Ray Blanco:

Human Skin Cells Are Turned Into Eggs in Fertility Breakthrough

Researchers have created human eggs from skin cells, potentially transforming IVF treatment for couples who have no other options.

The work is at an early stage but if scientists can perfect the process it would provide genetically related eggs for women who are infertile because of older age, illness or medical treatment. The same procedure could be used to make eggs for same-sex male couples.

“The largest group of patients who might benefit would be women of advanced maternal age,” said Prof Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led the research at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. “Another group are those who have been through chemotherapy because that can affect their ability to have viable eggs.”

While women are expected to be the primary beneficiaries, skin cells used to make the eggs need not come from potential mothers. “We used female skin cells in this study, but you could use skin cells from males as well,” Mitalipov said. “You could make eggs for men, and that way, of course, this would be applicable to same-sex couples.”

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Davis Wilson:

Taiwan Pressured To Move 50% of Chip Production to U.S. or Lose Protection

The Trump administration is pressuring Taiwan to rapidly move 50% of its chip production into the U.S. if it wants ensured protection against a threatened Chinese invasion, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this weekend.

It's bad for the U.S., Lutnick said, that "95% of our chips are made 9,000 miles away," while China is not being "shy" about threats to "take" Taiwan.

Were the U.S. to lose access to Taiwan's supply chain, the U.S. could be defenseless as its economy takes a hit, Lutnick alleged, asking, "How are you going to get the chips here to make your drones, to make your equipment?"

That's why Lutnick confirmed his "objective" during his time in office is to shift U.S. chip production from 2% to 40%. To achieve that, he plans to bring Taiwan's "whole supply chain" into the U.S., a move experts have suggested could take much longer than a single presidential term to accomplish.

In 2023, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang forecast that the U.S. was "somewhere between a decade and two decades away from supply chain independence."

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Greg Guenthner:

CoreWeave Stock Climbs 13% After Company Lands $14 Billion Deal With Meta

Shares of CoreWeave popped more than 13% on Tuesday after the company announced it has agreed to provide Meta with $14.2 billion of artificial intelligence cloud infrastructure.

CoreWeave has been on a deal-making blitz as big tech companies and AI startups race to build out their computing infrastructure. Tuesday’s announcement comes just days after CoreWeave expanded its agreement with OpenAI by $6.5 billion, bringing the total contract to $22.4 billion.

“The agreement underscores that behind every AI breakthrough are the partnerships that make it possible,” a CoreWeave spokesperson said in a statement about the Meta deal on Tuesday.

CoreWeave primarily generates revenue by building and renting out data centers that are full of Nvidia’s graphics processing units, which are key for training models and running large AI workloads. The company, which some investors have classified as a “neocloud,” has become a crucial player in an increasingly interconnected web of AI infrastructure partners.

Meta has the option to “materially expand its commitment” for additional computing capacity through 2032, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

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