Hello. Welcome to Computerworld’s 2-minute technical briefing. I’m your host, Arnold Davis, reporting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Here are the top IT stories you need to know on Wednesday, February 4th.
First reported by Computerworld, the US Department of Energy has rewritten nuclear safety and security rules to speed up small modular nuclear reactors to meet the power demands of AI.
The report, published by NPR, said it had obtained copies of more than a dozen new orders that would significantly reduce hundreds of pages of requirements for ensuring the safety of nuclear reactors. The report also says environmental protections have been relaxed, standards for accident investigation have been raised and ALARA’s radiation standards have been removed.
Microsoft has launched Maia 200, its second generation AI inference chip for Azure, from NetworkWorld. AI Silicon is designed for heterogeneous AI infrastructures in multiple environments and was developed specifically for inference with large-scale inference models. Microsoft says it’s faster and 30% more cost-effective than Amazon Trainium3 and Google TPU v7.
It is deployed to Azure US Central and a preview SDK is available. France also plans to phase out U.S. video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams within government agencies and replace them with its own platform called Vizio, according to an article in Computerworld.
The goal is to increase security and protect the confidentiality of public communications by reducing dependence on non-European solutions. Vizio began piloting last year and has now been rolled out to approximately 200,000 civil servants.
The authorities estimate that for every 100,000 users who switch, there will be annual licensing savings of around €1 million. For more enterprise technology news, visit Computerworld, CIO, NetworkWorld, and CSO Online. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the TechTalk YouTube channel.
