Lifeboat Foundation

Saudi Arabian mining company Ma’aden, together with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Innovation Ventures Fund, are investing $6 million USD into Lithium Infinity (Lihytech). The KAUST startup’s battery-grade lithium will be a key component in driving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to developing the entire value chain of electric vehicles (EVs).

Lihytech has patented a membrane-based lithium extraction technology developed by Professor Zhiping Lai at KAUST. The innovative technology can extract the alkali metal from sources such as seawater, brine, red mud and more. Based on KAUST research, the startup was funded through the KAUST Near Term Grand Challenge, a research translation program, and the technology is being developed on the campus.

This investment will take the technology from lab to commercial pilot scale. Ma’aden is leading the investment with $4 million and KAUST Innovation Ventures is investing $2 million. The University’s venture capital arm, KAUST Innovation Ventures, supports deep tech startups that look to offer solutions to pressing scientific and technological challenges, such as lithium extraction. Lihytech will use the infusion of capital to build a pilot facility at KAUST to extract lithium from the Red Sea and other in-Kingdom resources.

Proto is betting that companies will view their 7-foot-tall holographic projection boxes as an alternative for in-person meetings. At least a half-dozen startups and giants like Google and Microsoft already are.

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Last month, the Federal Reserve rejected crypto bank Custodia’s application to join its ranks, casting doubt over whether the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will give final approval to crypto companies Protego and Paxos’ applications for national trust bank charters.

“The U.S. government is using the banking sector to organize a sophisticated, widespread crackdown against the crypto industry,” Carter wrote.

“And the administration’s efforts are no secret: they’re expressed plainly in memos, regulatory guidance, and blog posts. However, the breadth of this plan—spanning virtually every financial regulator—as well as its highly coordinated nature, has even the most steely-eyed crypto veterans nervous that crypto businesses might end up completely unbanked, stablecoins may be stranded and unable to manage flows in and out of crypto, and exchanges might be shut off from the banking system entirely.”

(https://www.timothywittig.com/) is a conservationist, professor, and former defense intelligence analyst. He is a research fellow at Oxford University (Oxford Martin School), an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, and has served as Head of Intelligence for both the Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife Transport and Financial Taskforces (https://unitedforwildlife.org/), and the wildlife investigations charity Focused Conservation.

Dr. Wittig has lived in 8 countries on 3 continents and worked in nearly 50 different countries. His professional background is in research & development and applied sciences, intelligence-led targeting of illicit financial networks, and African and global security.

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Turkey’s stock exchange suspended trading for five days and canceled all trades executed on Wednesday, following a selloff that erased billions of dollars from the value of its main equities gauge after two devastating earthquakes.

Yahoo Finance Live anchor Dave Briggs breaks down legal arguments for potential FTX lawsuits.
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Researchers from the University of Sussex and Universal Quantum have demonstrated for the first time that quantum bits (qubits) can directly transfer between quantum computer microchips and demonstrated this with record-breaking speed and accuracy. This breakthrough resolves a major challenge in building quantum computers large and powerful enough to tackle complex problems that are of critical importance to society.

Today, quantum computers operate on the 100-qubit scale. Experts anticipate millions of qubits are required to solve important problems that are out of reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers. There is a global quantum race to develop quantum computers that can help in many important societal challenges from drug discovery to making fertilizer production more energy efficient and solving important problems in nearly every industry, ranging from aeronautics to the financial sector.

In the research paper, published today in Nature Communications, the scientists demonstrate how they have used a new and powerful technique, which they dub “UQ Connect,” to use electric field links to enable qubits to move from one quantum computing microchip module to another with unprecedented speed and precision. This allows chips to slot together like a jigsaw puzzle to make a more powerful quantum computer.

For artificial intelligence, 2022 was a year of breakthroughs. Image generation models such as DALL-E, MidJourney and StableDiffusion came in early in the year, garnering much attention, and ChatGPT went viral near the end.

Riding on the euphoria generated by these technological developments, about $49 billion in venture capital was invested in AI in 2022 — 40% more than a year earlier, per CB Insights.

Yet, there has been little conversation about how AI will play a growing role in real estate, a more than $50 trillion asset class, and one of the key drivers of the global economy. We believe this represents a significant opportunity for real estate tech entrepreneurs.

Dubai’s crypto regulator plans to quadruple its headcount over the next few months to handle hundreds of license applications after drawing up new rules to attract industry players to the Middle Eastern financial hub.