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Happy New Year. The Innovator is kicking off 2025 with a new format. Enjoy this week's edition.
Jennifer L. Schenker
Innovator Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Eikolos, an Israeli startup, is developing optical camera communication applications that allow humans and machines to interact in new ways.  One of its first applications is helping the military detect whether drones are friends or foes. (see the image).

The company, which launched in 2023, just months before Israel’s current war started, envisions many more applications for its technology, including allowing people to communicate with others directly via their AI-powered AR glasses; increasing road safety by enabling cars to emit data that explains that they are about to brake or change lanes; and providing context inside crowded conferences, allowing individuals to just gaze around the room and see details about the people who opt-in to clearly understand who they should approach.

Eikolos embodies several trends: Governments are scrambling to incorporate the most advanced AI, communications and drone technologies into their weapons and defense systems; they are increasingly sourcing these from the commercial market; and these technologies often have multiple use cases, blurring the lines between the defense and tech sectors.

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 -   I N T E R V I E W  O F  T H E  W E E K  -

Vilas Dhar, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
Who: Vilas Dhar is President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a global, $1.5 billion philanthropy that aims to advance the frontiers of artificial intelligence, data science and social impact. A trained computer scientist and lawyer, Dhar has been appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Artificial Intelligence by the Secretary General, and serves as an expert contributor to OECD.AI, co-chair of the Global AI Action Alliance at the World Economic Forum, advisor to MIT SOLVE, and member of the Global Future Council on AI.

Topic: The importance of ensuring AI is used for public good.
 
Quote: "AI will shape our world for generations, but my deepest concern is that too few will have the power to shape the technology itself. We need decentralized technical capacity and to build AI for public purpose, which is going to require governments to deeply invest. In 2025 all the elements are emerging to make this necessary. The good news is we are seeing real champions step forward on responsible and ethical practices. We see it at the national level and in company boardrooms across the world. The challenge will be sustaining and building on that momentum."
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 -  S T A R T U P  O F  T H E  W E E K  -

Metals and plastics are halting innovation in connected devices as they have reached their physical limitations, says Berlin-based Carbon Mobile. It aims to deliver thinner, lighter, stronger and more sustainable composite materials for mobile phones and other consumer electronic devices such as tablets, gaming and AR/VR devices.

Advanced carbon fiber composites have long been sought after as alternatives to materials currently used in connected devices, but their use has been hindered by electrical and wireless connectivity issues. Carbon Mobile’s patented Hybrid Radio Enabled Composite Material (HyRECM) forges carbon fibers with a complementary composite material with signal allowing properties. The technology stabilizes the electrical and wireless connectivity properties of the composite without compromising on other material properties or the production process. This includes embedded electrostatic discharge isolation, electromagnetic interference shielding and antenna noise cancellation, and enables radio frequency signal permeation for low- and high-frequency bands in a single carbon fiber composite monocoque structure inside connected devices.

What’s more, Carbon Mobile’s composite material is sustainable, says founder and CEO Firas Khalifeh. “We are re-imagining the way electronics are designed, used and recycled,” he says. The company plans to later apply its breakthroughs in composite materials to the mobility sector, targeting everything from drones and satellites to electric vehicles.

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 -  N U M B E R  O F  T H E  W E E K -

1/10th
Chinese startup DeepSeek’s release of a new large language model (LLM)  is making waves in the global AI industry. The company's namesake LLM, DeepSeek V3, comes with 671 billion parameters and trained in around two months at a cost of $5.58 million. Based on released information industry observers estimate that the model cost 1/10 as much to train and uses around 1/10 of the computing resources of LLMs created by Silicon Valley giants. The news comes as the global AI race is heating up and the U.S. moves to further restrict access to AI chips. The US wants to slow Chinese progress in AI and related military technologies. But, as Bloomberg noted this week, innovations in AI don't necessarily depend on the latest chips. DeepSeek gained an advantage through different and cheaper ways to train its model.

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 -  W H A T  T O  K N O W  -  

The U.S. wants to curb the sale of AI chips used in data centers on both a country and company basis, with the goal of concentrating AI development in friendly nations.

Big Ideas In Tech 2025

Private companies are staking claims to radio spectrum on the Moon with the aim of exploiting an emerging lunar economy.
 

 -  E V E N T S  -  

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