In This Issue Vol. 30 Issue 13

ANNOUNCING FIRE'S JUNE 2025 AGENDA: The Accelerated Future Future in Review 2025 Monday Highlights Tuesday Highlights - Advanced AI Day Wednesday Highlights The FiRe Difference ETHERMAIL UPCOMING EVENTS OUR PARTNERS WHERE'S MARK?

ANNOUNCING FIRE'S JUNE 2025 AGENDA: The Accelerated Future

By Berit Anderson

 

Why Read: Future in Review 2025 will take you inside the tech world's greatest innovation ecosystems and give you the chance to connect face-to-face with the people driving the future of technology and the global economy. This week's issue describes what we have lined up for this year's powerful agenda.

_______

With each year, our shared global reality grows more chaotic.

Economic policies and tools are used at new scale to generate purposeful global economic shocks - creating risk, but also opportunity.

Shifting global alliances force business leaders to constantly reassess supply-chain risks.

Increasing climate emergencies throw entire cities and regions into upheaval. Towns burn, infrastructure is destroyed, and food and water insecurity drive global migration.

We call this super-change.

I'm very excited to announce the agenda for this year's Future in Review conference, which will give you the tools and strategy to navigate this super-change and to make profitable decisions in life, finance, and business for years to come.

It will introduce you to the people and companies successfully riding the waves of uncertainty and show you around the future they're building.

 

Future in Review 2025

Theme: The Accelerated Future: How to Prosper in a Time of Super-Change

Dates: June 8-11, 2025

Conference Location: The Qualcomm Institute at UCSD in San Diego

Preferred Hotel: We recommend the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine, which will be the daily shuttle pickup and drop-off point to and from the Qualcomm Institute.

Source: Five Star Alliance

We're excited to be bringing Future in Review back to San Diego this year, where we're partnering with the teams at UCSD's Qualcomm Institute and Scripps Institute of Oceanography to host three days of world-class networking and conversations about the future of technology and the global economy.

Those of you who have been to FiRe before may remember visiting the labs at the Calit2 / Qualcomm Institute, founded by FiRe advisory board member and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Larry Smarr.

The mission of the Qualcomm Institute, currently run by director Ramesh Rao,

is to coalesce interdisciplinary teams around the use of cutting-edge technology to address large-scale challenges. That is exactly our goal at Future in Review. So it seems particularly fitting to be bringing our mainstage conversations to QI after many years of Larry bringing UCSD's top innovations to us.

Source: UC San Diego

This year, for the first time, we'll also be taking you on a field trip to Scripps' brand-new Ted and Jean Scripps Marine Conservation and Technology Facility - a stunning oceanside garden patio and state-of-the-art visualization lab where director Stuart Sandin and his team are working to build a metaverse for conservation.

Source: Safdie Rabines Architects

Our official program kicks off on Monday, June 9, but we recommend that you arrive in San Diego Sunday night. Not only can you pre-register with us at the Hyatt, but if you're looking for trouble - of only the best kind - the FiRe Team will be hanging out at the hotel's Shor restaurant for a no-host Welcome Happy Hour from 5-7pm. There, you can connect with old friends, meet new ones, and trade tips for the best way to score a New Zealand Digital Nomad Visa.

Don't linger too late, though - the next morning we'll be kicking things off bright and early with coffee and breakfast at the Qualcomm Institute. The first shuttles leave the hotel at 7:30.

The following are some previews of this year's amazing program. We've built it with you in mind.

 

Monday Highlights

• Learn about the new emerging global order, how the CRINK alliance is evolving, and the shifting role of the United States, in a conversation with Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6.
  
  
• Explore the radical energy-efficiency gains poised to emerge from transportation, building, and even AI and data centers, in the years to come, with RMI Chair Emeritus Amory Lovins of Stanford University.
  
  
• Network with investors and founders at our FiReStarter reception - a showcase of top startups using technology to change the world for the better.
  
  
• Screen our 2025 FiRe Featured Film, The Grab, which will take you inside the global effort by governments, private investors, and mercenaries to seize and control food and water resources. Then grab a drink for the Q&A with director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and investigative reporter and subject Nate Halverson to discuss takeaways.
  
  
• Explore the emerging impact of family-office investing with Mike Steep, an investor and the founder of Stanford's Engineering Program for Disruptive Technology; Jeremiah Baker, professional hacker and growth investor; and Nathan McDonald, CEO of Keiretsu Capital.
  
  
• Explore the technologies driving human resilience to climate emergency with Energy Vault chief commercial and product officer Marco Terruzzin; Ilkay Altintas, WIFIRE Lab founder and chief data science officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center; and award-winning climate journalist Molly Peterson.

