Imec closed out 2025 with significant announcements that underscore its growing influence in semiconductor R&D and AI systems design. Between a high-profile debut at Super Computing 2025 and a strong showing at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), the Belgium-based research center marked the end of the year with momentum across multiple technology fronts.
In November at Super Computing 2025, one of the world’s largest gatherings for high-performance computing, imec unveiled imec.kelis, an analytical performance modeling tool aimed at reshaping how AI datacenters are planned and optimized.
Imec positioned the platform as a response to pressures facing datacenter designers, as AI workloads expand into the trillions of parameters and energy demands climb. According to the organization, imec.kelis offers a faster and more transparent alternative to conventional simulation tools, which are often slow or limited in scope.
Early adopters have already begun exploring the platform, an early sign of commercial interest.
“Imec.kelis is more than a simulator—it’s a strategic enabler for the next generation of AI infrastructure,” said Axel Nackaerts, system scaling lead.
Imec.kelis provides an end-to-end analytical framework that evaluates performance across compute, communication, and memory subsystems. The tool is optimized for large languagemodel (LLM) training and inference, offering predictions validated on widely used systems such as Nvidia’s A100 and H100 GPUs.
The platform draws heavily on imec’s longstanding expertise in hardware-software co-design, system-level modeling, and semiconductor technology road mapping. Imec said the goal is to give system architects the ability to make better-informed decisions at datacenter scale, where design choices directly impact cost, efficiency, and sustainability.
At the beginning of December 2025, imec continued to demonstrate research leadership at the 71st International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), presenting 21 papers spanning advanced logic, memory, quantum computing, imaging, and bioelectronics.
With a high-visibility launch in HPC computing and a deep bench of contributions at IEDM, imec concludes 2025 with strengthened leadership in both advanced semiconductor research and the rapidly expanding AI datacenter ecosystem. The organization is positioning itself as a critical contributor to the technologies that will define next-generation computing infrastructure.
Guillaume de Fondaumiere is the Co-CEO of the Quantic Dream Studio based in France, which developed games such as, “Fahrenheit” (2005), “Heavy Rain” (2010), and in collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment, the PS3 exclusive title, “Beyond: Two Souls”, starring actors Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe (2013).
Today, on the 15th anniversary of “Heavy Rain,” he finds himself reminiscing: “In the mid-2000s when we started production on “Heavy Rain” I was executive producer on the project. I was also responsible for managing relationships with actors, composers, etc. In the weeks leading up to the launch, we decided with Sony, to send the game to several editorial teams. I remember very clearly sending out those codes, one after another. And a few weeks later we started receiving the first reviews. It was a huge relief to realize that the reviewers had understood what we are trying to do. When we hit after six weeks, one million copies I couldn’t help but shed a tear, telling myself “Phew!”. What I’d tell to myself fifteen years ago in the tough moments, because there are always some during a game’s development, is this: “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”
Guillaume de Fondaumiere was also appointed the Chairman of the European Games Developer Federation. During his position, the French government and the European Union agreed to introduce a 20% tax credit for video games studios. He not only fought for many years to support the gaming industry, but had also lobbied for the games industry to be recognized as an art form.
“To me, all games are a form of cultural expression”, he says. “I see no reason why games should be treated differently than any type of literature or any type of movie. I think that more and more video games are becoming artful, and are becoming a form of art that should be recognized next to the others.” In his opinion, games should be placed among institutional forms of art such as, architecture, sculpture, visual arts, music, literature, theater, cinema art and media arts (television, radio and photography).
Media and internet often sell the information; games trigger the violence, players get addicted to them, and at the end, they are merely entertainment for young and immature minds. The stereotype of thinking associate games with either the shooting or the lighthearted entertainment for children. The reasons for such thinking originate from the early years of the gaming industry, which was actually targeted the children. The first games were very simple, they had boosted the simplest instinctive behavior and the release of adrenaline, which is also referred to as hormone 3F – fear, fight, flight.
