Consortium Aims to Standardize Chiplet Interconnect

Using biological building blocks in place of traditional materials to assemble computers has been a research topic for many years, but recently the first potential commercial use cases have begun to emerge, centered on storage for large data sets. The DNA Storage Alliance, created to promote a storage ecosystem based on synthesized DNA strands, recently shared their aspirations for the emerging technology that offers significant promise in durability, simplicity, cost, and density over traditional magnetic counterparts. The initial goals of the alliance are to educate the public and raise awareness about DNA-based storage. Further out, the alliance may pursue the creation of specifications and standards, such as encoding, physical interfaces, retention, and file systems, to ensure that DNA-based solutions complement existing storage hierarchies. The alliance notes that expectations for the growth rate of current storage mechanisms cannot keep pace with the rising demand for data storage, particularly where growing data retention and related data mining efforts are driving the need to save increasingly larger data sets for longer periods of time. Such requirements are well suited to DNA-based archive storage characteristics in applications including digital content creation, robotics, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, healthcare, astronomy, and climate science.

A recent United Kingdom policy paper entitled Establishing a pro-innovation approach to regulating AI identifies unique AI-related regulatory challenges, outlines six cross-sectoral potential solutions, and provides a future outlook on bringing these recommendations to reality. The document contributes to the increasingly unique and regionally divergent approach to AI regulation the UK is adopting as part of the greater framework seen in the UK national AI strategy plan published in September 2021. This latest publication, presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, prominently espouses innovation-forward policy making, while acknowledging and addressing the inherent risks of developing and deploying AI technology. For UK planners, a system of voluntary, regulatory, and quasi-regulatory policies enables greater UK government responsiveness to technological, political, or contextual developments through an evolving cohort of regulatory bodies, all aiding responsible use of AI in respective fields and through different lenses.