Graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips on which most AI models run, are power-hungry beasts. As GPUs are increasingly incorporated into data centers, artificial intelligence will increase electricity demand by 160% by 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates.

This trend just isn’t sustainable, says Vishal Sarin, an analog circuit and memory designer. After greater than a decade within the chip industry, Sarin launched Sagence AI (previously called Analog reasoning) to design energy-efficient alternatives to GPUs.

“Applications that could make practical AI computing truly ubiquitous are limited because data-processing devices and systems cannot achieve the required performance,” Sarin said. “Our mission is to break through the constraints of efficiency and economics in an environmentally friendly way.”

Sagence develops chips and systems to run AI models, in addition to software to program those chips. While there isn’t a shortage of corporations creating custom AI hardware, Sagence is somewhat unique in that its chips are analog, not digital.

Most chips, including graphics processors, store information digitally as binary strings of zeros and ones. In contrast, analog chips can represent data using a variety of various values.

Analog chips usually are not a brand new concept. Their heyday was from 1935 to 1980, helping, amongst other things, to model the North American electrical grid. However, the shortcomings of digital chips make analog solutions attractive again.

First, digital chips to require a whole lot of components to perform certain calculations that analog circuits can perform with just a number of modules. Digital chips typically need to transfer data forwards and backwards from memory to processors, which causes bottlenecks.

“All of the leading legacy AI silicon vendors use this old architectural approach, which is blocking progress in AI implementation,” Sarin said.

Analog chips like Sagence, that are “in-memory” chips, don’t transfer data from memory to processors, potentially allowing them to perform tasks faster. And by having the ability to use a variety of values ​​to store data, analog chips can provide higher data density than their digital counterparts.

However, analog technology has its drawbacks. For example, achieving high precision with analog chips will be harder because they require more precise manufacturing. They are also normally harder to program.

However, Sarin believes Sagence’s chips complement, not replace, digital chips, for instance to speed up specialized applications in servers and mobile devices.

“Sagence products are designed to eliminate the power, cost and latency issues inherent to GPU hardware while delivering high performance for AI applications,” he said.

Sagence, which plans to bring its chips to market in 2025, is working with “multiple” customers because it looks to compete with other analog AI chip corporations akin to EnCharge and Mythic, Sarin said. “We are now packaging our core technology into system-level products and making sure we fit into existing infrastructure and deployment scenarios,” he added.

Sagence has secured investments from backers including Vinod Khosla, TDK Ventures, Cambium Capital, Blue Ivy Ventures, Aramco Ventures and New Science Ventures, raising a complete of $58 million within the six years since founding.

Now the startup plans to raise capital again to expand its 75-person team.

“Our cost structure is favorable because we do not seek to achieve performance goals by migrating to the latest (manufacturing processes) of our chips,” Sarin said. “This is an important factor for us.”

The timing may be in Sagence’s favor. For Crunch BaseFunding for semiconductor startups appears to be returning after a weak 2023. From January to July, VC-backed chip startups raised nearly $5.3 billion — significantly greater than last yr, when such corporations reported a complete of slightly below $8.8 billion.

In this environment, chip production is an expensive proposition, made even harder by international sanctions and tariffs promised by the incoming Trump administration. Acquiring customers who’re “stuck” in ecosystems like Nvidia is one other uphill climb. Last yr, AI chipmaker Graphcore, which raised nearly $700 million and was once valued at nearly $3 billion, filed for bankruptcy after struggling to gain a powerful foothold out there.

To have any probability of success, Sagence will need to prove that its chips actually devour significantly less power and supply higher performance than alternatives, and that it may well raise enough enterprise capital funding to have the ability to produce at scale.

As many users proceed to maneuver away from X, formerly known as Twitter, many are starting to question what this mass departure might mean for the future of Black Twitter.

In the two years since Elon Musk took ownership of the social media platform, his involvement with the Trump campaign and modifications to the app have prompted many users to go away X, in line with social media analytics tool Likeweb. quoted By . The day after the election, greater than 115,000 accounts were deactivated, marking the highest single-day drop since Musk took over the platform. With Black users amongst the most engaged and influential audiences on social media, the move away from the app has raised concerns that “Black Twitter” could change into a thing of the past as more users migrate to alternative text platforms.

