.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China — a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders...

RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence... The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V...

Executives from China's Huawei Technologies have embraced RISC-V as a pillar of that nation's progress in developing its own chips. But the United States and its allies also have jumped on the technology, with chip giant Qualcomm working with a group of European automotive firms on RISC-V chips and Alphabet's Google saying it will make Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system, work on RISC-V chips...

Jack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a Santa Clara, California-based startup using RISC-V, said potential U.S. government restrictions on American companies regarding RISC-V would be a "tremendous tragedy." "It would be like banning us from working on the internet," Kang said. "It would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation and companies and jobs that are being created."
One U.S. Representative said the Chinese Communist Party was "abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips.

"U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws."

Lawmakers in the United States last year passed bipartisan legislation intended to maintain US competitiveness with countries such as China by boosting funding for science and innovation. But concerns are mounting that the US Congress will fail to deliver on its promises. From a report: The money allotted to a handful of major US science agencies that had been targeted for a budget boost is likely to fall short of the legislation's goals by more than US$7 billion in 2024, according to a report. And overall funding for those agencies will continue to hover at a 25-year low.

"We're leaving scientific opportunities on the table," says Matt Hourihan, who led the analysis for the Federation of American Scientists, an advocacy group based in Washington DC. "If we drop this ball, others will be happy to pick it up." It was precisely this fear that drove members of Congress to come together to pass the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The legislation promised one of the largest increases in US science funding in a long time, totalling some $280 billion over five years. Much of the spending mandated by the bill was focused on semiconductor research and manufacturing -- areas in which other countries, particularly China, have dominated. Lawmakers also authorized investments in other science and innovation programmes, but these were not mandated, and need to be approved by Congress during an appropriations process each year.

That process has become increasingly contentious as political polarization in the United States has risen over the past few decades. Disputes about overall spending levels and funding for various social programmes have led to repeated delays in crafting the annual budget, at times forcing the government to shut down. This year is a prime example: Republicans, who control the US House of Representatives, blocked legislation that would have allowed the government to increase the federal debt limit and pay its bills, until they were able to secure an agreement with the Democrats in May to limit spending. And last month, a handful of extreme right-wing Republicans sought to close the government down as they pushed for further spending cuts.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Times: Belgium's intelligence service has been monitoring Alibaba's main logistics hub in Europe for espionage following suspicions Beijing has been exploiting its growing economic presence in the west. European governments have been increasing scrutiny of the alleged security and economic risks posed by Chinese companies, which has been part of a wider reassessment of the EU's traditional openness to trade with China. In specific reference to Alibaba's logistics arm at the cargo airport in Liege, Belgium's security services told the Financial Times they were working to detect "possible espionage and/or interference activities" carried out by Chinese entities "including Alibaba".

Alibaba, which denies any wrongdoing, signed an agreement with Belgium in 2018 to open the hub in Liege, Europe's fifth-largest cargo airport, ploughing 100 million euros of investment into the ailing economy of the French-speaking Walloon region. But almost two years on from the site being opened, the Belgian State Security Service (VSSE) has continued monitoring Alibaba's operations following intelligence assessments, said people familiar with the matter. One area of scrutiny includes the introduction of software systems that collate sensitive economic information. The security service said the presence of Alibaba "constitutes a point of attention for the VSSE" because of legislation forcing Chinese companies to share their data with Chinese authorities and intelligence services. "China has the intent and capacity to use this data for non-commercial purposes," the agency said.

