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1.	AWS, Google Launch Service to Connect Two Cloud Platforms By Juro Osawa Source: The Information

Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud launched Monday a new jointly developed service that enables their customers to instantly establish high-speed connectivity between the two cloud platforms.

Such a service would, for example, make it easier for customers using both cloud providers to move data between the two platforms while training or operating AI models.

"As organizations increasingly adopt multicloud architectures, the need for interoperability between cloud service providers has never been greater," the two companies said in a statement.

Previously, customers who wanted to establish connectivity between AWS and Google Cloud had to spend weeks or months manually setting up networking hardware. But the new multicloud networking service allows customers to establish such connectivity in minutes, the companies said.

2.	U.S. Black Friday Spending Sets Records as Consumer Spending Holds Strong By Ann Gehan Source: The Information

U.S. shoppers are expected to spend between $11.7 billion and $11.9 billion on Black Friday purchases, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks traffic and sales for U.S. retail websites. That figure is expected to be the highest yet for Black Friday spending and a more than 9% increase from a year earlier.

This year is also the first that generative AI will play a significant role in e-commerce research and purchases following the release of several agentic commerce browsing and shopping features by OpenAI, Perplexity and other AI firms. AI traffic to U.S. e-commerce sites is expected to increase by 600% from last year, and 48% of shoppers surveyed by Adobe said they plan to use AI for online shopping this season.

Adobe said that Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, with $14.2 billion in sales, a 6.3% increase from the year before. E-commerce software maker Shopify said that it had recorded nearly 34 million unique shoppers as of Friday evening, and that merchants using its software were recording nearly $2.8 million in sales per minute.

3.	Analyst: Apple to Use Intel to Manufacture Low-End Chips for Macs and iPads By Wayne Ma Source: The Information

Apple plans to use Intel to manufacture low-end chips for its laptops and iPads, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, a prominent Apple supply chain analyst.

Although Apple has no plans to return to using Intel's processor designs, tapping Intel's chip foundries could help Apple politically, given that Washington is pushing for Intel to reclaim its lead in chip manufacturing over Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Kuo, a Taiwan-based analyst known for his deep contacts within Apple's supply chain, said late Friday that Apple signed an agreement with Intel to obtain information about Intel's upcoming 18A chip making process.

The move is a precursor to Apple using Intel to fabricate chips for its lowest-end MacBook Air and iPad Pro processors as early as 2027, he added.

Apple switched to in-house chips manufactured by TSMC beginning in 2020 for its Macs and gradually phased out computers using Intel's designs by 2023.

Kuo said Apple's orders with Intel would be small given they are for less-advanced chips and that the shift in business would have little impact on TSMC's revenue. However, the orders from Apple would be positive for Intel's long-term business outlook.

4.	Co-founder of Trump-Backed Crypto Firm Threatens SEC Whistleblower Case By Michael Roddan Source: The Information

A co-founder of a crypto company that struck a partnership with the Trump family's blockchain group World Liberty Financial has threatened to file a whistleblower complaint over suspected irregularities in the public reporting of the crypto company, Alt5 Sigma, according to court filings.

Jean-Francois Amyot, who co-founded the Canadian crypto processor Alt5 in 2018, said he intended to file the a whistleblowing complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a filing he made in response to a lawsuit Alt5 brought against him and a consultancy he worked for. The lawsuit earlier this month alleged Amyot stole confidential information to launch a competing firm. The threat of a potential whistleblower complaint potentially adds to the legal woes facing Alt5 since the deal with the Trumps triggered a series of executive departures and regulatory disclosures.

In August, Alt5, a largely-unknown Nasdaq-listed company, struck a $1.5 billion deal with World Liberty, a crypto company co-founded by the President's two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Jr., to use Alt5 as a vehicle to amass a store of World Liberty's crypto token, $WLFI. World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff—the son of President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff—was appointed Alt5's chair as part of the deal.

Shares in Alt5 have tumbled about 75% to around $1.87 since the deal after the company issued new shares and warrants to buy the crypto token and disclosed possible legal and regulatory problems, including a conviction for alleged money laundering in Rwanda. Alt5 in September told staff it suspended its CEO in September pending the outcome of an investigation into the company by a new outside law firm. Several other senior executives have quit or have been fired.

Amyot alleged he personally retained almost 100 documents from his Alt5 email account in September after he stopped working for the company because the documents related to conversations with the firm's former chief executive Peter Tassiopoulos and were "preserved for use in a potential SEC whistleblower complaint," according to a declaration he filed in a Delaware court this week. Amyot said he "was also a vocal critic of the $1.5 billion transaction done with World Liberty Financial" and that the lawsuit against him was "filed in retaliation to my vocal criticism." A World Liberty spokesperson declined to comment.

5.	Chinese Investors Clamor Over Chip Designer Moore Threads' IPO By Qianer Liu Source: The Information

Moore Threads, a Chinese chip designer blacklisted by the U.S., drew frenzied demand from retail investors last week in its initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Its share offering was more than 4,000 times oversubscribed, according to an exchange filing.

Moore Threads, which designs graphics processing units for artificial intelligence applications, raised 8 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) at 114.28 yuan per share, valuing the company at 53.7 billion yuan.

Founded by former Nvidia employees in 2020, Moore Threads was added to a U.S. Commerce Department trade blacklist in 2023, as Washington tightened restrictions on advanced chip exports to China. Chinese regulators approved the company's IPO in just 88 days this September, well under the typical one-year timeline.

The swift regulatory greenlight and popular retail investor demand underscore Beijing's push to support domestic semiconductor companies in light of U.S. export restrictions against China.

6.	India's Adani Group to Invest $5 Billion in Google Data Center By Miles Kruppa Source: Bloomberg

Indian conglomerate Adani Group will invest as much as $5 billion in a Google data center hub in Southern India, Bloomberg reported, citing a press briefing with Adani chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh.

Adani and Google said last month they were building the data center campus in India, located in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. They said it would have access to at least a gigawatt of power, making it the largest in India.

AdaniConneX, a joint venture between Adani and U.S.-based data center developer EdgeConneX, is working on the site with Google. The companies said last month the data center would require $15 billion of investment from 2026 to 2030.

7.	DeepSeek Says Model Would Have Earned an Olympiad Gold Medal By Rocket Drew Source: The Information

DeepSeek released an AI model that the company said could solve five out of six problems on this year's International Math Olympiad, a performance that would have earned a human competitor a gold medal, the highest award in the competition.

In July, OpenAI and Google announced that their models had also solved five out of the six problems. DeepSeek's rapid replication of the milestone with its new model, DeepseekMath-V2, shows that the company is not far behind leading Western developers on key AI capabilities. The prestigious competition tests high school students' prowess at difficult math problems, making it a key benchmark for AI progress at math.

Harmonic, a math startup, also announced in July that it achieved a gold medal on the IMO with its AI system, Aristotle. This week, Harmonic raised $120 million at a valuation of $1.45 billion, including the investment, in a Series C funding round led by Ribbit Capital.

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