FTI Consulting News Bytes – 2nd December 2022

This week’s news

Hydrogen used to power passenger plane engine in world first by Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce and easyJet have tested what they claim is the world’s first commercial airline engine powered by hydrogen fuel, according to The Telegraph. A converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100 turboprop engine was tested on a ground rig at Boscombe Down, a facility in Wiltshire belonging to the Ministry of Defence. Rolls-Royce Chief Technology Officer, Grazia Vittadini, said: “We are pushing the boundaries to discover the zero carbon possibilities of hydrogen, which could help reshape the future of flight.” Though hydrogen has historically been seen as an attractive fuel for aviation, the fuel is now being revisited as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon emissions. Experts believe that in the UK, hydrogen-fuelled flights could become a reality as soon as 2030.

China enlists Alibaba and Tencent in fight against US chip sanctions

China has enlisted tech giants Alibaba and Tencent to assist with its efforts designing semiconductor chips, according to the Financial Times. The move comes as Beijing braces for further US-led sanctions, as it aims to reduce its dependence on SoftBank-owned Arm, whose technology underpins the majority of semiconductors globally. The Chinese government has set up a consortium of companies to create new chip intellectual property. The group is using Risc-V, an open-source chip design architecture, which has emerged as a competitor to Arm. One Chinese official said the government-led effort to pool resources on Risc-V-based chip design would put China on the “right track, though noted that the fragmented nature of Risc-V’s development was slowing the replacement of Arm’s designs.

UK to deploy Elon Musk’s Starlink in the first test of satellite for rural connectivity

The Financial Times reports that the UK will begin trialing Elon Musk’s Starlink technology for rural connectivity to help boost connection in these areas. Globally, governments have struggled to provide ultrafast broadband connectivity for rural areas and now satellites serve as a cost-efficient alternative to investments. Areas such as North York Moors National Park and Lake District and Snowdonia National Park will be the first places where Starlink satellites will be deployed. According to the outlet, Starlink was chosen was for its availability and low cost. The outlet suggests that the web-linked satellites will help accelerate Rishi Sunak’s desire to improve access to fast and reliable internet to tackle the digital divide and reach his goal of delivering gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure to 99% of premises by 2030.

Snap orders staff back to the office four days a week

Next, in the latest sign of Big Tech abandoning remote working, Snapchat has ordered its staff back to the office for four days or more per week. According to The Times, in an internal memo circulated to staff by Snapchat’s Chief Executive Evan Spiegel, Spiegel commented “I believe that spending more time together in person will help us achieve our full potential”, and went on to note “we’ve forgotten what we’ve lost from spending more time together.” Following this news, the company will enforce this new arrangement from February, and this will cover all of Snap’s 30 global offices. This move by Snap follows other major tech companies such as Apple, which wants staff in the office three days a week and Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has told all staff to work from the office.

New £50m fund for tech start-ups helping children, health & the planet

The Times reports that Nesta Impact Investments, the venture capital arm of the UK innovation agency Nesta, has launched a £50 million fund to support early-stage technology businesses making a “social and environmental impact”. Half of the money invested by the fund will be put directly into early-stage start-ups over the next five years; the other half of the £50 million capital will be deployed through Mission Studio, Nesta’s joint venture with Founders Factory, the accelerator that focuses on launching new mission-led start-ups and providing them with initial investment. The fund will back businesses which benefit children, health and those which “create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet”. The first three start-ups backed by the fund are childcare company Koru Kids, the type 2 diabetes reversal programme Habitual Healthy, and Oxford Medical Products, which has developed a “gastric balloon in a pill” to treat obesity.

Top Tweets of the Week

• BBC News: Twitter ends Covid-misinformation policy, under Musk https://t.co/FipmWlD7k2 
• Ryan Browne, Tech Correspondent at CNBC: After all the drama surrounding the Online Safety Bill, this feels like such a big reversal by the government: Britain tempers controversial plans to make Big Tech remove harmful content. Great piece on what’s happened by @_karengilchrist https://t.co/NC9lIkfwpw
• European Central Bank: The apparent stabilisation of bitcoin’s value is likely to be an artificially induced last gasp before the crypto-asset embarks on a road to irrelevance. #TheECBblog looks at where bitcoin stands amid widespread volatility in the crypto markets. https://t.co/Hk1LuYX2de

Number of the Week

1.5bn – The number of times ‘As it Was’ by Harry Styles, 2022’s most streamed song on Spotify, was streamed this year, according to the platform

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