Texas at heart of Amazon’s AI push in United States

Tech titan Amazon is working to step out of Nvidia’s shadow with custom “Trainium” chips designed specially for machine learning as billions of dollars are poured into artificial intelligence (AI).Amazon subsidiary Annapurna Labs in Austin, Texas, was testing the longevity of its latest generation Trainium during a recent visit by AFP to the facility.Texas is emerging as a US tech world El Dorado, luring investments with cheap energy, relaxed regulations, tax incentives and reasonably affordable real estate for massive data centers.Amidst a deafening roar, UltraServers packed with 144 of the Trainium AI-accelerator chips were being put through their paces at Annapurna in a routine check prior to delivery.After years of relying on suppliers for chips, the e-commerce powerhouse’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit began designing its own, acquiring Israeli startup Annapurna Labs in 2015.First came Graviton and Inferentia chips in 2018, the former for general cloud computing and the latter for powering AI models.The first Trainium debuted in 2020, followed by a second generation that touted a big boost in performance.Trainium 3 chips put into action in December are touted as doubling the capabilities of the second generation despite being smaller than a credit card.Kristopher King, head of the Annapurna lab in Austin, contended that the latest Trainium chips can cut the cost of developing and running generative AI models by as much as 40 percent compared to using graphics processing units (GPUs) that are now deemed the “gold standard” for AI.- Failure not an option -Along with pricing Trainium chips competitively, AWS is out to make reliability a selling point since data centers need to operate non-stop for long stretches at a time.AI development requires hundreds of thousands of chips operating simultaneously for weeks, according to Annapurna head of engineering Mark Carroll.”If there’s a failure or unavailability during this phase you have to go back, or even start from scratch,” Carroll said.Unlike other major players in AI processors, AWS doesn’t sell its chips.Instead, AWS uses Trainium exclusively in its own data centers, leasing computing capabilities to customers.AWS opted to customize its chips to harmonize them with its software, particularly a Bedrock platform that lets customers chose from a wide range of competing AI models including Anthropic, OpenAI and other rivals, according to the lab.Trainium is positioned as a cost-saving option in an AI market considered “supply constrained” because of insatiable appetite for high-performance GPUs from industry leader Nvidia and competitors such as AMD.Even though Trainium 3 is only a few months old, Annapurna is already designing a new generation of the chip.A launch date for Trainium 4 has yet to be disclosed, but Carroll says it will have six times the processing performance of its predecessor.As Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta and other tech rivals race to field ever-improved AI models, pressure is intense for chips to make the technology smarter, faster, cheaper and less power-hungry.Nvidia began manufacturing its industry-leading Rubin grapics processing unit less than a year after the release of then top-of-the-line Blackwell.The first version of Trainium took about 18 months to create, while the second generation was readied in nine months and Annapurna is “trying to maintain that pace”, Carroll said.

Melania Trump to preside over UN Security Council meeting

Melania Trump will preside over a UN Security Council meeting next week, her office has announced, in the first such appearance by a US first lady.”First Lady Melania Trump is set to make history at the United Nations, taking the gavel as the United States assumes the Security Council Presidency to emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace,” her office said in a statement Wednesday.The meeting at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Monday will focus on education, technology, peace and security and marks the first time a sitting US first lady presides over the Security Council, the statement added.Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said Thursday that the visit represents “a sign of the importance that the United States feels towards the Security Council and the subject” of education.”I can confirm that, according to our records, this will be the first time a First Lady, or first gentleman, for that matter, has ever presided over a Security Council meeting,” he added, noting that the spouses of heads of state have previously participated on behalf of non-members of the Council. During his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Donald Trump boasted: “No one cares more about protecting America’s youth than our wonderful first lady.”Melania’s visit comes as the president spearheads his “Board of Peace” initiative, which some critics have said is a way to circumvent the UN Security Council.Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has withdrawn support from several major UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization. Nevertheless, the United States recently paid $160 million to the cash-strapped UN’s general budget, of which it owes roughly $2 billion in contributions, in addition to $2 billion in outstanding payments for the UN peacekeeping budget.