Concerns about potential espionage at the site were first raised before the hub was built, including in the Belgian parliament. At the time China strongly denied the "unprovoked insinuations" over exaggerated "so-called security risks of Chinese companies." The VSSE's statement to the FT indicate its concerns over espionage still remain after the opening of the hub. [...] The main concern is that this platform, alongside a couple of other logistical platforms that the Chinese have been proposing to European countries, is giving them a lot of insights into supply chains and into eventual vulnerabilities," said Jonathan Holslag, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. According to a person familiar with Alibaba's relations to China's government, the logistics centers are expected to pass on information about local sentiment and report data about European trade and logistics to Beijing's authorities. "The site in Liege is the only European logistics center run by Alibaba's logistics spin-off Cainiao," reports the FT. The company is reportedly able to access data about merchants, products, transport details and flows. It may also be able to access information about final customers.

In a move to strengthen its chip supply chain, Japan announced it will provide up to $1.3 billion in additional subsidies for U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology's plant in Hiroshima Prefecture. The Japan Times reports: The move, which comes on top of the up to 46.5 billion yen aid announced earlier, adds to Japan's efforts to ensure a stable supply of chips at a time when rising tensions between the United States and China are increasingly posing a threat to its economic security. Micron has said it plans to invest up to 500 billion yen in Japan in the next few years and will become the first chipmaker to introduce extreme ultraviolet lithography machines -- state-of-the-art equipment for manufacturing advanced semiconductors -- in Japan. The company is slated to start mass production of next-generation 1-gamma dynamic random access memory chips in 2026.

Apple has started requiring new apps to show proof of a Chinese government licence before their release on its China App Store, joining local rivals years that had adopted the policy years earlier to meet tightening state regulations. From a report: Apple began last Friday requiring app developers to submit the "internet content provider (ICP) filing" when they publish new apps on its App Store, it said on its website for developers. An ICP filing is a longtime registration system, required for websites to operate legally in China, and most local app stores including those operated by Tencent and Huawei have adopted it since at least 2017.

To get an ICP filing licence, developers need to have a company in China or work with a local publisher, which has been an obstacle for a large number of foreign apps. Apple's loose ICP policy has allowed it to offer far more mobile apps than local app rivals and helped the U.S. tech giant boost its popularity in China, its third-largest market behind the Americas and Europe. The decision by Apple comes after China further tightened its oversight over mobile apps in August by releasing a new rule requiring all app stores and app developers to submit an "app filing" containing business details with the regulators. Chinese regulators last week released names of the first batch of mobile app stores that have completed app filings, but Apple's App Store was not among those on the list.

This week the UK's conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper published an interesting perspective from their world economy editor.

"Saudi and OPEC officials self-evidently do not believe their own claim that world oil demand will keep growing briskly for another generation as if electric vehicles had never been invented, and there was no such thing as the Paris Accord." OPEC had to slash output last October in order to shore up prices. It had to cut again in April. The Saudis then stunned traders with a unilateral cut of one million barrels a day (b/d) in June. All told, the OPEC-Russia cartel has had to take 2m b/d of production off the table at a high point in the economic cycle, after China's post-Covid reopening and at a time when the US economy has been running hot with a fiscal expansion roughly equal to Roosevelt's world war budget.

That 2m b/d figure happens to be more or less the amount of crude currently being displaced by EV sales worldwide, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Yet the mood was all defiance and plucky insouciance at the 24th World Petroleum Congress in Calgary this month... This skips over the awkward detail that EVs are already on track to reach 60pc of total car sales in the world's biggest car market within two years (not a misprint). The cartel is being hit from two sides. Petrol and diesel cars are becoming more efficient, gradually displacing 1.4bn vintage models disappearing into the scrap yard. BP says that alone will cut up to a tenth global oil demand by 2040. With a lag, EVs are now starting to take a material bite, with an S-curve trajectory likely to go parabolic this decade.

China's EVs sales hit 38pc this summer, even though subsidies have mostly been scrapped. This is far ahead of schedule under Beijing's New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan. China's Chebai think tank says the emerging consensus is that EV sales will hit 17m or 60pc of total Chinese share by 2025, rising to 90pc by 2030, assuming that the grid can keep up... Vietnam is a few years behind but with similar ambitions. Its EV start-up, VinFast Auto, became the world's third most valuable carmaker after it launched on Nasdaq last month, briefly worth as much as the German car industry before the share price came back down to earth...

