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2025 is being celebrated as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology since it marks the centenary of major discoveries in Quantum Mechanics.

Right from its inception, quantum theory has remained enigmatic both for the common man and the scientists, Quantum applications changed the perception of reality.

What intrigues us is the uncertainty principle, exemplified by inability to accurately predict the position of a particle, along with determining its momentum or vice versa. It is not possible to know a clear picture of the particle at the same time. In short, if the focus is on two things, which are apart from each other, at the same time, one thing would be clear and the other hazy. There is a limit to observing reality.

Two concepts emerged in the quantum space — superposition and entanglement. The fundamental unit in a quantum computer is qubit or quantum bit, whereas in traditional computers, it is a bit, either a zero or one. A qubit would be zero, one or both at the same time. This is called superposition. One can think of a revolving coin in the air which is yet to land. It could be both head or tail at the same time.

Quantum computer is faster due to its ability to stay in more than one state.

Two qubits are said to be in entanglement, when any change in one can affect the other, irrespective of the distance between them. Einstein called this spooky action at a distance to signify its complexity. Entanglement is not a force or signal. It is a consequence of how quantum systems combine. It is non-classical behaviour. In classical physics, systems always manifest definite properties (whether we observe them or not).

In quantum mechanics, observation plays a role in defining properties. Does entanglement violate the principle that no information can travel faster than light?

Quantum theory is non-local and is not compatible with local realism. It is yet evolving. There is no final word as yet.

In the digital world, we come across bots. Bot is short for robot. It emerges out of software programmes designed to perform automated, repetitive tasks. Bots by design mimic humans, and the traits of good and evil are embedded in every bot.

The first chatbot was ELIZA developed in 1966 at MIT, US to mimic human conversation. Today we have the advanced conversational bots such as ChatGPT. There are bots integrated into web sites, messaging apps, social media platforms and voice assistants such as Alexa.

Since bots are interactive, they are an asset for voice-led services such as call centers — changing passwords, telling account balance, scheduling an appointment. All these required human intervention till recently.

The qualities of speed, scale and tireless repetitions make bots vulnerable to abuse. At times bad bots take the functions of good bots. Automated traffic surpasses human activity. Bad bots can comprise a large chunk of such traffic. Sectors such as financial services, healthcare and e-commerce become victims of AI-powered bot attacks. The aim is to scrape data , do fraud and do account hijacking.

The sane advice is to spot the bot to stop the rot. One has to be vigilant.

Our world is made up by countless big and small objects. The big objects are planets, stars, mountains, stones and so many man-made objects. All these are made up by atoms and molecules. How small are the atoms? We often read that there are millions of microorganisms at the tip of a needle. It is such a small space. If millions of organisms are accommodated on it, we can imagine how small are the atoms, which are smaller than these organisms..

The methods of studying big objects and small objects are different. Big objects are studied by classical physics and small objects are studied by Quantum Physics. All these exceedingly small particles (atoms and sub-atomic particles) either absorb energy or emit energy and they do it in peculiar quantities — it is called quantization of energy. The energy absorbed by small particles or emitted by them in its minutest form is called quantum and the study is called Quantum Physics.

The behaviors of these exceedingly small particles is totally different. We are always surrounded by big objects and are familiar with their behaviour. As we are not familiar with exceedingly small particles, their behaviour, appears weird to us.

One such difference is that these particles can exist in more than one state at the same time — it is called superposition. These can pass through a hindrance. An exceedingly small particle moves straight through a barrier, using a process called tunneling. When large number of particles are involved, quantum mechanical effects become insignificant.

The year 2025 Nobel laureates proved that the quantum tunelling could be observed in macroscopic objects too Nobel laureates of physics, 2025 are Michel Devoret, University of California, a professor of physics; John Martinis, University of California, Santa Barbara, Emeritus, professor of Physics; and John Clarke, University of Berkeley, Emeritus Professor of Physics.

