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Meteorologists are predicting a wet El Niño winter this year, with above-normal ocean temperatures potentially bringing heavy rain and flooding.

“We are in a very strong El Niño index right now where we are seeing above-normal temperatures along the coast,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Anamaria Navarrete.

Robert Lund, a statistical climatologist at UC Santa Cruz, told KSBW that “we are probably looking at the strongest El Niño in our recorded lifetime.”

Navarrete said the warming conditions can contribute to elevated sea levels.

“With warmer waters, swells from distant hurricanes in combination with possible winter atmospheric rivers, we could face major consequences,” she said. “This could also bring on astronomical tide activities, major beach erosion and damage to area harbors. We can’t say for sure, but it is something we are keeping an eye on.”

Navarrete added that National Weather Service forecasters are projecting above-average precipitation, with a chance of wetter-than-normal conditions.

She advised the public to stay aware of changing weather conditions, especially during severe weather, by visiting weather.gov/bayarea.

People in low-lying areas should remain  especially aware, Navarrete added. 

The public can also get valuable alerts and information by signing up to CRUZ AWARE at CruzAware.org.

The Pajaro Valley High girls flag football team was confidently aiming to close out this week with a couple of short-term goals in mind: keep their perfect record intact and push further ahead in the league standings.

But, the Grizzlies were served a sliver of humble pie following a 26-12 defeat to King City High in Pacific Coast Athletic League Mission Division action Wednesday afternoon.

“I got to give it to them, they were tough,” PV head coach Cesar Rojas said. “Really, really good team.”

With the loss, PV dropped to a 4-1 overall record. They are now tied with King City and Watsonville with a 2-1 record in Mission Division play.

The Grizzlies were coming off a pair of victories against Watsonville and Alvarez high schools on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, giving them all the confidence required to take on the Mustangs.

“I think we got too confident after beating the cross-town rivals,” said Rojas about the win over Watsonville, which defeated King City on Sept. 8. “King City came, put up a show. They did their thing.”

PV junior Denise Magallon was visibly upset after Wednesday’s game, mostly because she felt they didn’t play to their full potential like they usually do.

“I thought that we had it,” Magallon said. “But I guess we got in our heads too much. I don’t understand why, but we got in our heads too much, and that kind of messes up real bad.”

Magallon gave credit to King City for the way they took care of business, but she thinks a lack of communication and execution played a big part in their first loss of the season. 

“They were doing really good passes in the middle, and once again, I think we messed up on that because we’ve had conversations about focusing on the middle,” Magallon said. “We struggled with that a few games ago, and we thought we had it again, but I guess not.”

The Grizzlies began the 2026 fall campaign with a four-game win streak. However, Rojas echoed his star player by saying they continue to fail to communicate with each other, and it showed during Wednesday’s game. 

It began in the first quarter with a pair of interceptions thrown by junior quarterback Aaliyah Suarez. One of those turnovers resulted in a touchdown for King City.

PV’s defense also allowed a touchdown just before going into halftime, allowing the Mustangs to push ahead at 19-6 at the break.

Some players looked confused and Rojas attempted to calm them down, yet at times it almost seemed impossible for him.

“They need to understand our formations,” Rojas said. “They need to understand our style of play, and it’s important to work with them. That’s gonna build our program in the long run.”

With youth comes inexperience. Still, Rojas is confident this particular group will learn from their mistakes after a tough loss.

The Grizzlies have key returning players in seniors Jezlynn Calderon, Perla Rivera and Analia Vazquez, along with juniors Nadia Renteria, Xitlali Pozos and Elizabeth Zamora.

Magallon said having a good core of players coming back from last year is great because they have a familiarity. But it’s also great to have new players coming in and helping out in any way possible.  

“I think we just gotta work on them more and help them out to help us out,” Magallon said. 

The underclassmen include sophomores Sofia Arenas and Khloe Cisneros, along with five new freshmen: Maya Cigala, Damaris Cortez, Aryana Gonzalez, Amarely Magdeleno and Mariyah Vazquez.

“We are a small roster, but I think it’s full of potential,” Rojas said.

The season is still young. Rojas emphasized, though, that he needs to include more team bonding, which he admits they haven’t done much of this year.

PV’s third-year head coach believes doing out-of-school activities that includes the parents and guardians is what keeps teams together.

