Towers of Aghasba launches today on PC and PS5 as an early access game. Though that means the game isn't complete yet, it very quickly wears its Zelda inspiraitons on its sleeve thanks to the way you explore its fantastical open world often with a glider, can climb any surface, manage your stamina, and fight enemies with weapons that degrade. It's also inspired by Ghibli movies and features a former Ghibli artist on the development team. But it uses those major touchstones to present its big idea: a survival-crafting game that operates in reverse.Most games of this sort--tree-punchers, I affectionately call them--task players with tearing down a local ecosystem to convert flora and fauna into homes and meals, eventually wiping out the natural landscape in favor of something that may be beautiful in its own way, but definitely paves over the world that was once on display.Towers of Aghasba does ask you to pick apart some local resources to improve your own conditions, like making tools from trees and stones early on, but it's all done in service of nature, as you restore a brownish, barren landscape to a lush, healthy world full of critters and immaculate natural landmarks. In that way, it's almost like Spore, too, as you bring life to what is essentially a blank slate when you arrive.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Amazon and Target are hosting Buy Two, Get One Free Sales on board and card games for Black Friday, making it a great time to stock your game cabinets before your next holiday party. Better yet, many of the board games featured in the promotion have received limited-time price cuts as part of Amazon's broader game sale that launched last week. We've put together a big, alphabetized list of board games eligible for Amazon's B2G1 free deal below. See all B2G1 Board Games at Amazon The promotion features board and card games inspired by major entertainment franchises, such as The Lord of the Rings Card Game, Star Wars: Outer Rim, Marvel Splendor, and Harry Potter Monopoly.Continue Reading at GameSpot

One of PlayStation VR's best games, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, may be coming to PS VR 2 soon. The exciting reveal could give PS VR 2 enthusiasts a terrifying experience to enjoy with improved visuals.

Arguably, two of the biggest JRPGs of the year are Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Atlus' Metaphor: ReFantazio, with both titles receiving numerous nominations at the 2024 Game Awards. While the success of both titles shows what a great year 2024 has been for JRPG fans, there is still room for the more recent of the two titles to improve its quality-of-life features. Specifically, Metaphor: ReFantazio should look toward Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's party preset feature to enhance its ease of party management in a future update.

I'm a graphic designer looking to start up a 3rd/1st person life sim style game. The main points will be as follows:Mainly 3rd person with a 1st person perspective added.Multiplayer (Between 30-60 player lobbies). I know this is a stretch, and this will be something to add later.The plot being - you're basically coming to a new city to start fresh. You can be good or bad. It's Obviously a lot more involved but I'm not going into detail on that in this post.<

Hello Community!I just wanted to take a moment and introduce Equinox Games.Im excited to share more about Equinox Games, where were empowering game developers with cutting-edge backend and multiplayer solutions. Whether youre an indie studio or a AAA developer, Equinox Games specializes in scalable, reliable, and innovative technology that helps bring your gaming visions to life.Our mission is simple: to support creators in building seamless multiplay

