Civil Engineer

Musk appointed to US taskforce on future of warfare. By Andrej Sokolow, Khang Mischke and Franziska Spiecker, Dpa Updated September 30 2026 - 8:58pm, first published 8:52pm Until late May 2025, Elon Musk also led the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Photo: EPA PHOTO Tech billionaire Elon Musk is set to take a leading role in a new Pentagon project examining the future of warfare, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced. Speaking to military personnel at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Wednesday, Hegseth said Musk and drone technology entrepreneur Palmer Luckey would be among those leading the initiative, known as Project Meridian. The Pentagon expects the project to produce its findings within 120 days. The project aims to "creatively look into the future and identify the domains we must conquer, and capabilities we must master," Hegseth said. Pete Hegseth also announced expanding the use of robotic systems across the US military. (AP PHOTO) The defence secretary also addressed autonomous warfare, meaning the use of weapons systems and artificial intelligence capable of operating and carrying out attacks without direct human intervention. "We need to be looking forward into the future to achieve technological and military dominance on the battlefield for decades to come," Hegseth said. Hegseth also announced the creation of a new four-star Autonomous Warfare Command aimed at expanding the use of autonomous and robotic systems across the US military. Pentagon dispute over autonomous weapons The prospect of AI-powered autonomous weapons recently came into focus during a dispute between the Pentagon and US AI company Anthropic. Anthropic refused to allow its technology to be used in autonomous weapons or for mass surveillance of US citizens, while the Pentagon insisted it should be able to use AI for any lawful purpose. The company was subsequently designated a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon. Musk is also heavily involved in AI and robotics. SpaceXAI develops the Grok system, while Tesla, the carmaker he leads, is ramping up production of its Optimus humanoid robots. Until late May 2025, Musk led the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the cost-cutting program set up by US President Donald Trump, through which he implemented significant cuts and job reductions at government agencies. The Pentagon expects the taskforce to produce its findings within 120 days. (EPA PHOTO) Project Meridian was one of several initiatives Hegseth unveiled in his speech. He confirmed plans to cut around 20 per cent of positions designated for generals and admirals. Hegseth also announced an effort to make major US military installations capable of generating their own electricity in the event of disruptions to civilian power grids. Hegseth said Trump wants to build a new military base in the US and invited states to put themselves forward to host between 15,000 and 25,000 troops. Australian Associated Press

SpaceXAI launches Grokipedia v0.3 with new visuals and features. 1 hour ago SpaceXAI launched Grokipedia v0.3 on Wednesday, bringing a refreshed visual design and new features to its AI-generated encyclopedia as the Wikipedia alternative reaches its third major release. My latest videos. Grokipedia said Wednesday the update is now live at grokipedia.com, continuing the rapid release cadence that began with v0.1 in October 2025 and v0.2 in November 2025. The v0.3 release arrived with little advance notice beyond a teaser last week from Benji Taylor, head of design at X and SpaceXAI, who reposted the launch announcement. Early reactions focused on the refreshed look, while the launch quickly became a trending topic. Elon Musk has positioned Grokipedia as an alternative to Wikipedia, using AI-generated articles that readers can correct through suggestions rather than direct edits. Grok reviews each suggestion and applies those that hold up. Musk has said the project will eventually adopt the name Encyclopedia Galactica once the site is good enough. According to its homepage, Grokipedia now hosts more than six million articles. The release adds to SpaceXAI's broader push into AI-curated knowledge products, arriving weeks after the company launched Grok 4.7, its latest flagship model and released Voice Transcribe 2.0. SpaceXAI has also mapped an aggressive roadmap through Grok 5, while Grok itself has expanded into public services as the default AI for U.S. government websites. With v0.3 now live, Grokipedia has delivered three major versions in less than a year, extending SpaceXAI's work on the encyclopedia as it moves toward Musk's planned Encyclopedia Galactica name. P.S. - Buying a new Tesla? Click here to save $1,000 USD, while supporting independent news. Help support Tesla North by shopping on Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so Tesla North earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent media!

SpaceX could double the number of Nvidia chips it uses in Colossus 2. What this would mean for SPCX stock. Pathikrit Bose Across SpaceX (SPCX) and Tesla (TSLA), Elon Musk should consider rationalizing the investor relations teams. This is because all the major announcements regarding these companies are revealed by the world's richest man through his megaphone, X (formerly Twitter), first. This happened again when Musk announced that xAI would be doubling the number of Nvidia chips in the company's AI supercomputer cluster, Colossus 2. Replying to an X user, Musk tweeted, "@minchoi Colossus 1 is 150k H100, 50k H200 and 30k GB200. Colossus 2 is 110k GB200 and 440k GB300. Another 220k GB300 will be fully operational next week and another 220k in November. If we get lucky, yet another 220k GB300 by late December." More news from barchart. This again reiterates that AI remains the centerpiece of the SpaceX story even though the company's Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time yesterday. Notably, SpaceX is still flirting with the $2 trillion market cap mark, while its shares are down 9.6% since the IPO. However, how does this expansion of Colossus by the end of this year fit into SpaceX's larger AI scheme of things? Let's find out. Colossus 2 is A Colossus. The critical nature of Colossus 2 to xAI's wider AI ambitions can be gauged from the scale at which it operates. Independent modelers at Epoch AI put the IT load at Colossus 2 near 946 megawatts in the back half of the year, just under a full gigawatt. That already sits in the same neighborhood as San Diego's average draw, which runs around 800 megawatts. The wider Memphis and Southaven campus was described by mid-year as sitting on the order of 1 gigawatt of AI compute, and a third building bought at the close of 2025 was meant to push the whole site toward 2 gigawatts. For comparison, a 2-gigawatt campus would cover roughly 1.5 million homes if it were a city utility. Further, training of newer Grok models moved mainly onto Colossus 2 and nearby halls after Anthropic agreed in May 2026 to rent essentially all of Colossus 1. That makes the new cluster the home field for SpaceXAI's own models, while the older site became a wholesale box for a rival. Additionally, Reflection AI, an open-source lab with Nvidia backing, contracted for Colossus 2 hardware at $150 million a month starting 1 July 2026. However, it will be interesting to see what happens when there is serious demand for compute from Grok or Cursor.