“I think we gotta get back to it,” Rojas said. “Take the girls to the beach, they love going to the beach. I think we were working way too hard in our practices.”

In 2025, they were in a similar situation after losing to Pacific Collegiate School and North Monterey County High early in the campaign.

The Grizzlies turned it around by winning the final 10 games of the regular season en route to the program’s first-ever PCAL Mission Division title.

They intend to defend the Mission Division crown as King City, Watsonville, PCS, Soledad High and North Salinas High look to dethrone them.

“We still have a big chance,” Rojas said. “It’s there for everybody.”

Next up, Pajaro Valley (4-1, 2-1) plays at Soledad (4-2, 1-1) in Mission Division play Sept. 22 at 5:45pm.

#tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-2-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-3-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item4 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-4-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item5 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-5-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item6 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/PAJ2638-PV-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-6-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item7 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/KCR2639-KC-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item8 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/KCR2639-KC-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-2-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item9 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/KCR2639-KC-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-3-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item10 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/KCR2639-KC-girls-flag-football-update-WEB-4-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 10 Pajaro Valley High junior quarterback Aaliyah Suarez has been under center for the Grizzly girls flag football team this fall campaign. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High junior Denise Magallon is one of several key returning players for the Grizzly girls flag football team this fall campaign. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High girls flag football head coach Cesar Rojas enters his third season with the progam. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High senior Perla Rivera, No. 10, is a speedy defensive rusher for the Grizzly girls flag football team this fall campaign. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High junior quarterback Aaliyah Suarez, right, checks in with assistant head coach Jordan Ruiz during a game against King City High on Sept. 15. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High senior Analia Vazquez is one of several key returning players for the Grizzly girls flag football team this fall campaign. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) King City High junior Marali Ortiz, right, and teammate senior Shyrah McDonald both reach for the ball at an attempt to make the interception during a girls flag football game against Pajaro Valley High on Sept. 15. (Juan Reyes/King City Rustler) King City High senior Katia Slama tosses the ball during a girls flag football game against Pajaro Valley High on Sept. 15. (Juan Reyes/King City Rustler) King City High sophomore Alondra Herrejon sprints past the defense during a girls flag football game against Pajaro Valley High on Sept. 15. (Juan Reyes/King City Rustler) King City High senior Shyrah McDonald hauls in a catch during a girls flag football game against Pajaro Valley High on Sept. 15. (Juan Reyes/King City Rustler)

Geothermal startup Mazama is drilling three miles underground to tap superhot rock, with one well capable of generating 15 MW of electricity 24/7.

The round values the data center giant at $30.9 billion.

Google DeepMind just launched an institute to hash out the big AGI questions in public

Earlier this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested that Marvell’s optics tech would make it the next trillion-dollar company. On Thursday, Marvell took a big step towards securing that status by announcing an expanded partnership with GlobalFoundries, an American wafer fab well known for its work in silicon photonics manufacturing. The tie-up will see GloFo and Marvell work to expand silicon germanium (SiGe) wafer production at the fab’s Burlington, Vermont wafer plant. SiGe is commonly employed in the production of optical transceivers, which convert electrical signals to optical ones and back again, as well as in laser modules used in many high-end switches from Nvidia and others. According to GlobalFoundries, the additional capacity will support the production of near- and co-packaged optics (CPO/NPO) as well as “next-gen” pluggable optics. Nvidia already employs co-packaged optics in some of its Spectrum Ethernet and Quantum InfiniBand switches to cut power consumption and improve reliability. Pundits expect NPO to be used in large multirack systems such as Huawei’s new Ascend 960DT-based SuperPods. Nvidia’s future multi-rack systems are widely expected to use NPO as well. The fab says its SiGe tech has already been validated up to 200 Gbps per lane, which is required for 1.6 Tbps transceivers. Faster lane speeds could open the door to 3.2 Tbps transceivers, which are also on its roadmap. Demand for optics technologies has surged thanks in no small part to everyone’s favorite subject: AI. Speaking during Computex this spring, Marvell CEO Matt Murphy explained why demand for optics demand is set to explode. Up until now, optics have primarily been used to connect racks to resources across the datacenter. Anything within a few meters was well within reach of cheaper and less power hungry copper interconnects. But as lane speeds climbed from 25 Gbps to 50, 100, and then 200 Gbps, copper interconnects began running into practical reach limits. 400 Gbps per lane is essentially the end of the road for copper even in a single rack; beyond that point, copper cables can’t carry signal at speed further than 1.25 meters. Because of this, the broader ecosystem has been investing heavily to bolster optics and photonics supply chains, and GlobalFoundries isn’t the only one boosting production. Nvidia in particular has invested billions in the optics technology outfits, including $2 billion each to Lumentum and Coherent. A few months later, Coherent announced plans to boost production of indium phosphide wafers used in lasers, photodetectors, and modulators, at its Sherman, Texas, fab by 4x. ®

