- A participant shared a Tiny Tapeout status update: the open-source ASIC shuttle service is still running, but to maintain the same per-die price it would need roughly 50× more volume than it currently has (link to Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12KPutDPBst7FF0ncB1qyxErDYeATmXoQLGjRq38dfjU/edit?tab=t.0).

- Discussion framed the contemporary AI race as largely a competition between Chinese students in the United States versus those in China, with an estimate that only about 20 % of key researchers are non-Chinese and many identifying with Hong Kong or Taiwan rather than mainland China.

- A fission-fusion hybrid reactor concept was debated: critics called it “the worst of both worlds,” while supporters argued it cannot run away (shutting off the fusion side drops the system to sub-critical), acts as a fast-neutron reactor that burns actinide waste, and can run on unenriched U-238—features seen as strategically valuable for China.

- Anecdotal evidence of demographic concentration in advanced STEM education was offered, noting that at a recent abacus-school competition the parent audience was overwhelmingly of Asian and Indian descent.