Their research is based on Josephson’s research on super conductors. In superconductors, there is no electrical resistance. If a circuit of superconductors is separated by a thin layer (less than 10000th times the thickness of hair) of non-conducting material, a set up called Josephiann junction comes into existence. A current was passed through such a circuit. The charged particles move through a superconductor. They form a system that behaves as if they were a single particle. Initially, the current flow does not show any voltage. Later it shows quantum character to escape zero voltage stage through tunelling and it appears as voltage. As superconductors are used, the electrons behave as if they are a wave of one entity and flow collectively. Josephian received Nobel in Physics for this research in 1973. The set-up of superconductors separated by a non-conductor is called Josephina junction. Anthony in 2003 predicted that quantum behaviour could be shown by macroscopic objects using a circuit such as Josephian junction. This was demonstrated by Nobel laureates trio of 2025. They used such a circut. They controlled the external environment. The temperature was kept a notch above the Kelvin temperature. Because of superconductors, the current penetrated the non-conducting material. Millions of particles penetrated the non-conducting material. This will lead to the information unit -qubit- in reality. The superposition and quantum entanglement improves the capacity and speed of quantum computer several times those of classical computers.

This is the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.

A research essay on quantum physics was published by Heisenberg in 1925 some hundred years ago. This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. It is a coincidence that the trio received Nobel in physics in this centenary year.

Instagram being run by Facebook (Meta) is known for grids and photo diaries. It is shifting to short-video and first entertainment platform. Its default behaviors changes. The DM button now sits in the middle of navigation bar, and Reels have been promoted to second tab. Instagram wants to focus on attention and watch time.

Indian brands have taken to Reels which are hyperlocalised. The campaigns are stared since they resonate. The examples are Zomato and Myntra. They craft stories that lead themselves to the platform. Personal photo sharing on Instagram is already on the decline. However, the one-to-one and one-to-many personal signaling is still strong.

India is the largest market for short-term video. Instagram knows this. Both globally and in India, people share personal things into closed spaces such as WhatsApp or Private groups. Instagram is more a broadcast and entertainment hub. It is not a personal diary.

Indian market is still under-monetised. Facebook wants to test how a billion-plus market responds to a Reel-plus identity. Instagram should become an entertainment-first platform. It should lean into snackable video as the default mode of engagement.

Instagram knows that short-video works. It does not want to neglect that attention. It is mimicking TikTok. Platforms tend to evolve where the attention is.

There is both opportunity and risk here. There should be a balanced approach. There is a risk of losing the intimate personal connection.

Reels have a higher virality. It creates more monetisation. It is good for the creators. Advertisers have access to a richer visual medium.

Instagram has a curated identity. There is stringent verification process. Evolving algorithms help curate a community of creators and brand collaborators. Instagram is distinguished by authenticity (whereas TikTok was not). Insta has adopted smart evolution.

The risk is that if the shift happens too fast, legacy users may disengage.

Warren Buffet wrote annual letters elaborating the ideas he espoused which resulted into the extraordinary performance of his company Berkshire Hathway. He was not the pioneer of many of these ideas but borrowed them from Benjamin Graham, author of the Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffet would not continue this annual writing exercise — the Berkshire letter. He is relinquishing his post of Chief Executive at the end of the year and will pass on this tradition to his successor Greg Abel. It is an end of an era.

Buffet expected everyone to do the homework and focus on intrinsic value. In 1987, he pointed out that the market did face emotional problems – it is either euphoric and bullish or depressed and bearish. Investors can disregard it or take it seriously. The key factor is the homework you do. It was necessary to exercise discipline in an unpredictable market. Investments should be in the firms you understand. You should not be lured by Wall Street esoteric. He explained Berkshire’s performance as if he was doing this to the lay people not good at economics or finance.

He believed making investments with a margin of safety — buying at a price cheaper than the estimate of intrinsic value. He expected investors to consider long time horizon. He expected minimal trading of his firm’s stock.

