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Indian Express
18 hours ago
- Science
- Indian Express
After the Big Bang: How the first stars lit up our universe
In 1964, two radio engineers at Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, were trying to calibrate a sensitive antenna. They kept picking up an odd hiss of noise, no matter where they pointed the instrument. At first they blamed pigeons nesting in the dish. But when they ruled out all local interference, they realized they had stumbled upon something big. The hiss was from the cosmic microwave background — the afterglow of the Big Bang. Meanwhile, just 60 kilometers away at Princeton University, physicist Robert Dicke and his team had been working on a theory predicting exactly this signal. They were preparing to build an instrument to detect it when they got a phone call from Bell Labs. As the story goes, Dicke hung up the phone and turned to his colleagues: 'Well, boys, we've been scooped.' So how far back in time was this hiss coming from? To know that we go back billions and billions of years in time About 13.8 billion years ago, the universe began as an almost unimaginably hot and dense point. The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, but an expansion of space itself. In the first few minutes, the simplest elements—hydrogen, helium, and a touch of lithium—were forged. But there were no atoms yet, only a plasma of nuclei and electrons. Roughly 380,000 years later, things cooled enough for electrons to combine with nuclei and form neutral atoms. This event, called recombination, allowed photons—particles of light—to travel freely through space for the first time. That ancient light still surrounds us today as the cosmic microwave background, a faint glow detected in every direction. It is our earliest direct window into the cosmos. At this time the universe was dark. No stars, no galaxies—just a cooling soup of particles and radiation, expanding in silence. For hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, there prevailed the cosmic dark ages: a period when the universe was transparent, but no stars had yet formed. It took several hundred million years for tiny gravitational irregularities to grow into dense pockets of gas. These regions collapsed under their own weight, compressed by gravity and cooled by molecular hydrogen, until they ignited. The first stars burst into light. The universe, quite literally, lit up. The very first stars — so-called Population III stars — were unlike any we see today. Born from pristine hydrogen and helium, they were massive, short-lived, and intensely bright. Some may have been hundreds of times the mass of our Sun, burning hot and dying young in titanic supernovae that scattered heavy elements across space. These explosions seeded the universe with the ingredients for future generations of stars, planets, and eventually, life. Their formation also triggered a cosmic transformation known as reionization. The intense ultraviolet radiation from these first stars began breaking apart neutral hydrogen atoms in the surrounding intergalactic medium, re-ionizing the universe and making it once again opaque to certain wavelengths of light. Reionization ended the cosmic dark ages and reshaped the transparency and chemistry of space. Astronomers have spent decades chasing the first stars. In 2001, a team using the Hubble Space Telescope announced they had seen the farthest galaxy then known—light from more than 13 billion years ago. It was a thrilling discovery, but also a reminder of how faint and hard to detect these early objects are. 'We're seeing the toddler photos of the universe,' one researcher quipped. 'It still had cosmic baby fat.' We can't see Population III stars directly—at least not yet. But telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are pushing the observational frontier ever closer to the cosmic dawn. In its first year, JWST has already spotted candidate galaxies that may have existed just 300–400 million years after the Big Bang—possibly home to some of the first star clusters. Understanding this early period is more than a curiosity. It tells us where the elements in our bodies came from, how galaxies like the Milky Way formed, and what the ultimate fate of the cosmos might be. Each new observation peels back another layer of time, taking us closer to the beginning. Going back to the scientists who first gave us evidence on the dawn of our universe. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery. Robert Dickie, whose theoretical groundwork had laid the foundation for their success and was poised to discover it himself, never received the prize. Shravan Hanasoge is an astrophysicist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Founded On Technology Innovation, AT&T Is Charting A Data And AI Future
AT&T How does an iconic American company that has been synonymous with technology innovation for nearly 150 years prepare to grow and thrive in an AI future? This is the question that I posed to Andy Markus, Chief Data and AI Officer at AT&T, a company that was essentially founded in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. For nearly a century and a half, AT&T has been a pioneer in technology innovation. Markus joined AT&T in 2020, having held technology leadership and transformation positions for leading media companies including WarnerMedia, Turner Broadcasting, and Time. In his role as Chief Data and AI Officer at AT&T, Markus supports the consumer and business lines of the $122b (as of the end of 2024) company, as well as back-office functions ranging from finance to legal to HR. 