Latest news with #Kayser
Daily Maverick
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Nelson Mandela Bay councillors demand answers about spending of flood disaster grants
Councillors have accused Nelson Mandela Bay's acting city manager of dodging questions about the municipality's spending of flood disaster grants. In a rare moment of unity, councillors from across the political spectrum agreed that they were unable to get proper answers over Nelson Mandela Bay's use of two flood disaster grants to repair infrastructure in Kariega. On 1 June 2024, a cloudburst in Kariega led to flooding that caused the deaths of at least 10 people and destroyed two vital bridges and several roads, while more than 1,000 people were displaced. The metro received two tranches of disaster grants after the floods to start repairing infrastructure damage estimated at R1-billion. The first tranche was for R53-million and the second for R89-million. DA councillor Johnny Faltein, seconded by councillor Franay van de Linde, this week sought clarity over the state of repairs specifically for the two canals in Kariega that are supposed to function as flood mitigation measures, but which have fallen into disrepair. Both councillors said they were very worried as three days of heavy rain are predicted for Nelson Mandela Bay next week. The South African Weather Service has issued a Level 2 flood warning. Van de Linde said she was upset when she heard at a recent meeting of the Budget and Treasury Directorate that there was no money for the repair of the canals. The leader of the DA in Nelson Mandela Bay, Rano Kayser, accused acting city manager Ted Pillay of misleading the council and asked for answers. Kayser said that as the metro was now at the end of its financial year, there was a good chance that the city would lose the R53-million grant funding due to underspending. 'But are we at risk of losing the other R89-million funding as well? There are no contractors on site,' he said. The ANC's councillor Bongani Mani said they were hearing 'scary things' about the disaster funding. 'Acting City Manager, are you confident that this will not result in egg on our faces?' he asked. 'We want it on record.' He said he was tired of receiving the 'same boring answers' about the spending of the grants. Pillay said a decision had been made to reduce the four projects that were originally planned to two. 'Only two can be implemented. We have to find funding for the other two,' he said. This included the repair work on the canals. The R53-million for the repair of roads was awarded to different companies than those which had won a triennial contract for this work. 'This will result in irregular expenditure,' Pillay said, adding that the municipality's public accounts committee would have to sort it out. However, he insisted that work on the two bridges was progressing. Kayser countered that the information he had received from the city's Budget and Treasury Department was that the contractors had been appointed illegally, as the council had not supplied the correct supporting documentation with its decision. DM
The Herald Scotland
22-05-2025
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Saints can use England template, believes Benjamin Kayser
On that occasion, Freeman towered above his jet-heeled counterpart to take a Fin Smith cross-field kick and score – a tactic Kayser wouldn't be surprised to see Saints try and replicate at Principality Stadium in a clash being shown exclusively live on Premier Sports 1. 'Freeman doesn't want to be one-on-one against Bielle-Biarrey on the ground but in the air, he'll take it all day,' Kayser said. 'That's what happened in the Six Nations, the try that got England back in it was a cross-kick by Fin Smith for a catch by Freeman on Bielle-Biarrey's head. 'They will click copy and paste and look to do exactly the same thing on Saturday. 'But if you give him (Bielle-Biarrey) a bit of space, he will show everyone he is the fastest attacking back in world rugby at the moment. 'He is not a Freeman type of winger in the air but on the ground, at full tilt, you don't want to give him any space.' Hopes are growing for Bordeaux that Kayser's former teammate Damian Penaud will be fit to take his place on the opposite wing to Bielle-Biarrey, while Matthieu Jalibert will pull the strings at fly-half in a star-studded side. Saints, of course, have three British & Irish Lions in their own backline – making this a clash Kayser is relishing. 'It's a delightful final, they are head and shoulders above the two teams who attack the most in this competition,' added the 40-year-old, who is part of a 15-strong TV team delivering the Investec Champions and EPCR Challenge Cup for Premier Sports, the broadcasters of international club rugby's premier competitions. 'Both semi-finals were out of this world good, I didn't give Saints the slightest chance of beating Leinster in their own backyard but they played so well, it was such a good game. 'Penaud being back would be huge. He knows these occasions – he played in a Champions Cup final with me for Clermont in 2017 – and he is now an experienced player with 50 France caps. 