Quick Take

• In a bid to appeal to nostalgic Millennials who fondly recall the ’90s, Wendy’s is bringing back its iconic bright yellow packaging for a limited time.
• The bright yellow color scheme will once again adorn French fry cartons and drink cups, just like it did back in the day.
• Nerdist’s take: Wendy’s hopes the retro packaging will make its customers think of simpler times, and it will probably work.

The world outside our windows is one in constant turmoil. We suppose you can say that about any era, but it feels especially bad lately. So in times like these, people always turn to the comfort of nostalgia. They’re nostalgic about movies, TV, toys, fashion, and, for some reason, drinking out of the garden hose. But that nostalgia also extends to fast food chains. Earlier this year, McDonald’s brought back their friend apple pies after decades off the menu. And now, via Today, we’ve learned that Wendy’s is bringing back their iconic bright yellow packaging, after years of using a minimalist red and white motif.

Wendy’s

The return of the classic yellow color scheme at Wendy’s locations begins later this month. It arrives several years after the fast food giant decided that the bright yellow was too dated and not hip, even though it was their visual calling card. In a statement, a Wendy’s spokesperson said, “Fans have been asking for its return for years, making it one of the most requested comebacks in Wendy’s history. Yellow has been part of Wendy’s since the very beginning and is something many fans instantly recognize.” The yellow packaging isn’t permanent, and the regular color scheme returns in early 2027.

The iconic yellow will soon appear on Wendy’s French fry cartons, cups, and more. This is sure to make nostalgic Millennials and Gen Xers flock to their local Wendy’s establishments, have a Frosty, and remind themselves of simpler times in the ’90s, before it felt like everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Sadly, the actual Wendy’s locations probably won’t go back to their ‘ 90s-era look, which would be amazing. Several Pizza Hut locations are doing that very thing, and going back to their original old look. Wendy’s fans will just have to settle for a bright yellow cup for their sodas. At least for now.

Eric Diaz is a staff writer at Nerdist and a Swiss Army knife of fandoms. Eric loves DC, Marvel, horror movies, and even Star Wars and Star Trek equally.

The post Wendy’s Brings Back Nostalgic Yellow Packaging This Fall appeared first on Nerdist.

An updated permit shows the 100-cap will expire later this month just as competition in Las Vegas heats up.

We’ve reached the point in the midterms election cycle where political operatives start to make difficult decisions about where their financial resources are best spent. With dozens of races and a finite amount of money, political campaign committees and super PACs eventually decide to cut their losses in elections that look unwinnable, moving their ad spending to contests where they think…

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A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Democrats demand answers on Don Jr.’s ‘wedding gift’ from Russia…