OPEC's central premise has long been that the rise of a billion-strong middle class in emerging Asia will more than offset declining oil use in the OECD bloc. That notion is 'withering under scrutiny'... The International Energy Agency (IEA) says global oil demand will peak at 105.5m b/d in 2028 and then flatten for a few years before going into decline... The IEA pulls its punches. The Rocky Mountain Institute argues in its latest report — End of the ICE Age — that half of global car sales could be EVs by 2026, reaching 86pc later this decade.
The article closes by citing "the breathtaking pace of global electrification. The decline of oil in car and bus transport may be closer than almost anybody imagined. OPEC as we know it may be on the cusp of a death spiral."

Wednesday seven U.S. Republican candidates for President held their second debate before the 2024 primary — during which TikTok led to some surprisingly heated attacks against entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy:

Moderator: Mr. Ramaswamy, TikTok is banned on government-issed devices because of its ties to the Chinese government. Yet you joined TikTok at the dinner with boxer and influencer Jake Paul. Should the commander in chief be so easily persuaded by an influencer?

Vivek Ramaswamy: So the answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican party: we need to win elections. And part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are. So when I get into office, I've been very clear. Kids under the age of 16 should not be using addictive social media. We're only going to ever get to declaring independence from China, which I favor, if we actually win. So while the Democrats are running rampant reaching the next generation three-to-one, there's exactly one person in the Republican party — which talks a big game about reaching young people — and that's me.... [Scattered applause]
Donald Trump declined to participate in the debate. But his former vice president Mike Pence immediately interrupted to say that "TikTok is controlled by the Chinese communist party." Continuing criticisms he'd made in an earlier interview, Pence said that TikTok "compromises the privacy of Americans every day."

Ramaswamy responded "And that is why we will end it once we win this election."

This immediately drew a strong response from from South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (also a former US ambassador to the UN): Nikki Haley: This is infuriating, because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps —

Ramaswamy: Yes it is.

Haley: — that we could have. And once you've got — honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say. Because I can't believe that — here you've got a TikTok situation. What they're doing is these — 150 million people are on TikTok. That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your emails, they can get —

Ramaswamy: Let me just say —

Haley: — your text messages, they can get all of these things.

Ramaswamy: Hurling — this is important. This is very important for our party —

Haley: China knows exactly what they're doing.

Ramaswamy: This is very important for our party, and I'm going to say it —

Haley: And what we've seen is you've gone and you've helped China go make medicines in China, not America.

Ramaswamy: Excuse me, excuse me —

Haley: You're now wanting kids to go and get on this social media that's dangerous for all of us. You went and you were in business with the Chinese... We can't trust you. We can't trust you. We can't have TikTok in our kids' lives. We need to ban it. [Loud applause]

Moderator: You have 15 seconds, Mr. Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy: I think we would be better served as a Republican party if we're not sitting here hurling personal insults, and actually have a legitimate debate.

The Associated Press reports: The National Security Agency is starting an artificial intelligence security center -- a crucial mission as AI capabilities are increasingly acquired, developed and integrated into U.S. defense and intelligence systems, the agency's outgoing director announced Thursday. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone said the center would be incorporated into the NSA's Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, where it works with private industry and international partners to harden the U.S. defense-industrial base against threats from adversaries led by China and Russia.

Nakasone was asked about using AI to automate the analysis of threat vectors and red-flag alerts -- and he reminded the audience that U.S. intelligence and defense agencies already use AI. "AI helps us, But our decisions are made by humans. And that's an important distinction," Nakasone said. "We do see assistance from artificial intelligence. But at the end of the day, decisions will be made by humans and humans in the loop."

