Quantum computing and more generally Quantum Information Science (QIS) are more than ever on the global agenda. We focus here on the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme and policy, and how the UK fares in the race to quantum technologies. This article is part of our ongoing research on the issue. With the first item …
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The Midwest Floods, the Trade War and the Swine Flu Pandemic: The Agricultural and Food Super Storm is Here!
In May 2019, for the second time in three months, Central U.S. is hammered by record-breaking floods. Those floods are impacting Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa (Susannah Cullinane, Hollie Silvermane, Sheena Jones, “Central US reels from week of deadly weather”, CNN, May 26, 2019). In Van Buren, Arkansas, the Arkansas River level reached …
How to Win a War with Artificial Intelligence and Few Casualties
The U.S. and China are locked in an increasingly heated struggle for superpower status. Many perceived this confrontation initially only through the lenses of a trade war. However, the ZTE “saga” already indicated the issue was broader and involved a battle for supremacy over 21st century technologies and, relatedly, for international power (see When AI …
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★ Sensor and Actuator (4): Artificial Intelligence, the Long March towards Advanced Robots and Geopolitics
Amazon’s director of robotics stated in April 2019 that it would be “at least 10 years” before warehouses become fully automated (Rachel England, Endgadget, 2 May 2019). Meanwhile, as we detail below, the Chinese production of industrial robots has been falling continuously since September 2018 (-16.4%) to March 2019 (-14%) and April 2019 -7.3% (China …
Foreseeing the Future of the Modern Nation-State: the Chronicles of Everstate
Riots and protests have been progressively, and in an accelerating way, occurring in many countries. Starting with France in 2005, they spread throughout most of the world, from the Arab Spring to Thailand through Hong Kong, the U.S. or, more recently Venezuela, Algeria and France, again, with the Yellow Vest movement at the end of …
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Creating Everstate
Everstate is an imaginary state in our contemporary world of the beginning of the 21st century, created to identify and imagine various futures. It will be used to represent all states and each state. Everstate is thus an ideal-type state. It is also a shorthand for the model that was constructed to represent the dynamics …
Bomb Cyclone on the Midwest: Floods, the Trade War and the Coming Agricultural Super Storm
Between 14 and 20 March 2019, a historically powerful “bomb cyclone”, combined with snowmelt devastated Colorado and the Central United States, especially the Midwest “farmbelt” of Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas. Consequently, it triggered immense floods, which wrecked more than a million of acres (405000 hectares). These floods have immediate direct consequences, because …
Smart Agriculture, International Power and National Interest
Smart farming, the combination of agriculture, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT), will help tackle the various challenges of food security, and usher the happenstance of a new world. It will also change what international food security means. We present here some of the features of the new “international smart food security”. …
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Creating Evertime
Time in strategic foresight and warning is a crucial problem, as underlined in “Time in Strategic Foresight and Risk Management” and pointed out in “Everstate’s characteristics“. We shall still need much effort and research before to obtain detailed, proper and actionable timelines – and this without even considering timeliness. For the Chronicles of Everstate, we …
The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 10 November 2016
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… ”Shock: A violent collision, impact, tremor; a sudden, disturbing effect on the emotions, physical reaction; an acute state of prostration following a wound, pain; a disturbance in stability causing fluctuations in an organization.” The Concise Oxford dictionary, 8th edition. Considering the amazing number of articles …
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