Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

American Oklo invests in Swedish Blykalla – forms nuclear power alliance

Published yesterday 11:35
– By Editorial Staff
Blykalla develops next-generation nuclear reactors that automatically shut down when problems occur – now beginning collaboration with the USA.
2 minute read

American nuclear power company Oklo and Swedish company Blykalla are entering into a strategic partnership to accelerate the development of next-generation nuclear reactors.

Oklo is investing approximately $5 million to become one of the main investors as Blykalla raises new capital.

The collaboration between publicly listed Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) and Blykalla is one of the first transatlantic partnerships within the advanced nuclear reactor sector. The companies will share technology, coordinate supplier procurement, and exchange regulatory knowledge between the US and Sweden.

— By collaborating on suppliers, material data, and licensing processes, we can shorten time to deployment and continue focusing on delivering reliable, clean electricity to customers, comments Oklo’s CEO Jacob DeWitte.

Blykalla develops a compact lead-cooled reactor called SEALER, with a capacity of 55 megawatts – sufficient to supply electricity to a medium-sized Swedish city. The reactor builds on over 25 years of research and is designed to automatically shut down in case of problems, without requiring human intervention.

Oklo develops sodium-cooled reactors with a capacity of up to 75 megawatts. The company targets the American market and aims to deliver electricity to industries, the defense sector, and data centers.

Both companies’ reactors are significantly smaller than traditional nuclear power plants and represent a new generation of nuclear power with passive safety systems that do not require human intervention.

Growing electricity demand drives development

— Oklo and Blykalla share the same practical view on how to bring this new technology to market. By purchasing components together and conducting joint research, we can save both time and money, says Blykalla’s CEO Jacob Stedman.

Through the agreement, the companies will share knowledge about materials and components and make joint purchases from suppliers to reduce prices and shorten delivery times. Oklo may also directly supply certain components to Blykalla.

The partnership comes as society’s electricity demand is growing rapidly. AI development and new data centers require large amounts of electricity while the automotive industry invests in electric vehicles and factories transition from fossil fuels to electricity.

Oklo has previously signed agreements with industrial companies Siemens, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, Liberty Energy, and ABB for delivery of turbines, control systems, and electrical connections.

Blykalla is a Swedish company that develops small nuclear reactors for industries. Their SEALER reactor has an output of 55 megawatts and is cooled with lead instead of water. The technology is based on 25 years of research and is considered by international assessors to be the most advanced in Europe when it comes to new reactor types.

The company collaborates with major industrial companies such as German energy company Uniper, Swedish-Swiss engineering group ABB, and German pump manufacturer KSB. The goal is to deliver Europe's first modern small modular reactor to provide electricity to data centers, AI development, and industries.

Oklo is an American publicly traded company that develops reactors cooled with liquid sodium. The reactors can provide up to 75 megawatts and is the first in the US to have received site permits from authorities. Oklo has also submitted the first application to build and operate a new type of reactor in the United States.

The company also works with technology that can recycle old nuclear fuel and convert nuclear waste into new energy. Their customers include industry, data centers, and the US Department of Defense.

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Anthropic challenges Google and OpenAI with new AI flagship model

The future of AI

Published yesterday 12:40
– By Editorial Staff
AI companies' race continues at a rapid pace, now with a new model from Anthropic.
2 minute read

AI company Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 4.5, described as the company’s most advanced AI system to date and market-leading for programming. According to the company, the model performs better than competitors from Google and OpenAI.

Anthropic has released its new flagship model Claude Sonnet 4.5, which the company claims is the best on the market for coding. According to reports, the model outperforms both Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-5 on several coding benchmarks, writes TechCrunch.

One of the most remarkable features is the model’s ability to work independently for extended periods. During early testing with enterprise customers, Claude Sonnet 4.5 has been observed coding autonomously for up to 30 hours. During these work sessions, the AI model has not only built applications but also set up database services, purchased domain names, and conducted security audits.

Focus on safety and reliability

Anthropic emphasizes that Claude Sonnet 4.5 is also their safest model to date, with enhanced protection against manipulation and barriers against harmful content. The company states that the model can create “production-ready” applications rather than just prototypes, representing a step forward in reliability.

The model is available via the Claude API and in the Claude chatbot. Pricing for developers is set at 3 dollars per million input tokens and 15 dollars per million output tokens.

Fast pace in the AI race

The launch comes less than two months after the company’s previous flagship model, Claude Opus 4.1. This rapid development pace illustrates, according to TechCrunch, how difficult it is for AI companies to maintain an advantage in the intense competition.

Anthropic’s models have become popular among developers, and major tech companies like Apple and Meta are reported to use Claude internally.

Swedes turn to private apps as social media sharing declines

Published 29 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Young men are primarily those making less posts on social media.
1 minute read

Fewer than half of Swedes now regularly share their own posts on social media, shows a new report from the Internet Foundation (Internetstiftelsen), a Swedish internet research organization. At the same time, time spent on open platforms is decreasing – instead, people are increasingly turning to private channels.

In Sweden, the five largest platforms are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn. However, looking at daily usage, LinkedIn is replaced by TikTok, which has become increasingly popular.

In the report “Swedes and the Internet 2025” it shows that fewer and fewer Swedes are posting their own content on the platforms. Only 45 percent regularly share their own posts on social media, which is a decrease of four percentage points compared to last year.

It is primarily young men who are making fewer posts on social media, and the decrease has mainly occurred on Snapchat. Men born in the 1970s have also essentially stopped making their own posts. Women, however, make their own posts to roughly the same extent as the previous year.