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A zero-click vulnerability that allows remote code execution affects all of the major AI coding agents - Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, Google's Gemini CLI, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot - and could give attackers full access to every asset and piece of data that the agent can reach, researchers say. The exploit, dubbed “Plugin4Shell,” is a “first-of-its-kind AI supply-chain attack,” according to threat hunters at Air, a security startup focused on protecting enterprise AI agents. Instead of targeting the model or agent, Plugin4Shell attacks trusted marketplaces that host plugins for major coding agents. Such attacks could therefore reach millions of users and machines, the researchers said. Almost 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Copilot, according to Microsoft, which also happens to be one of the two that didn’t ship a patch for the flaw. “The fix has to ship in the agent, and updating is the only complete mitigation where one exists,” Air researchers Or Nevo, Dor Granat, and Niv Hoffman said in a Thursday report. The Air team reported the security issue to all four vendors in June, and both Anthropic and OpenAI patched it in Claude Code 2.1.179 and Codex 0.146.0, respectively. Google has deprecated the Gemini CLI, and therefore told Air it will not patch, so every install remains vulnerable. Google does, however, suggest users migrate to its newer Antigravity agentic development environment, which is protected from this attack. Microsoft didn’t fix the flaw in Copilot. However, a GitHub spokesperson told us the Plugin4Shell attacks do not affect GitHub. “To prevent abuse of SHAs, GitHub does not allow users to create branch or tag names that resemble commit SHAs,” the spokesperson said. “This mitigation ensures the reported vulnerability cannot be exploited on GitHub.” The Air researchers said that the GitHub mitigation isn’t sufficient to defeat Plugin4Shell attacks. This is “because marketplaces can also be hosted in other platforms such as Bitbucket,” the team told The Register. “Microsoft Copilot is also still vulnerable because it supports marketplaces from such platforms as well, which exposes it to the vulnerability,” the researchers added. “Air also reported the same to Microsoft (since June), but unfortunately due [to] the amount of disclosure volume they’re currently getting we didn’t get a response from them.” Redmond did not immediately respond to The Register’s request for comment. The security hole sits in how agents enforce marketplaces’ SHA-pinning mechanism, which locks agent plugins and skills to a specific, immutable commit hash instead of a mutable reference like a version tag or branch name. This aims to prevent supply chain attacks: If a public skill repository is compromised, your AI agent will continue running the same, audited code hash it used when you pinned it instead of automatically pulling new, malicious payloads. The researchers describe the vulnerability as a “plugin SHA-pinning bypass.” “The agent checks out the exact commit the marketplace pinned but never verifies it landed there, so an attacker who controls the plugin's repo makes the checkout resolve to malicious code while the pin still looks honored," Nevo, Granat, and Hoffman wrote. “The result is zero-click remote code execution.” Agents’ plugin auto-update feature makes this a zero-click attack. When a pinned commit is swapped upstream, the agent’s plugin gets replaced with a malicious version, and both Claude and Codex automatically update installed plugins by default. The researchers say an attacker could abuse this flaw in two ways. In one scenario, the attacker submits a benign plugin to a trusted marketplace, the plugin passes review, and then the attacker later replaces the benign content with malicious code. The second attack involves hijacking a legitimate author's repository and then pushing the malicious version onto every agent that has it installed - essentially bypassing the SHA pinning safety mechanism that exists to stop this type of supply chain attack. The team demonstrates this type of takeover in their earlier SkillJacking and RepoJacking proof-of-concept attacks. “Together, the chain is proven end to end - takeovers happen at scale, and Plugin4Shell defeats the mechanism built to contain them,” the researchers wrote. ®

If AI lab PrismML isn't on your radar yet, it should be.

A new AI-based software program is being launched to help air traffic controllers better navigate their jobs as the crossing guards of America's skies.

ph @l_e_ba
#365cafeesoupresque

Since taking office again, President Donald Trump has been tarnishing the image of Washington, D.C., but perhaps no entity has felt his wrath quite like the Smithsonian Institution. Earlier this summer, following an absurd report that criticized the museum for erasing America’s “heritage,” Trump ordered that signs be installed outside the Smithsonian to warn visitors of what he claims is…

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Quick Take

• Greta Gerwig says her first Chronicles of Narnia movie, The Magician’s Nephew, is a “rock opera” without music inspired by ’60s British glam.
• Gerwig cites Aslan singing Narnia into existence and her love of David Bowie and other iconic musicians as the inspiration for her film.
• Nerdist’s Take: A non-musical rock opera take on The Chronicles of Narnia is a choice we have no idea will work or not.

Whatever I expected from Greta Gerwig’s Chronicles of Narnia movies, I promise “non-musical rock opera inspired by David Bowie” was not among my predictions. But that’s exactly what she plans to deliver with her first film in the franchise, the upcoming Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. She will transport fans to the fantasy realm by giving it a British glam makeover.

Just, again so it’s clear, it will not be a musical. Just completely inspired by music and musicians.

EXCLUSIVE 🪩

Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is a rock inspired fantasy nodding to David Bowie and The Who.

“Narnia is literally a world made out of music,” she tells Empire. “Rock’n’roll to me felt like a world made out of music.”