Buffet was not oly an executive but a public intellectual. And he is quitting. Berkshire is cash rich. He feels that certain actions bring pay offs later. He feels that one should allow a time frame of five years for the investments to show the results. By 2030, we shall know whether Berkshire is still living up to his expectations.

There are some 515 million of generative AI users in China. It suggests that China’s push to spread the technology throughout industry has succeeded. One metric to assess the US-China competition is usage, but in the long run another metric to consider is the diffusion of the technology. Does the spread of technology bring about an economic revolution or just a chatbot craze?

The spread of technology could be attributed to a lack of search engines. Baidu and Bing have dominated. The absence of Google has created a surge for basic research functions. The recent AI-surge fulfills this void.

ChatGPT is not available in China. The queries to Chinese chatbots could be to seek guidance or information. The consumers get lured by this, but it is not clear whether this could translate into a growth engine as expected by China.

Microsoft considers the usage by working-age population of AI tools. It infers that China is the world’s largest AI market. The introduction of DeepSeek reasoning model in January 2025 supercharged the adoption of AI. It accelerated AI deployment. It is not yet clear how much technology has been incorporated into these operations or whether it has boosted productivity.

Many of these use-cases may be to comply with government’s performance indicators. It is felt that DeepSeek’s adoption across healthcare is happening too fast, too soon. Some experimentation is necessary for integrating this nascent technology. It should affect the bottom line. There is less monetization for AI and most services are free-to-use. The technology proliferates and open source further adds to its accessibility. It could be made enduring if the math is rightly worked out. Or else the headline user counts do not translate into lasting economic value.

The finish line in the race is not yet visible – it is a decade or more away. Scaling usage is the first baby step. But it is not a sign of increased usefulness.

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China wants to build generative AI models and would like to power them with its own hardware. Thus, it has to redraw the supply chain now dominated by American chip maker Nvidia.

On account of export ban, Nvidia for some time stopped its H20AI chip made for the Chinese market. China asked its companies to stop buying H20AI chips. DeepSeek released an upgrade of its model in August 2025 powered by the next generation indigenous chips.

The language models use chips for two purposes — one is to train the model, which is a complicated task. However, there is another purpose to use the chips i.e. to draw inferences which created responses from pre-trained models. This is a bigger market for chips. The inferences actually produce the text as well as images for people using generative AI models. Inference making chips are less complex. H20s made in the US are suitable for this purpose. Over a period of time, China could design such chips. It will be filling the performance gap with Nvidia.

Cambricon, founded in 2016, went public four years later, is due for listing as a tech startup in AI chip space. It has become a stock market darling since investors consider it a good candidate to take market share in inference chips. It also is investing in software development.

China is revising its plan of funding the next round of AI development. China does not want to encourage funding from less developed regions.

These are good signs. Young startups should be encouraged to go public as soon as possible. Fundraising in stock-market is simpler than supporting the startups financially. Investors are seeking their own version of Nvidia and therefore will exercise due diligence on behalf of the government. They will promote those companies which champion such worthy causes.

In order to halt the progress of AI in China, the US imposed an export ban on AI chips to China. Later the US reversed the policy and China has started using Nvidia’s hardware without admitting that China is buying time for domestic chip makers such as Huawei to catch up the technology, China is keeping trade talks pressure on the US. Venson Huang has been welcomed in China after this development. Even then cyber authorities have summoned Nvidia to discuss about the alleged security risks related to H205, and China is discouraging the local companies to avoid the chips in demand.

The US response to this is that China fears Nvidia chips becoming the standard there. It is a simplistic view. Chinese companies have stockpiled billions of dollars worth chips even before the ban. Nvidia’s tech stack has already become a standard there. China expresses its fears but has not banned the chip imports from the US.

Western media feels that the reality is more nuanced. The Chinese criticism is not an official rebuke. It was meant to make Nvidia ‘squirm.’ It worked Nvidia made a public denial of the breaches.

China wants to replace Nvidia chips with Huawei chips. But the domestic players are still not ready for prime time both in terms of performance and quantity. DeepSeek is training its hardware on Huawei instead of Nvidia’s. It has to work out, and so far it has not. DeepSeek is using Nvidia chips as a compromise.