Nakasone said it would become "NSA's focal point for leveraging foreign intelligence insights, contributing to the development of best practices guidelines, principles, evaluation, methodology and risk frameworks" for both AI security and the goal of promoting the secure development and adoption of AI within "our national security systems and our defense industrial base." He said it would work closely with U.S. industry, national labs, academia and the Department of Defense as well as international partners.

Japan's Transport Safety Board on Thursday judged that a cargo ship that spilled 1,000 tons of fuel oil into a pristine marine environment off the coast of Mauritius in 2020 was travelling off course in search of a cell phone signal. From a report: The MV Wakashio was en route from Lianyungang, China to a Brazilian port when, on July 25 2020, it struck trouble near Blue Bay Marine Park, a popular snorkeling spot on the Indian Ocean nation Mauritius. The Japanese-owned vessel was sailing under a Panamanian flag of convenience, and captained by a Indian national. According to the report, two days before it ran aground, the captain changed the 100,000-plus ton ship's route to travel five nautical miles from the coast line instead of the originally planned 22 nautical miles. He ordered the course change without obtaining proper marine charts of the area and therefore did not know that waters in the area are less than 20 meters deep.

The ship subsequently hit a coral reef. "Reefs and obstacles were displayed near the place of occurrence," reads the 89-page Japan Transport Safety Board report in Japanese. "The body buckled due to being knocked to the seabed and broke into the skin near the fuel oil tank. As a result, about 1,000 tons of fuel oil loaded in the tank spilled out to sea," the document states. The report noted that the captain of the vessel changed the voyage plan for the purpose of coming within range of signal for his smartphone. It also noted the behavior was not an isolated incident and that safety awareness among the crew at large was lacking.

Slash_Account_Dot writes: I recently got my hands on an ordinary-looking iPhone-to-HDMI adapter that mimics Apple's branding and, when plugged in, runs a program that implores you to "Scan QR code for use." That QR code takes you to an ad-riddled website that asks you to download an app that asks for your location data, access to your photos and videos, runs a bizarre web browser, installs tracking cookies, takes "sensor data," and uses that data to target you with ads. The adapter's app also kindly informed me that it's sending all of my data to China.

The cord was discovered by friend of 404 Media John Bumstead, an electronics refurbisher and artist who buys devices in bulk from electronics recyclers. Bumstead tweeted about the cord and was kind enough to send me one so I could try it myself. Joseph has written about malicious lightning cables and USB cables made by hackers that can be used for keystroke logging and spying. While those malicious lightning cables are products marketed for spying, the HDMI adapter Bumstead has been found in the wild and is just another crappy knockoff cable sold on Amazon's increasingly difficult to navigate website. This HDMI adapter is designed to look exactly like Apple's same adapter.

Last month, India became the first country to put a spacecraft near the lunar south pole -- breaking China's record for the southernmost lunar landing. Now, the so-called father of China's lunar exploration program, Ouyang Ziyuan, said claims about the accomplishment are overstated. Time reports: Ziyuan [...] told the Chinese-language Science Times newspaper that the Chandrayaan-3 landing site, at 69 degrees south latitude, was nowhere close to the pole, defined as between 88.5 and 90 degrees. On Earth, 69 degrees south would be within the Antarctic Circle, but the lunar version of the circle is much closer to the pole.

"It's wrong!" he said of claims for an Indian polar landing. "The landing site of Chandrayaan-3 is not at the lunar south pole, not in the lunar south pole region, nor is it near the lunar south pole region." The Chandrayaan-3 was 619 kilometers (385 miles) distant from the polar region, Ouyang said.

The new iPhone 15 Pro may be too hot for some to handle. Literally. WSJ: Apple's priciest new iPhones are heating up in some scenarios, reaching high temperatures that make them difficult to touch at certain times, according to reviews, tests by The Wall Street Journal and social-media posts from buyers in China, the U.S. and Canada. Some iPhone 14 Pro owners have noticed similar hot temperatures over the past year. The high temperatures in Apple's newest 15 Pro models -- typically when charging and using intensive apps -- are prompting concerns that the company might need to address overheating in software updates that could impact performance. Premium iPhones have long been a critical cash cow for Apple as smartphone demand has slumped globally.

