Sunday, May 9, 2021

Cyber attack on U.S. fuel pipeline may be most serious to date

The Colonial Pipeline Company, the leading fuel pipeline operator in the United States responsible for transporting over 100 million gallons of fuel daily, confirmed that it is the target of a ransomware attack.

On Friday, the company was forced to take IT systems offline to contain the threat, effectively halting all pipeline operations. 

Colonial Pipeline supplies an estimated 45% of the fuel for the East Coast of the United States.

As of Sunday evening, Colonial Pipeline had not yet established a timeline for when operations would be restored.

Media reports attribute the attack to a criminal organization known as DarkSide and not a nation-state.

Eric Goldstein, Executive Assistant Director for Cybersecurity at CISA, states "We are engaged with the company and our interagency partners regarding this situation. This underscores the threat that ransomware poses to organizations regardless of size or sector. "

Lightmatter raises $80 million for its photonic processor

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston, has raised $80 million in Series B funding for its development of a new class of photonic processing chip.

Founded in 2017, Lightmatter is pioneering a new paradigm in processor chip architecture that uses photons instead of electrons.

Over the last year, Lightmatter announced the first photonic computer code-named Mars and a new wafer-scale solution, code-named Passage, to enable computer chips to communicate at unprecedented speeds. Most recently, the company announced the world’s first, general-purpose photonic AI accelerator, code-named Envise.

The round was led by Viking Global Investors with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lockheed Martin, Matrix Partners, SIP Global Partners, Spark Capital, and others. This brings total funding for the firm to $113 million.

“This investment is a strong endorsement of our approach to delivering higher performance, lower environmental impact AI compute solutions to the global technology community,” said Lightmatter co-founder and CEO, Nick Harris. ”Funds will be used to accelerate production and go-to-market of our first generation roadmap products, and build out our sales and operations teams.”

Lightmatter also announced today that Olivia Nottebohm, former chief operating officer of Dropbox, will be joining the Board of Directors. In her role at Dropbox, Nottebohm led sales, business development, partnerships marketing, customer success, support, people and communications. Prior to joining Dropbox, Nottebohm held leadership sales and go-to-market roles at Google, and was a Technology Practice Partner at McKinsey & Company.

https://lightmatter.co/Lightmatter unveils wafer-scale photonic interconnect

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston, unveiled a wafer-scale, programmable photonic interconnect that allows arrays of heterogeneous chips (CPUs, GPUs, memory, accelerators) to communicate with each other optically.

Lightmatter says its photonic interconnect offers a fully-reconfigurable connection topology between chips, reducing the cost and complexity of building heterogeneous computing systems.

The Lightmatter Passage packs forty switchable integrated photonic lanes into the same space that traditionally supports just one optical fiber. This could be used to enable a 1Tbps dynamically reconfigurable interconnect across an array of 48 chips spanning 8 inches by 8 inches, with a maximum communication latency of 5 nanoseconds. The company says it has a multi-year roadmap for its interconnects to deliver chip-to-chip communications with 100Tbps bandwidth.

“Lightmatter is leading a necessary paradigm shift in computer architecture needed to power the next giant leaps in compute technology, while also reducing the negative impact on our planet of rapidly-growing state of the art, yet inefficient, compute and communications solutions,” said Nick Harris, co-founder and CEO at Lightmatter. “Modern compute workloads call for system-level performance. With Passage, we’ve created a photonic rack-on-chip solution capable of supporting the future of computing by enabling ultra-high bandwidth interconnection between different kinds of chips, and simultaneously reducing cost, complexity, and energy consumption.”

Lightmatter is developing a photonic processor

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston, will unveil plans for an artificial intelligence (AI) photonic processor.

Lightmatter said its general-purpose AI inference accelerator will use light to compute and transport data. The 3D-stacked chip package contains over a billion FinFET transistors, tens of thousands of photonic arithmetic units, and hundreds of record-setting data converters. Lightmatter’s photonic processor runs standard machine learning frameworks including PyTorch and TensorFlow, enabling state-of-the-art AI algorithms.

“The Department of Energy estimates that by 2030, computing and communications technology will consume more than 8 percent of the world’s power. Transistors, the workhorse of traditional processors, aren’t improving; they’re simply too hot. Building larger and larger datacenters is a dead end path along the road of computational progress,” said Nicholas Harris, PhD, founder and CEO at Lightmatter. “We need a new computing paradigm. Lightmatter’s optical processors are dramatically faster and more energy efficient than traditional processors. We’re simultaneously enabling the growth of computing and reducing its impact on our planet.”

On August 18th, Lightmatter’s VP of Engineering, Carl Ramey, will present their photonic processor architecture at HotChips32.

https://lightmatter.co/

Switch expands data center fleet to 16 with Data Foundry acquisition

Switch agreed to acquire Data Foundry, a carrier-neutral colocation provider with data centers in Austin and Houston, for $420 million in an all cash transaction. The acquisition is expected to close by mid-2021, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. The purchase price of $420 million represents approximately 19x estimated 2021 Adjusted EBITDA, including $2 million of projected run-rate cost synergies. 

Data Foundry’s Austin campus includes three current facilities with expansion capabilities up to 44 MW at full buildout. The Houston campus has one existing data center with the ability to support 18 MW of customer power at full buildout. Switch intends to commence development on new data centers in both Austin and Houston at the end of 2021, with the first sectors available for customer deployments in 2023.

The acquisition of Data Foundry expands the Switch portfolio to 16 operational data centers across six locations and will anchor the company’s Fifth Prime data center campus. The acquisition will also add over 400 customer logos, offering robust cross-selling opportunities and the potential for significant customer expansion.

