Tech

Castlery just spent 7 figures to open its first US store

Published

2 days ago

25 March 2026

The brand expects the store to break even in two years

Singaporean furniture retailer Castlery will open a showroom in New York on May 15, making it one of the very few homegrown companies to establish a permanent retail presence there. This marks the next phase of growth for the company in the United States, following six years of operating online-only in the market.

Co-founder Declan Ee called the brick-and-mortar flagship outlet, a first in the US, as a “natural progression” from its digital retail model.

“The goal was always to create a best-in-class experience for our customers… and the final piece of this experience is completed when we have an offline store,” he said.

The 3,000-square-foot showroom in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood represents a seven-figure investment on a 10-year lease. Ee’s team scouted over 200 sites over two years before choosing this one.

The showroom features 17 fully furnished room settings and a complimentary interior styling service that will advise customers on space planning, furniture selection and interior layout.

Ee told The Business Times that he expects the store to break even within 1.5 years to 2 years, or even within a year if sales are strong.

The opening of the store in the Big Apple marks Castlery’s fourth showroom worldwide, following the opening of its third in Brisbane last Aug. Its Sydney store was set up in 2024 and expanded in 2025, while its 24,000 sq ft flagship store in Liat Towers was established in 2022.

Castlery is in 5 markets, with most sales coming from the US

castlery singapore liat towers brisbane australia showroom — Castlery’s showrooms at Liat Towers in Singapore (left) and Brisbane, Australia (right)./ Image Credit: Castlery

Castlery was founded in 2013 by Ee and his co-founders, Fred Ji, Zhou Zhiwei and Travers Tan, as a digital retail furniture brand. It currently employs more than 500 staff worldwide, with 200 in its Singapore headquarters.

To date, the brand has sold more than 1 million pieces of furniture and introduced more than 7,000 products.

The label prides itself on affordable, consistent pricing worldwide, ranging from S$399 for a swivel chair to S$2,499 for a leather recliner.

Its first overseas foray came in 2017, when it entered Australia, a market 10 times bigger than Singapore at the time, according to the founders.

The brand entered the US in 2019 during the COVID-19 pandemic as an online brand, starting with two warehouses in New Jersey and Los Angeles, California. Today, Castlery reaches all 50 states from six US warehouses, with the addition of sites in Seattle and Georgia in 2023, and then Texas and Chicago in 2024.

Ee noted that this has reduced delivery times to its US customers, many of whom rent their homes and need furniture delivered with short lead times.

“We were very aggressive in the first two to three years, when we were scaling the business online in the US,” he said.

The US currently makes up Castlery’s largest market by contributing to 65% of the company’s overall sales. Australia comes in second at 17%, followed by Singapore at 15%. The UK and Canada, where Castlery expanded online in 2025, make up the remaining 3%.

The New York store will serve as a testing ground amid evolving market conditions

castlery new york showroom — Castlery’s New York showroom./ Image Credit: Castlery

With this offline expansion, Ee said Castlery will take a “measured” approach given evolving global developments and geopolitical tensions.

The New York showroom will be a testing ground for Castlery before it decides to commit to more showrooms in the country.

Well aware of New York’s competitive retail scene with players such as West Elm and Crate & Barrel that have multiple outlets, Ee acknowledged that this will give consumers plenty of options.

“There’s a lot of room for us to grow in the US, but we’re taking things step by step because one’s perspective changes after opening the first store. You get data, you see how customers react and their basket size—all these things,” he explained.

As with other foreign companies in the US, Castlery was hit hard by US President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” baseline tariffs in 2025. This was on top of duties on certain furniture imports, such as upholstered furniture and kitchen cabinets.

As more than half the brand’s products were being manufactured in China and then shipped directly to US customers, Castlery saw its Chinese imports slapped with the highest tariff rates of close to 30%.

Castlery has since diversified its supply chain to reduce its exposure to tariffs. It has moved some of its manufacturing from China to places such as Vietnam, Thailand, and India, leaving only about 20% of its production in China today.

