
Chinese scientist Li Haibo dies aged 41 amid concern over ‘insane' workload among academics
scientist Li Haibo died suddenly at the age of 41 on Tuesday, according to media reports.
Advertisement
Li, a professor at Ningxia University who specialised in nano materials, electrochemistry and optoelectronic materials, was named among the top 2 per cent of global scientists in a list released by Stanford University in 2023.
His research areas included improving lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery storage performance and
seawater desalination by removing salt that exists in the form of ions.
His area of expertise was nano materials, including carbon nanotubes and graphene, as well as electrochemistry, including energy storage systems called supercapacitors, and optoelectronic materials such as thin-film solar cell electrodes.
Wuhan-based outlet Jiupai News reported that Li had died of a sudden
illness , citing an academic at the university, who said it was unlikely there would be an obituary or memorial service.
Advertisement

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


RTHK
2 days ago
- RTHK
AI 'predicts weather better than conventional ways'
AI 'predicts weather better than conventional ways' He Yuheng says some AI weather predictions are as good as - if not better than - conventional methods. Photo: RTHK The Hong Kong Observatory said on Friday that weather predictions carried out using artificial intelligence have surpassed conventional methods, and helped it to carry out early forecasts. Speaking on an RTHK radio programme, acting senior scientific officer He Yuheng said a week prior to the downpours that lashed the SAR on Tuesday, some AI models had already forecast that there would be an east-to-west rainband affecting Guangdong. Even though rainfall distributions predicted by AI might not be too accurate, He said, they have allowed the observatory to conduct predictions earlier to a certain extent and inform the public sooner about unstable weather conditions. He said that when the observatory began using AI in mid-2023, the models only offered limited predictions for meteorological elements such as temperatures and humidity levels. Now it can directly predict rainfall without analysing other parameters. AI models can even better predict the weather than conventional methods, he said. "At least for now, if we talk about AI models' performance on the medium-range weather forecasts of large-scale meteorological patterns for the next 10 days, they have reached – or even slightly exceeded – the level of conventional methods," He said. "For example, on the location and change in intensity for an anticyclone aloft and subtropical ridge of high pressure, AI is better." However, He said AI models are unable to forecast the intensity of strong typhoons for now, while other AI-based predictions must be verified manually. As for the coming days, He said an area of low pressure over the northeastern part of the South China Sea could bring showers to the SAR early next week. The observatory expects another area of low pressure that has developed into a tropical cyclone north of Guam to move westward towards Taiwan.


