In the ongoing geopolitical battle between the United States and China, a new front has emerged, focusing on the open-source chip technology known as RISC-V. American lawmakers, citing national security concerns, are pressuring the Biden administration to place restrictions on U.S. companies’ involvement in RISC-V, which is widely utilized in China. This technology competes with proprietary chip architectures from Arm and Intel and has applications ranging from smartphone chips to advanced artificial intelligence processors. The lawmakers fear that China is exploiting the culture of open collaboration among American companies to bolster its own semiconductor industry, potentially undermining the U.S.’s leadership in the chip field and supporting China’s military modernization. We’ve spoken a lot about RISC-V and the US/China situation, so it’s no surprise that these are coming together. This and more on the Rundown.
0:50 – Backblaze Listed by CoreWeave
If you’re using CoreWeave and you need a place to store all that data, you’re in luck. The GPU-as-a-Service platform has announced that Backblaze B2 is now an option for storage. You can also install support for Backblaze automatic backups through the CoreWeave application catalog. This move comes after last month’s announcement of CoreWeave support for VAST Data as an all-flash storage solution.
Read More: CoreWeave lists Backblaze as customer data store
3:02 – VBscript to be removed by Mircosoft to block Malware
Microsoft has decided to take the fight against malware to a new place, and that place doesn’t have VBScript. The venerable scripting language was deprecated from Windows this week and will be an “on demand” feature in the future. This comes in part because of the widespread use of VBScript as an infection vector for malware. Microsoft has been forced to curtail the use of many of these features, such as Office macros, over the years due to abuse.
Read More: Microsoft to kill off VBScript in Windows to block malware delivery
5:42 – $21 Million Raised for Alcion’s BaaS Platform
A new data management company called Alcion has secured $21 million in Series A funding, including from Veeam, to deliver AI-assisted backup and recovery with advanced security features. Its platform offers fine-grained protection, including ransomware detection at the file-level and per-user, with continuous learning based on user behavior. It offers a free open-source option called Corso alongside a commercial SaaS product.
Read More: Alcion Raises $21M Series A For AI-Assisted Backup-As-A-Service Platform
8:38 – Progress WS_FTP Exploited
Progress Software is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Ransomware attackers have begun exploiting recently patched vulnerabilities in WS_FTP Server, posing a serious threat to global enterprise networks. These vulnerabilities are incredibly severe, with attackers attempting to establish a permanent presence on compromised servers. While the impact may not be as widespread as the MOVEit attacks due to earlier patch availability, organizations are urged to prioritize patching and take security measures to safeguard their networks.
Read More: They’ve begun: Attacks exploiting vulnerability with maximum 10 severity rating
11:36 – AMD Acquires Nod Labs
AMD has announced its acquisition of Nod Labs, an open-source artificial intelligence software startup specializing in reinforcement learning. This strategic move is part of AMD’s “AI growth strategy” to compete with Nvidia, which has seen substantial revenue growth. Nod.AI’s expertise in open-source AI software and AI model optimizations is expected to enhance AMD’s AI software capabilities. The acquisition is set to close this quarter, furthering AMD’s pursuit of a more robust presence in the AI market.
Read More: AMD to acquire AI software startup as it seeks to catch up with Nvidia
14:49 – APNIC Is Almost Out of Addresses
This week, Asian registrar APNIC announced they are on the verge of allocating their last /8 address range. The last remaining addresses in the 130.x.x.x range are quickly being handed out to customers. While APNIC does have some remaining address space in some reserved ranges the symbolic milestone of completely allocating the final /8 is bittersweet.
Read More: APNIC close to completing delegation of its final /8 IPv4 block
17:52 – US-China Tech War now Focused on RISC-V chip Technology
In the ongoing geopolitical battle between the United States and China, a new front has emerged, focusing on the open-source chip technology known as RISC-V. American lawmakers, citing national security concerns, are pressuring the Biden administration to place restrictions on U.S. companies’ involvement in RISC-V, which is widely utilized in China. This technology competes with proprietary chip architecture from Arm and Intel and has applications ranging from smartphone chips to advanced artificial intelligence processors. The lawmakers fear that China is exploiting the culture of open collaboration among American companies to bolster its own semiconductor industry, potentially undermining the U.S.’s leadership in the chip field and supporting China’s military modernization. We’ve spoken a lot about RISC-V and the US/China situation, so it’s no surprise that these are coming together.
Read More: RISC-V technology emerges as battleground in US-China tech war
27:42 – The Weeks Ahead
Edge Field Day 2 – October 4-5, 2023
Cloud Field Day 18 + OCP Summit – October 18-19, 2023
Networking Field Day 33 – October 25-26, 2023
The Gestalt IT Rundown is a live weekly look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