'We're responsible for developing and executing the data and AI strategy and governance for the firm' notes Markus. He adds, 'The big hat we wear is execution. We work across the firm horizontally to help all parts of the business. We solve their challenges with a data and AI first mindset.' The scope of responsibility of the Chief Data and AI Office is magnified by the size and the scale of data that AT&T manages. AT&T has a long history working with AI, dating back to pioneering work at Bells Labs, the former R&D arm, which was renowned for its groundbreaking innovations, including the invention of the transistor in 1947. Bell Labs revolutionized modern electronics and computing and played a pivotal role in the early development of AI. 'AT&T has a very rich history with AI. I like to use the line from Hamilton – 'we were in the room where it happened'. AT&T was right there when the term artificial intelligence was created' comments Markus. He adds, 'We have a rich history of technology innovation at AT&T. We recently ranked sixth in U.S. companies with AI patents and continue to turn out a considerable volume of intellectual property resulting from generative AI and agentic AI.' As has been the case during its long history, AT&T continues to pioneer technology innovation, now using AI. 'AI is a core part of the AT&T mandate and how AT&T runs its businesses' says Markus. 'We still have the spirit of Bell Labs.' He adds, 'It's remarkable that we're one degree removed from somebody that worked with John Tukey, the legendary Bell Labs mathematician and statistician that I studied in school.' The emergence of generative AI and agentic AI in the past few years has been accelerating transformation within AT&T. Markus notes, 'We recognized that generative AI would bring AI to everyone. Instead of having AI being run exclusively by technical people, we are creating a general-purpose AI that can apply to areas where we have never used AI before.' AT&T currently runs over 600 traditional Machine Learning and AI models in production across the firm, cutting across many lines of business. Markus explains, 'Where we were leveraging traditional or classical AI to run the business, now we're integrating every part of the firm and reimagining the things that we can do using generative AI.' Generative AI is also being employed by AT&T to help manage its data. 'Data functionality using generative AI is great for complex analytics. We are working with hard, complex, messy data sets' notes Markus. He continues, 'When we apply generative AI technology to a curated data product, the accuracy skyrockets. Generative AI technology enables us to do things that are at human level or actually exceed what can be done at a human level.' Markus adds, 'We are building on a foundation of being great with data, great with classical or traditional AI, and now great with generative AI and agentic AI. Each element builds off each other and complements each other'. He notes that AT&T has created over 2,000 generative AI use cases that have been submitted for internal reviews. Delivering business value from AI is central to the business mandate of AT&T. 'An AI first mindset starts with understanding the business needs' notes Markus. He continues, 'Once we understand what these needs are, we work to automate processes and make the lift lighter for the development community so that they can do their work faster.' Markus adds, 'Our partners in the business are truly the experts at creating a business case. Whatever you do, you've got to integrate with existing systems. We help evaluate the cost of the solution and then we work to help understand the benefit and that's where we really work hand-in-hand our business partners.' The AI use cases that AT&T is developing cut across the firm. Markus notes that the very first thing that AT&T did was to bring together the risk organizations of the company -- legal, compliance, privacy and security – to develop a unified approach to govern how the company should invest and execute in AI capabilities across the organization. He continues, 'We partnered with the business units to create a transformation program for this new era of AI'. AT&T has established a transformation office which reviews each use case for its business value to the organization. Markus adds, 'We prioritize our use cases and work on those that will have the most value for the company, working closely with the CFO office.' The result of these efforts is that AI is driving business value for AT&T across business lines. In one example, AT&T has developed a complex fraud detection system. Markus explains, 'Your phone is a very expensive piece of equipment. The bad guys want to find a way to get your information that's on it.' He continues, 'To address this, we created a very complex fraud detection system with well over 30 models, both generative AI models and traditional AI models, that protect customers from fraud.' AT&T is also using AI to manage robocalls. Markus comments, 'When I started with AT&T, one of the top complaints from our customers were robocalls. At this point, by using AI we're detecting these earlier and blocking them.' AT&T is also applying AI to deliver business value through its Ask AT&T platform. Markus explains, 'One of the areas where we've been successful in using generative AI to take human language and turn it into computer language and do complex analytics is with our Ask AT&T platform.' He elaborates, 'At the very beginning of generative AI, we saw that generative AI was going to touch all of our employees, so we created a formal AI policy.' Over 100 thousand employees and contractors now have access to the Ask AT&T platform. Markus adds, 'We are leading the pack in using AI to drive value. We do it in a very measured way across the firm.' Another example is dispatch optimization. AT&T operates one of the largest vehicle fleets in the United States, comprising over 50,000 vehicles and over 700 million possible routes on a given day. The company has developed an AI application that optimizes the dispatch process. Markus notes, 'The benefit of the application is good for society because by being very efficient, we're saving carbon emissions. We now have over 100 million pounds of emissions saved since we started this program by reducing the miles driven. We don't always need to send technicians to homes when people call in. We've used AI to become much smarter on how we solve issues proactively, which saves a technician dispatch in many situations.' Managing data as a business asset is core to the success of the AI transformation taking place at AT&T. 