3M chairman and CEO Mike Roman has issued an update concerning the progress of the company’s capacity of N95 respirators and measures to combat price gouging and counterfeiting, and new partnerships to help protect healthcare workers, the company announced on Wednesday.

“Beginning in January we ramped up to maximum production of N95 respirators, doubling our global output to a rate of 1.1 billion per year, or 100 million per month. This includes 35 million per month in the United States, and over just the last seven days we have delivered 10 million N95 respirators to healthcare facilities in states across the country,” said Roman.

3M has made additional investments and actions that will enable the company to double its capacity to 2 billion globally within the next 12 months. The additional capacity will begin to come online in the next 60-90 days.

In the United States, 3M has projected to produce N95 respirators at a rate of 50 million per month in June, a 40 percent increase from current levels. In addition, more than 90 percent of 3M’s N95 respirators are going to healthcare and public health. The surplus will go to other critical industries, including energy, food and pharmaceuticals.

Within 3M’s U.S. N95 supply, roughly 80 percent will support healthcare distributors. The N95 respirators are moving directly from 3M, to healthcare distributors, to healthcare facilities and end-users.

The remaining 20 percent will be allocated to the federal government, with the largest portion going to FEMA who will distribute it based on their determination of the most urgent needs. The prioritization and distribution of the company’s N95 respirators will be coordinated in close partnership with FEMA.

Given the high use rate of N95 respirators, 3M engineers will collaborate with several sterilization companies to find a way for hospitals to safely clean, reuse and extend the life of these respirators.

“This is not just a 3M challenge; it’s an industry-wide challenge. Even with 3M’s accelerated production combined with capacity from other manufacturers, the reality is that demand for N95 respirators is much higher than the industries’ ability to deliver,” added Roman.

About 3M

At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily. With $32 billion in sales, our 96,000 employees connect with customers all around the world. Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Twitter @3M or @3MNews.

C3.ai has announced that the company will make a unified, federated, open data image of critical COVID-19 data publicly available at no cost to the global research community beginning on April 13, 2020, C3.ai announced on Wednesday.

“C3.ai DTI invites scholars, developers, and researchers to embrace the challenge of abating COVID-19 and advance the knowledge, science, and technologies for mitigating future pandemics using AI,” said Shankar Sastry, Engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley and co-director of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute.

C3.ai’s data sets have been aggregated into a unified, federated image, easily accessible and useful to researchers for applying advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. The C3.ai COVID-19 Data Lake will be made publicly available at no cost to the global research community.

In addition, the C3.ai COVID-19 Data Lake will be immediately accessible to researchers and organizations currently utilizing the C3 AI Suite, including member academic institutions and researchers through the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI).

The global research and developer communities are invited to help expand the scale of the C3.ai COVID-19 Data Lake by enhancing its functionality, developing analytics and predictive models, and by contributing additional COVID-related data sets through a crowdsourcing model.

The C3.ai COVID-19 Data Lake will integrate the capabilities of the C3 AI Suite to help organizations leverage existing enterprise systems, data stores and data lake investments by unifying all enterprise and external data into a single current virtual data image without the need to duplicate data.

The C3.ai COVID-19 Data Lake will provide a single secure cloud image of the various COVID-19 datasets available in a private, highly scalable, distributed cloud infrastructure.

“We are pleased to make this contribution to the global COVID-19 research effort,” said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai. “It is our hope that this resource will rapidly expand in scope and functionality to help researchers address this unprecedented pandemic.”

About C3.ai

C3.ai is a leading AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. C3.ai delivers the C3 AI Suite for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications in addition to an increasingly broad portfolio of turn-key AI applications. The core of the C3.ai offering is a revolutionary, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically enhances data science and application development.

A Bechtel-led construction team today placed the massive reactor building dome on Unit 4, the second of Plant Vogtle’s Units 3 and 4 in Waynesboro, Georgia, the company announced on Wednesday.

“We completed this important milestone safely and continue to demonstrate our commitment to deliver these units as promised for our customer and this community. This milestone indicates tremendous progress on the project, and we expect this momentum to continue throughout 2020. We are proud to be a part of building the future of nuclear power in the United States,” said Bechtel Project Director Brian Reilly.

Bechtel’s nuclear reactor weighs approximately 1.5 million pounds and measures 130 feet in diameter and 37 feet tall. The dome is the roof of the high-integrity steel structure that contains Unit 4’s nuclear reactor, comprising 58 large plates. Setting was completed March 27, following a complex rigging operation.

The placement follows the installation of Unit 4’s nuclear steam supply system — the reactors, reactor coolant pumps, steam generators, pressurizer and associated piping. These are the essential elements of the unit’s nuclear power system, used to generate the steam needed to drive the unit’s turbine generator to produce electricity.

Bechtel completed the construction of Vogtle Units 3 and 4 under the management of Southern Nuclear, the Southern Company subsidiary that operates the existing two units at Plant Vogtle. Vogtle Units 3 and 4 are the first Westinghouse AP1000 units to be built in the U.S. When complete, Plant Vogtle will be the largest generator of carbon-free electricity in the nation.

Bechtel has completed more than 74,000 megawatts of new nuclear generation capacity and has performed engineering and construction services on more than 80 percent of nuclear plants in the United States and 150 plants worldwide.

“This milestone reflects the hard work and dedication of the Vogtle 3 & 4 team as we transition these units closer to operation,” added Reilly.

About Bechtel 

Bechtel is a trusted engineering, construction and project management partner to industry and government. Differentiated by the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes, we align our capabilities to our customers’ objectives to create a lasting positive impact. Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world’s infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.

CenturyLink has donated high-speed internet connections to temporary hospital facilities to help improve the effectiveness of the nation’s healthcare system, the company announced on Wednesday.

“As these needs arise across the country, CenturyLink is coordinating with local government, hospitals, and the military to locate field hospitals on our network so we can provide immediate connectivity. We are donating our costs and services to help the cause – it’s the right thing to do,”  said Ed Morche, CenturyLink president of government and enterprise markets.

CenturyLink will continue to respond to requests for services and install connections within 48 hours. Honoring its promise, the company installed and donated high-speed connectivity to the hospital ship U.S. Naval Ship Mercy hours after it arrived at the port of Los Angeles.

The company also waived installation fees for a 1 gigabit Ethernet circuit connecting the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) shored-based Naval Air Station North Island to USNS Mercy. The high-speed connection supports our nation’s military and healthcare professionals by providing medical assistance to patients not associated with COVID-19 during the pandemic.

CenturyLink has also committed to donate high-speed connectivity and waive fees for several field hospital operations in Seattle and Oregon. The company will continue its efforts with local and state agencies to provide speeds ranging from 200 Mbps to 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections.

The company will provide services in Seattle and Salem and has projected to grow CenturyLink’s reach as the solution evolves. CenturyLink created the Field Event Center in Seattle,  providing a 200 Mbps fiber connection to assist this 148-bed facility that will house non-coronavirus patients.

At the Oregon State Fair and Exposition Center in Salem, CenturyLink will provide a 1 gigabit Ethernet connection to this temporary hospital for 250 non-coronavirus patients in recovery..

“This is the beginning of our essential work to assist healthcare workers on the front lines, as we respond where we are needed the most,” added Morche.

About CenturyLink 

CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a technology leader delivering hybrid networking, cloud connectivity, and security solutions to customers around the world. Through its extensive global fiber network, CenturyLink provides secure and reliable services to meet the growing digital demands of businesses and consumers. CenturyLink strives to be the trusted connection to the networked world and is focused on delivering technology that enhances the customer experience.