Read more:… pic.twitter.com/nGp4soDYuf

— Empire (@empiremagazine) September 17, 2026

The Barbie and Lady Bird director told Empire all about the personal inspiration behind her upcoming take on C.S. Lewis’ iconic fantasy series. “I wanted a rock opera,” she said. “I wanted it to be big and transporting.” Specifically she’s moving Lewis’ story from around the turn of the 20th century to 1950s Great Britain. When the children in the story then travel to other realms they will see a world inspired by the British glam scene of the ’60s and ’70s. The colorful, glitzy first images from the film show what that will look like.

Netflix/Peter Mountain-David Bowie

Gerwig said the idea came from the musicians who she credits with “saving” her life, legends like David Bowie, Paul McCartney, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant. “Narnia is literally a world made out of music,” she said. And because Aslan (whom Meryl Streep will voice) sand that magical world into existence, Gerwig made her version out of the of rock and roll she loves so much.

Despite being a “rock opera” her first Narnia movie is not a musical. It sounds like a musical, yes, but it’s musical in style-only. Not in songs. Which…you know….it’s a choice. All of this is very much a choice.

🚨WORLD-EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK 🚨

Greta Gerwig opens the doors to Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew in the new issue of Empire – detailing her revolutionary rock’n’roll adaptation.

Here’s your first look at Aslan – and he’s voiced by the legendary Meryl Streep.

On sale Thurs… pic.twitter.com/zsXC1yRkJD

— Empire (@empiremagazine) September 17, 2026

Will it work? As someone who has read all of Lewis Narnia books I feel confident saying, “I have no idea.” It’s not that Gerwig’s comments mean nothing or that I don’t have faith in her. It’s that they only tell us about her concept and inspiration. Everything that makes sense to her might not land with audiences. Or it might feel, well, inspired.

We won’t find out whether a music-less rock opera opera approach works or not until Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew arrives in theaters February 12, 2027.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @‌burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post Greta Gerwig’s First NARNIA Movie Is a Bowie-Inspired ‘Rock Opera’ appeared first on Nerdist.

Last month, Cory Mills’ career in Congress imploded when the Florida Republican lost his primary by 13 points. Now part of a weapons facility operated by a company that Mills co-owns has exploded.

The incident occurred on Wednesday evening at a Pacem Defense facility in northern Florida and caused no injuries, the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Mills, who entered Congress in 2023, has said that he stepped away from running his arms companies years ago, but he still owns a majority stake in Pacem Defense, according to his most recent congressional financial disclosure.  

The explosion at Pacem Defense, which specialized in making and selling high explosive grenades to foreign militaries, was apparently massive. The Taylor County Sheriff’s Office said in its statement that one building at the Pacem facility sustained “significant damage” in the explosion, adding on Facebook that “[m]any residents heard and felt” it. One person who lives about three miles away from the facility wrote on the site that her brick home started shaking. 

The sheriff’s office said that neither of the workers who were at Pacem Defense at the time of the explosion was harmed. It added that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Defense, and the Florida state Fire Marshal’s office are now involved in the investigation. 

The blowup is only the latest challenge for Mills. Since 2025, the scandal-plagued Florida man has been accused of stealing valor, placed under a restraining order by a judge after subjecting an ex-girlfriend to “dating violence” via cyberstalking, and was nearly arrested after being accused of domestic assault by a different girlfriend. (That partner later retracted the allegation, and no charges were filed.) As I reported in a February profile of Mills, the full list is much longer. 

Nevertheless, Mills managed to secure Donald Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” earlier this year. Despite that support, Mills was easily defeated in his August primary by Ryan Elijah, a former local TV news anchor.

In late 2025, Pacem indefinitely furloughed many of its employees after racking up tens of millions of dollars in debt, according to court records. It has remained largely shuttered since then, a former employee told me on Thursday. (In March, Craig Pittman called the Pacem facility a “ticking time bomb.”)

According to a Florida court filing, Pacem ended up owing a Canadian lender more than $66 million. In another case, Pacem is subject to an order under which it is obligated to pay $8 million to an arms company that bought grenades from Pacem but never received them.  A status update submitted in federal court on Wednesday states that Pacem has still not “paid any portion of the judgment amount.”

Mills’ financial disclosure states that he also maintains a 100 percent interest in Pacem Estate Holdings, the real estate entity that owns the site where the explosion on Wednesday occurred. According to court records, Pacem Estate Holdings continued to receive $12,000 per month in rent from another Pacem entity while the company’s employees were out of work.