'There is an enormous amount of data that flows over the AT&T network every day – close to 900 petabytes of data that come over the network every day', says Markus. He explains, 'Our data must be safe and secure. We have this concept of a data product, which in our view is a curated set of raw data.' Markus adds, 'We need to do the right thing with how we manage our customer data to fully adhere to regulations and to drive business value for the company and our customers.' For most organizations, and particularly century-old companies, transformation and change is seldom an easy proposition. The greatest challenges that these firms face almost always relate to the business culture and readiness of an organization to adapt. Markus notes, 'Culture is one of the driving factors for us. It is where many organizations get stuck.' He elaborates, 'We are a 150-year-old company, so inevitably there will be some parts of the business that ask whether they can really benefit from leveraging AI.' To address some of the cultural challenges, AT&T has established AI training programs so that employees can start to understand how AI can augment their daily activities. AT&T now has employee education programs where 50,000 employees have completed AI training, and new trainings are continually being added. Markus notes that support for AI starts at the top, explaining, 'We have strong top-down support, beginning with our CEO, John Stankey. He has been a great leader, a coach and a person that evangelizes that AI is a technology we are going to embrace as a company.' While leadership from the top of the organization is essential, Markus notes that support at all levels of the company is required to ensure successful adoption of AI. AT&T is preparing for an AI future. This entails staying abreast of the latest AI capabilities, including agentic AI. Markus explains, 'Agentic AI is connecting together a workflow that actually could be deterministic, to break down bigger problems into smaller problems that can be solved more accurately, while having the ability to take action as part of the workflow.' He adds, 'People often try to make agentic AI sound like more than it is, but it really is breaking down the big problem and smaller problems so you can solve these more accurately with the ability to take action based off of your decisions.' Looking to the future of AI at AT&T, Markus observes, 'There's a lot of hype around whether there will be value coming from our AI investments. I think everyone's seeing that the technologies we're working with such as generative AI and the evolution of this into agentic AI are going to change things.' He comments, 'As we talk about the benefit of generative AI, for every dollar we invested, in that same year, we returned 2X ROI. This was free cash flow impacting ROI from multiple year business cases. A 2X return is going to grow to a run rate that contributes to AT&T's overall run-rate savings target of $3 billion by the end of 2027.' Markus continues, 'What's different this time is that we don't see the wall as we have with other technology evolutions, where you had a general idea of where the where the end was going to be while you're in the middle of it. In the case of AI, I don't think we see this wall yet. The wall keeps moving, if there even is a wall. That is something that I think is super exciting to be a part of.' He concludes, 'AT&T is an exciting place to work because the scale and complexity of our data is extremely unique. We see adoption across the board in using and reimagining how we do our work with an AI and data-driven mindset as a way to get to the next stage. We have business teams that you would never expect to be learning how to use AI that are doing so. They are chomping at the bit, knocking on our door to ask how they can be using AI to deliver better products and services to our customers. That's a great place to be!'
India.com
11-07-2025
- Science
- India.com
Unlocking The Sun: How Solar Panels Really Work
To make these solar panels, Indian companies need PV cells—which are the small parts that convert sunlight into electricity. Since India doesn't yet make enough of these cells on its own, it is importing more from China to support its growing solar panel production. In simple words, as India builds more solar panels at home, it is also buying more parts from China to keep up with the demand. Two Simple Ways the World Generates Electricity: Moving Machines and Sunlight Power There are basically two main ways to produce electricity. The first method was discovered by Michael Faraday in 1821. It works by spinning a coil of wire near a magnet or spinning a magnet near a coil of wire. This movement creates electricity. This idea became useful by 1890 and is still the main way we produce electricity today. It is used in power plants, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams, where machines spin to generate power. The second method uses solar photovoltaic (PV) cells, which are made from materials like silicon, found in sand. This method was first noticed by Alexander Becquerel in 1839, when he saw that sunlight can directly produce electricity. This is called the photovoltaic effect and is used in solar panels. So, one method makes electricity by spinning parts inside machines, and the other makes