'I genuinely thought he had snapped his Achilles (in the semi-final win over Toulouse), I was really scared for him, you could read on his face and his body language that it looked bad. 'But hopefully we will see him, you want to see the full shebang of Bordeaux stars playing in that final, and Penaud is one of the most exciting players in world rugby.' Saints are preparing for their third Champions Cup final – and looking for their second victory – while Bordeaux are newcomers on this stage. UBB fans may be outnumbered by the Shoe Army this weekend, but they will travel in their numbers to the Welsh capital and make themselves heard. 'Winning it would be huge for Bordeaux,' Kayser said. 'They are title hungry. They won the Top 14 equivalent forever ago, in the 1990s, when Bernard Laporte was a player. 'They have never been to the Champions Cup final,l but they have taken French rugby to a different dimension in the past couple of years. 'Stade Chaban-Delmas attracts 25-28,000 people every weekend, it's a beautiful place to live – everyone wants to go and embrace the social side of rugby, have a couple of glasses of wine, jump on the beach and watch rugby. There are a lot of worse ways to spend a weekend. 'The power has shifted from Biarritz and Bayonne up to Bordeaux, they are leading the way in terms of entertainment without having a huge billionaire financial backer. 'They want to write a page in their history book that they genuinely did not think they would do this year. If they do, it would be ginormous.' Premier Sports is the home of Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup with 80 games live throughout the competition including this weekend's Finals on 23 and 24 May live from Principality Stadium, Cardiff. Visit: to sign-up for all the action from URC, Top 14, MLR, Japan League One and EPCR rugby at just £11.99 per month.
Newsweek
20-05-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
Health Care's AI Governance Requires Transparency and Testing, Experts Say
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. As health care systems scale the adoption of new technologies, there is a growing need for strong leadership and policies to ensure the new technology aligns with patient safety goals. On Tuesday, May 20, Newsweek's Health Care Editor Alexis Kayser hosted a virtual event to explore how the health care industry is responsibly adopting AI. The webinar brought together AI experts in the health sector to discuss best practices for implementing AI innovation, enforcing checks and balances on new technology and building trust with physicians and patients. "Even though AI models have proven useful for many health care organizations, they aren't perfect by any means," Kayser said in her opening remarks. "They can still procure false results and incorporate bias into their recommendations. In an industry that centers on patient safety, leaders must exercise caution, the tech is advancing so quickly that we really are writing and editing the playbook as we go." The panelists include Dr. Danny Tobey, the chair of DLA Piper's AI & Data Analytics Practice; Dr. Brian Anderson, the CEO and co-founder of the Coalition for Health AI; Dr. Michael Pencina, vice dean for data science and chief data scientist at Duke Health; and Dr. Andreea Bodnari, founder and CEO of While some health systems have more than 100 AI tools at their disposal, building a consensus for managing those tools over time can be a real challenge. "AI is very different than many other tools that physicians and nurses and hospitals use in that they change over time—AI models' performance might degrade, it might drift," Anderson said. "We're building this plane as we're flying, so there is a real urgency to make sure these models and these tools are safe and that we're managing them robustly and appropriately." As health systems around the world scale the implementation of AI, there is a greater need for institutions to closely and effectively monitor these tools. Pencina, who also serves as the director of Duke AI Health, said that AI information should be categorized in one place to be monitored. But this surveillance takes more than one person. He explained that Duke has a chief health information officer who manages the Algorithm-Based Clinical Decision Support (ABCDS) Oversight initiative that governs AI uses for patient care. But Duke also works with individuals from specific treatment areas, like radiology. "There is an umbrella oversight that sets the standards and then there is implementation for each algorithm where we leverage local expertise to make sure we are not missing [anything]," he said. