This Week in Charts 8-28-22
This article is a transcript of a Youtube video which can be found here.
Howdy, it’s Granté and today we’ve got another edition of This Week in Charts. After a couple weeks hiatus, I’m back and ready to report. Here’s what’s in the news today:
Corporate Charts
- Ratings of classroom technologies in higher education;
- Cost challenges facing life insurance providers;
- and characteristics of winning biopharmaceutical innovators.
3D Printing News
- First, we’ll look at a recent study that discusses 3d printing’s impact on trade;
- Next, an application of additive in a nuclear power plant;
- and an investment by the US Air Force in high-speed metal 3D printing.
Financial Technology
- Today we focus on one prime story: an evolution of cryptocurrency and the community’s response.
With that we’ll dive into the news.
Corporate Charts
Students in higher education are eager to continue using new classroom learning tech adopted during the pandemic, according to our research. In a survey, more than 60% of students said that all the classroom learning technologies they’ve used since COVID-19 began had improved their learning and grades. Two technologies in particular stood out for boosting academic performance: 80% of students cited classroom exercises, and 71% cited machine learning-powered teaching assistants.
One challenge facing life insurers is making the costs of operations and technology more efficient. According to our analysis, life insurance is one of the few industries - within and outside financial services - that have seen cost rations increase over the past 20 years. Insurers could consider developing a new set of capabilities, including (for one example) modernizing cloud-first approaches to managing applications and data.
Biopharmaceutical outperformers tend to double down on early innovation. According to our analysis, between the years 2003 and 2007, outperformers sourced 61% of their assets at the preclinical stage… compared with 49% for others in the group. That number grew to 74% between 2018 and December of 2021. Moral of the story: if you want to be an innovation leader, think about which assets you need early and find financing.
Study: Global Supply Chains
A group of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and endorsed by the Global Bank recently published a paper that attempted to measure the impact of 3D printing on the global supply chain and international trade. Focused primarily on the additive revolution of the hearing aid manufacturing cycle, the study also briefly examines sectors like prosthetics, aerospace, footwear, and others. Perhaps the most important takeaway is a point by co-author Caroline Freund, who states “Policymakers often view 3D printing as a means to shorten supply chains, when in fact it is more likely to enhance trade and reshape supply chains”. True, additive manufacturing may shorten supply chains in some industries, but as a whole, they stand to be reimagined, redesigned, and reorganized with this new tool.
Application: Nuclear Fuel
Our next story looks at the use of binder jet 3D printing in the development of nuclear fuel. The Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, which frankly sounds like something out of a cartoon, opened their Pilot Fuel Manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The “ultra-safe” technique for casing nuclear fuel involves 3D printing of radiation tolerant, heat-resistant silicon carbide combined with cooling via helium gas. This isn’t the first time additive has been a part of nuclear operations, though it seems to be the first significant use in fuel casing.
Investment: USAF x NUBURU
Flush with cash from an investment by the US Air Force, specialty laser welding company NUBURU now dives into the world of additive. NUBURU makes bold claims for their process: micron-level resolution with zero post-processing and zero shrinkage, and they have the patents to back them up. Further, they plan to increase part size and metal density while increasing build speed by up to 100 times. Again, these all sound like bold, futuristic claims, and I for one will be tracking NUBURU to see if they can follow through.
Financial Technology
Cryptocurrency Update
Today’s main story focuses on, apologetically, cryptocurrency. But just because something interesting happened and this is financial technology after all. So basically, it turns out that you cannot stop someone from sending you cryptocurrency if you wanted to, given that you have an address/wallet. It is an understanding that no one would, but it’s more of the nature of a value exchange program than a rule or law. Unfortunately, that could be dangerous, given tax implications, than was previously understood. To combat this, Vitalik Buterin the guy who made ethereum, announced a “proof of stake” feature to be added to your ether wallet. This would severely change the direction of the network. For the better or worse, you tell me in the comments. Honestly, the community doesn’t quite know what is going to happen, but everybody agrees something is going to happen.
With that, we come to the end of today’s how. Check out my discord or leave a comment to let use know which types of stories to keep our focus on. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week on This Week in Charts.
~ fïn ~