electricity directly from sunlight using special materials. Breakthroughs That Made Solar Power Possible The first useful solar cell was made in 1954 by scientists at Bell Labs—Chapin, Fuller, and Pearson. They used a special type of silicon called doped silicon, which helps produce electricity from sunlight more efficiently. This big step was possible because of two important discoveries: Albert Einstein explained how light can produce electricity—called the photoelectric effect. He won the Nobel Prize for this work. Jan Czochralski, a scientist from Poland, found a way to make single-crystal silicon, which is now the main material used in most solar cells. These two breakthroughs helped make modern solar panels possible. Simple Solar Tech Beyond Power Grids Unlike solar panels (PVs) that send electricity into the main power grid and are taxed and regulated, other solar technologies like solar water heating, space heating, and solar cooling usually work on their own. They don't connect to the electricity grid. For example, solar cooling uses a method called absorption refrigeration, which can cool indoor spaces to around 19°C even when it's 40°C outside. A solar cooler uses energy from the sun to run a cooling system—just like how a fridge or air conditioner works, but without using regular electricity. These technologies are like the solar panels used in faraway places, where there is no power supply. In such areas, solar panels are mainly used to charge batteries and give basic lighting. Focusing Sunlight for Everyday Use Different parts of the world receive different amounts of sunlight, a measure called solar insolation. While the sun gives us a huge amount of energy, it is spread out thinly over large areas. This means that at any one place, the sunlight is not very strong, making it hard to use directly for things like generating electricity or running machines. To solve this problem, we use special tools and technologies to collect and focus the sunlight in one spot. These include parabolic troughs, Fresnel lenses, and other solar concentrators. Once the sunlight is focused, it becomes strong enough to be used for heating, cooking, removing salt from seawater (desalination), and producing electricity. In simple terms, these tools help us make the most of the sun's energy by turning weak sunlight into powerful heat or power. How Silicon Behaves in Solar Cells PV (photovoltaic) cells are made from semiconductors like silicon. A semiconductor is a special material that conducts electricity better than insulators (like plastic) but not as well as metals (like copper). Silicon is the most common semiconductor used in solar cells. On its own, silicon doesn't conduct electricity very well. But when it is heated or exposed to sunlight, or when it is treated with small amounts of other elements (a process called doping), it starts conducting electricity more effectively. This makes silicon very useful for making solar panels and electronic devices. Copper, which is a good conductor of electricity, becomes less efficient when it gets hot—its resistance increases, which slows down the flow of current. That's why it is called an Ohmic conductor. But silicon works in the opposite way. At room temperature, it does not conduct electricity well. But as the temperature goes up, silicon starts conducting better. This special behaviour makes it a non-Ohmic material. This unique property of silicon is one reason why it is used in solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity. How Electrons Flow to Make Electricity According to quantum theory—which explains how very tiny particles like electrons behave—electricity flows only when electrons have enough energy to move freely. In simple terms, electrons can only sit at fixed energy levels, just like people can only stand on the steps of a staircase—not in between. To help carry electricity, electrons need to reach a higher energy level called the conduction band, where they can move around freely, like water flowing in a river. When electrons are at a lower energy level, called the valence band, they stay close to their atoms and can't move around, so they don't help in producing electricity. To jump from the valence band to the conduction band, an electron needs extra energy. This energy can come from heat—when atoms vibrate more due to high temperature—or from light, like sunlight hitting a solar cell. Once the electron absorbs this energy, it makes the jump and starts flowing, helping generate electric current. If it doesn't get enough energy, it stays in place and no electricity is produced. How Light Helps Electrons Move Light is a form of energy, and it can act like a wave or like tiny particles called photons, depending on how we observe it. Each photon carries a small amount of energy. When sunlight hits a solar panel, these photons strike the electrons in the valence band (the lower energy level). If a photon has enough energy, it can give that energy to an electron, helping it jump to the conduction band, where the electron can move freely and create electricity. In simple words, light gives electrons the push they need to start flowing and produce power. When Light Has Just the Right Energy For an electron to jump from the valence band to the conduction band, the photon (light particle) must have just the right amount of energy. This rule was first explained by Albert Einstein in his photoelectric effect theory. The needed energy is called the band gap—it is the energy difference between the two bands, and it is measured in units called electron volts. If the photon's energy is less than the band gap, the electron won't move. If the photon has more energy than needed, the extra energy is wasted as heat, and this can even cause some electrons to be lost. So, for solar panels to work well, the light must match the material's band