After diversifying its supply chains, Ee said production costs have risen, given higher minimum-order quantities.

This has caused profits to fall by 1% to 3%, which Ee noted is not a negligible amount for a growing furniture brand that typically enjoys margins of 4% to 8%. The tariffs also created consumer uncertainty, leading to a six-month dip in sales, though they have since recovered.

Besides the tariffs, geopolitical tensions have put additional pressure on Castlery’s bottom line. Rising fuel prices amid the ongoing Middle East conflict have squeezed its profit margins.

Taking all these factors into account, Ee expects Castlery’s revenue growth for the current FY2026 ending in Mar to be “flat or in the single-digit” range, down from FY2025’s 10% to 15% year-on-year growth.

A step closer to Castlery’s global ambitions

castlery declan ee cofounder president — Declan Ee is Castlery’s co-founder and President./ Image Credit: Castlery

That said, Ee is still “cautiously optimistic” about Castlery’s growth prospects.

“We control what we can. You don’t know where the wind will blow, so you build the sail to catch it,” he said.

“In our case, it’s about being close to the customer and creating products that they would want to buy, even in difficult economic times.”

The opening of the New York store brings the brand a step closer to its global ambitions.

By 2029, Ee aims to have eight to 12 showrooms in key cities worldwide, including Washington, D.C, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, as well as in Melbourne and Perth in Australia.

Ee is actively scouting for retail locations in London as well, seeing Castlery’s UK online sales double month-on-month until Nov 2025 following a pop-up it held at the London Design Festival in Sep that year.

Ee explained: “Unlike the US, there are not so many big furniture brands in the UK. So we think there’s space for us to enter the market, not to mention that the sales pick-up from customers has been very encouraging.”

Achieving its expansion plans would place Castlery “on track” to evolve from a digital-first furniture retailer into a “proper global retail brand.”

“If we’re nationwide (in a single market), it gives customers a sense of assurance that we’re not just an online challenger brand, but a serious operator.”

Learn more about Castlery here.
Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Castlery

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Physical AI: The Next Great Manufacturing Shift

Published

2 minutes ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Manufacturing is at an inflection point. The industry’s workforce is ageing, and it has not yet cracked the code on attracting the next generation of workers.

At the same time, AI tools present a host of opportunities, including those that may help address the workforce challenge.

Article continues below

Michael Weller

Practice Leader for Verizon Business’ Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities (MEU) team.

In my conversations with manufacturing leaders, I hear the same tension repeatedly: they recognize the potential, but they’re wary of the risks.

The manufacturers that will pull ahead in 2026 are those that jettison their assumptions and lean into the next-generation tools that have the power to optimize the factory floor – and attract the young workers needed to run it.

collaboration between humans and autonomous machines. Computer vision is transforming quality control by providing a real-time view of factory assets, anticipating and preventing collisions, spills, and other errors before they occur.

Combined with digital twins and sensors, this technology can identify and predict machine faults, enabling plant managers and engineers to intervene before minor issues escalate into breakdowns. The result: extended machine lifetimes, reduced downtime, and improved operational efficiency.

Of course, many manufacturers remain uncertain – not opposed to AI, but unsure where to direct their computing power for maximum impact. The advent of Industry 4.0 and IoT devices, which paved the way for Physical AI, also created new potential for cybersecurity risks, reinforcing that caution.

But this is where I see the most productive shift in mindset happening right now. Manufacturers are increasingly recognizing that AI can be the bulwark against cyberattacks, not the source of risk.

A good example of this is what is sometimes referred to as “AI shells” – AI layers that wrap around legacy systems, infer the types of security risks those devices and systems have been exposed to, and act as a protective barrier to prevent compromises.

This is especially critical given that many legacy manufacturing systems cannot easily be patched. While digital innovation can sometimes create new vectors for threat actors to exploit, AI can also provide levels of protection that were simply not possible before.

After years of cautious experimentation, innovations like these are finally moving “out of the drawer” and into real-world deployment.

visualization are immediate. Engineers can peer inside machines using digital overlays to identify faults, rather than having to physically open them up. But the workforce implications may be even more significant.

