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ASX Tech Stocks: Brainchip nabs another US patent and a truck-sized nuclear reactor
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- Researchers at BYU use molten salt instead of water to make a moveable nuclear reactor
- Brainchip adds another US patent to its collection for the AI Akida chip
- Axiom takes a $4m stake in property AI and data analytics platform
Researchers at Brigham Young University in the US (fun fact: it’s a Mormon uni who knew) have found a way to make a micro-nuclear reactor so small it can fit on a truck.
The key is using molten salt instead of water to keep the reactor cool – and if you remember the tsunami in Japan and what happened with Fukushima you can see why this a helluva leap forward for the safe production of nuclear power.
Plus, dangerous waste could be eliminated since the products of reaction like Cobalt-60, gold, platinum, neodymium, are contained within the salt and there’s no need to store them elsewhere. You could even sell them on.
“For the last 60 years, people have had the gut reaction that nuclear is bad, it’s big, it’s dangerous,” BYU professor and nuclear engineering expert Matthew Memmott said.
“Those perceptions are based on potential issues for generation one, but having the molten salt reactor is the equivalent of having a silicon chip [in computers].
“We can have smaller, safer, cheaper reactors and get rid of those problems.”
This small reactor is designed to fit onto a 13m truck bed because it doesn’t need a large zone surrounding it to mitigate radiation risk.
Oh, and it can produce enough energy to power 1000 American homes.
Who’s got tech news out today?
The AI chip company has just nabbed a US patent for “An Improved Spiking Neural Network” which basically protects a key learning feature when choosing the synapses for weight variation during on-chip learning for its Akida chip.
Apparently, the memory management of membrane potential values, synapse weights and synapse connections amongst the spiking neuron circuits is handled ‘innovatively’, contributing significantly to reducing the power and the cost when delivering edge applications to customers.
It’s another arrow in BrainChip’s patent quiver, with 10 in the US, 1 in China and 27 pending in the US, Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Israel.
Property developer and investor Axiom has made a cornerstone $4m investment for around a third ownership in AI property data and analytics player PointsData.
The funds will be used to accelerate the roll‐out of PointData’s technology across all Australian states and enable the company to deliver on its goal of becoming a premier provider of property data and analytics to the residential property market.
PointData’s key target markets are government, banks and financial institutions and the insurance sector, and they’ve also serviced a state government housing authority to assist in planning, managing and understanding the development potential of its social housing network.
This is key data that enables governments to proactively plan and address the shortage in social housing faced in Australia.