But since that time has changed almost everything: games, hardware and the players themselves. Today, the old game enthusiasts had grown up and they still want to play games but they expect deeper, artistic and intellectual entertainment. Under such demanding clients there was a dynamic and multidirectional development of games, and palette of emotions has greatly increased. Today, players can incarnate in any characters, make their own choices, stand for duels with hundreds of players from all over the world. Production studios strive for authenticity and put meticulous attention to details.
Every little part is important, and approaching players to reality. There is also a 3D technology that changed the flat images into three-dimensional images. Today’s game has a story, uses the visual graphics and new, advanced forms of interaction with the player. In addition, there is also increased proliferation of the authors in the games industry, artists express themselves creatively and individually. The impact of games on mass culture is unquestionable and its value is growing at a dynamic pace.
So, is art or not?
A precise, unambiguous, and commonly held definition of art does not exist. However, it is known that art acts through aesthetic, ethical or cultural functions. It affects its audience through watching, listening, creating and reflecting. Without a doubt, the video game industry, which is the fastest growing sector of the modern entertainment industry, is a part of modern culture.
P.S. Roger Ebert, the legendary (Pulitzer Prize) film critic, who for 46 years shaped the tastes of American film audiences, remarked, “as long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games”. He repeated this statement for eight years and once he hit harder “video games can never be art.”. He died in 2013, with no chance for revision of his assessment.
Medicine—once reactive, treating disease only after symptoms appear—is rapidly evolving into something new. In 2014 American biologist and biotech pioneer Dr. Leroy Hood has offered the clearest vision of tomorrow’s healthcare. He describes the future as 4P Medicine: Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, Participatory. This vision is no longer on the horizon—it has arrived.
This shift, driven by biotechnology and digital innovation, marks one of the greatest transformations in the history of healthcare.
For generations, people have relied on forecasts to guide their daily decisions. When we want to know what the weather will be tomorrow, we open an app on our phone, turn on the radio, or watch the evening news. These predictions help us choose the right clothing, plan a trip, or prepare for a storm. Though convenient, these forecasts are not essential to survival. If we don’t know the weather, life goes on.
But the question “What will my health be like tomorrow?” is very different. Unlike the weather, the answer can determine the course of our life. Will we wake up feeling strong and healthy? Will cold symptoms appear overnight? Or will tomorrow bring a diagnosis that changes everything—a chronic condition, a genetic disorder, or a life-threatening illness? Knowing the future of our health is profoundly important, yet for most of human history, this knowledge has been out of reach.
Traditional medicine waits. It waits for pain, for symptoms, for problems that must be solved after they occur. For centuries this was the only option, because doctors lacked tools to understand what was happening inside the human body before illness appeared.
But advances in biotechnology, genetics, and data analytics are rewriting the rules. Modern medicine is beginning to resemble weather forecasting: predictive models built from enormous streams of data can now indicate our health risks long before we feel anything.
The science behind this new capability builds on several breakthroughs:
Genomics, which maps our genetic predispositions
Wearable sensors, which collect real-time data about physiology
Artificial intelligence, which identifies patterns invisible to humans
Behavioral tracking, which captures environmental and lifestyle influences
Together, these tools allow physicians to anticipate illness rather than simply react to it.
Millions of people now wear devices that continuously track: heart rate, oxygen level, activity and movement, sleep stages, blood pressure, blood glucose levels or stress signals. These sensors turn our bodies into sources of data, providing information that once required clinical visits. When combined, these data streams create a high-resolution portrait of our health.
The smartphone has quietly become the central device in digital medicine. It stores our medical data, tracks behavior, connects to wearable devices, and hosts apps that analyze symptoms, drug interactions, and lifestyle patterns. For the first time in history, billions of people carry clinical-quality sensors in their pockets.