gap, giving just enough energy to move the electrons and make electricity without much waste. Why Some Sunlight Can't Be Used To produce electricity from sunlight, two conditions must be met: The photon must have the right amount of energy (called the energy criterion). The movement of the electron must match certain patterns (called the symmetry criterion), though this is less important here. Because of these rules, about 50% of sunlight that reaches Earth can't be used by regular solar cells made of crystalline silicon. Around 20% of the sunlight has too little energy, so it can't move the electrons. About 30% has too much energy, and the extra energy turns into heat, which is wasted. Some other materials—like gallium arsenide, cadmium telluride, and copper indium selenide—can absorb different parts of sunlight more effectively. But they are hard to find, tricky to handle, or harmful to the environment, which makes them difficult to use widely. That's why crystalline silicon remains the most common material in solar panels, even though it doesn't use all the sunlight. How Boron and Phosphorus Make Solar Cells Work In silicon-based solar cells, small amounts of two elements—phosphorus and boron—are added to pure silicon to change how it behaves. When phosphorus is added to silicon, it gives the silicon extra electrons. This side is called the n-type (negative) region. When boron is added, it creates 'holes'—which means there are fewer electrons. This side is called the p-type (positive) region. Where the p-type and n-type silicon meet, a special area forms called a p-n junction. At this junction, an electric field is created—like a built-in push that wants to move electrons in one direction. When sunlight hits the solar cell, it gives energy to the electrons. These electrons jump across the p-n junction and start flowing. This flow of electrons is what we call electricity—just like in a battery. So, by carefully combining boron and phosphorus with silicon, scientists create a material that converts sunlight into electric power in a simple and clean way. How Electricity Flows and Why Some Energy Is Lost When we connect a wire or device (called a load) to a solar cell, the electrons start to flow from the negative side (with more electrons) to the positive side (with fewer electrons). This movement of electrons through the load completes the circuit and creates electricity we can use. As long as sunlight is available, this flow of electricity can keep going without stopping. But even from the 49.6% of sunlight that solar cells can use, some energy is still lost: Solar panels get hot—they can become 30 to 40°C hotter than the air around them. This heat is released back into the air and causes about 7% energy loss. Another 10% energy is lost due to a problem called the saturation effect. This happens because electrons and holes (positive charges) don't move at the same speed, which weakens the electric push (voltage) in the solar cell over time. So, while solar cells are very useful, not all sunlight is turned into electricity, and some energy is always lost as heat or due to how charges move inside the cell. Why Solar Cells Can't Use All Sunlight Even in the best conditions, a single-junction silicon solar cell can only turn about 33.7% of sunlight into electricity. This limit is called the Shockley-Queisser limit, and it's based on how solar energy and materials work at the atomic level. This means that, in theory, two-thirds of the sunlight's energy is always lost, no matter how good the solar cell is. In real life, solar panels lose even more energy because of practical issues, such as: Some parts of the panel get more sunlight than others (uneven lighting). Small differences in how each cell is made during production can lead to mismatched voltages across the panel. All these factors together make sure that actual efficiency is always lower than the theoretical limit. How Much Sunlight Solar Panels Really Use In real-world use, solar panels lose more energy during other steps, like: Changing the electricity from DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current) so it can be used in homes. Adjusting the panel to work at its best power point (MPP) throughout the day. Because of these extra losses, the actual efficiency of solar panels is lower: In the best lab conditions, silicon solar panels can reach about 25% efficiency. In the real world, even the best commercial panels usually reach only about 20% efficiency. To understand how good this is—natural photosynthesis (how plants use sunlight to grow) only captures about 3% to 6% of sunlight. So, even with losses, solar panels are much better at using sunlight than plants. Making Solar Cells from Shiny Silicon Natural silicon is very shiny, so it reflects a lot of sunlight. To stop this and help the silicon absorb more sunlight, a special anti-reflection coating is added—usually made of tin oxide or silicon nitride. This coating also gives solar panels their blue color. Unlike plants, which build their energy systems naturally and at normal temperatures, making solar panels takes a lot of energy. The process starts by purifying silicon. Natural silicon is cleaned until it is 99% pure, using something called the Czochralski process. In this method, silicon is melted, and then slowly cooled and shaped into a single large crystal, called an ingot. These crystals are later cut and used to make solar cells. So, while solar power is clean, making solar cells requires careful steps and energy. Cutting and Cost-Saving in Solar Cell Making After purifying silicon into large crystals (called ingots), these are sliced into thin wafers to make solar cells. But this slicing causes about 20% of the silicon to be lost as dust, which makes the process expensive. To reduce this waste and cost, scientists have developed new methods, like ribbon