Enhanced visual aids – from 3D schematics to just-in-time training – are powerful educational tools. Younger workers tend to be visual learners, and these environments speak their language in a way that traditional manufacturing settings simply do not.

asset management, and genuine operational flexibility.

What makes this moment different is the role of automation software. Most automation today remains hardware-bound, meaning upgrades require replacing physical infrastructure – a prohibitively expensive proposition for manufacturers who have invested heavily in existing systems.

Software-defined automation changes this equation significantly, allowing manufacturers to modernize through updates and upgrades without extensive overhauls. When combined with wireless connectivity, it creates an environment where connected workers, visual technologies, and mobile equipment can operate together seamlessly.

The environmental case is equally compelling. Wireless technology eliminates copper cabling and reduces network power consumption. Through our work with manufacturers, we’ve seen that a single cellular antenna can typically displace between three and ten Wi-Fi access points – a reduction in cabling and energy consumption that, across large facilities, can add up significantly.

This is not just a shift from physical to digital. It is an evolution from rigid systems to adaptable ones. Many of these technologies have already been introduced in manufacturing individually, but what previously existed in pilot programs or siloed use cases is now coalescing into something far more impactful.

What I find most compelling is the synergy: visual-first environments, intelligent infrastructure like Physical AI, and wireless technologies are not just complementary – they are mutually reinforcing.

Manufacturers who embrace this convergence can significantly improve productivity and safety, and build the workplaces that the next generations actually want to join. That is perhaps the most consequential shift of all.

Check out our list of the best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.

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Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for March 27 #550

Published

15 minutes ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

You’re not s-s-s-seeing things. Every word in today’s Connections: Sports Edition begins with the letter S. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Teams with the same first letter.

Green group hint: Relating to a sport played in gym, or on the beach.

Blue group hint: Carry the torch and light the cauldron.

Purple group hint: Simpsons reference.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Pro teams whose names start with S.

Green group: Volleyball terms.

Blue group: Olympic home cities.

Purple group: MLB players in “Homer at the Bat.”

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The completed NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for March 27, 2026.
NYT/Screenshot by CNET

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is pro teams whose names start with S. The four answers are Seahawks, Senators, Sharks and Spurs.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is volleyball terms. The four answers are serve, setter, side out and spike.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Olympic home cities. The four answers are Sapporo, Sarajevo, Stockholm and Sydney.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is MLB players in “Homer at the Bat.” The four answers are Sax, Scioscia, Smith and Strawberry.

Toughest Connections: Sports Edition categories

The Connections: Sports Edition puzzle can be tough, but it really depends on which sports you know the most about. My husband aces anything having to do with Formula 1, my best friend is a hockey buff, and I can answer any question about Minnesota teams.

That said, it’s hard to pick the toughest Connections categories, but here are some I found exceptionally mind-blowing.

#1: Serie A Clubs. Answers: Atalanta, Juventus, Lazio, Roma.

#2: WNBA MVPs. Answers: Catchings, Delle Donne, Fowles and Stewart.

#3: Premier League team nicknames. Answers: Bees, Cherries, Foxes and Hammers.

#4: Homophones of NBA player names. Answers: Barns, Connect, Heart and Hero.

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Ctrl-Alt-Speech: For Meta Or Worse

Published

28 minutes ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

from the ctrl-alt-speech dept

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed.

In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover:

Don’t forget to listen along with Ctrl-Alt-Speech’s 2026 Bingo Card and drop us a line if you win or have ideas for new squares.

Filed Under: content moderation, social media, trust and safety

Companies: cox, google, meta, sony

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What is Google Gemini? Google’s answer to ChatGPT dissected

Published

42 minutes ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

You’ll undoubtedly have heard of Google Gemini, as it’s found within many of the best Android phones.

Essentially, Gemini is Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant that can do everything from answer questions, search the web and even create music. And it’s free to use too.

But what really is Google Gemini and how does it actually work? Which devices can you use Gemini on?

