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• Distributed acoustic sensing detects disturbances in fibre optic signals to identify underwater threats
• NATO’s ‘Baltic Sentry’ mission enhances subsea security, but surveillance remains difficult
• AP Sensing’s North Sea deployment highlights fibre optics’ role in security

Subsea fibre optic cables are a crucial part of global internet infrastructure, yet recent damage incidents in the Baltic Sea have raised concerns about their security.

Per the BBC, there are now efforts to mitigate the risk of sabotage by using a decades-old technique known as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS).

This approach detects disturbances in fibre optic signals by capturing tiny reflections sent back along the strands due to pulses from light encountering vibrations or temperature changes, allowing the system to identify suspicious activity such as underwater drones, vessels dragging anchors, or divers near critical cables.

How fibre optics can 'listen' for threats

As with network security, where businesses rely on the best small business routers to prevent cyber threats, monitoring solutions for subsea infrastructure are becoming essential in safeguarding global communications.

Lane Burdette, a research analyst at TeleGeography, notes that the number of faults affecting subsea cables each year has remained steady, typically between 1 and 200. "Cables break all the time…The number of cable faults per year has really held steady over the last several years."

During tests conducted by AP Sensing, the system detected a diver patting a cable on the seabed, while further experiments demonstrated its ability to identify drones and vessels, potentially providing early warnings of sabotage attempts.

"He stops and just touches the cable lightly, you clearly see the signal...The acoustic energy which travels through the fibre is basically disturbing our signal. We can measure this disturbance," says Daniel Gerwig, global sales manager at AP Sensing, a German technology company.

Just as businesses depend on the best business smartphones for real-time alerts and security updates, early warning systems for subsea cables can provide critical intelligence to prevent disruptions.

Concerns over the vulnerability of these cables have led NATO to launch "Baltic Sentry," a mission using warships, drones, and aircraft to monitor activity in the region, but since constant surveillance is not always possible, demand for fibre optic acoustic sensing solutions is growing.

"It's good that Nato and the European Union have woken up…The question is how quickly you could establish contact with a vessel," said Thorsten Benner, co-founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute.

Maintaining secure communications in this environment requires the same level of reliability as the best network switches, ensuring smooth data flow and minimal disruption.

Companies such as Optics11 and Viavi Solutions are seeing increased interest in their monitoring technology, which can be deployed on military submarines or along key underwater infrastructure routes.

AP Sensing’s system is already in use in parts of the North Sea, but the technology has limitations, requiring signal interrogation points at regular intervals along the cable and having a sensing range of only a few hundred metres, meaning it can detect nearby threats but is not a complete security solution on its own.

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The heavyweight who lost the "Rumble in the Jungle" to Muhammad Ali before authoring an inspiring second act as a 45-year-old champion and a successful businessman was 76.

(Image credit: Jeff Robbins)

Six Voice of America journalists and a director at its parent agency have sued the Trump administration, alleging its moves to shut down the U.S.-funded network are unconstitutional.

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• Nvidia’s Quantum-X and Spectrum-X switches reduce reliance on traditional optical transceivers
• Silicon photonics boosts Nvidia’s network efficiency by 3.5x
• Quantum-X and Spectrum-X switches deliver up to 400Tbps throughput for hyperscale AI factories

Nvidia is advancing its networking technology by integrating co-packaged optics (CPO) into its Quantum InfiniBand and Spectrum Ethernet switch, a move expected to reduce power consumption and cost in AI data centers.

At its GTC 2025 event, Nvidia detailed its plans for deploying silicon photonics, which will enhance efficiency by reducing the need for traditional optical transceivers.

Instead of relying on traditional pluggable transceivers, Nvidia is embedding photonics directly into switch ASICs, cutting energy use and minimizing signal loss. These advancements benefit hyperscale AI, and could also improve small business routers with similar efficiency gains.

Nvidia seeks to cut AI data center power by over 50%.

Nvidia’s Spectrum-X and Quantum-X switches use silicon photonics to deliver higher bandwidth and lower energy consumption, supporting up to 1.6 terabits per second (Tbps) per port to efficiently connect millions of GPUs.

The Quantum-X and Spectrum-X photonics switches offer configurations ranging from 128 ports at 800Gbps to 512 ports at 800Gbps, delivering total throughputs of up to 400Tbps.

While the Spectrum-X Ethernet platform enhances multi-tenant hyperscale deployments, the Quantum-X InfiniBand switches deliver superior signal integrity and resilience, making them contenders for the best network switch.

“AI factories are a new class of data centers with extreme scale, and networking infrastructure must be reinvented to keep pace. By integrating silicon photonics directly into switches, NVIDIA is shattering the old limitations of hyperscale and enterprise networks and opening the gate to million-GPU AI factories,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

Nvidia’s new switches improve energy efficiency by a factor of 3.5, while also reducing signal degradation. In a typical AI data center with 400,000 GPUs, conventional networking setups require millions of optical transceivers, consuming significant power.