technology, which makes thin silicon strips without cutting big crystals. This saves material and money. Another cheaper option is using amorphous silicon, which doesn't have a clear crystal shape. Though it has natural defects, these can be fixed by adding a small amount of hydrogen. This helps improve its performance. As Dr. Arunangshu Das from IIT's Centre for Atmospheric Sciences explains, these new techniques help lower the cost of making solar cells, making solar power more affordable. New Types of Solar Cells for Better Efficiency Some solar panels are now made using multijunction amorphous cells, which are designed to capture more parts of sunlight. These can reach a theoretical efficiency of up to 42%, though in real-life use, they usually reach around 24% efficiency. According to Dr. Anurag Das, these advanced designs are helping to improve how much electricity we can get from sunlight. Today's solar panel technologies are grouped into three generations: First-generation: Uses thick silicon wafers, about 200 micrometers thick. These are the traditional and most common type. Second-generation: Uses thin silicon layers, only 1 to 10 micrometers thick. These are cheaper to make and use less material. Third-generation: Includes multijunction cells, tandem cells, and quantum dots. These new technologies can produce more electricity from each photon and, in some cases, even go beyond the normal efficiency limit (called the Shockley-Queisser limit). These improvements are helping make solar energy more efficient and powerful, using the same sunlight more wisely. Why Solar Power Is Getting Cheaper The cost of solar electricity is falling fast. Back in 2010, it cost around $4 to $5 for every watt of DC power. By 2023, the cost dropped to about $2.80, and for large utility solar systems, it went down even further to $1.27 per watt. This drop matches the U.S. government's SunShot goal of bringing the cost to $1 per watt for full solar systems. Let's look at where the money goes in a solar setup: 38% is spent on the solar panels (modules). 8% goes to power electronics, mostly the inverter that changes DC to AC. 22% covers wiring and mounting (how the panels are fixed in place). The remaining 33% is for hardware balance—this includes labour, permits, company overheads, and profits. Now that single crystal solar cells are already close to their maximum power output, the best way to reduce costs further is by saving money in the hardware balance part—like making installations easier, faster, and cheaper. What Affects Solar Panel Performance Over Time Solar panels slowly lose efficiency over the years—about 0.5% per year. But most panels still work well for 20 to 25 years. Many people think hot, sunny places like deserts and tropical regions are best for solar panels. While these areas get more sunlight, solar panels actually work better in cooler, clear-weather conditions. That's because heat reduces their efficiency. This makes it harder for low- and middle-income countries, especially those in tropical or equatorial regions, to fully benefit from solar energy. They may face challenges like high temperatures, lack of infrastructure, or less efficient panel performance. Also, air pollution can block sunlight and reduce the amount of energy produced by about 2 to 11%. On top of that, dust and dirt (called soiling) on the panels can cause another 3 to 4% loss in energy each year. So, while solar power is a clean and powerful energy source, climate, pollution, and maintenance all affect how well it works in different places. Challenges of Using Solar Panels in Cities Cleaning solar panels regularly is important, but it can be risky and difficult. When the sun is shining, the panels are electrically active, which means touching them with water or tools can be dangerous. Also, cleaning them often uses a lot of water, which can be a problem in dry areas. In crowded cities, solar panels can also trap heat, making the area around them hotter. This can lead to what is called the urban heat island effect, where cities become warmer than nearby rural areas. Other solar technologies, like solar water heaters or solar cookers, can support solar panels, but they can't fully replace them. Whether solar power alone can fully replace fossil fuels and help achieve a carbon-free future is still being studied and debated by scientists. Why India Depends on China for PV Cells India is growing fast in solar power, but it still depends heavily on China for solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. Here's why: China Makes Them Cheaper China has a well-established, large-scale manufacturing system for PV cells. It produces them in huge quantities, which makes the cost much lower than what Indian companies can offer right now. Lack of Raw Material Processing in India PV cells need high-purity silicon and other special materials. China controls most of the global supply chains for these materials and has better technology for purifying and processing them. Advanced Technology and Machinery Chinese factories use latest machines and production methods that make PV cells more efficient and cheaper. India is still building this kind of advanced manufacturing base. Government Support in China The Chinese government gives strong support through subsidies, cheap land, and loans, which helps their companies sell at lower prices globally. Indian manufacturers struggle to compete with these advantages. Slow Growth of Local Industry Although India has plans like PLI (Production Linked Incentive) schemes to boost local solar manufacturing, it will take time to build full supply chains and reduce import dependence. In short, India depends on China for PV cells today because China is cheaper, faster, and better equipped. But India is working towards becoming self-reliant in solar manufacturing in the coming years.