The larger the services become, the more they are filled with content that users haven’t asked for. Then you feel more like a consumer than someone who participates and contributes, says Måns Jonasson at the Internet Foundation, to Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT.

Swedes increasingly prefer to be on private platforms instead, such as WhatsApp – which is growing for the third consecutive year. Among children and young people, more use WhatsApp than Facebook Messenger.

Denmark gears up for digital independence: “We’ve been asleep for too long”

Published 21 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Denmark's complete dependence on non-European software, hardware and digital services is a very serious problem, according to Danish digitalization minister Caroline Stage Olsen.
2 minute read

Fear that critical IT systems could suddenly be shut down is driving European countries to strengthen their digital capabilities. Denmark is leading the development with pilot projects for open source, while the municipality of Copenhagen maps alternatives to Silicon Valley giants.

— We have been in a Sleeping Beauty slumber in Europe for too long, says Denmark’s digitalization minister Caroline Stage Olsen.

The statement comes amid a growing European debate about digital sovereignty, where Denmark has taken a leading role through concrete initiatives at both national and municipal levels.

The municipality of Copenhagen is now driving an ambitious effort to map alternatives to today’s dominant IT suppliers. Henrik Appel Esbensen, who leads the municipality’s internal audit, draws parallels to the energy sector:

— For gas and electricity we have alternative suppliers. Now we want to see if we can also become as supply-secure for IT as we want to be.

He emphasizes that the focus is on supply security rather than specifically avoiding American solutions: “For us it’s important not necessarily to get rid of American tech specifically, but that the supply security to Copenhagen is good”.

Pilot project with open source

Denmark’s digitalization ministry has started a pilot project exploring alternatives to Silicon Valley giants’ products, primarily through solutions based on open source. The initiative has gained renewed relevance following recent tensions between Denmark and the US regarding Greenland.

— We are dependent on products, services, software, hardware that come from countries outside Europe and that is a problem, states digitalization minister Caroline Stage Olsen.

Denmark is not alone in taking action. In Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein plans to replace Windows with Linux and seek domestic cloud providers. Meanwhile, Poland and the Baltic states are developing plans for large-scale AI data centers – a so-called “AI gigafactory” – to secure their own capacity for artificial intelligence.

— Estonia today uses the major American tech companies’ services, but we want to develop alternatives to secure our digital sovereignty, explains Estonia’s economy and industry minister Erkki Keldo to Swedish public television SVT.

“Must dare to invest”

The view on digital independence has undergone a dramatic change in a short time. Tech investor Johan Brenner from venture capital firm Creandum illustrates the shift:

— If you had asked the question a year ago, I would have just laughed at it. But now you don’t know, you might need to have a plan A and a plan B for European companies.

The path toward greater digital autonomy will be neither simple nor quick, according to Henrik Appel Esbensen in Copenhagen:

— I think it will take a long time. But it requires massive investments because there aren’t that many suppliers in the field right now. There’s no doubt that we must dare to invest in this in Europe.

Concern about what happens if critical IT systems are suddenly shut down or contracts are terminated has transformed digital sovereignty from an abstract discussion into a concrete security issue for European countries – a development that has accelerated markedly over the past year.

OpenAI monitors ChatGPT chats – can report users to police

Mass surveillance

Published 20 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
What has been perceived as private AI conversations can now end up with police.
2 minute read

OpenAI has quietly begun monitoring users’ ChatGPT conversations and can report content to law enforcement authorities.

The revelation comes after incidents where AI chatbots have been linked to self-harm behavior, delusions, hospitalizations and suicide – what experts call “AI psychosis”.

In a blog post, the company acknowledges that they systematically scan users’ messages. When the system detects users planning to harm others, the conversations are directed to a review team that can suspend accounts and contact police.

“If human reviewers determine that a case involves an imminent threat of serious physical harm to others, we may refer it to law enforcement”, writes OpenAI.

The new policy means in practice that millions of users have their conversations scanned and that what many perceived as private conversations with an AI are now subject to systematic surveillance where content can be forwarded to authorities.

Tech journalist Noor Al-Sibai at Futurism points out that OpenAI’s statement is “short and vague” and that the company does not specify exactly what types of conversations could lead to police reports.

“It remains unclear which exact types of chats could result in user conversations being flagged for human review, much less getting referred to police”, she writes.

Security problems ignored

Ironically, ChatGPT has proven vulnerable to “jailbreaks” where users have been able to trick the system into giving instructions for building neurotoxins or step-by-step guides for suicide. Instead of addressing these fundamental security flaws, OpenAI is now choosing extensive surveillance of users.

The surveillance stands in sharp contrast to the tech company’s actions in the lawsuit against the New York Times, where the company “steadfastly rejected” demands to hand over ChatGPT logs citing user privacy.

“It’s also kind of bizarre that OpenAI even mentions privacy, given that it admitted in the same post that it’s monitoring user chats and potentially sharing them with the fuzz”, Al-Sibai notes.

May be forced to hand over chats

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has recently acknowledged that ChatGPT does not offer the same confidentiality as conversations with real therapists or lawyers, and due to the lawsuit, the company may be forced to hand over user chats to various courts.

“OpenAI is stuck between a rock and a hard place”, writes Al-Sibai. The company is trying to handle the PR disaster from users who have suffered mental health crises, but since they “clearly having trouble controlling its own tech”, they fall back on “heavy-handed moderation that flies in the face of its own CEO’s promises”.

The tech company announces that they are “currently not” reporting self-harm cases to police, but the wording suggests that even this could change. The company has also not responded to requests to clarify what criteria are used for surveillance.

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