The US has imposed a payment of 15 per cent of revenue to the US for chip sales on the mainland. It is a pay-for-deal and could lead to a backlash. China too realizes this. China is pretending that it does not need US chips. But in fact it is building a bridge until its own domestic players are ready. Maybe, this point is approaching. Nvidia is preferred still because of its supporting software system. Domestic players will take time to catch up. When this point is reached US-led export controls will be ineffective.

Rare earths refer to a group of 17 elements which are silvery-white metals. Out of these 17 elements, there are 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium. The 17 elements are: scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium.

Despite the word rare, in their nomenclature, rare earths are not scare in nature. Some are even more abundant than lead. However, they are typically found in law concentrations and are mixed with other minerals. Their extraction and separation are, therefore, costly and complex. The US scientists developed the refining techniques for rare earths for the first time in the 1950s. Since 1980s, China has dominated this market, owing to lower costs, relaxed environmental considerations and the government support.

China accounts for about 60 percent of the world’s mine output and over 70 per cent of the refined production and magnet manufacturing.

These elements per se or the magnets made from them are essential components in a variety of technologies. They are present in LED lights, smartphones, household appliances, electric vehicles (EVs), medical devices, advanced military hardware (missiles, radar and F-35 fighter jet).

Rare earth magnets are essential in permanent magnet synchronous motors. Such motors are the core of EV propulsion systems, and create high torque, energy efficiency and lead to reduced size of EV motors.

They are used in defence guidance systems, in consumer electronics.

Disruption in supply can adversely affect industries. China uses rare earths to leverage the negotiations. All Chinese companies need to get special export licenses to send rare earths and magnets out of China.

Foreign companies in China are required to have approval of the Chinese government to export even small amounts of rare earths.

Efforts are being made in the US, Europe and Australia to develop alternative supply chains.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a group of 17 chemically similar metals. They are used as essential components in advanced technologies. They are specially used in making rare earth permanent magnets.

Praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium and yttrium are used for clear-tech and missile applications.

Rare earth magnets are used in permanent magnet synclironous motors (PMSMs). They are core of EV propulsion systems. They enhance torque, energy efficiency and reduce the size of EV motors.

Rare earth magnets are used in defence guidance systems, missile actuators, lasers, radar and sonar systems.

In consumer electronics, they are used in smartphones, speakers and hard drives.

REEs magnetic and luminescent properties power medical imaging technologies, and LED lighting.

REEs are abundant in earth’s crust, but they are unevenly distributed. They are difficult to extract and refine. They are rare in commercial terms.

China has the largest reserves of REEs. The US is second and produces 45,000 tonnes a year but is seventh in terms of reserves. Brazil, Australia and Russia too have sizeable reserves.

India has the fifth largest, rare-earth reserves but it mines very little. The concentrations are mainly in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. India mainly imports from other countries. IREL is the sole public sector company engaged in rare earth mining. India now wants to roll out a scheme to incentivize the production of rare earth magnets. Several companies have shown interest. Even Hindalco and Adani group are expected to explore the opportunity to supply raw materials to magnet manufacturers.

Gear sensors use rare earth magnets. Shortage of rare earth magnets affects the supply chain and production of vehicles. Permanent magnets are made of iron and are not as efficient. They have more weight. Electric vehicles do require rare earth magnets.

Electric two-wheeler maker Ather will completely eliminate the use of heavy rare earth elements in the magnets used for its motor systems. It wants to transit to light rare earth alternatives.

Rare earth elements are critical for permanent magnets in EV motors. Heavy rare earths (dysprosium and terbium) have affected supply chain since they are sourced from China. Light rare earths (neodymium and praseodymium) are more abundant and face fewer geographical risks.

Heavy rare earth magnets can withstand higher operating temperatures (up to 150 degree C). Ather’s components never reach such high temperatures. Therefore, performance of the vehicles will not be affected by this transition.