We explain everything you need to know about Gemini AI below. If you’re keen to see how Google’s assistant compares to some of the top dogs, then visit our Apple Intelligence vs Google Gemini and Claude vs Gemini comparisons too.

What is Gemini AI?

Gemini was officially announced back in February 2024, as Google revealed it would replace its previous AI system, Bard.

Although you might only know it as a chatbot, Gemini is actually the collective name for multiple AI models that fall under the same umbrella. However, the name “Gemini” refers to both the models and the public-facing chatbot.

Essentially, Gemini is described as being the interface to a multiple modal LLM (Large Language Model) which can handle text, audio and image-based prompts. It’s based on Google’s research into LLMs which started back in 2013.

What can you do with Gemini?

Gemini can understand and answer user’s questions or their provided prompts with relevant results. For example, you can ask Gemini to create an email draft, summarise long-bodies of text and even write code.

Gemini can also be used to generate images, create videos and even music with just a simple prompt. In addition, with the use of Gemini Live which is found within the Gemini smartphone app, you can have in-depth conversations with the AI system in real-time too.

How does Gemini work?

Google breaks down the technicalities of how Gemini actually works into four stages:

Pre-training
Post-training
Responses to user prompts
Human feedback and evaluation

Google explains that its AI models are pre-trained on a “variety of data from publicly available sources”, although Google does disclaim that it applies “quality” and “safety filtering” to remove content that may violate policy.

After initial training, Google explains the LLMs are then put through additional steps to refine responses. Then there’s Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, where the model learns to generate better responses based on “scores or feedback from a special Reward model” that’s trained on human preference data.

Once Gemini is then given a prompt by a user, it will call on its training and use external sources like Google Search to generate relevant responses.

In the instance where Gemini gets something wrong or needs tweaking, then this is where the fourth stage kicks in. Basically, it relies on humans to flag any mistakes and identify areas for improvement too.

Gemini Live. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

How to access Google Gemini

There are a few ways you can access Gemini, with the main being via its free-to-download iOS or Android app. That’s probably the easiest way to access the chatbot, and you’ll benefit from access to Gemini Live too.

Otherwise, you can access the chatbot via its website instead.

Does Google Gemini cost money?

While Gemini is free to use, you can unlock more features and up-to-date models by paying a subscription. At the time of writing, while the free version of Gemini runs on Gemini 3, you can upgrade to Google AI Plus to access Google’s most capable 3.1 Pro model. Not only that, but you’ll have access to Nano Banana Pro, alongside limited access to Google’s new video generator Veo 3.1, Gemini within Google apps and 200GB storage too. That’s the cheapest of the available plans, at £6.99/$7.99 a month.

The next available plan is Google AI Pro, which includes everything found in Plus, alongside Google Home Premium (Standard), Fitbit Premium and access to Google Antigravity and Google Developer Programme Premium. This is slightly pricier at £18.99/$19.99 a month, but you will also see 2TB of storage too.

Finally, the top-tier plan is Google AI Ultra, which will set you back a whopping £234.99 a month. However, you’ll get everything from the Pro plan, plus the highest limits for all Gemini features and models, YouTube Premium, Google Home (Premium Advanced) and 30TB of storage too.

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‘When can you dare to be brave and say how you actually feel?’: Harry Potter TV series star Paapa Essiedu is unrecognizable in new heartbreaking BBC drama Babies

Published

54 minutes ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Now that the first teaser trailer for the upcoming HBO Max Harry Potter TV series is out in the world, everyone is talking about Paapa Essiedu taking on the role of Dark Arts professor, Severus Snape.

However, we’re looking in the completely wrong direction. Sure, there were always going to be many contradicting opinions about the adaptation of the Harry Potter movies from the jump, but let’s wait until it releases this Christmas before we make any judgments.

Article continues below

In a nutshell, it’s a world away from Snape and the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter — and it’s a must-watch to fully understand just what Essiedu can do.