Bill Clinton to face grilling on significant Epstein ties

Former US president Bill Clinton will be grilled by a Congressional panel on Friday on his well-documented links to Jeffrey Epstein, as Democrats seek to shift focus onto Donald Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender.Clinton features prominently throughout the latest Epstein files disclosures, with the former president insisting that he broke ties with him well before the disgraced billionaire’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses.Mere mention in the files released by the US Department of Justice does not imply wrongdoing, and Clinton has not been accused of a crime or formally investigated. He follows his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who testified Thursday, defiantly calling for President Trump — who like Bill Clinton had ties with Epstein — to appear before the panel.”If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes… it would ask (Trump) directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said in an opening statement published online.The depositions are being held behind closed doors even though the Clintons called for them to be open and televised, a move Bill Clinton denounced as akin to a “kangaroo court.”The grilling comes with greater peril for the former president than for his wife, as he has acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein, but said he never visited the shady financier’s private Caribbean island.Epstein associated with the world’s rich, famous and powerful, and was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. He died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing those who were linked to Epstein, particularly in light of the Justice Department’s disclosures of millions of new documents related to its investigation of him.Hillary insisted that she had neither flown on Epstein’s plane nor visited his island.The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify in the panel’s probe, but the Democratic power couple agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress.- Newly released pictures -Hillary Clinton said in her opening statement to the panel that it “justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.” “Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”Democrats say the investigation is being weaponized to attack Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.Bill Clinton features prominently in the trove of investigative files related to Epstein released by the Justice Department but has not been accused of any wrongdoing.Previously unseen photographs from the files include one showing the former president reclining in a hot tub, part of the image obscured by a stark black rectangle. In another, Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.David Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, said recently that Clinton and Trump are “innocent of any wrongdoing.”The depositions are being held in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside.Dozens of journalists have converged on the wealthy hamlet and the Secret Service erected metal barricades around the arts center where the depositions are happening.Republican committee chair James Comer said at the conclusion of Hillary’s appearance that lawmakers had “a lot of questions for her husband tomorrow.”

Nepal PM hopeful eyes ‘change’ in post-uprising elections

Nepali student leader-turned-politician Gagan Thapa has sought to rejuvenate his party’s stale image, campaigning on generational change ahead of the Himalayan nation’s first elections since a deadly youth-led uprising.”We need energy for Nepal’s change,” the 49-year-old aspiring prime minister told AFP, saying his candidacy represented a break from decades of rule by a tight-knit and ageing elite.The country of 30 million people will head to the polls on Thursday, following a wave of protests in September in which 77 people were killed, and parliament and hundreds of other buildings were torched.The protests toppled Marxist leader KP Sharma Oli’s government, in which Thapa’s centrist Nepali Congress party had the biggest share of seats.Thapa’s home and party office were among the buildings set alight during the two days of violence last year.He has since led an internal revolt and was elected party leader in January, ending the decade-long grip of former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, 79, who had defied calls for reform.Thapa, a former health minister, said he offered “the right mix of energy and experience.””We had to change the leadership of major parties,” he said, including Congress — the country’s oldest and one of the three dominant political powers that have given Nepal nearly all its prime ministers in recent history.”For decades, two to three old-aged men were running it like a club, dominating and slowly limiting our democracy by power sharing with each other,” Thapa said.”That devastated our governance.”- ‘Work together’-Thapa was drawn into politics as a teenager in the 1980s, when leftist and communist parties led a popular movement against absolute monarchy, giving rise to multi-party democracy since 1990.As civil war reshaped the country in 1996-2006, pitting Maoist guerrillas against the monarchy, he rose through the ranks of pro-democracy student groups linked to the Nepali Congress.”The sense of gratification I felt when we rallied around an agenda and got results made me feel like this is what I want,” Thapa said of his start as a student activist.”People have problems — pick them up and solve them. That gravitated me towards politics.”In 2006, when a popular uprising forced the king to abdicate, Thapa was already a prominent figure in the pro-democracy movement and had been jailed several times for his role in street protests.Two years later he entered parliament as one of its youngest members, and has since won re-election three times from a Kathmandu constituency.But this time, Thapa has chosen to run from Sarlahi, mainly a farming district southeast of the capital, on the plains bordering India.”A large proportion of Nepal’s population live here, and they have long felt excluded,” he said.”If I represent this region, it helps my party electorally. But in the long term, it gives me the foundation to lead all of Nepal.”His party’s manifesto prioritises political and economic reform, pledging to create 1.2 million jobs in five years.Analysts expect no single party to win an outright majority in parliament, likely leading to a coalition government.”We will have to work together,” Thapa said. “If I get a chance to be in a leadership role, I believe in teamwork. We can fulfil the demands made during the Gen Z protest only through teamwork.”