The human body produces enormous amounts of information each second. Until recently, we lacked the tools to interpret it. AI changes everything. Machine learning models can detect: early sign of heart disease before symptoms occur, cancer signatures in bloodwork, anomalies in breathing and sleeping. AI operates like a constant medical companion, analyzing data streams and alerting us to risks long before a crisis emerges.
The discovery of DNA’s structure in the 1950s was one of the most significant moments in science. But only today—thanks to advances in sequencing—are we fully unlocking its potential. This revolution means individuals can now: understand their genetic predisposition to hundreds of conditions, tailor diet, exercise, and lifestyle to their genetic profile, detect carriers of hereditary diseases within families. Genomics is no longer a laboratory dream—it is becoming part of everyday healthcare.
Over the past decade, data centers have served as the digital backbone of modern life—warehouses of servers designed to store information, host applications, and deliver content across the internet. But the rise of large-scale artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed what these facilities need to do. Traditional data centers are evolving into AI factories highly specialized, compute-intensive environments designed to train and run AI models at unprecedented scale. This transformation is reshaping architecture, operations, energy consumption, and economics across the tech ecosystem.
NVIDIA held its main GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in San Jose, California, from March 17-21, 2025, focusing heavily on transforming data centers into AI factories with Blackwell Ultra and Reuben architectures, plus AI-powered robotics. Yes, the data centers are no longer in fashion. The AI factories is the word that is describing the transformation what has been happening in technology world.
GTC 2025 solidified NVIDIA’s vision for an AI-driven future, emphasizing massive AI factories, a reinvented computing stack, and the practical application of AI across all industries – from healthcare, life science to manufacture robotics, autonomous vehicles, computer graphics, even video games. Jensen Huang found himself reminiscing on Video games that started Nvidia company in 1983 running the first application and the journey where Nvidia is now.
Key NVIDIA GTC 2025 Themes & Announcements:
AI Factories & Infrastructure: Shift to full-stack accelerated computing, with Blackwell Ultra boosting reasoning workloads and Reuben architecture offering massive performance gains (900x scale-up flops).
Software & Platforms: Introduction of Nvidia Dynamo, an OS for AI factories, and platforms for connecting millions of GPUs.
Physical AI & Robotics: Reality of AI in robotics, logistics, and manufacturing, with demos of self-driving cars and digital humans.
Industry Focus: Deep dives into healthcare (drug discovery), telecommunications (AI-RAN), and public sector AI.
Geopolitics & Sovereign AI: Initiatives for nations to control their own AI infrastructure.
At the RSA 2024 event in San Francisco this year one of the key areas addressing the fintech marketplace both for banking and for institutional investors was security operating on a container basis.
Historically a lot of the applications for fintech were run on large servers and then they ended up running on distributed platforms but ending up operating through base web operations now with the advent of smartphones as the primary input device self-contained apps are the key data transfer mechanisms
These apps on the smartphones not only contain the data but also contain the programs that will be run and the reporting mechanisms to the government the banks and the user.
As Fintech moves to larger applications the security aspects and privacy aspects move to the forefront.
At the RSA 2024 event many companies were now showing that they could provide tracking and security solutions 4 containers and apps distributed across devices to be able to ensure the fintech community could operate in relative safety.
One of the leaders in this space is Aqua IT solutions which has a full product solution space for tracking use and the distribution of containers and their associated data from financial institution to user and back.
This is an important step as more companies move to add line account management handling their own credits and gift cards and the financing behind coupon systems
Also supported the solution is companies like Arista that has security built into there’s Software Controlled Networking Equipment, MasterCard which was showing their data intelligence group that helps interpret transaction verification, next DLP which is monitoring the data along the way to make sure that it is not interrupted or corrupted, and member companies from the Thoma Bravo group which has long supported the fintech community.
The ability to bring security to the container deployment marketplace is a key stop as embedded video, training and customer support is moving to more AI and less people base solutions.