Watch On

“A lot of what we’re experiencing is watching people trying and failing to communicate effectively with people that they love and need,” Essiedu tells me about the new series.

“It’s hard not to be confronted by the moments that you have in your own life at the same time. In your romantic life, in your professional life, with your friends… it’s like, when can you dare to be brave enough to be real and authentic and say what you actually feel?

He continues, “When do you ever do that and it doesn’t make you feel better, or closer, or doesn’t make relationships more intimate? That’s definitely something that became very present for me when I was making the show.”

As Essiedu suggests, it’s a story that often feels too close to home, even if Babies doesn’t directly represent your lived experience. Watching it is as intimate as a play, often feeling as though you’re intruding on Stephen and his girlfriend Lisa’s (Siobhán Cullen) most private moments.

“I know people say this all the time, but genuinely so excited to go to work every day,” Cullen adds. “Of course, there were harder days for different reasons. Sometimes we’re just shooting a very long, dialogue-heavy scene. Or this day we’re shooting outdoors, and we’re at the mercy of Watford High Street.”

Shooting some of the medical stuff was more physically and emotionally challenging, so I suppose they’re the ones that you look out for on the call sheet. But they were all different flavors of gorgeous. It was kind of like being back at school. I was just learning so much every day from everyone on set; I really got my bang for my buck. It was invaluable as an actor.”

Do me the favor of watching all six episodes of Babies and tell me you don’t feel profoundly changed by streaming it — and maybe, just maybe, it will change your opinion of Harry Potter for the better, too.

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OpenAI pauses erotic ChatGPT plans to prioritise enterprise market

Published

1 hour ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

OpenAI shuttered its AI video generator Sora just days earlier.

Plans for an erotic ChatGPT are reportedly on hold “indefinitely”, as OpenAI scrambles to redirect attention towards an enterprise market being overtaken by Anthropic.

ChatGPT’s “adult mode” launch had already been delayed amid internal discussions over safety and concerns from both staff and investors around the effects of sexualised AI content, the Financial Times reported.

OpenAI told the publication that the erotic model is on hold with no timeline for a future release, adding that it wanted to have long-term research on the effects of sexual chats as part of product development.

At the time of its announcement last October, CEO Sam Altman said that a “restrictive” ChatGPT was “less enjoyable” to its users. He said he wanted to “treat adult users like adults”.

Though the company aimed at relaxing restrictions by gradually tightening safeguards, sources told the Financial Times that OpenAI had difficulties removing illegal sexual behaviour from datasets with adult content.

A number of lawsuits also allege ChatGPT poses harm to its users, including one that accuses it of being a “suicide coach”. OpenAI began rolling out age prediction on its chatbots earlier this year.

Earlier this week, Meta lost a landmark child safety lawsuit which found that the company’s platforms enable sexual exploitation.

News of the erotic model being placed on hold comes just days after OpenAI shuttered its controversial AI video generator Sora, which was widely criticised for copyright infringement by artists and publishers alike.

Despite being a juggernaut in the AI industry, OpenAI is facing increasing pressure from rivals – the biggest being Anthropic, which is now capturing a majority of enterprise newcomers.

To compete, OpenAI is building a new desktop ‘superapp’ by fusing together ChatGPT, Codex – the company’s coding tool – and Atlas, its ChatGPT-powered browser. It also poached the founder of the viral OpenClaw projects to develop the “next-generation” personal agents.

Forrester’s VP principal analyst Thomas Husson noted days earlier that OpenAI has likely decided to minimise the associated risks arising from experimental social apps to prioritise profits and enterprise tools, as it plans for its upcoming IPO this year.

Meanwhile, the company is raising an additional $10bn on top of the $110bn it raised last month.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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Shrinking PhD Cohorts May Strain Engineering Workforce

Published

1 hour ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

U.S. doctoral programs in electrical engineering form the foundation of technological advancement, training the brightest minds in the world to research, develop, and design next-generation electronics, software, electrical infrastructure, and other high-tech products and systems. Elite institutions have long served as launchpads for the engineers behind tomorrow’s technology.

