News 30 august 2025 - 6 september 2025

Starship Technologies operated over 2,000 delivery robots worldwide by early 2025, surpassing 8 million autonomous deliveries. Amazon relies on thousands of Kiva-designed AMRs in its warehouses. The global AMR market reached $4 billion in 2024, with double-digit growth expected. U.S. state laws on sidewalk robots vary, with Georgia allowing up to 500 pounds at 4 mph and New Hampshire up to 80 pounds at 10 mph.

A flexible perovskite module with WVTR ≈ 5.0 × 10⁻³ g/m²/day retained 84% of output after 2,000 hours at 85°C/85% RH. Japan will subsidize Sekisui Chemical to build a 100 MW perovskite factory by 2027, targeting 20 GW capacity by 2040. Multiple producers passed IEC reliability tests. A Chinese startup showed a 1.2 × 1.6 m flexible module rated at 260–300 W and 2.04 kg.

Bangladesh’s two largest mobile operators launched the country’s first 5G services in major cities. Pakistan’s prime minister approved a delayed 5G spectrum auction to be held by December 2025. Iraq announced a state-backed 5G operator in partnership with Vodafone, aiming for nationwide rollout in 2025. The US restored FCC auction authority but sidelined key 5G/6G bands, opting to auction 100 MHz near 4 GHz.

SpaceX Starlink Maritime now delivers high-speed, low-latency internet to ships, enabling video streaming at sea, far surpassing previous 5–10 Mbps connections. Inmarsat, Intelsat, and OneWeb have upgraded networks, with OneWeb offering 150 Mbps for commercial vessels at $9,600/month. Iridium provides global coverage for critical communications. SES and Starlink jointly supply gigabit speeds to cruise ships using combined MEO and LEO networks.

A Verizon mobile outage on August 30 left millions across the U.S. without service for hours, with over 23,000 reports filed before restoration began. Pakistan authorities shut down 3G/4G mobile internet in Balochistan the same day, citing security threats amid unrest, leaving millions offline into September.

The global smart textiles market reached $6–8 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow over 30% annually into the 2030s. In 2024, the U.S. intelligence community funded the SMART ePANTS program with $22 million to develop clothing that covertly records audio, video, and location. Defense accounted for 29% of smart textile revenue, while sports and fitness showed the fastest growth at 35% per year.

Global chip sales reached $57 billion in April 2025, up 22.7% year-on-year. Analysts expect semiconductor revenue to hit $700 billion for the year. Apple launched 3 nm chips for iPhones and Macs, while Intel’s Panther Lake CPUs and TSMC’s 2 nm process are set for late 2025. NVIDIA plans up to $500 billion in new U.S. AI chip production capacity.

IBM’s NorthPole chip, unveiled in 2023, uses 22 billion transistors and runs vision models more efficiently than NVIDIA’s V100. Hala Point, announced in April 2024, links 1,152 Loihi 2 chips for 1.15 billion neurons and 20 quadrillion operations per second. Neuromorphic computing remains immature, lacking standards and software. The market is projected to grow 25–30% annually, reaching several billion dollars by 2030.