The company is hoping the iPhone 15, especially its Pro models, will return its business to growth. Thomas Galvin, a 23-year-old from Cleveland, says his iPhone 15 Pro Max has been "super hot" and that he is considering returning it. Apple customer support told him the heat was a result of setting up the new phone, but even a few days later, it is still "way worse than the iPhone 13 Pro Max," he said. Other users on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit have had similar complaints about the heat, with some mentioning that the phone had become so warm it is difficult to hold. The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern noted in her review last week that the iPhone 15 Pro Max hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit while charging. In further testing, the phone reached temperatures up to 112 degrees when simultaneously charging and doing processor-intensive tasks, such as gaming.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Hackers backed by the Chinese government are planting malware into routers that provides long-lasting and undetectable backdoor access to the networks of multinational companies in the US and Japan, governments in both countries said Wednesday. The hacking group, tracked under names including BlackTech, Palmerworm, Temp.Overboard, Circuit Panda, and Radio Panda, has been operating since at least 2010, a joint advisory published by government entities in the US and Japan reported. The group has a history of targeting public organizations and private companies in the US and East Asia. The threat actor is somehow gaining administrator credentials to network devices used by subsidiaries and using that control to install malicious firmware that can be triggered with "magic packets" to perform specific tasks.

The hackers then use control of those devices to infiltrate networks of companies that have trusted relationships with the breached subsidiaries. "Specifically, upon gaining an initial foothold into a target network and gaining administrator access to network edge devices, BlackTech cyber actors often modify the firmware to hide their activity across the edge devices to further maintain persistence in the network," officials wrote in Wednesday's advisory. "To extend their foothold across an organization, BlackTech actors target branch routers -- typically smaller appliances used at remote branch offices to connect to a corporate headquarters -- and then abuse the trusted relationship of the branch routers within the corporate network being targeted. BlackTech actors then use the compromised public-facing branch routers as part of their infrastructure for proxying traffic, blending in with corporate network traffic, and pivoting to other victims on the same corporate network."

Most of Wednesday's advisory referred to routers sold by Cisco. In an advisory of its own, Cisco said the threat actors are compromising the devices after acquiring administrative credentials and that there's no indication they are exploiting vulnerabilities. Cisco also said that the hacker's ability to install malicious firmware exists only for older company products. Newer ones are equipped with secure boot capabilities that prevent them from running unauthorized firmware, the company said. "It would be trivial for the BlackTech actors to modify values in their backdoors that would render specific signatures of this router backdoor obsolete," the advisory stated. "For more robust detection, network defenders should monitor network devices for unauthorized downloads of bootloaders and firmware images and reboots. Network defenders should also monitor for unusual traffic destined to the router, including SSH."

To detect and mitigate this threat, the advisory recommends administrators disable outbound connections on virtual teletype (VTY) lines, monitor inbound and outbound connections, block unauthorized outbound connections, restrict administration service access, upgrade to secure boot-capable devices, change compromised passwords, review network device logs, and monitor firmware changes for unauthorized alterations.

Ars Technica notes: "The advisory didn't provide any indicators of compromise that admins can use to determine if they have been targeted or infected."

China's cyberspace regulator released on Wednesday names of the first batch of mobile app stores that have completed filing business details to regulators, signalling it has begun to enforce new rules that expand its oversight of mobile apps. From a report: A total of 26 app stores operated by companies including Tencent, Huawei, Ant Group, Baidu, Xiaomi and Samsung have submitted filings to the authority, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). Apple's App Store is not among the app stores on the list. Beijing has been expanding oversight of smartphone and mobile app usage over the past several years. The country now requires mobile app stores and mobile apps to submit business details to the government. These rules are causing consternation in the industry that publishing apps in the world's second largest economy will become very difficult and many apps may need to be taken down.