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty In addition to effective monitoring of AI tools already implemented, AI governance also requires intervention at the production level. Bodnari, a former product executive at Google and UnitedHealth Group, said AI governance is the foundation for risk mitigation and production is where errors can emerge. She said the newest pillar emerging in AI implementation resides in actionable insights—how hospital systems can make use of information to mitigate the risk on a daily basis in production. "With AI governance, we are in an interesting position in the healthcare industry [where we can] start introducing proactive quality assurance for care delivery," she said. "In order to really be proactive with how we measure and improve the quality of outcomes in healthcare, we need to bring information into the hands of operators in real time." The Coalition for Healthy AI (CHAI) is an organization that provides a framework for responsible health AI that allows for public review and comment. As its founder, Brian Anderson said CHAI wants to bring principles of transparency, privacy and security to a level of technical specificity for AI tools. Like any product on a grocery store shelf, AI tools have "nutrition labels" known as model cards that identify, in detail, what the product is made of to help inform the consumer. For AI models, how they are trained and how they perform is strongly correlated to the type of data that the model is trained on. When deciding if and how to use and AI model, Anderson said it is important that the developer clearly indicates what the intended use to create transparency that "empowers patients, doctors and nurses" and better equips them to understand when to use—and when not to use—certain AI models. Transparency is paramount when navigating potential legal risks to AI use in the healthcare field. Danny Tobey, a lawyer and medical doctor, said health care is in a "third wave" of AI governance where the basic idea of transparency might not be good enough. With so many versions of AI model cards, stakeholders are often unsure how frequently to update them, what sort of information to include and how localized or broad the implementation can be. But Tobey said we already have the tools in our legal system to solve these issues. "The law is going to have answers to all of these questions—the problem is it's going to get developed through litigation and regulation and legislation and that's all going to be a churn for a while," he said. As health care systems begin building their AI governance policies, Pencina said health systems shouldn't overcomplicate things—because starting something, even if it's imperfect, is better than not having anything at all. "I would start with taking an inventory of the AI solution you have already running, or the ones that you're seriously considering [because] you cannot manage what you don't know that you have," he said. "And then don't think that you have to manage every AI solution with the same level of scrutiny – so you can adapt your governance based on your resources and risk appetite [to] allocate resources to the highest risk application." To follow more of Alexis Kayser's coverage on AI in health care, sign up for her Access Health newsletter here. And for more AI news, register for Newsweek's AI Impact Summit in Sonoma, California. The three-day summit brings together diverse leaders—from tech innovators to C-suite executives, policymakers to ethicists—to share insights on how organizations can most effectively harness the power of AI to achieve their goals.
Fast Company
15-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
AI is printing the rocket engine that could beat SpaceX at its own game
SpaceX owns 98% of global rocket launches, a monopoly with virtually no competition. Only China is competing with Elon Musk at this point in number of launches and, while the country is getting closer to mass-producing reusable rockets, it appears far from making that happen. The world needs to scramble. We can't let a single company dominate the future of humanity—and much less one that is owned by Musk. 'If you copy SpaceX, it'll take you 10 years to get where they are today,' Lin Kayser, cofounder of Dubai-based engineering AI firm Leap 71, tells me in a video interview. 'But in 10 years, SpaceX won't be where they are today. The game will be over.' Startups and nations need to catch up to Musk, but that means solving a brutal equation: designing engines with comparable thrust (measured in kilonewtons, or kN) and efficiency, but without the decade-long development cycles. And to beat SpaceX, you also need to be able to mass-produce the rockets. This is now more important than ever because the stakes are even higher than just five years ago. Satellite constellations like Starlink, which may soon enable direct-to-phone internet, threaten to sideline telecom operators and centralize control of earth's critical communication infrastructure on top of controlling the space economy. 'Every region needs sovereign launch capability,' Kayser contends. 