L’heure du réquisitoire au procès en appel sur l’assassinat de Samuel Paty

Les avocates générales prennent vendredi leurs réquisitions contre quatre hommes jugés en appel pour leur rôle dans l’assassinat du professeur Samuel Paty, décapité par un islamiste radical pour avoir montré des caricatures du Prophète Mahomet dans son cours sur la liberté d’expression.Initialement prévu vendredi, le verdict de la cour d’assises spéciale de Paris a été repoussé à lundi, au terme de cinq semaines d’une audience houleuse sur ce crime commis le 16 octobre 2020 par Abdoullakh Anzorov, près du collège du Bois d’Aulne à Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (Yvelines). Ce jihadiste tchétchène de 18 ans avait été abattu par la police, qu’il menaçait.Un parent d’élèves, Brahim Chnina, aujourd’hui âgé de 54 ans, et un militant islamiste aguerri, Abdelhahim Sefrioui, 66 ans, comparaissent pour avoir été les artisans de la campagne de haine en ligne contre le professeur d’histoire-géographie, dont Anzorov avait pris connaissance sur les réseaux sociaux. En première instance, ils avaient été respectivement condamnés à 13 et 15 ans de réclusion criminelle pour association de malfaiteurs terroriste.Deux proches d’Anzorov, originaires comme lui du quartier de la Madeleine à Evreux, répondent de complicité d’assassinat. Naïm Boudaoud, 24 ans, et Azim Epsirkhanov, 25 ans, condamnés à seize ans de réclusion en 2024, disent ne pas avoir eu conscience de la dérive jihadiste de leur ami, ni du crime qu’il préparait. Ils ne présentent pas un profil d’islamistes radicaux.Si Brahim Chnina a exprimé sa “honte” et ses regrets pour la cabale en ligne, cela n’a pas été le cas d’Abdelhakim Sefrioui: entre deux digressions théologico-politiques, il s’est posé en héraut des droits des musulmans, livré à la “vindicte” publique par les autorités françaises avec la complicité de “médias aux ordres”. Les deux hommes nient que leur campagne ait été déclenchée par la question du blasphème ou les caricatures, même si Abdelhakim Sefrioui a affirmé que celles-ci n’étaient “acceptées par aucun musulman”. Au moment des faits, Al-Qaïda venait de menacer de nouveau la France après la republication de ses caricatures par Charlie Hebdo à l’occasion du procès des attentats de janvier 2015. Et le 25 septembre, deux personnes avaient été blessées lors d’une attaque jihadiste devant les anciens locaux parisiens de l’hebdomadaire.- Débats éprouvants -Abdelhakim Sefrioui affirme avoir agi contre ce qu’il pensait alors être une “stigmatisation” des élèves musulmans par Samuel Paty; quant à Brahim Chnina, il n’aurait été animé que par la colère de ce qu’il pensait être une injustice faite à sa fille, élève du collège.Pour dissimuler une exclusion pour indiscipline, celle-ci avait affirmé à ses parents que Samuel Paty avait demandé aux élèves musulmans de sortir de son cours au moment de montrer des caricatures. Ces lignes de défense ont été fragilisées par les témoignages de la fille d’Abdelhakim Sefrioui et de la principale du collège, ainsi que par les contenus des messages et des vidéos d’une cabale qui ne s’est arrêtée qu’avec la mort du professeur.Accusation et parties civiles campent sur la ligne du verdict de première instance: selon la première cour d’assises, en lançant une “véritable fatwa numérique” contre Samuel Paty, les deux hommes “savaient nécessairement” que cette campagne pouvait “conduire à des réactions violentes, voire mortelles, de la part d’individus radicalisés” et étaient “conscients de la réalité de la menace terroriste” qu’ils faisaient peser sur leur cible.Pour la défense, au contraire, les deux hommes n’avaient ni conscience du crime à venir ni intention qu’il advienne. Une confirmation de la condamnation marquerait une vision bien trop extensive de l’incrimination d’association de malfaiteurs terroriste, selon leurs avocats.Eprouvants pour la famille de Samuel Paty, les débats ont été hachés par une succession d’incidents et de contentieux soulevés par la défense. Fait rarissime, deux magistrates assesseures ont été écartées de la cour après que la défense a mis en doute leur impartialité. Les variations dans les deux auditions successives du ministre de l’Intérieur Laurent Nuñez, qui a par ailleurs pris l’initiative étonnante d’écrire directement à la présidente de la cour pour lui préciser sa pensée et sa conviction de la culpabilité de Brahim Chnina et Abdelhakim Sefrioui, ont occupé plusieurs jours la cour. Avec du côté de la défense, la volonté évidente de fourbir ses armes en cas de pourvoi en cassation.