 | Jan 06, 2025 | | | | | | Welcome back! Microsoft pauses part of the construction on a new Wisconsin data center for OpenAI. Tim Cook pledges $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas today with Jensen Huang's keynote speech.
| | | | Microsoft recently suspended construction on part of its multi-billion-dollar artificial intelligence data center campus in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin—a site where it is building a massive supercomputer for OpenAI. Microsoft said in a statement to Wisconsin Public Radio that it paused the second phase of the build out so that it can evaluate "scope and recent changes in technology," as well as how "this might impact the design of our facilities." Microsoft said in May of last year that it planned to invest $3.3 billion by the end of 2026 to build an AI data center campus in the area. The Information has reported Microsoft is preparing to use liquid cooling technology in the data centers, as opposed to air cooling, so that they can accommodate Nvidia's most advanced AI chips, known as Blackwell chips. The facility could cost as much as $10 billion once fully built. It is unclear whether the recent pause will affect this expansion. In the meantime, OpenAI has made moves to secure computing resources from other cloud providers. | | | | Apple CEO Tim Cook will donate $1 million of his personal money to the committee planning president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, Axios reported Friday. Cook joins other tech CEOs, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi, who each pledged $1 million in personal donations, according to prior reports. In addition, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Uber each made $1 million corporate donations. Pledged contributions exceed $150 million, breaking the previous record of $107 million that Trump raised for his first inauguration, ABC News reported. Cook visited Trump at his residence in Mar-a-Lago last month. Trump has spoken out against the European Union's claim that Apple owes $14.3 billion in back taxes. | | | | The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, with two days of media events ahead of Tuesday's official opening. Among the highlights are Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote, scheduled for Monday. The big themes at this year's CES, which has become a gathering place for executives from tech, media, advertising and other industries, include artificial intelligence, robotics and self-driving cars. Even TikTok has an event this week, even though its future is on the line ahead of a Supreme Court hearing on Friday about a law that would ban TikTok by Jan. 19 if it doesn't sever its ties with Chinese parent ByteDance. Other speakers include X CEO Linda Yaccarino. | | | | The Justice Department and TikTok filed duelling briefs with the Supreme Court on Friday, setting up the arguments their representatives will present when the court hears oral arguments next Friday in TikTok's effort to block a law that could ban it on Jan. 19 if it doesn't sever its ties with parent company ByteDance. The government's brief starts off by asserting that "no one disputes" that China "seeks to undermine U.S. interests by amassing sensitive data about Americans and engaging in covert and malign influence operations," with TikTok among the best examples of that practice. "TikTok's collection of reams of sensitive data about 170 million Americans and their contacts makes it a powerful tool for espionage, and TikTok's role as a key channel of communication makes it a potent weapon for covert influence operations." TikTok has argued that the law is unconstitutional on free speech grounds, an argument rejected by the DC Appeals Court, which has led to the last ditch appeal to the Supreme Court. In its brief, TikTok argues that the law "singles out one content platform for uniquely harsh treatment." It urged the court to "hold that the Act's TikTok-specific provision is unconstitutional" and "at minimum, a temporary injunction is warranted to provide the breathing space needed to carefully consider this significant question." | | | | Microsoft is on track to spend $80 billion on datacenters that are tailor-made for running AI software in the twelve months ending in June, president Brad Smith said in a blog post on Friday. More than half of that spending will take place in the U.S., Smith said. The investment is a sharp increase from the $53 billion Microsoft spent on capital expenses in the same period a year prior. The increase in datacenter spending reflects Microsoft's bet that demand for training and running AI software will continue to grow in the year ahead. Microsoft has repeatedly told investors in recent years that demand for server rentals among AI developer customers of its Azure cloud service have outpaced supply. In the blog post, Smith called on the incoming Trump administration to commit more money to funding AI research and to help speed up the development of datacenters. Microsoft is optimistic that Trump and his appointees will cut back on permitting requirements for datacenters and will loosen restrictions on energy production, making it cheaper and easier to connect power-hungry datacenters to the electrical grid, The Information previously reported. | | | | TikTok's head of ad sales for North America, Sameer Singh, is leaving