'Otherwise, you'll pay 10 times what SpaceX pays to access space—if they let you.' His company may have a solution to fix that conundrum. Leap 71 developed artificial intelligence called Noyron that, so far, has successfully designed two rocket engines. Kayser believes that his company, legacy rocket makers, and startups will be able to leverage this synthetic rocket engineer to create a cheaper match to the SpaceX Raptor—and beat Musk at his own game. The 10-foot-high Raptor—which powers the Starship—is arguably the most advanced Western rocket engine in production. Its latest iteration produces 280 tonnes of thrust at sea level, surpassing competing engines like Blue Origin's BE-4. It uses methalox, an efficient fuel that can be manufactured in places like Mars, which makes it key for deep-space exploration. But the Raptor's importance lies in the fact that it is the first operational full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) engine in history. This means that it optimizes efficiency and thrust while minimizing thermal stress, so you can reuse it many times, the key for cheap, sustainable space exploration. Only two other FFSC engines have been tested, but they've never flown. Leap 71 now wants to achieve the same spaces but better, with fewer 3D-printed pieces, which will make it less expensive than Musk's engine. Computational blueprint Leap 71 describes its Noyron computational model as an 'engineer brain in a box.' Unlike generative AI tools that require human oversight because they are just guessing what could work, Noyron encodes physics, material science, and manufacturing rules to autonomously design rocket engines. It generates not just shapes but also functional hardware ready for 3D printing. 'Traditional parametric CAD is geometry-driven. Ours is physics-driven,' Kayser explains. 'Calling it parametric CAD would be like saying ChatGPT is autocomplete.' The system's first breakthrough came in 2024 with a 5 kN rocket engine. The compact, high-efficiency rocket was fully designed by AI and 3D printed in one go as a single-piece copper engine with intricate internal cooling channels. During trials in an old World War II bunker in the U.K., the engine fired flawlessly, validating Noyron's ability to predict thermal stresses and fluid dynamics. Then, in January 2025, Leap 71 really pushed the envelope by designing one of the most challenging and elusive rocket engines in the aerospace industry: a cryogenic aerospike thruster, an engine capable of working at every altitude to eliminate the need for multiple rocket stages, minimizing elements and costs in the process. Now the company wants to scale up this approach to engines 400 times larger. The new road map includes two reference designs: the 200 kN XRA-2E5 aerospike and the 2,000 kN XRB-2E6 bell-nozzle engine, equivalent to SpaceX's Raptor. The first, he says, is slated for testing within 18 months of April 2025 (placing it around late 2026). The second is targeted for readiness by 2029. For rocket engine development—with design and testing cycles measured in decades—this is incredibly ambitious. But the timeline is achievable because of how Noyron works, Kayser says. Instead of manually iterating prototypes, Noyron treats all engines as variations of a unified 'DNA.' And instead of having to be programmed, its edge lies in its ability to absorb decades of engineering knowledge—even from obscure sources. For its new model, Leap 71 has not only incorporated learnings from its past tests (like data on cooling efficiency and material strain), but also vast amounts of new information, including digitized Soviet-era rocket manuals. 'We plug these into Noyron to refine our thermal models,' Kayser says. The AI also learns from every test, creating a feedback loop that collapses design cycles and speeds up the development process. Noyron is not generative AI, but a computational model capable of producing deterministic results that are consistent every time. They are accurate according to the actual physical world and data. It understands. It doesn't just guess. Input the same specs, and it generates identical designs (try that with ChatGPT, Gemini, Midjourney, or Sora). This is critical for aerospace reliability. 'Human engineers can see the rationale behind every decision,' Kayser says. 'It's not a black box.' The challenges While Noyron can design a rocket engine in minutes, proving it works in the physical world is the real test. The company's ambitions collide with a stark reality: Even the most advanced AI cannot shortcut the laws of physics and bureaucracy. Securing test facilities for large engines is another hurdle. While smaller subsystems (like the 28 kN turbopump it wants to test this year) fit on existing stands, the 2,000 kN engine's sheer size demands specialized infrastructure. 'The critical path here is test-stand availability,' says Kayser. Current options are scarce and scattered around the world. Shipping engines abroad triggers export controls and delays—a problem compounded by geopolitical tensions. Moving a small engine from Germany to the U.K. already takes 'two to three weeks,' Kayser tells me. That's why Leap 71 is in talks with governments in Dubai, Singapore, and New Zealand to co-locate manufacturing and testing. Oman's planned spaceport and New Zealand's remote Tāwhaki facility, with its vast sound-dampening landscapes, are leading candidates. 