According to Universe Today, China may utilize lunar caves as potential habitats for astronauts on the Moon, offering defense against hazards like radiation, meteorites, and temperature variations. From the report: Different teams of scientists from different countries and agencies have studied the idea of using lava tubes as shelter. At a recent conference in China, Zhang Chongfeng from the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology presented a study into the underground world of lava tubes. Chinese researchers did fieldwork in Chinese lava tubes to understand how to use them on the Moon. According to Zhang, there's enough similarity between lunar and Earthly lava tubes for one to be an analogue of the other. It starts with their two types of entrances, vertical and sloped. Both worlds have both types.

Most of what we've found on the Moon are vertical-opening tubes, but that may be because of our overhead view. The openings are called skylights, where the ceiling has collapsed and left a debris accumulation on the floor of the tube directly below it. Entering through these requires either flight or some type of vertical lift equipment. Sloped entrances make entry and exit much easier. It's possible that rovers could simply drive into them, though some debris would probably need to be cleared. According to Zhang, this is the preferred entrance that makes exploration easier. China is prioritizing lunar lava tubes at Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) and Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fecundity) for exploration.

China is planning a robotic system that can explore caves like the one in Mare Tranquillitatis. The primary probe will have either wheels or feet and will be built to adapt to challenging terrain and to overcome obstacles. It'll also have a scientific payload. Auxiliary vehicles can separate from the main probe to perform more reconnaissance and help with communications and "energy support." They could be diversified so the mission can meet different challenges. They might include multi-legged crawling probes, rolling probes, and even bouncing probes. These auxiliary vehicles would also have science instruments to study the lunar dust, radiation, and the presence of water ice in the tubes. China is also planning a flight-capable robot that could find its way through lava tubes autonomously using microwave and laser radars. "China's future plan, after successful exploration, is a crewed base," the report adds. "It would be a long-term underground research base in one of the lunar lava tubes, with a support center for energy and communication at the tube's entrance. The terrain would be landscaped, and the base would include both residential and research facilities inside the tube."

"[R]egardless of when they start, China seems committed to the idea. Ding Lieyun, a top scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told the China Science Daily that 'Eventually, building habitation beyond the Earth is essential not only for all humanity's quest for space exploration but also for China's strategic needs as a space power.'"

US intelligence agencies are getting their own ChatGPT-style tool to sift through an avalanche of public information for clues. From a report: The Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to roll out a feature akin to OpenAI's now-famous program that will use artificial intelligence to give analysts better access to open-source intelligence, according to agency officials. The CIA's Open-Source Enterprise division plans to provide intelligence agencies with its AI tool soon. "We've gone from newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going," Randy Nixon, director of the division, said in an interview. "We have to find the needles in the needle field."

It's part of a broader government campaign to harness the power of AI and compete with China, which is seeking to become the global leader in the field by 2030. That US push dovetails with the intelligence community's struggle to process the vast amounts of data that's now publicly available, amid criticism that it's been slow to exploit that source. The CIA's AI tool will allow users to see the original source of the information that they're viewing, Nixon said. He said that a chat feature is a logical part of getting intelligence distributed quicker.

The United States Space Force reportedly discussed setting up a hotline with China to prevent crises in space, according to Reuters, citing U.S. commander General Chance Saltzman. From the report: The chief of space operations said a direct line of communication between the Space Force and its Chinese counterpart would be valuable in de-escalating tensions but that the U.S. had not yet engaged with China to establish one. "What we have talked about on the U.S. side at least is opening up a line of communication to make sure that if there is a crisis, we know who we can contact," Saltzman said, adding that it would be up to President Joe Biden and the State Department to take the lead on such discussions. The U.S. Space Force, founded in 2019, also does not have a direct line of communication with its Russian counterpart.