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Sweden claims largest discovery of ‘crucial’ rare-earth elements in Europe

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Sweden claims largest discovery of 'crucial' rare-earth elements in Europe
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While it could take more than a decade to develop, state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB said Thursday it uncovered Europe s largest known deposit of rare-earth elements, elements that are central components for the energy transition.

Rare-earth elements, along with lithium and cobalt, are essential for the batteries that power electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies, though most of that is found outside of the Western, developed economies.

LKAB said it found a deposit in the Kiruna area of Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, that contains more than 1 million tons of rare-earth elements.

“This is the largest known deposit of rare-earth elements in our part of the world, and it could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition,” Jan Mostrom, president and CEO of LKAB, said.

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Without sufficient supplies and without mines to extract these minerals, the energy transition would grind to a halt. The European Commission, for example, estimates the bloc will need to see a five-fold increase in rare-earth element supply to meet the expected increase in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

China, however, “completely dominates the market,” LKAB said, and the discovery in Europe will go a long way toward reducing the dependency on any single supplier, a problem the European Union is already working to address by looking for oil and gas suppliers other than Russia.

Dependency was an issue raised Thursday by Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency. The IEA estimates that the Democratic Republic of Congo currently produces 70% of the world s cobalt, used in lithium-ion batteries, while Australia, Chile and China account for 90% of the total global production of lithium.

There are no rare-earth mines in operation in Europe. LKAB said it s already started some preliminary work to tap the Kiruna deposit, dubbed Per Geijer, but permitting and developmental processes are slow.

“If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market,” Mostrom said. 

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While it could take more than a decade to develop, state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB said Thursday it uncovered Europe s largest known deposit of rare-earth elements, elements that are central components for the energy transition.

Rare-earth elements, along with lithium and cobalt, are essential for the batteries that power electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies, though most of that is found outside of the Western, developed economies.

LKAB said it found a deposit in the Kiruna area of Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, that contains more than 1 million tons of rare-earth elements.

“This is the largest known deposit of rare-earth elements in our part of the world, and it could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition,” Jan Mostrom, president and CEO of LKAB, said.

Without sufficient supplies and without mines to extract these minerals, the energy transition would grind to a halt. The European Commission, for example, estimates the bloc will need to see a five-fold increase in rare-earth element supply to meet the expected increase in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

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China, however, “completely dominates the market,” LKAB said, and the discovery in Europe will go a long way toward reducing the dependency on any single supplier, a problem the European Union is already working to address by looking for oil and gas suppliers other than Russia.

Dependency was an issue raised Thursday by Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency. The IEA estimates that the Democratic Republic of Congo currently produces 70% of the world s cobalt, used in lithium-ion batteries, while Australia, Chile and China account for 90% of the total global production of lithium.

There are no rare-earth mines in operation in Europe. LKAB said it s already started some preliminary work to tap the Kiruna deposit, dubbed Per Geijer, but permitting and developmental processes are slow.

“If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market,” Mostrom said. 

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Amazon’s AWS appeals to corporate customers with new chatbot, AI safety measures

Amazon’s AWS appeals to corporate customers with new chatbot, AI safety measures

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Amazon's AWS appeals to corporate customers with new chatbot, AI safety measures

Amazon (AMZN.O) is trying to lure big corporate customers to it AWS cloud computing service with a new chatbot for businesses, and by offering to guard them against legal and reputational damage that can come from the output of artificial intelligence.

The new chatbot, called Q, is designed to help with productivity by helping workers summarize important documents and support tickets and chat via communication apps such as Slack, the company announced at its annual cloud computing conference Tuesday in Las Vegas. The software can also automatically make changes to businesses source code, speeding development, the company said.

The new software arrives roughly a year after OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene, setting off a frenzy of investment in generative AI startups. Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and others have announced their own chatbots, which can have human-like conversations with users to help with daily tasks.

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky, at Amazon’s annual cloud computing conference in Las Vegas, announced a new safeguard against objectionable content on generative AI applications, called Guardrails for Bedrock. The service allows users to filter out harmful content, he said.

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Because generative AI is trained on publicly available content, offensive words or other objectionable content can slip through into results from users’ prompts. That is particularly problematic for younger users, in times of global conflict or during elections when generative AI’s output in search results can influence opinion.

Safety advocates have cautioned that generative AI could operate out of the control of its human creators and pump out increasingly dangerous content or operate entire systems without oversight. In particular, they worry about the software putting influential – and convincing – content on social media sites like X and Facebook (META.O).

Selipsky said the new service was important for customers to put limits they see fit on the generative AI they use.

“For example, a bank could configure an online assistant to refrain from providing investment advice,” said Selipsky. “Or, to prevent inappropriate content, an e-commerce site could ensure that its online assistant doesn’t use hate speech or insults.”

As part of its appeal to corporations, Amazon said the Q chatbot will offer businesses limits so that it can keep sensitive data from employees who should not have access to it. Pricing will start at $20 per user, per year.

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Also at the conference, Amazon announced it would indemnify its customers against lawsuits based on the misuse of copyrighted materials. Stock photography company Getty Images, for instance, sued Stability AI earlier this year, alleging it scraped its website for images without permission.

Guardrails for Bedrock is in limited preview today, Amazon said. The Seattle company did not provide additional details about its indemnification policy. 

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TikTok obtaining Indonesia e-commerce permit

TikTok obtaining Indonesia e-commerce permit

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TikTok obtaining Indonesia e-commerce permit

Short video app TikTok is in the process of obtaining an e-commerce permit from Indonesia’s government, state news agency Antara reported, citing the deputy trade minister.

In September, Indonesia banned e-commerce transactions on social media, a major blow for TikTok, which had pledged to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy.

“Before, they (TikTok) were not compliant, they didn’t have the permit. Now they are taking care of it,” deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga was quoted saying by Antara on Tuesday.

He said a partnership with a local firm could be done providing it was in accordance with regulations.

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TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia, a country of more than 270 million people. It has been looking to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source.

TikTok did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding the deputy minister’s remarks.

Reuters reported earlier this month that TikTok was in talks on possible partnerships with several Indonesian e-commerce companies, including GoTo’s e-commerce unit (GOTO.JK) Tokopedia, Bukalapak.com (BUKA.JK) and Blibli (BELI.JK). 

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Japan space agency hit with cyberattack, rocket and satellite info not accessed

Japan space agency hit with cyberattack, rocket and satellite info not accessed

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Japan space agency hit with cyberattack, rocket and satellite info not accessed

Japan’s space agency was hit with a cyberattack but the information the hackers accessed did not include anything important for rocket and satellite operations, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“There was a possibility of unauthorised access by exploiting the vulnerability of network equipment,” the spokesperson at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said, declining to elaborate on details such as when the attack took place.

The space agency learned of the possibility of the unauthorised access after receiving information from an external organisation and conducting an internal investigation, the spokesperson said, declining to identify the organisation’s name.

The investigation is ongoing, the spokesperson said.

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Japanese media reported Wednesday that the cyberattack occurred during the summer and the police became aware of the attack and notified JAXA this autumn. The Yomiuri newspaper first reported the incident. 

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