billion

  1. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
  2. EDITOR'S PICK
Key Takeaway: Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has become a dominant force in U.S. presidential politics, capturing unprecedented engagement and becoming a megaphone for President Trump’s campaign. Musk’s vision for transforming X into an “everything app” akin to China’s WeChat has been unveiled, with his net worth reaching $300 billion. However, challenges such as […]
  1. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
  2. EDITOR'S PICK
Key Takeaway: Pony Ma, co-founder of Tencent Holdings, has regained the title of China’s richest individual with a net worth of over A$65 billion. His rise reflects Beijing’s control over its private sector, which aligns with the state’s goals in China’s unique “socialist market economy.” Tencent’s success, including the AAA video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” […]
  1. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
  2. EDITOR'S PICK
  3. TECHNOLOGY
Key Takeaway: High-altitude platform stations (HAPS) are emerging as a new frontier in communications technology, offering a unique blend of accessibility and affordability. Positioned between 4 and 30 miles above Earth, these stations bring telecommunications equipment closer to the surface than satellites, resulting in stronger, higher-capacity signals. Researchers have demonstrated that HAPS could provide high-speed […]
  1. BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
  2. EDITOR'S PICK
Key Takeaway: The global demand for critical minerals, particularly lithium, is increasing rapidly to meet clean energy and de-carbonisation objectives. Africa hosts substantial resources of these minerals, leading foreign mining companies to invest in exploration and acquire mining licenses. The critical minerals market doubled in five years, reaching US$320 billion in 2022. The demand is […]

Recently Published

Key Takeaway: The second, the fundamental unit of time, is being refined through advancements in timekeeping technology. Throughout history, humans have sought to track time with greater precision, starting with the Neolithic site of Newgrange in Ireland. In 1967, the International System of Units established that a second corresponds to 9,192,631,770 oscillations of radiation emitted […]
Key Takeaway: The announcement of John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton as Nobel laureates in physics sparked frustration in Japan, who felt overlooked in the recognition of their own AI pioneers. Shun’ichi Amari introduced a method for adaptive pattern classification in 1967, which would later be used in Hinton’s “backpropagation” method. Kunihiko Fukushima created the world’s […]

Top Picks

Key Takeaway: Recent research by physicists has revealed that our universe may not be optimal for intelligent life. The mysterious force known as dark energy accelerates the universe’s expansion, but its value is far smaller than theoretical expectations. Researchers used anthropic reasoning to explain this, arguing that the properties of the universe must align with […]
Key Takeaway: Scale AI has launched the initiative “Humanity’s Last Exam” to determine the capabilities of cutting-edge large language models (LLMs) like Google Gemini and OpenAI’s o1. The initiative aims to determine how close we are to achieving AI systems that rival human expertise. The challenge lies in evaluating intelligence in machines that can already […]
Key Takeaway: Volkswagen, once a symbol of German industry and co-management between shareholders and unions, is facing a crisis due to strategic missteps, a convoluted governance structure, and a culture that often prioritizes control over innovation. The company’s journey began in 1937 with the Beetle, which became the world’s largest carmaker in the 1980s and […]
Key Takeaway: The Moon’s silent pull shapes life on Earth in various ways, from orchestrating mass spawning events in coral reefs to guiding predators and prey’s nightly routines. For millennia, creatures have lived in tune with its phases, responding to its light and gravitational sway. The Moon’s influence extends beyond oceans, as its reflected light […]

Trending

I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […]

Join our Newsletter

Get our monthly recap with the latest news, articles and resources.

Login

Welcome to Empirics

We are glad you have decided to join our mission of gathering the collective knowledge of Asia!
Join Empirics