Last Thursday, after remaining mostly silent on social media in the wake of his primary defeat, Mills struck a defiant tone on X—posing in front of a wall of fire and water in a tight polo with a Swiss watch that can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. 

A Phoenix rises from the ashes. Our fight is far from over! pic.twitter.com/wVa4rB5LhP

— Cory Mills (@CoryMillsFL) September 10, 2026

“A Phoenix rises from the ashes,” Mills declared. Six days later, the ashes appear to have become real.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered remarks at the Children’s Health Defense conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The anti-vaccine advocacy organization, once led by Kennedy, was excited to hear that Kennedy is still dismissive of the measles outbreak that has claimed the lives of both children and adults. “We care about every child who dies from…

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At its annual Connect conference, Huawei unveiled a new generation of AI accelerators that promise performance far beyond anything Nvidia can currently sell in the Middle Kingdom. This could be a boon for Chinese developers used to purchasing lesser weapons from everyone's favorite AI arms dealer. If that weren’t enough, the chip, codenamed the Ascend 960DT — the DT here apparently stands for decode/training — is slated to arrive a full three quarters ahead of schedule, launching in the first quarter of 2027. With up to 288 GB of what we assume is Huawei’s custom HiZQ memory tech, a homegrown alternative to the high-bandwidth memory used by the rest of the world, and up to four petaFLOPS of FP4 performance (half that at FP8), the accelerator offers twice the performance and memory capacity of the company’s 950-series parts, launched earlier this year. Compared to American GPUs, the 960DT offers similar memory and bandwidth to Nvidia’s B300 family of chips launched last year, but only about half the FP8 and a third the FP4 compute. While a big step up for the Chinese chip designer, it still has a long way to go to catch up with Nvidia’s Rubin and AMD's recently launched MI455X which promise substantially higher compute and bandwidth. Rubin boasts between 35 and 50 petaFLOPS of FP4 performance, 288 GB of HBM4 memory, and 22 TB/s of bandwidth, putting it in an entirely different league. Having said that, neither of those chips is available for sale in the Middle Kingdom, so it's not like Chinese model devs have better options. The best GPU Nvidia can sell in China offers near-identical dense floating-point performance, twice the memory, double the memory bandwidth, and support for much larger scale-up domains. Scaling up The performance gap may not be nearly as damning as it sounds, either. AI models aren’t trained, and for the most part aren’t run on a single GPU or NPU anymore. The more important factor is often how efficiently the platform scales. Nvidia's and AMD's latest systems pack 72 GPUs into a single rack-scale compute platform, which can be expanded to 576 using optical interconnects for scale up and scale out networking. For its upcoming 960-series accelerators, Huawei is going a similar route using near packaged optics (NPO) to scale its compute domain to as many as 4,096 chips capable of delivering up to 16 exaFLOPS of FP4 compute. What Huawei lacks in compute density, it makes up for in scale, a tactic we’ve previously seen with Google’s TPU pods. This shouldn’t surprise anyone considering that high-speed networking is Huawei’s bread and butter. We looked at Huawei’s NPO tech in greater detail earlier this week, but, in a nutshell, it addresses a major scaling challenge and failure point inherent to earlier Huawei designs — pluggable optics are power hungry, prone to failure, and take up a ton of space. Huawei says NPO allowed it to consolidate 48,000 800 Gbps optical pluggables into 5,500 of its Hi-One NPO units, cutting power consumption by 550 kilowatts and failure rates in half. Using the new tech, it claims it can now achieve 99.8 percent uptime. This is likely welcome news for Chinese model builders under pressure to adopt domestic alternatives to Western kit. DeepSeek had reportedly run into trouble using Huawei’s earlier NPUs for training and ultimately was forced to switch back to Nvidia GPUs. The Ascend 960PR Alongside Huawei’s high-bandwidth 960DT, the company is also prepping a compute optimized version of the chip called the 960PR for later (Q3) in 2027. In many respects, the chip fills a role similar to the one Nvidia's Rubin CPX accelerators were intended to serve before they were canned earlier this year. The PR in the 960PR apparently refers to prefill and recommenders, and sees Huawei trade memory capacity and bandwidth for a substantial increase in low-precision compute performance. Specifically, the PR variant will boast up to 8 petaFLOPS of FP4 performance, 192 GB of what we believe to be its custom HiBL memory, which is good for 2.4 TB/s of bandwidth. As we understand it, the chip is designed to work in conjunction with Huawei’s DT chips in order to boost LLM inference performance. The compute-heavy prefill phase of the inference pipeline, where prompts are processed, is handed off to the 960PR, while the memory-intensive decode phase, where the output tokens are actually generated, runs on the 960DT. This kind of heterogeneous architecture has proven to be quite effective at boosting performance, and is not unlike the arrangement used by Nvidia's Vera Rubin and Groq LPX configs we looked at back at GTC this spring. The main difference is that Huawei doesn’t have an SRAM heavy decode accelerator just yet. Huawei eyes million NPU clusters, ever faster AI At Connect, Huawei signaled its intent to scale its compute clusters to half a million or more NPUs. And in a proof of concept, it announced it’d successfully scaled its Ascend 950-based TaiShan superpod to 4,096 accelerators. Using a two-tier, four-plane Clos network topology, the company expects it’ll soon be able to support clusters with up to 512,000 NPUs, and, by moving to a multi-rail topology, it believes million-NPU superclusters are within the realm of possibility. From what we can tell, this is only a theoretical configuration, not something the company has actually proven in the wild. Huawei also teased the next two generations of its Ascend accelerators, which as you might expect, promise steady performance gains, more memory, and faster interconnects to tie them all together. Slated for some time in 2028, the Ascend 970-series parts promise up to 3.6 petaFLOPS FP8 or 14 petaFLOPS at FP4 — Huawei appears to be dedicating more die area to low precision data types, something we have seen with AMD and Nvidia’s latest generation of chips as well. At 288 GB, memory capacity won’t change much from the 960-series, but Huawei claims it expects to boost memory bandwidth to 14.4 TB/s, which should benefit AI inference considerably. By 2029, Huawei expects to double performance again to 7.2 petaFLOPS FP8 and 28 petaFLOPS FP4 while boosting memory capacity to 384 GB and 38.4 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Having said that, three years is a long time to wait and we wouldn’t be surprised to see significant changes to Huawei’s roadmap before then. ®