Now that foundation is under strain.

With U.S. universities increasingly entangled in political battles under the second Trump administration, uncertainty is beginning to ripple through doctoral admissions for electrical engineering programs. While some departments are reducing the number of spots available in anticipation of potential federal funding cuts, others are seeing their applicant pools shrink, particularly among international students, who make up a significant portion of their programs.

In 2024 alone, U.S. universities awarded more than 2,000 doctorates in electrical and computer engineering, according to data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The number of computing Ph.D.s grew significantly in the 2010s, according to data from the National Academies, but there is still high demand for those with advanced degrees across academia, government, and industry. Now, some universities point to warning signs of waning enrollment.

Though not all engineers have Ph.D.s, if enrollment continues to shrink, fewer doctoral students could mean fewer engineers developing cutting-edge technology and training the next generation, potentially exacerbating existing labor shortages as global competition for tech talent intensifies.

Federal funding cuts affect admissions

Public universities in particular are feeling the strain because they rely heavily on federal grants to support doctoral students.

The University of California, Los Angeles, for instance, must fund Ph.D. students for the duration of a degree—typically five years. In August 2025, the U.S. government pulled more than US $580 million in federal grants over allegations that the university failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus during student protests. A federal judge has since ordered the funding to be restored, but faculty began to worry that research support could be clawed back without notice, says Subramanian Iyer, distinguished professor at UC Los Angeles’s department of electrical and computer engineering.

According to Iyer, departments across UC Los Angeles, including engineering, plan to scale back Ph.D. admissions this year. “The fear is that at some point, all this government money will be taken away,” Iyer says. “Lowering the admissions rate is just a way to prepare for that reality.”

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Science Foundation—a major source of federal research funding at UC Los Angeles and elsewhere—said, “NSF recognizes the essential role doctoral trainees play in the nation’s engineering and STEM enterprise” and noted several of the foundation’s awards and programs that support graduate research.

Funding shocks may also force Pennsylvania State University to reshape future admissions decisions, according to Madhavan Swaminathan, head of Penn State’s electrical engineering department and director of the Center for Heterogeneous Integration of Micro Electronic Systems (CHIMES), a semiconductor research lab.

In 2023, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and industry partners awarded CHIMES a five-year $32.7 million grant. But in late 2025, the agency pulled its final year of funding from the center, citing a shift in priorities from microelectronics to photonics, Swaminathan says. As a result, CHIMES’ annual budget, which supports research assistantships for roughly 100 engineering graduate students, the majority pursuing Ph.D.s, will fall from $7 million in 2026 to $3.5 million in 2027. If these constraints persist, Penn State’s engineering department may reduce the number of doctoral students it supports.

In a statement, a DARPA spokesperson told IEEE Spectrum: “Basic research is central to identifying world-changing technologies, and DARPA remains committed to engaging academic institutions in our program research. By design, a DARPA program typically lasts about 3 to 5 years. Once we establish proof of concept, we transition the technology for further development and turn our attention to other challenging areas of research.”

Penn State’s enrollment numbers reflect Swaminathan’s caution. He says the electrical engineering Ph.D. cohort shrank from 28 students in 2024 to 15 students in 2025. Applications show a similar pattern. After rising from 195 in 2024 to 247 in 2025, Ph.D. applications fell roughly 30 percent to 174 for the upcoming 2026 cohort, a sign that prospective students may be wary of applying to U.S. programs.

Immigration restrictions and application declines

In late January, the Trump administration announced it had paused visa approvals for citizens of 75 countries. Months earlier, the administration proposed new restrictions on student visas, including a four-year cap.

For Texas A&M University’s graduate electrical and computer engineering programs, up to 80 percent of applicants each year are international students, according to Narasimha Annapareddy, professor and head of the department. Annapareddy says applications for the fall 2026 Ph.D. cohort have dropped by roughly 50 percent.

Annapareddy says the United States is “sending a message that migration is going to be more difficult in the future.” Foreign students often pursue degrees in the U.S. not only for academic training, he says, but to build long-term careers and lives in the country. Fewer applications from international students mean that the university forgoes a “driven and hungry” segment of the applicant pool who are highly qualified in technical fields.

