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1.	Qualcomm Approached Intel About a Takeover By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Wall Street Journal

Qualcomm approached Intel in recent days to express interest in buying the beleaguered chip maker, according to the Wall Street Journal. The approach follows Intel's statements that it was looking at numerous options to turn around its flagging chip design business and money-losing chip manufacturing unit.

Intel has steadily lost ground to rivals in recent years, missing out on the mobile market and more recently AI. Intel shares fell nearly 50% in the past six months, putting its market capitalization at around $90 billion—about half the size of Qualcomm.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Qualcomm was considering buying portions of Intel's chip design business, which primarily generates revenue from PCs and data center servers. If Qualcomm, which primarily generates revenue from designing and licensing mobile chips, bought the entirety of Intel, it would likely spin off different business units, according to the Journal.

Any deal would likely be scrutinized by antitrust regulators, but the U.S. government has an incentive to support Intel, given it has committed more than $10 billion in subsidies to the company this year.

Intel has been trying to revive its business through its chip foundry, known as Intel Foundry Services. This week CEO Pat Gelsinger wrote a memo to employees about plans to separate the money-losing unit as a subsidiary that could raise outside capital, which sounds like a similar structure to that of Google owner Alphabet. Spokespeople for Intel and Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Intel's stock jumped 3% on the takeover news. Shares of Qualcomm fell 3%.

2.	U.S. to Propose Rules Banning Chinese Vehicle Software By Meredith Mazzilli Source: Reuters

The U.S. Commerce Department is set to propose rules as soon as Monday banning the use of Chinese software and hardware in autonomous and connected vehicles, Reuters reported on Saturday.

President Joe Biden earlier this year had launched an investigation into whether vehicles from China connected to internet and navigation systems posed national security risks, including whether the vehicles could collect data about U.S. individuals and infrastructure or be remotely accessed or disabled.

The proposed rules would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving software or hardware, according to the Reuters report. The Commerce Department is planning a 30-day public comment period before finalizing the rules, Reuters reported, and aims for the software ban to take effect for the 2027 model year while the hardware ban would go into effect for the 2030 model year.

3.	Microsoft Deal Will Reopen Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant to Power AI By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Information

Microsoft signed a deal to restart a nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania to power its rapidly expanding data centers for artificial intelligence computing, the companies said Friday.

Microsoft will purchase energy from a plant known as TMI Unit 1, which shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. A separate reactor at the site partially melted down in a 1979 accident.

The plant Microsoft plans to buy power from previously generated more than 800 megawatts of power—enough to power hundreds of thousands of Nvidia AI chips, or around 800,000 homes. The owner of the plant, Constellation Energy, said the reactor would be ready for Microsoft in 2028.

Cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon are scrambling for power and data centers to handle Nvidia chip servers used to develop and run AI. Nuclear has long been viewed as an alternative to gas and coal power plants, which contribute greenhouse gases. Earlier this year, Amazon signed a deal to access nuclear power from another plant in Pennsylvania, but energy authorities are still examining the deal.

4.	Zoom to Scale Back Employee Stock Grants By Jon Victor Source: Bloomberg

Video conferencing company Zoom is reducing the amount of stock it uses to compensate employees, following similar moves by enterprise software firms Salesforce and Workday, according to Bloomberg. Shares of those companies have performed badly compared to broader stock indices this year.

CEO Eric Yuan this week told employees about the change, which will take place over Zoom's next two fiscal years beginning in February, the report said. While tech companies have long used stock grants to attract and retain talent, investor pressure has been mounting to pare back those grants, which increase the number of shares in circulation and dilute their value for other shareholders. Some employees will receive higher cash bonuses to compensate for the change, Yuan said.

A Zoom spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Zoom shares have dropped 2.3% this year, compared with a 21.5% gain in the Nasdaq Composite index.

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