the company as the popular social video platform faces a ban in the U.S. beginning on Jan. 19, according to Adweek. It's a notable executive departure for TikTok, which has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to prevent the ban from taking effect. Soniya Monga, another top U.S. based advertising executive at TikTok, departed the company for a role at Pinterest in December. TikTok, meanwhile, is continuing to meet with advertisers, including at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. In a memo to staff announcing Singh's departure, Blake Chandlee, TikTok's president of global business solutions, said the company will immediately begin the search for Singh's replacement. TikTok's ad sales representatives have also asked advertisers to increase their spending commitments for 2025 by 40% compared to last year, as The Information reported on Thursday. Still, it has also acknowledged the possibility of the ban going into effect by offering refunds to big advertisers if the app had to be shut down in the U.S. | | | | Stuart Hoegner, general counsel of stablecoin issuer Tether and its sister exchange Bitfinex, has retired and will be replaced by Michael Hilliard, who co-led legal affairs with him for several years at the two crypto companies. Tether, the world's largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, has not gained a license under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, which went into full effect on Dec. 30. Since then, its market circulation has fallen by $1.5 billion to $137 billion as Coinbase delisted the stablecoin in Europe. Circle's USDC stablecoin, which gained a license under the regime, has grown by $1.5 billion to $45 billion in market circulation during the same period. Tether has also been under U.S. regulatory scrutiny over whether it violated anti-money laundering and sanctions rules, The Wall Street Journal reported in October. Tether said at the time that it had no knowledge of any such investigations. | | | | Photo licensing service Getty Images is exploring a merger with Shutterstock, a rival service, Bloomberg reported, in a possible sign of how the emergence of artificial intelligence-powered image creation is affecting the market for photo images. Shares of both companies jumped on the news, although both stocks remain well below where they fetched a year ago, a sign that investors have reacted to the threat posed by AI. Both companies are profitable but slow growing: Getty, in particular, has reported flat to slightly down revenue in recent years. Getty is worth about $2.3 billion while Shutterstock is worth about half that. Bloomberg noted that the deal would likely be scrutinized on antitrust grounds. | | | | TikTok has long been aware that its livestreaming feature poses risks to children and is used for money laundering, a newly unredacted lawsuit from Utah's attorney general claims. The suit, which is one of several filed against TikTok by different states over child safety issues in the past year, claims that TikTok's livestream feature, TikTok Live, "allows adults to prey on children in many egregious ways, including by transacting with and soliciting sexual acts from minors." Furthermore, it alleges that TikTok has "long known—and hidden—the significant risks of live streaming." An internal investigation into Live, "Project Meramec," showed that TikTok was aware large numbers of teenagers were getting around the app's minimum age restrictions and hosting live sessions where they were subject to "concerning messages from adults," the complaint said. In addition, TikTok staff conducted a separate internal investigation, known as Project Jupiter, which revealed how Live was being used to launder money and fund terrorism through TikTok's gifting feature, the complaint said. A spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement that the lawsuit "ignores the number of proactive measures that TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support community safety and well-being. Instead, the complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and outdated documents and presents them out of context, which distorts our commitment to the safety of our community." | | | | Electronics manufacturer Jabil said Friday that it had granted Amazon warrants to purchase more than 1 million of its shares for about $160 million, with the warrants vesting based on Amazon's spending on the company's products. Jabil, which operates more than 100 factories around the world that make everything from cellphones to healthcare equipment, has previously disclosed that Apple and Amazon have been among its largest customers. Amazon has a record of equity-for-spending deals with its suppliers and has stakes in companies like electric vehicle maker Rivian, food distributor Spartan Nash and air cargo operator Sun Country Airlines. The Jabil warrants give Amazon the right to purchase the shares for $137.77, according to a securities filing. The Jabil filing redacted the exact amount Amazon would need to spend for all of the warrants to vest. Jabil shares surged more than 5% to $150.50 on Friday afternoon. The warrants represent about 1% of Jabil's average shares outstanding in the quarter ended Nov. 30. | | | Popular articles By Michael Roddan and Cory Weinberg
By Qianer Liu and Juro Osawa
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