If GPS goes dark, Mesa Quantum has a backup plan

Published

8 months ago

September 5, 2024

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Flight delays in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Truckers led down unsafe routes in Richmond, Vermont. And power grid disruptions throughout Ukraine. These troubles stem from a global communication system highly reliant on GPS satellites and the signals they transmit for essential functions.

To ensure that U.S. infrastructure won’t fall apart — even if the nation’s GPS satellites are disrupted by weather, warfare or age — a startup in Boulder, Colorado called Mesa Quantum is developing chip-sized alternative technology.

Specifically, Mesa Quantum is building “chip-scale atomic clocks” and other miniaturized quantum sensors, which can measure and detect changes in the environment around a device to signal where it is in the world, where it needs to go and to keep it in sync with other systems.

These sensors can ensure clear and steady video calls regardless of the users’ location, or enable robots, underwater drones and autonomous vehicles to maneuver deftly in dense populations or around obstacles where GPS signals are weak or unavailable.

Cofounded by Mesa Quantum CEO Sristy Agrawal and CTO Wale Lawal in 2023, the company has won a $1.9 million Space Force grant to demonstrate its alternative to GPS technology in military and civilian applications.

The company has also raised about $3.7 million in a seed stage round of funding led by J2 Ventures, the Boston-based health and defense tech fund, alongside hardware investors SOSV.

J2 Ventures cofounder and managing partner, Alex Harstrick, told CNBC his fund backed Mesa Quantum in part because of the founders’ extraordinary technical background.

Agrawal recently attained a doctorate from the University of Colorado, in an elite program affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her research has focused on quantum information, computing and gravity.

Agrawal told CNBC that the lab below her office at the university is home to the world’s most precise clock. “Working here and interacting with all these different groups led me to appreciate what impact these technologies could have for real, not just theoretically in the future,” she said.

Her cofounder, Lawal, is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, attained his PhD at Rice University in materials science and nano-engineering, and an MBA at Harvard.

Before taking the entrepreneurial plunge, he spent years in military research organizations, developing systems for use in “GPS contested environments” such as precision-guided missiles, swarm drone technology, and the magnetic navigation systems used to guide military aircraft.

Lawal explained that military aircraft and other vehicles cannot afford to have their systems disrupted and jammed. Any disruptions could lead to “catastrophic events for warfighters” in the air and on the ground. “If unmanned aircraft lose GPS signals, which they rely on to surveil the environment and provide intelligence information to troops down range, the troops cannot complete critical missions like a search and rescue.”

Many of the GPS satellites operated by the U.S. are now aging beyond their intended lifespans.

When they met, the scientific duo quickly agreed on the burgeoning need for mass-manufacturable, and chip-scale, technology to alleviate the risks of GPS-related failures in military and commercial systems.

Harstrick said his fund hopes that Mesa Quantum will have its first demonstration of mass scale “atomic clocks” (quantum timing sensors) validated by a top-tier semiconductor manufacturing partner” in the next few years.

He’s also guessing Mesa Quantum’s sensor tech will be in demand among companies that build or operate their own data centers.

Lawal explained, “Data centers use GPS to synchronize their networks today, so that they can accurately exchange communications or share data across the cloud. Any form of disruption to that network synchronization can cause crashes — whether that’s to a financial system, a hospital system, or a social network.”

Technology to help data centers safeguard against such crashes could help them prevent data loss and improve cybersecurity, the CTO said.

No matter which private sector players eventually embrace the startup’s quantum sensors, CEO Sristy Agrawal said the U.S. government is likely to be among Mesa Quantum’s biggest early customers. “The U.S. government has established major initiatives to spur innovation in this area and is seeking to purchase a million quantum sensors each year — if they can simply be mass-produced,” she explained.

With its grant funding and seed round in place, Agrawal said, Mesa Quantum will look to grow its team in Boulder, especially hiring atomic molecular and optical physicists, engineers and manufacturing experts this year.

