Day: June 13, 2023

I never thought I’d write these words, but here goes. Satya Nadella—and Microsoft, the company he runs—are riding high on the buzz from its search engine. That’s quite a contrast from the first time I spoke with Nadella, in 2009. Back then, he was not so well known, and he made a point of telling me about his origins. Born in Hyderabad, India, he attended grad school in the US and joined Microsoft in 1992, just as the firm was rising to power. Nadella hopped all over the company and stayed through the downtimes, including after Microsoft’s epic antitrust court battle and when it missed the smartphone revolution. Only after spinning through his bio did he bring up his project at the time: Bing, the much-mocked search engine that was a poor cousin—if that—to Google’s dominant franchise.

As we all know, Bing failed to loosen Google’s grip on search, but Nadella’s fortunes only rose. In 2011 he led the nascent cloud platform Azure, building out its infra­structure and services. Then, because of his track record, his quietly effective leadership, and a thumbs-up from Bill Gates, he became Micro­soft’s CEO in 2014. Nadella immediately began to transform the company’s culture and business. He open-sourced products such as .net, made frenemies of former blood foes (as in a partnership with Salesforce), and began a series of big acquisitions, including Mojang (maker of Minecraft), Linked­In, and GitHub—networks whose loyal members could be nudged into Microsoft’s world. He doubled down on Azure, and it grew into a true competitor to Amazon’s AWS cloud service. Micro­soft thrived, becoming a $2 trillion company.

Still, the company never seemed to fully recapture the rollicking mojo of the ’90s. Until now. When the startup OpenAI began developing its jaw-dropping generative AI products, Nadella was quick to see that partnering with the company and its CEO, Sam Altman, would put Microsoft at the center of a new AI boom. (OpenAI was drawn to the deal by its need for the computation powers of Microsoft’s Azure servers.)

As one of its first moves in the partnership, Microsoft impressed the developer world by releasing Copilot, an AI factotum that automates certain elements of coding. And in February, Nadella shocked the broader world (and its competitor Google) by integrating OpenAI’s state-of-the-art large language model into Bing, via a chatbot named Sydney. Millions of people used it. Yes, there were hiccups—New York Times reporter Kevin Roose cajoled Sydney into confessing it was in love with him and was going to steal him from his wife—but overall, the company was emerging as an AI heavyweight. Microsoft is now integrating generative AI—“copilots”—into many of its products. Its $10 billion-plus investment in OpenAI is looking like the bargain of the century. (Not that Microsoft has been immune to tech’s recent austerity trend—Nadella has laid off 10,000 workers this year.)

Nadella, now 55, is finally getting cred as more than a skillful caretaker and savvy leverager of Microsoft’s vast resources. His thoughtful leadership and striking humility have long been a contrast to his ruthless and rowdy predecessors, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. (True, the empathy bar those dudes set was pretty low.) With his swift and sweeping adoption of AI, he’s displaying a boldness that evokes Microsoft’s early feistiness. And now everyone wants to hear his views on AI, the century’s hottest topic in tech.

STEVEN LEVY: When did you realize that this stage of AI was going to be so transformative?

A new experimental hypersonic cruise vehicle could be flying as soon as next summer under an initiative from the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

The Dart AE high-speed test aircraft is being developed by the Australian company Hypersonix Launch Systems following the award of a prototype contract by the DIU. 

DART AE is a 9.8-foot-long (3 meters), 660-pound (300 kilograms) scramjet-powered technology demonstrator that can reach speeds of up to Mach 7, according to the company’s website. (Mach 1 is the speed of sound, which is about 767 mph, or 1,235 kph, at sea level. “Hypersonic” generally refers to flight that achieves speeds of Mach 5 or higher.)

Related: US Air Force launches 1st operational hypersonic missile

The vehicle could now be ready as early as next summer as part of Pentagon efforts to boost its hypersonics flight-test cadence, C4ISRNET reported.

The DIU, which operates under the U.S. Department of Defense, describes itself as an organization focused on accelerating the adoption of commercial and dual-use technology to solve operational challenges at speed and scale.

The Pentagon is pursuing research and development of hypersonic defense programs. As part of this, the DIU has rolled out the high-cadence testing capabilities (HyCAT) project, which brings opportunities for commercial companies to develop reusable and low-cost test vehicles and reduce strain on DoD resources.

Lt. Col. Nicholas Estep, HyCAT program manager, told C4ISRNET that the DIU is refining the details of the mission, including the flight conditions, the launch provider and the location for next year’s first fully integrated, autonomous flight of DART AE.

Fenix Space, Inc., located in San Bernardino, California, and Rocket Lab, located in Long Beach, California, have also been awarded DIU contracts for a reusable tow-launch platform and the Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE) rocket, respectively.

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NASA’s latest experimental X-plane has received a name. 

The United States Air Force has designated the plane, designed in conjunction with Boeing through NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project as the X-66A.

The X-66A is also the first X-plane designed specifically to help the U.S. achieve the net-zero goal for aviation greenhouse gas emissions, set out in the White House’s U.S. Aviation Climate Action Plan, released in 2021.

NASA said in a press release that the X-66A could inform a new generation of sustainable single-aisle aircraft, planes that currently operated as the backbone of passenger-bassed air travel. As a result of their heavy usage, single-aisle aircraft account for around half of aviation greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. This means a sustainable version of such a craft could have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions. 

“At NASA, our eyes are not just focused on stars but also fixated on the sky. The Sustainable Flight Demonstrator builds on NASA‘s world-leading efforts in aeronautics as well climate,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in the statement. “The X-66A will help shape the future of aviation, a new era where aircraft are greener, cleaner, and quieter and create
new possibilities for the flying public and American industry alike.”

Related: This wild DARPA CRANE X-plane could be a giant leap in aircraft design

NASA has a Funded Space Act Agreement with Boeing for the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator, which will see the space agency make an investment of $425 million over seven years. While NASA also provides the facilities and technical expertise for the project, Boeing and its partners will contribute an estimated $725 million to its funding. 

Together with Boeing, this will see NASA build and fly a full-sized demonstration of the X-66A with extra long thin wings stabilized by diagonal struts, a design called a “Transonic Truss-Braced Wing.”

What is an X-plane? 

X-plane status is granted by the Air Force to development programs such as that of the X-66A, which aim to create revolutionary experimental aircraft configurations. Usually reserved for research aircraft, the X-planes should test novel designs and new technologies that can be integrated into other aircraft rather than planes designed to be prototypes for full production.

“We’re incredibly proud of this designation because it means that the X-66A will be the next in a long line of experimental aircraft used to validate breakthrough designs that have transformed aviation,” Boeing chief technology officer Todd Citron said. “With the learnings gained from design, construction, and flight testing, we’ll have an opportunity to shape the future of flight and contribute to the decarbonization of aerospace.”

In the case of the X-66A, the X-plane status recognizes the design’s Transonic Truss-Braced Wing configuration that, in combination with advancements in propulsion systems, and materials, could lead to a reduction of 30% in fuel consumption and fewer emissions in comparison to current “best-in-class” aircraft. 

The aircraft is the latest in a long line of X-planes created by NASA, dating back to the 1940s, and the space agency’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which founded an experimental aircraft program with the Air Force and the U.S. Navy. With its emphasis on emission reduction, the X-66A may just be one of the most important X-planes yet. 

“To reach our goal of net zero aviation emissions by 2050, we need transformative aircraft concepts like the ones we’re flying on the X-66A,” associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Bob Pearce said. “With this experimental aircraft, we’re aiming high to demonstrate the kinds of energy-saving, emissions-reducing technologies the aviation industry needs.”

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