Forbes
11-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Hidden Power Of Questions In The Age Of AI
Bob Pearson , Chair, The Next Practices Group. getty When a child learns to speak, they pepper us with questions—an instinct rooted in survival. In 2013, a British study of 1,000 mothers found that children asked their parents more than 300 questions per day at an hourly rate that rivals the pace of the Prime Minister's Questions time. Questions help us navigate life and our roles within organizations—clarifying expectations, accelerating learning, building relationships and managing risk. To understand how questions help cut through complexity, consider Shannon's Theorem, which was created by Claude Shannon, the father of information theory. The theorem offers an equation for how much data can be sent across a communications channel in the presence of noise. Shannon was working at Bell Labs, so he was mainly focused on channels like a telephone line or a radio band. At organizations today, however, we still need to understand how to eliminate the noise that distracts us as we toil away on our projects. This is the role of questions: to help us focus. Understanding which questions to ask at a given time point helps reduce uncertainty, which is fundamental to how we utilize machine learning, decision trees and the field of data science. This ability to ask the right question—especially as AI becomes central—isn't just a technical skill but a foundational one. The Value Of Questions Within Organizations If we know which questions to ask at each key point for a given task, we can increase knowledge and reduce uncertainty. Relevant questions help us shape workflow, meet customer needs, teach teams and build trust. Of course, being human can also be our biggest obstacle. Too often, we stifle questions, prioritizing output over whether work is done optimally or scalably. So, what is the importance of questions within organizations, and why do we need to improve how we use them? To start, questions can lead to new information, frame a problem or check our own bias. Questions can just as easily unlock innovation as they work their magic to keep us on track, so we scale workflow efficiently. Imagine two scenarios. In the first, you are leading an SAP transformation project for a Forbes 2000 company that will exceed $300 million in cost and occur over three years. Your job is to make it happen on time and on budget. If you break down your project, you have 12 workstreams and 100 individual tasks per workstream. That is 1,200 different time points where you want to ensure your team understands what to do, how to handle unforeseen issues and accomplish each task. Email, teams and spreadsheets are not enough. Now, imagine your friend leads the development of a new drug in BioPharma. She said she has 60 key decision points in discovery/preclinical, 20 for an Investigational New Drug submission and 40 for Phase 1 trials. Getting a new drug into the clinic has 120 key decision points. In each case, we can proactively identify the top five questions that align with each decision. As your team gets ready for each decision point, they look at the five questions to ask themselves and their team. Did they address a certain problem? Did they categorize the expense associated with this action? Do they have a reason to believe this action could be improved? This process of structured questioning is incredibly powerful, but also time-consuming. That's where AI enters the picture. How AI Can Shape Question Asking The subject matter experts of the world are the heroes here. They have been there, done that and know what questions to ask at each point. AI can then supplement their knowledge to create a detailed list of questions for every decision point. As the user touches any point on the SAP transformation, the key questions to address will appear. Those questions will be linked to background information, and questions answered by other project members will become available, as they apply to that particular task. Now, questions are a quality check and a way to contribute to the enterprise workflow. It's a team sport. AI is ensuring that knowledge gained anywhere in the world is being shared precisely to the right time points in a project in real time. AI platforms can learn, in real time, what questions are most effective, what answers are most important and what type of backup information helps teach, educate and answer our questions. Questions and content can be translated into any language, enabling ideas to emerge from anywhere. To achieve this vision, we need to adjust a fundamental habit that drives us today. Ever since Google first set sail in 1998, we have been conditioned to write a few keywords or phrases, so our questioning ability is rusty. Now, with generative AI, we must flex our 'question muscles,' as we realize that the value of information we receive is dependent on our ability to ask the optimal question. This emerging skill—known as prompt engineering—is critical for tapping into AI's full potential. Keep in mind that our effective use of generative AI will help us mirror our own intelligence. Conclusion We start life as curious humans. We should never let that trait dissipate. Our job, with AI, is to remain as curious and disciplined as we were as toddlers. We are just now applying this approach to major global projects. A map of questions for each decision point. An AI back end to share answers and related content. The ability of any team member to contribute to the knowledge of the enterprise. Exploring the effective use of AI is more important than lamenting on what jobs will go away. What is required? Pretty simple. We need to change our habits and approach as we embrace the advances of AI. The 'curious companies' will complete that SAP transformation for $200 million and a year earlier, or they will create a more effective clinical trial design of a new treatment, based on a new style of learning and scaling. The question we are left with is, when do we make this a reality? Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nokia helped build the mobile world. Now it wants to seed the next one—from inside Bell Labs