“The fear is that at some point, all this government money will be taken away.”— Subramanian Iyer, UC Los Angeles

At the University of Southern California, the decline is more moderate. The freshman Ph.D. class fell from about 90 students in 2024 to roughly 70 in 2025, a reduction of 22 percent, according to Richard Leahy, department chair of USC’s Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

While Leahy says applications are down modestly overall, domestic applications have increased by roughly 15 percent. Beyond immigration restrictions, international students, particularly from countries such as India and China, may be staying in their home countries as their technology sectors expand.

“A lot of those students that would normally have come to the U.S. are now taking very good jobs working in the AI industry and other areas,” Leahy says. “There are a lot more opportunities now.”

Workforce pipeline strains

Some faculty say shrinking cohorts could erode the tech workforce if the pattern continues.

At UC Los Angeles, Iyer describes a doctoral ecosystem built on a chain of mentorship. Among the roughly 25 students in his lab, senior doctoral students mentor junior Ph.D. candidates, who in turn guide master’s students and undergraduates. The system depends on overlapping cohorts. Reducing the number of students hired weakens that overlap and the trickle-down benefits of the mentorship model that keeps labs functioning.

The real benefit of the university system isn’t just the teaching but also “the community that you build,” Iyer says. “As you decrease admissions, this will disappear.”

At Penn State, Swaminathan points to specialization as key to a strong workforce. Many doctoral students train in semiconductor engineering, feeding expert talent into the domestic chip industry. If enrollment continues to shrink over the next few years, Swaminathan says, companies may need to hire students with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, who might lack the necessary skills required to design and innovate new chips.

“Without that specialization, there’s only so much one can do,” Swaminathan says.

The industry–academia gap

Not all departments are shrinking. At the University of Texas at Austin, overall enrollment has remained relatively steady, according to Diana Marculescu, chair of UT Austin’s Chandra Family Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

While she says recent fluctuations aren’t raising alarms, her concern lies more with alignment between research and industry. Doctoral students often train according to current grant priorities, she says. But by the time graduates enter the job market four to six years later, their specialization may not align neatly with open roles. That creates friction in the talent pipeline.

“That lack of connection might be problematic,” Marculescu says. She argues that closer collaboration between universities and the private sector could help create stronger feedback loops between hiring needs and academic research priorities.

For now, USC’s Leahy says Ph.D. graduates remain in high demand, and the current shifts have not yet translated into measurable workforce shortages. “We should be concerned about the number of Ph.D.s,” he says. “But there isn’t a crisis at this point.”

From Your Site Articles

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It's not just memory anymore: AI data centers are taking all the CPUs, too

Published

2 hours ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

PC and server manufacturers recently informed Nikkei Asia that they are no longer receiving enough processors from Intel and AMD to satisfy demand. Server and OEM PC manufacturing could face delays, and prices might rise by 10% to 15%.
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Robert Malone Resigns From ACIP After Internal Squabble

Published

2 hours ago

27 March 2026

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from the bye-bye dept

Even at the best of times, the hallmark of RFK Jr.’s Health & Human Services is chaos. Whether it’s misinformation on vaccines and other public health matters, his unique ability to exit very smart people from public health agencies, or his desire to upend established government health protocols, it’s a constant frenzy when Kennedy is in charge.

But these aren’t the best of times for Kennedy. In fact, it appears that both legal and political mechanisms are starting to mete out consequences for all the nonsense going on at HHS. It was only days ago that a federal court issued an injunction on the CDC’s changes to vaccination schedules since Kennedy remade ACIP in his image, and in fact the new ACIP appointments themselves may be illegal. Almost simultaneously, reports came out that the White House is attempting to yank Kennedy and HHS out of the spotlight due to their becoming a political liability heading into the midterms.