'You can't just put a loud rocket engine next to a city,' Kayser says. The other challenge—the actual production of the engine—has only just become possible, with China's new 3D-printing behemoths capable of producing parts that are 6.56-by-6.56-by-3.60 feet. In fact, this is what led Kayser and his partner, Leap 71 cofounder Josefine Lissner, to believe that making a Raptor-class engine was even possible. Called the EP-M2050 (and manufactured by Eplus3D), this colossal 3D printer uses 36 lasers to turn metallic powders into all the parts needed for next-gen rocket engines, including the nozzles, which will be much taller than your average human. The printers are so new that quality assurance is still a question mark. Surface roughness, inherent to layered metal printing, disrupts fluid dynamics in cooling channels. Rough walls increase friction, altering fuel flow and thermal stability. Post-printing, parts undergo rigorous cleaning to remove residual metal powder, a task that until now has been handled by German firm Solukon because 'any impurities could cause an explosion,' Kayser says. Material uniformity is another gamble. While printers handle alloys like copper-chromium-zirconium, ensuring consistent strength in massive components—especially under the violent vibrations and thermal swings of a firing engine—remains unproven at this scale. The turbopump, which forces fuel into the combustion chamber at extreme pressures, epitomizes this challenge. Leap 71's 28 kN test rig validates principles for larger designs, but scaling amplifies risks. Turbines spin at supersonic speeds, generating centrifugal forces that warp metal. Rapid temperature shifts—like the -297°F cryogenic oxygen flow meeting 5,430°F exhaust—threaten cracks. 'Sealing, material fatigue, and transient conditions during start-up and shutdown are critical,' Kayser explains. 'These are not just design problems—they demand practical testing.' That's why the most unnerving hurdle of rocket development with this method is 'blind testing.' Leap 71's aerospike engine, printed as a single copper block with internal cooling channels, could not be inspected internally before firing. 'We had to test blind,' Kayser says. During trials, imperfect oxygen flow led to higher-than-expected temperatures. Although it all worked, it forced an early shutdown. 'Instead of risking additional runs, we cut the engine in half to analyze it,' Kayser adds. Each failure feeds back into Noyron's models, but iteration consumes time and capital. For now, Leap 71's strategy hinges on incremental validation—testing subsystems like injectors and turbopumps individually—while lobbying governments to fund dedicated test facilities. The road ahead While these are big challenges, they are not insurmountable. The space industry knows it and, according to Kayser, wants a piece of the action. Everyone is looking for a way to leapfrog several years and catch up to—or surpass—Musk. Right now, Leap 71 collaborates with about 15 rocket startups. Kayser can't disclose their names under confidentiality agreements except for the Exploration Co., which is developing a European Moon lander. These partners lack SpaceX's vertical integration but want tailored engines without decade-long R&D. 'The engine is the most expensive and complicated part,' Kayser emphasizes. 'Everyone else just buys them. But there's no supply.' L3Harris—which now owns the legendary rocket engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne, makers of the Apollo engines—wants to sell them, but it doesn't have anything comparable to the Raptor. Blue Origin makes and sells engines for the United Launch Alliance (ULA), but nobody else. The Russian NPO Energomash once dominated the global rocket engine market, supplying the RD-180 that powered ULA's Atlas V rocket for decades. But RD-180s are now considered relics—and are under sanctions because of the Ukraine war, anyway. '[Current design processes] are actually a problem for many of the micro launcher companies right now,' Kayser says. 'So they have relatively small engines. And if they now want to play in the higher leagues, they basically have to embark on a completely new project, create a completely new rocket.' The main differentiation between sizes is the engine, because the rest of the rocket is scalable. It's harder to scale up the engine because it has completely different specifications and requirements. By using Noyron, Kayser says customers will be able to fine-tune to their own needs and input thrust, fuel type, and size to receive bespoke engine designs for every need. A startup might tweak an aerospike for methane fuel, while another firm could optimize for cost. Some engines will be small and some could be Raptor-class. We will know if it all works in just a couple of years, so we won't have to wait long: Kayser tells me that he and Lissner expect the first hot firing of the 200 kN XRA-2E5 aerospike engine in October 2026. Full-scale testing of the large 2,000 kN Raptor-class engine is tentatively planned to begin in 2028, with qualification for flight readiness stretching into 2029. If Leap 71 can pull it off, it will be phenomenal for humanity. A new process for rocket development will challenge Elon Musk at his own game and democratize the means to reach orbit for every country on the planet. Plus, if it happens, the dream of having Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S.-like AI to aid humans to build the future will be real. Kayser certainly believes in it: 'We're building a world where anyone can engineer complex machines.'