Quick Take

• LEGO’s fantastic Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler set is fantastic, but one of the best things about it also caused me an unexpected problem.
• You can complete this 18+ model in one of four ways, so you can choose the version from the movie you like best.
• Nerdist’s Take: The challenging LEGO’s Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler is perfect so long as you can accept your display being slightly less than fully accurate.

Earlier this year, LEGO sent me its new Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler set. Even though it doesn’t feature any dinosaurs it’s still my favorite release yet from LEGO’s ever-expanding dinosaur collection because it celebrates a truly iconic cinematic automobile. That jeep, seen in various forms, is a big part of multiple memorable moments from an all-time great film. And this versatile set celebrates exactly that by letting you build it four different ways. It lets you recreate and easily switch between the exact model seen during your favorite moment in Jurassic Park.

That’s also why this LEGO Jeep Wrangler has caused me a problem I will never be able to solve.

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The 1924-piece, 1:10 scale model LEGO Jurassic World: Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler set is essentially perfect outside of its lengthy official name and an issue that will only impact absurd people like me. It comes with two booklets of instructions that are generally easy to follow. However, this 18+ set is still a challenge to construct. There are also a few especially difficult elements that can be extra tricky. The windshield area requires a deft touch. The same is true of the footboard that runs along each side. And the front side of the set includes a grappling hook on a working winch that also features my most dreaded LEGO element, a small string. (Not joking. LEGO strings and me are not pals.)

There are also so many wonderful little details that snap in without much support that I sometimes knocked them off when I was a little too careless. The good news is that those are generally easy to reattach.

One of my favorite touches is that this jeep works. The front wheels move and can be covertly controlled by the spare tire on the back. It’s a clever little way to let you operate the vehicle without trying to turn the tiny steering wheel inside. It also boasts working doors, movable headrests, and a liftable hood complete with a full engine. While I am keeping mine as a display model, those interactive aspects means it also works as a very fun toy.

It also comes with a perfect Dennis Nedry minifig. Dodgson’s pal comes with a tiny fake bottle of shaving cream, a head mold with two faces, and removable hood and hair pieces. (There’s a spot to hide the unused one behind the plaque.) The set also comes with a replica of the map he knocked over in the rainstorm while trying to flee with the stolen embryos. And yes, it spins so he’ll never know the right direction.