“I don’t think Black Twitter will exist in the next few years,” said Jonathan Johnson, a 29-year-old behavioral therapist from Houston.

“Black Twitter is one of the most important forms of community that makes the platform what it is,” said Ashon Crawley, a professor of religious studies and African American and African American studies at the University of Virginia. “Social media is important just for the social aspect, and if you don’t have it, people won’t use” the app.

Thousands of former X users who previously actively used Twitter cite a wave of bots, harassment and biased promoting amid a polarizing presidential election as reasons for leaving. Many Black users who’ve been considering leaving the platform since 2022 say the current wave of departures is more final.

The move away from X is in line with the platform’s recent terms of service policy, effective Friday, which stipulates that user posts might be used to coach artificial intelligence. While users previously had the choice to opt out of AI machine learning, the updated policy now requires opt-in by simply maintaining an X account.

“I have no interest in my content feeding that monster,” Crawley, 44, said, noting how the app would suffer without the involvement of Black users.

As Black Twitter migrates, including celebrities like Gabrielle Union and Don Lemon, many users are turning to platforms like Bluesky, Meta-owned Threads or the Black-owned social media site Spill. According to Bluesky, multiple million people joined the platform last week, increasing its user base to greater than 15 million. By comparisonat the starting of 2024, company X had roughly 429 million accounts worldwide.

Although Bluesky doesn’t collect data on user race, the platform welcomes the mass influx of black users with open arms.

“In many ways, Black Twitter has been one of the cornerstones of Twitter, and we look forward to welcoming this community to Bluesky,” said Bluesky spokeswoman Emily Liu.

Academic research, opinion polls, Platform X data and reports about the platform’s cooperation with the Trump campaign suggest that Musk has turned the site right into a Republican media center and an echo chamber for amplifying right-wing ideologies.

“I see his tweets principally spreading a bunch of misinformation and straight up lies. I can see it, but I am unable to see the people I follow,” said Joella Still, a 37-year-old education consultant in Los Angeles.

He continues to cite Musk’s support for Donald Trump and believes that he used the X platform and that he “used Twitter to help” Trump win the 2024 election.

“I just can’t contribute to something that is part of my downfall,” she added.

Black users of Bluesky are actively constructing a supportive community on the platform, like Rudy Fraser, who created Blacksky, a curated collection of Black-centric channels designed to filter racism and misogyny. The recent space provides members with a secure and inclusive experience.

Whether they use Threads, Spill, or other platforms, Black Twitter members will work to seek out a brand new home for his or her community.

“Those of us who make up Black Twitter are just going to go to different social media platforms and recreate good bits of what we had,” Johnson said.

Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), will leave the government agency after greater than three years at its helm.

Both Easterly and the agency’s deputy director Nitin Natarajan will leave CISA on January 20 with the start of the latest Trump administration, based on NextGov first reported departures, citing sources.

CISA spokesman Antonio Soliz confirmed the executives’ departure in an email to TechCrunch. “All nominees in the Biden administration will vacate their positions by the time the new administration takes office at noon on January 20,” Soliz said.

Easterly has since turn out to be the second director to guide CISA founding the agency in 2018. Shortly after taking office, the Biden administration appointed Easterly to move the agency’s cybersecurity agency in April 2021, filling an eight-month emptiness left when then-President Trump fired the agency’s first director, Chris Krebs, for publicly refuting Trump’s false claims that the strategy for 2020 The US elections were rigged.

During Easterly’s time at CISA, the cybersecurity agency pioneered latest initiatives which goals to encourage device manufacturers to secure their products and technologies by defaultand continues to teach and inform the broader industry about cybersecurity threats while helping defend the U.S. government against Russian-backed hacking attacks and Chinese hacking groups targeting U.S. critical infrastructure.

CISA also played a key role in supporting the Ukrainian government against a full-scale and large-scale invasion by Russian forces, including cyberattacks, in 2022.

Prior to joining CISA, Easterly was head of cybersecurity at Morgan Stanley and previously held several senior positions with the U.S. Army, National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber ​​Command.

The Trump administration’s transition team has not yet said who it will select, if anyone, to move CISA on January 20.