 

Tuesday Highlights - Advanced AI Day

We're thrilled to announce that Pattern Computer - the company that was ideated, funded, and founded at Future in Review - is once again sponsoring Advanced AI Day at FiRe.

To kick off the day, Pattern CEO Mark Anderson and the Pattern team will take the stage to reveal major technologies that reach beyond today's large-language models (LLMs) and generative AI and major, hallucination-free discoveries these have recently enabled. The latter includes (to name just a few) new cancer drugs and diagnostics in the top five cancers, a new online platform providing pattern discovery as a service, new diseases detected with the company's ProSpectral device, new AES technology uniting visual Explainable AI (XAI) with clinical pathology in cancer detection and other fields, and financial trading with the Pattern Discovery Engine. 

And that's just the beginning. Throughout the day, you'll also:

• Learn from NSA Director of Research Gil Herrera about how AI and quantum are enabling advanced cybersecurity threats and how new research on their tactics and origins are allowing the NSA and CIA to protect national security.
  
  
• Dive in with Phenome Health founder Lee Hood, who is revolutionizing longitudinal personalized health using advanced AI and diagnostics; and Pattern CEO Mark Anderson, for a conversation about a new partnership between the two companies and how the use of the minimally invasive ProSpectral device may transform the future of preventive medicine.
  
  
• Learn from an Allen Institute insider: CTO Andy Hickl will take you inside the sprawling center of scientific excellence and foundational research and explain how their teams are using AI and open-science resources to facilitate a renaissance of innovation and discovery across AI, neuroscience, and molecular biology - including building the most detailed understanding of a mammalian brain to date.
  
  
• Explore the realities and limitations of LLMs in the context of building ethical and explainable AI systems, with Pryon CEO Igor Jablokovsky.
  
  
• Traverse the new world of nimble manufacturing enabled by AI and robotics, with Nicoletta Giordani, US Department of Defense director of Global Investment and Economic Security; Machina Labs CEO Ed Mehr; Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) program manager Travis DeMeester; and Silverado Policy Accelerator chief of staff Marc Raimondi.
  
  
• Explore the emerging economic paradigm, including how tariffs are driving realignment of national priorities, with a session led by Global Cyber Risk CEO Jody Westby.
  
  
• Get an inside look at how conservation biologists are using big data and AI to build digital twins and improve global conservation at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, with Stuart Sandin, director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. You'll take a guided tour of a digital twin of the world's coral reefs in a cutting-edge visualization lab and enjoy sunset with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres on a gorgeous patio overlooking the Pacific.

 

Wednesday Highlights

• Hear how VCs are using new tactics and approaches to drive innovation, from Grit Capital general partner Jenn Byrne, Voyager Capital managing director Bill McAleer, and others.
  
  
• Dive into the future of food as a global security issue, including how foreign actors are targeting the US food supply and how we can create a resilient domestic agricultural ecosystem, with Bold Text Strategies president Daniella Taveau and Orthogonal Insights president Pablo Breuer.
  
  
• Explore emerging supply-chain risks and strategies to increase the resilience of your team's product, with a conversation led by CSRHub CEO Cynthia Figge.
  
  
• Delve into threats to the current water supply and technologies that are creating abundance through innovation and circularity, with Nate Halverson, subject of our 2025 Featured Film, The Grab, and senior reporter and producer for the Center for Investigative Journalism; and Greg Newbloom, CEO of Membrion.

 

The FiRe Difference

As you can see, the breadth of focus and action-oriented approach we take at FiRe is truly unique. There is no other conference in the world that combines systems-level thinking about technology and the global economy with our 95.3% publicly graded accuracy rate in predicting the future. Not to mention the caliber of global leaders with the experience and business acumen to bring these ideas to life.

Do not wait to book your ticket. There are fewer than 50 left for this year's conference, and we expect to sell out.

Looking forward to seeing you in San Diego in June.

Your comments are always welcome.

 

Sincerely,

Berit Anderson

berit@stratnews.com

 

We encourage you to forward your favorite issues of SNS to a friend(s) or colleague(s) 1 time per recipient, provided that you cc info@strategicnewsservice.com and that sharing does not result in the publication of the SNS Global Report or its contents in any form except as provided in the SNS Terms of Service (linked below).

To arrange for a speech or consultation by Mark Anderson on subjects in technology and economics, or to schedule a strategic review of your company, email mark@stratnews.com.

For inquiries about Partnership or Sponsorship Opportunities and/or SNS Events, please contact Berit Anderson, SNS COO, at berit@stratnews.com.

SNS Terms of Service

 

ETHERMAIL

 

Subject: SNS: "QUANTUM LEAP"

Evan,

Heh; how long of an explanation of physical and logical qubits and error correction do you want or shall I just link to the piece I did about the Microsoft approach in which I, for a brief moment, understood how superconducting happens?

https://thenewstack.io/microsoft-makes-quantum-computing-breakthrough-with-new-chip/

I think it's very interesting to pay attention to what DARPA is doing and which quantum developments it's including in the program to get a working sample system in a remarkably short timescale.