AllAfrica
3 days ago
- AllAfrica
US senators sound alarm on DeepSeek's security risks
Seven Republican US senators have called for an investigation into DeepSeek's data security threats, citing growing concerns that the artificial intelligence (AI) model could leak personal data or generate harmful content. In a letter submitted to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the lawmakers urged the government to evaluate the risks of Chinese AI models collecting and sending data to servers in China. After DeepSeek released its R1 model in late January, Wiz Research found a publicly accessible database belonging to the Chinese AI model. It said the database contained a significant volume of chat history, backend data and sensitive information, including log streams, API Secrets and operational details. The senators also said that R1 probably did not undergo comprehensive red-teaming and safety tests to prevent the generation of harmful content. 'A Wall Street Journal reporter was able to get R1 to write text for a social media campaign intended to encourage self-harm amongst teenage girls, as well as to provide instructions for carrying out a bioweapon attack,' they said. They requested the US Commerce Department to: explaining how it will use resources like the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) to work with relevant agencies to protect US businesses and citizens; investigate the national security risks posed by Chinese open-source AI models; Identify any evidence of these models providing US data to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) or associated companies. In March, Chinese media reported that the PLA was using DeepSeek in its hospitals, the People's Armed Police (PAP), and national defense mobilization units. Ren Hao, a senior software engineer at 301 Hospital, stated that the hospital deployed DeepSeek-R1 on Huawei's Ascend hardware to create a local knowledge database. The PLA's Central Theatre Command General Hospital also said it used DeepSeek's R1-70B AI model to assist doctors by suggesting treatment plans. Apart from these, Chinese academics said the home-made large language model (LLM) can be deployed for military use. Fu Yanfang, a researcher at Xian Technological University's School of Computer Science and Engineering, said in May that her team used DeepSeek's AI models to generate military simulation scenarios. She said a commander has to spend 48 hours planning for a military scenario, but a self-developed AI-based simulator can generate 10,000 military scenarios in just 48 seconds. 'LLMs and combat simulation scenarios had redefined the future of war design,' she said, adding that DeepSeek's LLM can easily deconstruct and reconstruct complex battlefield situations through training on massive data sets. A white paper published by Chongqing Landship Information Technology, an autonomous driving solution provider, also said that DeepSeek has excellent potential for military use, particularly in command, communications, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications. 'China can deploy DeepSeek V3 in Gongji-11 drones to fight against F-16V fighter jets in the Taiwan Strait,' Wen Chang, a senior researcher at Techxcope, a Beijing-based think tank, says in an article published in March. 'This would be a fairer game than deploying China's sixth-generation (Chengdu J-36) or fifth-generation (Chengdu J-20) fighter jets to combat the F-16V, which is not a stealth fighter.' 'Although the F-16V also has an AI system, it still needs the pilot to make most decisions. In this sense, Gongji-11 has an advantage as it can fly 24 hours a day,' he added. On February 6, two US representatives, Democrat Josh Gottheimer and Republican Darin LaHood, introduced the bipartisan 'No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act,' which prohibits federal employees from using DeepSeek on government-issued devices. Only New York, Texas, and Virginia have banned DeepSeek on government devices. The US Navy has also prohibited the use of the AI model. In March, Reuters reported that the US Commerce Department's bureaus informed their staff members that DeepSeek is banned on their government devices. It's unclear whether the Trump administration would seek to ban the deployment of DeepSeek entirely in the US. US President Donald Trump said on February 8 that the release of DeepSeek may be beneficial for the US, as AI technologies will be significantly less expensive than initially thought. The seven senators requested that Lutnick report any findings on how Chinese AI models may have illegally accessed US technology, such as export-controlled semiconductors. The US banned the shipments of the A100 and H100 to China in October 2022 and the A800 and H100 to the country in October 2023. In late January, Lutnick testified before the US Senate in a hearing that DeepSeek could create its AI models 'dirt cheap' because it was able to purchase a large quantity of Nvidia chips and access data from Meta's open platform. DeepSeek claimed that the training cost of R1 was only US$5.58 million, which is 1.1% of Meta's US$500 million for Llama 3.1. It claimed it trained the model using the distilled data from Alibaba's Qwen and Meta's Llama. Alexandr Wang, chief executive of the US-based Scale AI, told CNBC that DeepSeek and its parent, High Flyer, could have accumulated 50,000 units of Nvidia's high-end AI chips, such as the H100. An unnamed senior State Department official told Reuters in late June that DeepSeek used Southeast Asian shell companies to obtain high-end Nvidia chips. In February, Singapore charged three men with fraud for allegedly helping ship Nvidia's high-end chips to DeepSeek in China in 2024. The trio, including two Singaporeans and one Chinese national, was accused of shipping servers with the A100 and H100 to Malaysia and potentially elsewhere. In late March, Malaysia's Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry, Tengku Zafrul Aziz, said the US had requested the Malaysian government to monitor every shipment of Nvidia chips arriving in Malaysia. On July 14, Malaysia announced that companies must apply for permits to re-export high-performance American AI chips. On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said two Chinese nationals, both 28, have been arrested in California for violating the US Export Control Reform Act as they exported from the US to China sensitive technology, including graphic processing units (GPUs) – specialized computer parts used for modern computing – without first obtaining the required license or authorization from the US. Read: US plans to tighten AI chip export rules for Malaysia, Thailand


South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- South China Morning Post
American Mathematical Society fellow Li Hanfeng joins China's Chongqing University
There are four top-tier journals in mathematics academia: Annals of Mathematics, Inventiones Mathematicae, Journal of the American Mathematical Society and Acta Mathematica. These journals put out only about 100 articles each year, and publishing even one is a mark of a leading mathematician. It is very rare to publish in all four. Li Hanfeng published 10 in total across all four between 2005 and 2019. The leading China-born mathematician has now returned from the United States. Chongqing University announced his appointment as a professor last month, and his name is listed on the university's website. Li earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Peking University in 1997 and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002.