The longer-term vision, she said, is to “bring a suite of quantum sensors to the market that could do everything GPS-based systems are capable of today — without all of the risks and vulnerabilities.”

Technology

Super Micro shares dive after server maker issues weak preliminary financials

Published

2 hours ago

April 29, 2025

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Super Micro shares dive after server maker issues weak preliminary financials

Super Micro Computer CEO Charles Liang at the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 5, 2024.

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Super Micro shares fell as much as 19% on Tuesday after the server maker announced preliminary results for the fiscal third quarter that were lower than analysts had projected.

Here’s how the company’s preliminary numbers compare with the LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: 29 to 31 cents per share adjusted vs. 54 cents expected
Revenue: $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion vs. $5.50 billion expected

Super Micro lowered the ranges from earlier guidance for the quarter, which ended on March 31, according to a statement. The new revenue range implies 18% growth year over year. That’s a large step down from the 200% growth Super Micro delivered a year ago.

“During Q3 some delayed customer platform decisions moved sales into Q4,” the company said in the statement. In addition, the company faced higher inventories from older products, as well as expedite fees. The two factors narrowed Super Micro’s preliminary gross margin by 220 points from the prior quarter.

Shares of server competitor Dell were down almost 5% in after-hours trading, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise was down about 2%. Nvidia shares also fell roughly 2%.

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Super Micro shares over the past year.

The pre-announcement is the latest blow for Super Micro, which has been mired in controversy for the past year due to delayed financial filings and troubling reports from short sellers. In February, the company filed its financials for its fiscal 2024 year and the first two quarters of fiscal 2025 just in time to meet Nasdaq’s deadline to stay listed. Last year, after Super Micro delayed its annual report, it lost its auditor, Ernst & Young, citing governance issues.

After more than tripling in 2023, thanks to the company’s position in the AI boom and its sales of servers packed with Nvidia’s processors, Super Micro shares plummeted in the second third and fourth quarters last year, wiping out more than 80% of its market cap.

Snap plunges 13% on ‘headwinds’ to start quarter, inability to offer guidance

Published

2 hours ago

April 29, 2025

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Snap plunges 13% on 'headwinds' to start quarter, inability to offer guidance

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel speaks during the Semafor World Economy Summit 2025 at Conrad Washington in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2025.

Kayla Bartkowski | Getty Images

Snap reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue Tuesday but declined to provide guidance, citing macroeconomic uncertainties that could weigh on advertising demand.

Shares dropped 13% in after-hours trading.

Here is how the company did compared with Wall Street’s expectations:

Earnings per share: Loss of 8 cents. That figure is not comparable to analysts’ estimates.
Revenue: $1.36 billion vs. $1.35 billion expected, according to LSEG
Global daily active users: 460 million vs. 459 million expected, according to StreetAccount
Global average revenue per user: $2.96 vs. $2.93 expected, according to StreetAccount

Snap did not offer an outlook for the second quarter, citing uncertainties surrounding “how macro economic conditions may evolve in the months ahead, and how this may impact advertising demand more broadly.”

Analysts had expected $1.39 billion in second-quarter revenue guidance. The company said it expects daily active users to come in near the midpoint of its second-quarter range at 468 million.

“While our topline revenue has continued to grow, we have experienced headwinds to start the current quarter, and we believe it is prudent to continue to balance our level of investment with realized revenue growth,” the company said in a letter to investors.

Like many tech companies, Snap is facing a turbulent macro setup as it grapples with President Donald Trump’s evolving trade plans. Many fear that global trade uncertainty might lead companies to lower guidance or pull back spending this earnings season.

Snap’s cited potential constraints on advertising demand as the reason for holding off on guidance. Ad revenues for the period rose 9% year over year to $1.21 billion. That growth came mainly from direct response advertising. The company also said that brand-oriented advertising revenue dipped 3% from a year ago.

The company isn’t alone. Last Thursday, Alphabet reported first-quarter sales of $90.23 billion, which surpassed Wall Street expectations, but executives told analysts that the company may experience headwinds to its online ad business in the Asia-Pacific region.