Regards,

 

Mary Branscombe

Freelance Technology Journalism
www.marybranscombe.com
London, UK

 

Mary,

Go for it! No promises I'll understand it. Otherwise I will read this with gusto. 

DARPA seems like a great place to start, since they have access to brains far bigger than mine to try and figure this out. It really is a maze.

 

Evan Anderson

 

Evan,

Thanks for the article.

I learned a lot. Before, I knew very little about quantum computing. Now, I know a lot more about what I don't know about quantum computing.

Thanks. I think? (and now I can say, "a qubit for your thoughts")

 

Al Braun

[aka OttoPolitico]

 

Al, 

Unfortunately, having done the dive I feel roughly the same. 

I either do or do not feel more informed about quantum, depending on how you measure me.

 

Evan Anderson

 

Subject: ChatGPT and "the biggest trade shock in history"

Hi guys,

In an interview yesterday (link below), Paul Krugman described Trump's tariffs as "the biggest trade shock in history." He and other economists were stunned by the bizarre and complicated structure, with different tariffs for different countries, and they were trying to figure out how the Trump administration had come up with the "weird," "out-of-the-blue calculation." He says, "It turned out that they basically took each country's trade balance with the United States . . . divided by the amount of their imports, and . . . cut it in half."

So where did that formula come from? Several people reported online that ChatGPT gave that answer when asked how to calculate tariffs.

Krugman responds:

"There's certainly no paper I would imagine in any economics journal saying: "Do this" . . . it really is not something you would recommend, if you know anything about how trade works which ChatGPT does not. . . . It is weird that it would come up with this."

So, ChatGPT can add to its list of failures "the biggest trade shock in history."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-paul-krugman.html

 

Best,

John Payne

Ecologist | Data Scientist
Principal, Blue Dot Research LLC
Vashon, WA

 

John,

Yes, saw that; the WH first denied that others had found this correlation, and the equation itself, then someone pointed out that the WH version just had factors not all canceled out in the fraction, and it reduced to the chat thing. But no, it does not seem tied into trade in the right way -

?

 

Mark Anderson

 

John,

Absolutely. I read the Krugman piece. I can say with great confidence that I would never have recommended or imagined using ChatGPT to build trade policy . . . amazing to have to say that in the first place.

Also, as someone who has for years supported tariffs on China . . . maybe don't start trade wars with the entire world simultaneously if you like, say, having an economy. Yet here we apparently are. No idea why.

Regards,

Evan Anderson

 

Subject: Healionics Granted US Patent for STARgraft Technology

Hi Berit,

Hope all is well with you!

If you'd like to mention in your next issue [. . .], Healionics was just granted a US patent on its innovative synthetic blood vessel, intended to provide a safer, more reliable means of dialysis access in patients with kidney failure.

Press release is here, and our CTO commented on its significance on LinkedIn.

Thanks,

Mike Connolly

CEO, Healionics Corp.
www.healionics.com

 

Mike,

That's wonderful news. Happy to include it in [the] GR. Congratulations from all of us at FiRe.

Please let me know if there's anything else we can do to support you and Healionics' success as a FiReStarter alum.

 

All the best,

Berit Anderson

 

 

Subject: Re: Announcing our April Spark salon

[Re: the announcement's opening sentence: "I'm reaching out to you with breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Just kidding - you should see your face! Happy April 1st, from me to you."]

Berit,

You got me!

Since it is April Fool's Day I will go on a little journey of tomfoolery:

IA is AI spelled backwards. IA could be Intelligence Anonymous, aka, I am smart, but who the hell am I?

It is a question one might ask if hallucinating. Perhaps currently appropriate, since it seems that hallucination is once again in vogue. Sad, but humans do regress. (The past in review?)

 

Al Braun

 

and:

 

Subject: Re: SNS: "IS INTEL'S NEW CEO A NATIONAL SECURITY RISK?"

Thanks Berit.

This Intel appointment should worry those of us who think that the PRC poses an existential threat to the U.S. and to our way of life. Saying "The rule of law" to the PRC leadership probably evinces a chuckle, if not a chortle.

I hope that the Trump administration recognizes the threat. If I were an Intel shareholder I would sell all holdings now. I don't invest with the devil, even if he is holding a better hand.

 

Al

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

 

OUR PARTNERS

 

 

WHERE'S MARK?

 

* On June 8-11, Mark will be speaking on a variety of subjects, and hoping to see many of our SNS members in person, at the FiRe 2025 conference in San Diego.

 

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ISSN 1093-8494