As COP29 attendees gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, to tackle climate change, the role AI plays in environmental sustainability is front and center.A panel hosted by Deloitte brought together industry leaders to explore ways to reduce AIs environmental footprint and align its growth with climate goals.Experts from Crusoe Energy Systems, EON, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and NVIDIA sat down for a conversation about the energy efficiency of AI.The Environmental Impact of AIDeloittes recent report, Powering Artificial Intelligence: A study of AIs environmental footprint, shows AIs potential to drive a climate-neutral economy. The study looks at how organizations can achieve Green AI in the coming decades and addresses AIs energy use.Deloitte analysis predicts that AI adoption will fuel data center power demand, likely reaching 1,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030, and potentially climbing to 2,000 TWh by 2050. This will account for 3% of global electricity consumption, indicating faster growth than in other uses like electric cars and green hydrogen production.While data centers currently consume around 2% of total electricity, and AI is a small fraction of that, the discussion at COP29 emphasized the need to meet rising energy demands with clean energy sources to support global climate goals.Energy Efficiency From the Ground UpNVIDIA is prioritizing energy-efficient data center operations with innovations like liquid-cooled GPUs. Direct-to-chip liquid cooling allows data centers to cool systems more effectively than traditional air conditioning, consuming less power and water.We see a very rapid trend toward direct-to-chip liquid cooling, which means water demands in data centers are dropping dramatically right now, said Josh Parker, senior director of legal corporate sustainability at NVIDIA.As AI continues to scale, the future of data centers will hinge on designing for energy efficiency from the outset. By prioritizing energy efficiency from the ground up, data centers can meet the growing demands of AI while contributing to a more sustainable future.Parker emphasized that existing data center infrastructure is becoming dated and less efficient. The data shows that its 10x more efficient to run workloads on accelerated computing platforms than on traditional data center platforms, he said. Theres a huge opportunity for us to reduce the energy consumed in existing infrastructures.The Path to Green ComputingAI has the potential to play a large role in moving toward climate-neutral economies, according to Deloittes study. This approach, often called Green AI, involves reducing the environmental impact of AI throughout the value chain with practices like purchasing renewable energy and improving hardware design.Until now, Green AI has mostly been led by industry leaders. Take accelerated computing, for instance, which is all about doing more with less. It uses special hardware like GPUs to perform tasks faster and with less energy than general-purpose servers that use CPUs, which handle a task at a time.Thats why accelerated computing is sustainable computing.Accelerated computing is actually the most energy-efficient platform that weve seen for AI but also for a lot of other computing applications, said Parker.The trend in energy efficiency for accelerated computing over the last several years shows a 100,000x reduction in energy consumption. And just in the past 2 years, weve become 25x more efficient for AI inference. Thats a 96% reduction in energy for the same computational workload, he said.Reducing Energy Consumption Across SectorsInnovations like the NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper architectures significantly improve energy efficiency with each new generation. NVIDIA Blackwell is 25x more energy-efficient for large language models, and the NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU is 20x more efficient than CPUs for complex workloads.AI has the potential to make other sectors much more energy efficient, said Parker. Murex, a financial services firm, achieved a 4x reduction in energy use and 7x faster performance with the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip.In manufacturing, were seeing around 30% reductions in energy requirements if you use AI to help optimize the manufacturing process through digital twins, he said.For example, manufacturing company Wistron improved energy efficiency using digital twins and NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for developing OpenUSD applications for industrial digitalization and physical AI simulation. The company reduced its electricity consumption by 120,000 kWh and carbon emissions by 60,000 kg annually.A Tool for Energy ManagementDeloitte reports that AI can help optimize resource use and reduce emissions, playing a crucial role in energy management. This means it has the potential to lower the impact of industries beyond its own carbon footprint.Combined with digital twins, AI is transforming energy management systems by improving the reliability of renewable sources like solar and wind farms. Its also being used to optimize facility layouts, monitor equipment, stabilize power grids and predict climate patterns, aiding in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.COP29 discussions emphasized the importance of powering AI infrastructure with renewables and setting ethical guidelines. By innovating with the environment in mind, industries can use AI to build a more sustainable world.Watch a replay of the on-demand COP29 panel discussion.

The U.S. Department of Energy oversees national energy policy and production. As big a job as that is, the DOE also does so much more enough to have earned the nickname Department of Everything.In this episode of the NVIDIA AI Podcast, Helena Fu, director of the DOEs Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies (CET) and DOEs chief AI officer, talks about the departments latest AI efforts. With initiatives touching national security, infrastructure and utilities, and oversight of 17 national labs and 34 scientific user facilities dedicated to scientific discovery and industry innovation, DOE and CET are central to AI-related research and development throughout the country.The AI Podcast How the Department of Energy Is Tapping AI to Transform Science, Industry and Government Ep. 236Hear more from Helena Fu by watching the on-demand session, AI for Science, Energy and Security, from AI Summit DC. And learn more about software-defined infrastructure for power and utilities.Time Stamps2:20: Four areas of focus for the CET include AI, microelectronics, quantum information science and biotechnology.10:55: Introducing AI-related initiatives within the DOE, including FASST, or Frontiers in AI for Science, Security and Technology.16:30: Discussing future applications of AI, large language models and more.19:35: The opportunity of AI applied to materials discovery and applications across science, energy and national security.You Might Also LikeNVIDIAs Josh Parker on How AI and Accelerated Computing Drive Sustainability Ep. 234AI isnt just about building smarter machines. Its about building a greener world. AI and accelerated computing are helping industries tackle some of the worlds toughest environmental challenges. Joshua Parker, senior director of corporate sustainability at NVIDIA, explains how these technologies are powering a new era of energy efficiency.Currents of Change: ITIFs Daniel Castro on Energy-Efficient AI and Climate ChangeAI is everywhere. So, too, are concerns about advanced technologys environmental impact. Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and director of its Center for Data Innovation, discusses his AI energy use report that addresses misconceptions about AIs energy consumption. He also talks about the need for continued development of energy-efficient technology.How the Ohio Supercomputer Center Drives the Future of Computing Ep. 213The Ohio Supercomputer Centers Open OnDemand program empowers the states educational institutions and industries with computational services, training and educational programs. Theyve even helped NASCAR simulate race car designs. Alan Chalker, the director of strategic programs at the OSC, talks about all things supercomputing.Anima Anandkumar on Using Generative AI to Tackle Global Challenges Ep. 204Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor at Caltech and former senior director of AI research at NVIDIA, speaks to generative AIs potential to make splashes in the scientific community, from accelerating drug and vaccine research to predicting extreme weather events like hurricanes or heat waves.Subscribe to the AI PodcastGet the AI Podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Music, Castbox, DoggCatcher, Overcast, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Podbay, PodBean, PodCruncher, PodKicker, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn.Make the AI Podcast better: Have a few minutes to spare? Fill out this listener survey.