ICRA and interesting things in robotics this week

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Our next online Job Fair is in two weeks so post your jobs at https://svrobo.org/robojobs and there'll be a spot at the event available to meet potential candidates. Companies say it's been very successful for them.

The AI LA Community is hosting its annual Responsible AI Symposium this year in partnership with The AI Responsibility Lab.

Participants from corporate, government, academic, and professional service roles will explore how to kick start their own practical journey in reducing the harms and risks created by AI Systems through an interactive virtual experience.

We will discuss the questions AI raises regarding bias, ethics, and privacy, and we explore what a fair, accountable, and transparent AI system looks like.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/responsible-ai-symposium-2021-tickets-156791123471

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How robots can change the food industry via Tech Republic

The robot surgeon will see you now via NY Times

Deep Learning for Robots via TechStory

Tenstorrent wants to build AI chips that beat NVIDIA via Fortune

The Costly Pursuit of Self Driving Cars via NY Times

Technology is the $400Billion missing link for pharmaceuticials industry via Forbes

RealTime Robotics raises $31m for industrial robot planning via The Robot Report

NASA picks Venus as hotspot for new robotics missions via Phys.org

DHL steps up investment in robotics with Locus Robotics partnership via The Robot Report

Pentagon experiments with self driving shuttles at San Diego military base via Nextgov

Faction raises $3.4m for 3-wheeled EVs for driverless delivery via TechCrunch

Autonomous vehicles pass quarry test via The Engineer

How robots can make offshore energy more sustainable via World Economic Forum

Robotic event showcases assisted living laboratory first via Access and Mobility Professionals

To build a better drone, EU researchers create robotics birds via DroneDJ

The new IIT's "Robot Teleoperativo" via Robohub

Former head of Alphabet's Loon joins Starship Technologies as new CEO via TechCrunch

Vertix Builders completes robotic hybrid operating room at Rose Medical Center vi CRE

Scientists hope to steer robotic surfboards into hurricanes via Washington Post

Some steps towards making the slow tedious deployment of industrial robotics easier via TechRepublic

Ocean Infinity installing DNV's ShipManager on robotics vessels via Bunkerspot

Cruise lobbies President Biden to back autonomous vehicle deployment boost via Car and Bike

Are autonomous vehicles closer than we think? via Electric Autonomy

Vention partners with OnRobot and FANUC via The Robot Report

Decoding how elephants use trunks ‘like Swiss Army knife’ could help build next-gen robots, say scientists via The Independent

Qualcomm partners with Georgia Smart City to test out Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology via ZDNet

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The House Science Committee has introduced a bipartisan bill that recommends Congress ramp up funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science from $7 billion to nearly $11 billion over the next five years. It also updates policy guidance for the office’s research programs and sets funding targets for its major facility projects.

The House Science Committee held a hearing last week to solicit ideas for bolstering the U.S. research enterprise, seeking to inform bipartisan innovation bills that it plans to advance in the coming months.

US-China tech war: Beijing's secret chipmaking champions (Nikkei Asia)

1. What happened: A range of Chinese chip manufacturers have embarked on a gargantuan effort to trace their entire supply chain to figure out the provenance of their bill of materials. This is in response to a call to develop self-sufficiency fueled by the ongoing tensions between the US and China, especially as companies get put on the US Entity List that prohibits US companies from supplying to Chinese manufacturers. This has had ripple effects whereby companies from other countries are on tenterhooks in supplying these companies. In addition, given the immense complexity of the chip manufacturing supply chain coupled with extreme concentration of manufacturing equipment and other raw materials in different parts of the world, for the foreseeable future, a clean decoupling is going to be really hard. This is not just from the Chinese perspective, but also from a US perspective, where China still accounts for a large fraction of the supply of raw materials for chip manufacturing. 

2. Why it matters: From the Chinese perspective, calls for self-sufficiency have been made by the government for many years, the current trade tensions only accelerate that trend. It also provides the efforts of the government with some cover to boost local initiatives and bring home some of the knowledge and expertise required to successfully produce chips, arguably the hottest commodity given the rising pace of digitalization. From a US perspective, the decoupling is seen as something of strategic value where they want to have “neck-choking” capabilities to achieve other strategic aims using choke-points in the supply chain to negotiate. 

3. Between the lines: A part of this development trend is that we will get more distributed knowledge and potentially increased competition in the very concentrated nature of the supply chain today. On the other hand, perhaps there will also be a limited sharing of knowledge if countries begin to realize that they need to shore up their domestic competence in case the world becomes more siloed and a country loses its technological edge because of a lack of access to chips which have become a flashpoint in the technological ecosystem.