And now, in what will both be a reaction to and furtherance of all of that chaos, Robert Malone has announced that he is leaving ACIP altogether. Malone is a proud anti-vaxxer and claims to have “invented” mRNA technology, a claim that is heavily disputed, to put it mildly. In the wake of the court’s injunction on ACIP and its recommendations for vaccine schedules, there was reporting that Kennedy was planning to disband ACIP once again and remake it with all new members as a quicker fix than appealing the court’s decision. As a result, Malone jumped straight to social media to claim that’s exactly what happened, before later retracting his statement.

On Thursday, Malone claimed on social media that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had disbanded ACIP and planned to completely reconstitute it (again), without appealing the judge’s ruling or defending Kennedy’s ACIP picks from the judge’s claims that they were unqualified. But soon after, Malone retracted his claim, saying it was a miscommunication and that disbanding ACIP was merely one of the “options being considered.”

In other words, he took half-baked information and made definitive claims to the masses, claims that turned out to be incorrect. So, you know, basically on par with all of the nonsense he’s spewed about vaccines. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon then had to issue a statement to the press to clean all of this up, stating that anything that doesn’t come directly from him or HHS brass was “baseless speculation”.

And it was that, of all things, that caused Malone to quit.

Malone told Roll Call today that Nixon’s response was what led to his departure. “After Andrew trashing me with the press, I am done with the CDC and ACIP,” Malone said in a text message Tuesday morning. “That was the last straw.”
“Suffice to say I do not like drama, and have better things to do,” he added.

And then he went to the New York Times as well.

“Hundreds of hours of uncompensated labor, incredible hate from many quarters, hostile press, internal bickering, weaponized leaking, sabotage—I have better things to do,” he said.

On the one hand, I don’t think much of Malone’s qualifications for being a member of ACIP, so I’m not exactly sad to see him exit stage left. But it is interesting to see that the impression of chaos, infighting, bickering, and internal backstabbing that you get viewing HHS from the outside is mirrored by someone on the inside.

This would be funny if this weren’t a matter of public health. If there weren’t a measles outbreak that is still ongoing in this country (we’re already at 1,487 CDC confirmed cases this year). If some of the public and some doctors didn’t take what comes out of this very important government agency seriously.

But all those things are true. The chaos has to end. And for that to happen, RFK Jr. must go.

Filed Under: acip, anti-vaxxers, cdc, health & human services, rfk jr., robert malone, vaccines

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Tech

America’s Most Powerful Aircraft Carrier Returns To Port After Troubled Months At Sea

Published

2 hours ago

27 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Carl Court/Getty Images

The U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship of the Gerald R. Ford-class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, is taking a short break to freshen up during a long deployment to the Middle East. Souda Bay, in Greece, will be the Gerald R. Ford’s home for at least a few weeks, according to the United States Naval Institute.

This current deployment for the ship has been a busy one, between a number of issues onboard the ship, including a large fire in the laundry room that resulted in over 200 smoke inhalation injuries. That, and the ongoing conflict with Iran means that the Gerald R. Ford is more than ready for repairs.

Importantly though, the ship is not out of the fight. A statement from U.S. Fleet Forces Command states: “The aircraft carrier remains fully mission capable,” continuing on to say: “The port call allows for the ship to undergo efficient assessment, repairs, and resupply. Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group continues its overseas deployment.”

The biggest and newest carrier

USS Gerald R Ford arriving in port for repairs

Carl Court/Getty Images

Given that operations in and around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz don’t seem to have a clear end date, it’s likely that the Gerald R. Ford will remain in theater after repairs are made. It also appears that the Navy isn’t taking any chances at de-arming it for the repairs in Greece.

The Gerald R. Ford measures at 1,106 feet and a displacement of 100,000 tons, making it the largest warship ever made. It is the first ship of its namesake class and represents the tip of the spear when it comes to aircraft carrier technology. It is in the process of replacing the Nimitz-class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

As of now, there is a single Gerald R. Ford-class carrier in service. It was designed to have a 50-year service life that, thanks to its two nuclear reactors, only needs to be refueled once, giving it essentially unlimited range on the ocean.

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