China and Russia to conduct joint naval exercise

China and Russia will hold joint naval exercises in Chinese waters and Airspace in July, followed by a joint Maritime patrol in the Pacific Ocean, according to a statement from China's Ministry of National Defense.

The drills, dubbed "Joint Sea-2026," will take place in the waters and Airspace near Qingdao, a major military port and seaside city in Eastern China. After the exercises, naval forces from both countries will carry out a joint patrol in the Pacific Ocean.

The exercises are part of the annual cooperation plan between the two countries' armed forces, aimed at "addressing security challenges and promoting peace and stability in the region." No further details were provided regarding the exact dates of the drills or the number of personnel and military assets involved.

The two nations are key diplomatic and economic partners, linked by their shared aim to present an alternative to what they see as US dominance in global affairs.

China and Russia have been staging joint military drills for years, drawing increasing scrutiny, particularly from Western countries, amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Separately, Russian state media reported that a cruiser, a Corvette, a Diesel-Electric submarine, and a rescue vessel from Russia's Pacific fleet had arrived in Qingdao for the drills that are set to run from Monday to July 13.

Reference Sources

1. ukrinform - Ukrinform - Ukrainian National News Agency
2. newsukraine - China and Russia to hold joint naval drills
3. brusselstimes - China and Russia to conduct joint naval exercise
4. aljazeera - China and Russia to hold annual joint naval drills
5. bloomberg - China Says It Will Hold Naval Drill With Russia This Month

ABC trials AI writing tools for news staff amid trust warnings

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is rolling out new artificial intelligence (AI) tools to staff and trialling the use of AI to help write Digital news articles based on radio bulletins.

The Broadcaster says AI will assist staff and not supplant editorial decision-making, but the Union representing journalists says management refused to commit to a provision that AI would not replace workers.

The ABC will hold an All-Staff town hall about its AI plans on July 28. Experts and the journalists' Union have cautiously welcomed the ABC's plans to use AI responsibly, but warned that misuse could damage trust in the public Broadcaster.

The ABC is preparing to roll out AI to staff, including running a trial to use AI to help write Digital news, as it tries to embrace a technology many Australians distrust. Last month, ABC executives told staff the Broadcaster had updated its AI guidelines, struck a deal with Anthropic, the company behind Claude, and begun trialling a tool that turns regional radio bulletins into Online articles.

An ABC spokesperson said AI tools offered "significant benefits" to assist its journalism, including freeing up time for original news-gathering and helping staff do routine tasks more efficiently. In an All-Staff Email sent on June 25, managing director Hugh Marks and chief people officer Deena Amorelli outlined the ABC's new approach to AI.

Reference Sources

1. abcnetau - ABC trials AI writing tools for news staff amid trust warnings

Huawei paper details major chip breakthroughs, 100-fold AI scaling target, and Kirin 2026 roadmap: report

He Tingbo, president of Huawei's semiconductor business Department, has updated her paper, "A Time Scaling Theory for Multi-Layer Electronic Systems," on Chinaxiv, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Preprint platform.

The updated paper builds on the original theoretical framework by adding extensive engineering implementation details, measured quantitative data, and a product evolution roadmap, further refining a Post-Moore Scaling theory system centered on the time constant.

The paper presents two Production-Scale engineering validation results. In the field of mobile SOCs, it applies "Logicfolding," a design approach that partitions Digital, analog, and memory circuits into vertically stacked active layers and connects them via Ultra-Fine bonding, to achieve, at a fixed process Node, a step increase of 55% in transistor density and a 41% improvement in energy efficiency. In the field of AI systems, a co-designed full technology stack, including a unified bus architecture with memory Semantics (unified bus), near-package optical I O (Hi one), and edge-to-surface 3D folding, is expected to increase hardware integration density by more than 100 times by 2035.

Both sets of data come directly from the main text of the paper and represent the key incremental information in version 2.

Reference Sources

1. globaltimes - Huawei paper details major chip breakthroughs, 100-fold AI scaling target and Kirin 2026 roadmap: report

The CommonWealth English daily news digest is a service curated by CommonWealth English team with the help of AI tools.  

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