Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is set for the inaugural launch of its new space rocket on Monday in a development that could add more fuel to the billionaire space race.
The New Glenn rocket is due to blast off from Cape Canaveral – the result of a multi-billion dollar, decade-long effort that could set the stage for Amazon’s satellite constellation venture and dent Elon Musk’s market share.
Mr Musk’s SpaceX has dominated the scene for many years but both Mr Bezos and Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson have designs on outer space… and the wealth tied up in its exploration.
New Glenn on the launch pad in December. Pic: Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Mr Bezos said ahead of his journey to the edge of space in 2021.
He founded the Blue Origin venture with the aim of having “millions of people working and living in space”.
For years it has launched – and landed – its reusable New Shepard rocket to and from the brim of Earth’s atmosphere, but has never sent anything into orbit. That could all change on Monday.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and Amazon. Pic: Reuters
Blue Origin will be hoping its New Glenn rocket will be able to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the world’s most active rocket.
Compared to Mr Musk’s Falcon 9, the New Glenn is about twice as powerful and its payload bay diameter is two times larger in order to fit bigger batches of satellites.
The upcoming launch is also a key certification flight required by the US Space Force before New Glenn can launch national security payloads as part of multi-billion dollar government tenders Blue Origin hopes to win.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off in October 2024. Pic: Reuters
Elon Musk and SpaceX
“I want to die on Mars – just not on impact,” Elon Musk once quipped.
The Donald Trump ally, who is frequently pictured wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt, has enjoyed relative dominance of the private space industry through his company SpaceX.
Back in 2016, Mr Musk outlined his vision of building a colony on Mars “in our lifetimes” – with the first rocket propelling humans to the Red Planet by 2025, though this deadline does not appear likely to be met.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump speak at a SpaceX launch in 2020. Pic: Reuters
For many years the company used an image of the Martian surface being terraformed (turned Earth-like) in its promotional material. However, a NASA-sponsored study published in 2018 dismissed these plans as impossible with the technology available then.
SpaceX missions have included both US government contracts and launching the company’s Starlink satellite internet network.
And while Mr Bezos’ New Glenn rocket is much more powerful than the successful Falcon 9, SpaceX’s next-generation Starship, a fully reusable rocket system currently in development, would be more powerful still.
Mr Musk sees Starship as crucial to expanding Starlink’s footprint in orbit. Its next test flight is expected later this month and will involve deploying mock satellites.
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Sir Richard Branson. Pic: Reuters
Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic
Also seeking a stake in the upper atmosphere is Virgin founder Sir Richard, whose Virgin Galactic effort took its first tourists to the edge of space in 2023.
The crew took the passengers about 55 miles (88km) above Earth where they experienced zero gravity during the flight which lasted just over an hour.
“My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars,” the British billionaire once said.
The company is currently taking a pause from flights as it develops new space vehicles, Forbes reported in October last year.
Its new fleet of Delta vehicles are scheduled to resume commercial spaceflight by 2026.
The Duchess of Sussex has delayed the release of her new Netflix series due to the devastation caused by the wildfires in LA, the streaming platform has announced.
Meghan’s eight-part series, With Love, will premiere on 4 March instead of 15 January.
“I’m thankful to my partners at Netflix for supporting me in delaying the launch, as we focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires in my home state of California,” Meghan said in a statement to Tudum, the official companion site to Netflix.
Harry and Meghan comforted volunteers and handed out food to evacuees during a visit to Pasadena on Friday, where they met with the city’s mayor Victor Gordo and emergency workers tackling the Eaton Fire.
Prince Harry and Meghan were seen comforting residents on Friday
Footage showed the duchess, wearing a blue “LA” baseball cap, and the prince hugging and consoling people who had fled to the Pasadena Convention Center.
They were also seen speaking Doug Goodwin, whose home was destroyed in the wildfires, and also to Jose Andres, founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK) which has been helping feed the public and emergency crews.
Prince Harry and Meghan spoke to Doug Goodwin (centre right), whose home was destroyed and Pasadena mayor Victor Gordo (right) in Altadena, California. Pic: AP
A description of the Netflix series on Tudum’s website said: “Produced by Meghan, ‘With Love, Meghan’ blends practical how-to’s and candid conversation with friends, new and old.