Nokia is reinventing itself again—this time through startups. As Bell Labs celebrates its 100th anniversary, its parent company is turning lab research into new ventures, launching a formal venture studio in New Jersey, and spinning out startups. With recent acquisitions and a renewed push into AI and space communications, Nokia is repositioning itself for the future. Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Bell Labs is the birthplace of many of the modern world's most transformative technologies. The transistor, UNIX, information theory, and cellular technology all originated from the global R&D network that is now part of Nokia. From a new logo to its first American-born CEO, Nokia has gone all out to move beyond its golden decade and the challenges that followed as a major consumer phone company. But in its new world as a telecom-equipment maker, there is still very much a place for Nokia Bell Labs, which it has owned since 2016 following its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. Nokia isn't only sitting on this asset; it is also working on incubating startups out of lab research. 'If we are able to unleash two or three startups out of Bell Labs in a matter of two years that make a big impact, I would call this program a success,' said Nokia Chief Strategy and Technology Officer Nishant Batra. Astranu, a startup developing non-invasive imaging technology for ear diagnostics, marks the first spinout launched by Nokia in partnership with Celesta Capital. The VC firm will provide strategic direction, commercialization support, and connections, while Nokia Bell Labs will continue to supply lab resources and R&D expertise to this inaugural venture. With efforts like spinouts, Batra said, 'the whole purpose is to take the technology out of Bell Labs to be able to offer to the world in different fields of uses or different industries—and at times, in both.' But for startups closer to home turf, there are other ways for Nokia to engage. One of Nokia's tools is 20-year-old corporate venture firm NGP Capital, formerly known as Nokia Growth Partners. But NGP's thesis is either market expansion or synergization, not to invest in companies that Nokia will eventually acquire, Batra said. 'I'm not saying that cannot happen, but that's not how we invest.' Outright acquisitions are used as a separate tool—to address direct gaps and help pursue Nokia's broader strategy. Gone are the days when it bought French startup Withings with the aim of reentering the consumer-electronics market through health-tech devices, a move that fell short of expectations. Nokia's priorities have since shifted in the 2020s. Building on its established presence in communications, the company is pursuing growth in two directions: defense and dual-use technology, which drove the acquisition of tactical-communications solutions provider Fenix Group, and AI and data centers, where the $2.3 billion purchase of optical-networking equipment maker Infinera could reinforce its position. Rapid, an API startup once valued at $1 billion, was another company that Nokia acquired in 2024 with the goal of helping developers more easily connect to telecom networks. 'I was very involved in terms of negotiating, because that was in the Valley,' Nokia's CSTO said. Batra joined Nokia some four years ago, but his involvement with startups goes beyond his current role. In addition to advising two startups, one in radar tech and one in IoT, he is also chairman of the board of spacetech startup ReOrbit, a Finnish satellite provider. 'The passion that this founder has is something else; I enjoy that a lot.' Startups and corporations aren't mutually exclusive terms: There are now startups inside Nokia, Batra said. One of these developed the Lunar Surface Communications System (LSCS), collaborating with Axiom Space and NASA to put a 4G LTE network on the moon. The landing didn't go to plan, but the mission helped Nokia validate key aspects of the network's operation. Startup incubation at Nokia is also about to take a more formal turn. In April, Nokia Bell Labs cut the ribbon on its new Bell Labs Venture Studio, which will be operated by the Nokia Ventures team and supported by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). Together with the NJ Nokia Bell Labs Innovation Center, the venture studio will be part of a Strategic Innovation Center focused on helping startups commercialize intellectual property from Nokia Bell Labs and local universities, especially in AI, communications, cloud computing, and optical and wireless networks. New Jersey is the historic home of Bell Labs and its global headquarters, but Nokia Bell Labs now operates research centers around the world, including key sites in Europe. With Nokia still headquartered in Finland, it is perhaps no surprise that, according to Batra, 'there is an intent to build a similar studio in Europe.' Historically, Europe is also where Nokia has fostered the most entrepreneurs. Due to its outsized importance for Finland, also known as the Nokia effect, its home country was shaken by the massive layoffs it conducted between 2011 and 2013, leading up to the sale of its mobile division to Microsoft. But this decline also sparked a startup boom—with some support from Nokia itself. The program it implemented at the time to give seed funding to help redundant employees create companies, Nokia Bridge, is estimated to have contributed to the creation of at least 400 businesses. Not all of these were startups, but some were, including mobile OS maker Jolla, and former Nokians still play a key role in Finland's vibrant tech scene. Nokia Bridge no longer exists, but the company still wants to support employees as they transition to startups—even when their jobs are not part of the workforce reduction the company is conducting to cut expenses by up to $1.2 billion by the end of 2026. At the time, Nokia noted the exact scale of the program would depend on the evolution of end market demand. Two years on, the outlook is still unclear after U.S. President Donald Trump sparked turmoil in global markets with his tariff war. 'We are not immune to the rapidly evolving global trade landscape. However based on early customer feedback, I believe our markets should prove to be relatively resilient,' CEO Justin Hotard declared as the company reported a net loss of approximately $68 million for the first quarter of 2025. But even after the cuts, Nokia expects to have between 72,000 and 77,000 staffers, and it is willing to lose some to the sirens of entrepreneurship. Two of its top researchers joined Astranu when it spun out, for instance; and with a budget in the order of $10 million a year, its incubation program also encourages internal employees to become entrepreneurs, Batra said. It is too early to tell into how many startups all of these initiatives could result, and how many could succeed. But if this could become the new meaning of the Nokia effect, this would undoubtedly be a big win for a 160-year-old company that has repeatedly reinvented itself. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