Nvidia’s approach reduces total network power from 72 megawatts to 21.6 megawatts, dramatically improving sustainability. These gains could also enhance business smartphones, enabling faster, more reliable connectivity.

While Nvidia is transitioning towards optical networking, copper remains relevant in specific configurations.

Systems like the GB200 NVL72 still use thousands of copper cables to link GPUs and CPUs via NVLink 5, offering lower power consumption at the rack level.

However, as Nvidia progresses to NVLink 6, copper’s limitations will become more apparent, reinforcing the need for photonic solutions in large-scale AI tool deployments.

Nvidia’s new switches are set for release in late 202 and 2026. The first model, the Quantum 3450-LD InfiniBand switch, launching in late 2025, will provide 144 ports of 800 Gb/sec connectivity and a total bandwidth of 115 Tb/sec.

In 2026, the Spectrum SN6810 Ethernet switch will debut with 128 ports at 800 Gb/sec and an aggregate bandwidth of 102.4 Tb/sec. A larger Spectrum SN6800 model, will also arrive in 2026, featuring 512 ports of 800 Gb/sec and a total throughput of 409.6 Tb/sec.

Via Nextplatform

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Representatives from Russia and Ukraine will be in meetings to try to hammer out details of a ceasefire on Monday. But peace is still a long way off.

For starters it's only a partial ceasefire—no strikes on energy infrastructure. It's only for 30 days.

And the Ukrainians and Russians aren't even meeting with each other. The U.S. will be a go-between.

One of the biggest things working against a new agreement, is what happened after Ukraine's last agreement with Russia. And the ones before that.

Ukraine says it won't trust a promise from Russia. It needs security guarantees. To understand why, you've got to go back to the birth of independent Ukraine.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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• Uperfect 23.8-inch dual foldable display offers more screen and less clutter
• Precision hinges and 360-degree folding give users control over their workspace
• Includes USB-C, HDMI, built-in speakers, and a 3.5mm headphone jack

Uperfect has introduced a fresh take on multi-screen monitors for programming, with its stacked dual-screen design, which opens vertically via precision hinges with a 360-degree folding capability, allowing the display to be folded, unfolded, or flipped.

Uperfect says each portable monitor with 23.8-inch panels has a 1920 x 1080 resolution, and a refresh rate of 100Hz.

The Uperfect Delta Mega saves desk space with its built-in stand, which allows for height and angle adjustments while also supporting VESA mounting for flexible setups.

Design, connectivity and ease of use

The Uperfect 23.8-inch dual foldable display supports vertical stacking of two screens, providing an ergonomic advantage and reducing the need for excessive head movements, making it one of the best monitors for trading, or for running video editing software.

The monitors don't include touch functionality, but can be adjusted. When fully extended, they function as a traditional dual-monitor setup, while folding creates a compact, book-like view suitable for presentations, or an immersive reading experience.

One of the standout features is the single-cable connection via USB-C, there's also HDMI, built-in speakers, and a 3.5mm headphone port.

The Uperfect 23.8-inch dual foldable display is currently listed at $649.99, reflecting a significant $550 discount from its original $1,199.99 price.

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• DeepSeek R1’s 671 billion parameters run smoothly on the M3 Ultra’s unified memory
• Apple’s Mac Studio proves AI workloads don’t require expensive, power-hungry GPU clusters
• M3 Ultra consumes under 200W, far less than traditional multi-GPU AI setups

Apple’s Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra chip has demonstrated a capability that no other personal computer can match, running the DeepSeek R1 AI tool with 671 billion parameters entirely in memory.

A test by YouTube reviewer Dave2D showed despite using a 4-bit quantized version of the model, it retained its full parameter count and performed smoothly.

The DeepSeek R1 model, a hefty 404GB of storage and high-bandwidth memory typically found in GPU VRAM, is usually run on multi-GPU setups that distribute processing across several high-end graphics cards.

A unique feat: running DeepSeek R1 in memory

However, the M3 Ultra’s unified memory system, instead of relying on external GPUs, uses its 512GB of unified memory to store and process the AI model in a way that no other personal computer can.

Although MacOS imposes a default VRAM limit, Dave Lee manually increased it through the Terminal to allocate up to 448GB for AI processing, eliminating memory bottlenecks and reducing the need for multiple components to streamline AI performance on a single system.

One of the most striking aspects of this test was the M3 Ultra's power efficiency, as it consumed less than 200W while running DeepSeek R1.

The ability to run such a demanding AI model without a multi-GPU setup challenges the industry standard, which relies on high-end Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, as the best workstations and server farms typically use GPU clusters that consume vast amounts of electricity.

Apple’s unified memory architecture enables significant power savings by sharing the M3 Ultra’s memory pool across CPU and GPU workloads, unlike conventional PC setups where VRAM is separate from system memory, maximizing bandwidth while minimizing energy use.

Apple’s Mac Studio, launched with the M3 Ultra chip, features up to a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU, making it one of the best LLM workstations and one of the best video editing computers.

Via Wccftech

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