Snap lowered its full-year adjusted operating expenses range to between $2.65 billion and $2.70 billion, down from $2.70 billion to $2.75 billion. The company also revised its full-year cost guidance for stock based compensation downward to between $1.13 billion and $1.16 billion from $1.15 billion to $1.20 billion.

Sales in Snap’s first quarter jumped 14% to $1.36 billion from $1.19 billion in the year-ago period. The company reported a net loss of about $140 million, or 8 cents per share. That narrowed 54% from about $305 million, or 19 cents, in the year-ago period. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $108 million, topping a $64 million estimate from StreetAccount.

The company attributed the 8 cents loss to a $70.1 million charge related to cash severance, stock-based compensation expenses and other costs associated with a 2024 restructuring. “These charges are not reflective of underlying trends in our business,” the company said.

Snap posted 460 million daily active users during the period, up from 453 million the previous quarter. The company also said that it reached 900 million monthly active users, up from 850 million in August, the last time Snap provided that stat.

Meta reports its latest earnings on Wednesday, followed by Reddit on Thursday and Pinterest on May 8.

WATCH: ‘Fast Money’ traders react to Alphabet earnings.

Technology

SpaceX loses bid to control beach access near launch facility in Texas

Published

5 hours ago

April 29, 2025

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SpaceX loses bid to control beach access near launch facility in Texas

SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship booster returns to the launch pad during a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.

Eric Gay | AP

As SpaceX awaits the results of a critical election that would turn the location of its Starbase launch site into an incorporated Texas city, lawmakers have declined to give Elon Musk’s aerospace company greater control over a main highway and public beach.

Starbase, where the Musk-led company builds and launches its rockets, is located in Boca Chica, Texas, on the Gulf Coast. Residents of the area are voting on whether to turn the small community into a city, with the election scheduled to conclude on Saturday.

On Monday, the Texas House State Affairs Committee voted against a bill that would have given SpaceX greater control over a highway and public beach access in the likely event the company is victorious in its effort to make Starbase into Texas’ newest city. Around 500 people live in the community today, including SpaceX employees and about 120 children, according to the Texas Tribune.

SpaceX has historically needed to close roads and beaches around Starbase in order to conduct test flights and launches, including for its massive Starship rockets, which Musk sees as a prelude to an eventual Mars mission. Closing off access to beaches in the area has required SpaceX to inform and attain permission from authorities in Cameron County, the southernmost county in Texas.

The frequent closures have contributed to legal complaints against SpaceX, and have drawn protests from local residents and activists, including the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network and Border Workers United.

Activists in the Rio Grande Valley area, where Starbase is located, protested and formally lobbied against the bills for weeks. Related proposals could be introduced before the legislature meets again next month.

As CNBC has previously reported, SpaceX has conducted test flights or launches that have resulted in fires and harm to sensitive habitat essential to some endangered species in the area.

In one example, SpaceX was fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting waters in Texas in violation of the Clean Water Act. After those fines, Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” but never filed a complaint.

Following a front-page New York Times story in July about the damages to local wildlife, including bird habitat, caused by SpaceX, Musk wrote in a post on his social media site X, “To make up for this heinous crime, I will refrain from having omelette for a week.”

That was a week before Musk formally endorsed Donald Trump for president after an assassination attempt on the then-presumptive Republican nominee at a rally in Pennsylvania. Musk then went on to spend nearly $300 million to propel Trump back the White House, and now serves as an advisor to the president with influence over spaceflight and environmental regulations.

In leading the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has helped gut the ranks of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration. Under Trump’s EPA, the U.S. has promised to “reconsider” or target dozens of rules for elimination that currently limit air pollution and wastewater from energy, autos and manufacturing sectors.

Tim Hughes, SpaceX’s head of government affairs, didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did the offices of Republican State Representatives Gina Hinojosa and Janie Lopez, who introduced the bills to give SpaceX local beach control.

WATCH: SpaceX launches third test flight of massive Starship rocket