The National
06-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Dubai company builds 3D-printed rocket engines as big as Elon Musk's
An AI engineering company in Dubai is scaling up its 3D-printed rocket engines to match the size of Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship Raptors, which could redefine how next-generation space hardware is built. Leap 71, which uses AI algorithms to design complex propulsion systems, is moving from small test engines to models powerful enough for full-scale orbital launches. With major advances in metal 3D printing, the company says it can now produce engines nearly two metres across, sizes that were previously too large for 3D printers to handle. 'Our customers want to fly to space with our engines, so now we are scaling them massively,' Lin Kayser, co-founder of the company, told The National. Unlike traditional aerospace companies that rely on teams of engineers to manually design rocket components, Leap 71 uses a computer system powered by AI to generate engine designs. The AI model, called Noyron, involves an algorithm that can generate rocket engines, including software codes that command the engine how much thrust and propellant it needs to have. Once the AI generates a design, it can be fed directly into a 3D printer to create the hardware. 'After an initial test last year, we test-fired eight more rocket engines, all of them different and designed by our computational system,' said Mr Kayser. Until now, Leap 71's engines have been relatively small, at about 30cm in diameter, making them useful for spacecraft like lunar landing vehicles. But to move into orbital launches, Mr Kayser said the engines needed to be much bigger. The company is now developing engines that require industrial 3D printers with build volumes close to two metres. Such printers, which use metal powder to build parts layer by layer, have become available only in the past 18 months, driven mostly by rapid progress in China. 'There's a number of 3D-printer manufacturers that can now support these extremely large-build volumes, which is really difficult because it's tonnes of metal powder that go in into these things,' said Mr Kayser. The company's newer designs include meganewton-class engines, those capable of producing thrust in the range of 1,000 to 2,000 kilonewtons, putting them in the same category as some of the world's most powerful rocket engines. But those engines would still have to be test-fired to ensure they work as expected. A key hurdle for Leap 71 is a lack of test stands, specialised sites where rocket engines are fired, in the country. These are essential but difficult to build due to safety, noise and regulatory requirements. Leap 71 hopes to set up its first rocket engine factory in the UAE, where it can take advantage of the country's growing ambitions in space. Sahith Reddy Madara, an aerospace engineer and founder of advisory firm Bumi & Space, told The National that Leap 71's work could be a game-changer. 'What Leap 71 is doing represents a promising step towards redefining how we approach rocket engine development,' he said. 'This method could democratise access to advanced propulsion technologies, lowering barriers for smaller players by reducing the need for large in-house engineering teams and long development cycles. That said, widespread adoption will depend on how these designs perform under real-world conditions and whether they can meet the rigorous reliability standards of spaceflight.' Leap 71's current business model is built around supplying what it calls 'reference engines', which are functional, baseline models that space companies can adapt to their own needs. It hopes to eventually carve out a niche supplying engines that can power everything from small orbital rockets to larger reusable systems. The company's AI-led method can dramatically shorten development times and lower costs, which could be especially appealing to smaller or newer players in the space sector. It already has a partnership with The Exploration Company, a European firm which is developing and manufacturing a reusable space capsule called Nyx. The collaboration would integrate Leap 71's AI-designed engines into future missions.