“Meghan shares personal tips and tricks, embracing playfulness over perfection, and highlights how easy it can be to create beauty, even in the unexpected.
“She and her guests roll up their sleeves in the kitchen, the garden, and beyond, and invite you to do the same.”
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The royals live in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, around 90 miles from Los Angeles.
They are understood to have donated supplies, including clothing and children’s items, to people affected by the disaster.
They released a statement on Thursday urging people to help those affected by the wildfires and to open their homes to those evacuated.
Technology
Britain seeks to build homegrown rival to OpenAI in bid to become world leader in artificial intelligence
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media interview while attending the 79th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, U.S. September 25, 2024.
Leon Neal | Via Reuters
LONDON — The U.K is looking to build a homegrown challenger to OpenAI and drastically increase national computing infrastructure, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government sets its sights on becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence.
Starmer is set to visit Bristol, England, on Monday to announce the pledge, which follows work done by British tech investor Matt Clifford to establish an “AI Opportunities Action Plan.” The plan aims to help the U.K. take advantage of the potential of AI.
The government is primarily seeking to expand data center capacity across the U.K. to boost developers of powerful AI models which rely on high-performance computing equipment hosted in remote locations to train and run their systems.
A target of increasing “sovereign,” or public sector, compute capacity in the U.K. by twentyfold by 2030 has been set. As part of that pledge, the government will begin opening access to the AI Research Resource, an initiative aimed at bolstering U.K. computing infrastructure.
Starmer’s administration last year canceled £1.3 billion of taxpayer-funded spending commitments towards two significant computing initiatives in order to prioritize other fiscal plans. The projects, an AI Research Resource and a next-generation “exascale” supercomputer, were pledges were made under Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak.
Sovereign AI has become a hot topic for policymakers, particularly in Europe. The term refers to the idea that technologies critical to economic growth and national security should be built and developed in the countries people are adopting them in.
To further bolster Britain’s computing infrastructure, the government also committed to setting up several AI “growth zones,” where rules on planning permission will be relaxed in certain places to allow for the creation of new data centers.
Meanwhile, an “AI Energy Council” formed of industry leaders from both energy and AI will be set up to explore the role of renewable and low-carbon sources of energy, like nuclear.
Building a challenger to OpenAI
The last major initiative the U.K. government proposed was to create homegrown AI “champions” of a similar scale to American tech giants responsible for the foundational AI models that power today’s generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Britain plans to use the AI growth zones and a newly established National Data Library to connect public institutions — such as universities — to enhance the country’s ability to create “sovereign” AI models which aren’t reliant on Silicon Valley.
It’s worth highlighting that the U.K. faces serious challenges in its bid to create an effective OpenAI alternative. For one, several entrepreneurs in the country have bemoaned funding challenges that make it difficult for startups in the country to raise the kind of cash available to AI success stories.
Many U.K. founders and venture capitalists have called for the country’s pension funds to allocate a greater portion of their portfolios toward riskier, growth-focused startups — a reform the government has committed to pushing previously.
“In the U.K., there’s $7 trillion in this pocket,” Magnus Grimeland, CEO and founder of venture capital firm Antler, told CNBC in an interview last year. “Imagine if you take just 5% of that and allocate it to innovation — you solve the problem.”
U.K. tech leaders have nevertheless generally praised the government’s AI action plan. Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s U.K. boss, told CNBC the plan is a “forward-thinking strategy,” adding she’s encouraged by the government’s “bold vision for AI and emphasis on transparency, safety and collaboration.”
Chintan Patel, Cisco’s chief technology officer in the U.K., said he’s “encouraged” by the action plan. “Having a clearly defined roadmap is critical for the UK to achieve its ambition to become an AI superpower and a leading destination for AI investment,” he said.
Britain doesn’t yet have formal regulations for AI. Starmer’s government has previously said it plans to draw up legislation for AI — but details remain thin.
Last month, the government announced a consultation on measures to regulate the use of copyrighted content to train AI models.
More generally, the U.K. is pitching a differentiated regulatory regime from the EU following Brexit as a positive factor — meaning, it can introduce regulatory oversight for AI but in a way that’s less strict than the EU, which has taken a more hard-line approach to regulating the technology with its AI Act.
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