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This collection really does has everything both a LEGO and Jurassic Park fan could want short of an actual dinosaur. Technically it has more because this is unlike most LEGO sets. You can finish it multiple ways. The instructions and extra pieces allow you to complete yours in one of four different models. Well, it’s really three, with one having two variations that only change the jeep’s number and nothing else.

One of those models is the way the jeep is first seen in Jurassic Park, when John Hammond brings his experts to see dinosaurs for the first time. This open-air version has roll bars. It’s the version of the Jurassic Park jeep I picture in my mind when I think about it because I think that’s Spielberg’s greatest sequence ever.

It’s easier to build those roll bars than you might think. However, I did initially screw it up by not paying attention. They snap in easily and they come off without any problem if you want to change your LEGO jeep. (The biggest pains when switching are the little tag hanging from the rearview mirror and the hood piece with the jeep’s number.) This version also comes with two variations, as there are stickers and plates for both the jeep number Hammond was in and the one the doctors were in.

Why anyone would choose Hammond and his lawyer’s car (#29) over Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm’s (#18) I do not know. I don’t need to know, either. I’ll just assume you’re related to the late Richard Attenborough because that’s the only thing that makes sense.

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The second (technically third) variation is the #12 version of the jeep seen during Nedry’s failed escape. There’s a reason the company used this as the model for the front of the box. This iteration includes both a canopy tarp and flood lights attached to the windshield. Those lights only go on this version and not the others. The canopy is also so much easier to put on and take off then I expected.

I love how this one looks. It looks great. The same is true of the headlights. They are a great example of the care and design that went into this set.

(I genuinely had so much fun putting it together for the same reasons I loved putting together LEGO’s Jaws Orca boat. You get to appreciate both the engineering of LEGO masters and the engineering that goes into a vehicle.)

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The flood lights aren’t exactly a breeze to remove because the windshield is among the most delicate parts. But it’s not exactly that hard, either. Even when I accidentally removed more pieces than I wanted I was able to fix everything quickly enough.

The only downside to the nighttime-rain Jeep is that it contributes to the conundrum I can’t solve.

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The final version of the Wrangler (#10) has the most variation of all the models. It’s the jeep used to pick up an injured Malcolm, the one from the iconic T-Rex chase scene. This variation loses the canopy, the floodlights, and also the roll bars. Instead it gets boxes you can open to reveal tools (and a rubber duck) for extra authenticity. It also comes with a mini video camera, because like I said this is a set by people who love the movie for people who love the movie.

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This is also the version with maybe the single most fun detail. The driver’s side-view mirror has a special sticker of the T.rex chasing the car as seen in the film.

It’s the best. It’s perfect. And it’s the single reason this set has caused me a problem I can’t avoid without hitting the lottery.

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The are four different sets of pieces for the parts that require number stickers. (The hood, two for each door, and one for both the front and the back.) However, there are only two side-view mirrors total. No matter which of the four versions of the Wrangler you make, you will always have a rear view mirror that shows the T-Rex running you down. You see the problem, right?

The T-Rex doesn’t chase the #29, #18, or #12 jeeps. It only chases the #10. It only chases the number 10.

If you want to display yours in that style, it’s great. No problem! The side-view mirror is exactly right and always will be. Only, the plaque and mini-figure really go with the #12. So in either case your display is not 100% right.

Even worse for me? I don’t prefer either. I want celebrate my favorite Spielberg scene with the #18 jeep. And that’s a major issue because I also suffer from “dumb brain?” (Self-diagnosed.) I can’t display this jeep in anyway that is 100% “right,” but my preferred version is the most “wrong.”

This is an impossible situation I will think about for the rest of my life because there’s no solution. I mean, it’s not really a problem for most people but for those of you like me? You get it. You get it.

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I mean, technically there is a solution. It’s just not feasible. Ideally, I would simply buy multiple versions at $199.99 each so I could display all four models. I would also buy extra sets so I could get three extra side-view mirror stickers for authenticity. But that is definitely not happening.

Unlike John Hammond, I will spare some expense.

Ultimately I opted to go with my beloved #18, which is now proudly on display in my home proudly, a testament to a great movie, a great movie car, and a great LEGO set. I just wish it wasn’t also a testament to the silly problems my brain will create for itself.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @‌burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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