“We are extremely pleased to reach an agreement with Data Foundry and to announce the launch of our Fifth Prime Data Center Campus in Texas,” said Switch Founder and CEO Rob Roy. “The Data Foundry acquisition extends Switch’s national reach and enhances our ability to serve Texas and the Central U.S. region with low latency connectivity, while also providing critical geographic and revenue diversification with robust expansion potential to accelerate long-term growth and value creation.”

“Data Foundry is proud to partner with Rob Roy and the Switch team in this transaction that we believe will carry forward our company’s rich history of innovation in Texas, and will result in tremendous long-term benefits to our customers and all stakeholders of the combined business,” said Carolyn and Ron Yokubaitis, Co-Founders of Data Foundry. “Both companies share a set of core values that emphasize technology leadership, operational excellence, community involvement, and a relentless focus on customer service that will enable a seamless transition of leadership and continued success for years to come,” added Jonah Yokubaitis, also a Co-Founder of Data Foundry.

Switch expands its Reno Data Centers

Switch signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract with an existing global e-commerce client to significantly grow its footprint at Switch's Citadel Campus in Northern Nevada. This transaction follows the previously announced multi-megawatt expansion from a leading developer of advanced semiconductor technologies. Switch says over 80% of its TAHOE RENO 1 facility is committed to clients, including space and power currently sold and future...

Switch to deploy Tesla Megapack energy storage systems

Switch, which operates hyper-scale co-location data centers in Las Vegas, Reno, and Grand Rapids (Michigan), will use thousands of solar panels made by First Solar and energy storage systems made be Tesla as part of its Gigawatt Nevada solar energy and battery vision. The project is one of the largest solar footprint and battery storage projects in the technology industry. “With today’s announcement Rob Roy’s Gigawatt Nevada now has four solar with...


Nokia debuts "Smart Node" 5G indoor CPE

Nokia introduced an indoor mobile module for delivering 4G and 5G coverage for residential and small-medium enterprises.

The Nokia Smart Node is a dedicated indoor mobile solution with superior coverage and capacity and can be easily scaled from single to multiple units to meet total indoor coverage requirements. It supports traffic management by reducing core network load and optimizing macro resource allocation. It delivers uncongested high throughput network performance with existing secure authentication and provides a secure connection and SIM-based authentication to assure the quality required in mobile networks.

Giuseppe Targia, VP Mobile Networks Transport Business Unit at Nokia, said: “These new additions to our femtocell range enhance our award-winning and industry-leading small cells portfolio which covers all use cases for both indoor and outdoor use. These compact and stylish units make it easy to benefit from superior indoor coverage and capacity particularly for home or small business use.”

SpaceX completes 27th Starlink mission

SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites on Sunday, May 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 booster, which successfully landed on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship, has now completed 10 launches and landings. It previously supported Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission to the International Space Station, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, SXM-7, and now seven Starlink missions.

The launch occurred only 5 days after the last Starlink launch.

Over 500,000 people have signed up or pre-ordered Starlink service. Starlink also announced that it is now providing service in Austria and France.

http://www.spacex.com

Ericsson and Samsung reach global patent agreement


Ericsson and Samsung reached a multi-year agreement on global patent licenses, including patents relating to all cellular technologies. The cross-license agreement covers sales of network infrastructure and handsets from January 1, 2021. 

This settlement ends complaints filed by both companies before the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) as well as the ongoing lawsuits in several countries and confirms the value of the strong patent portfolios of both companies.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ericsson and Samsung also agreed on technology cooperation projects to advance the mobile industry in open standardization and create valuable solutions for consumers and enterprises.

Christina Petersson, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson says: “We are delighted to sign a mutually beneficial agreement with Samsung. This important deal confirms the value of our patent portfolio and further illustrates Ericsson’s commitment to FRAND principles.”




Nokia wins contract with Germany's public safety digital radio network


Nokia has been awarded a four-year contract to provide technical, maintenance and management services for the German nationwide BDBOS public safety digital radio network. 

Under the contract, Nokia will support mission-critical communications infrastructure across German national, federal and local Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) agencies.  With responsibility for system upgrades at base station sites, Nokia will support a network-wide IP migration program that will involve more than 8,000 technical modifications. 

Under the project, Nokia will help to migrate Digitalfunk BOS network from TETRA TDM to IP. This will simplify system architecture.


Frank Buddrus, Vice President, BDBOS, said: “With its technical expertise, services track record and public safety domain knowledge, Nokia will help manage the next phase in the future of BOS Digitalfunknetz. We look forward to working in close partnership with Nokia to raise standards even higher in our service to German citizens and public safety organizations.”

Airspan to set-up 5G lab in Slough, UK

Airspan Networks plans to open a 5G Innovation Lab this month at its Slough, UK offices outside of London.

The company said it intends for the lab to serve multiple purposes: as a showcase and demonstration facility for partners, customers and government institutions, to focus on the development of Open RAN software, 5G sub 6 GHz and mmWave indoor and outdoor equipment, and private network use cases. The lab is expected to feature:

  • A full, end-to-end 5G Open RAN solution provided by Airspan software (CU, DU, RIC) and hardware (RU), including mmWave and sub 6GHz radios, ready to connect to any other elements of a 5G network.
  • Critical interoperability testing with the key elements of a 5G standalone network: 5G Core, other RAN vendors, devices, transport/PTP, COTS servers, cloud native platforms, orchestrators and xApps.
  • Indoor over the air (OTA) RF testing using a recently awarded Ofcom license in sub 6 and a future license in mmWave. This includes massive MIMO and beamforming features.
  • Validation of real use cases for public and private networks, to accelerate adoption of Open RAN and showcase its many benefits.
  • Development, testing and validation of new features following 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance latest releases in a fully virtualized 5G network based on Open RAN architecture.
  • Support for the UK government’s disruptive Supply Chain Diversification plan.