 | Jan 07, 2025 | | | | | | Happy Tuesday! Nvidia introduces new personal supercomputer. Tech industry slams the Biden administration's upcoming chip export rules. Meta Platforms adds Trump ally Dana White to its board.
| | | | Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a personal artificial intelligence supercomputer, Project Digits, during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. The $3,000 device can run sophisticated AI models in a compact, desktop-friendly size. In contrast to traditional supercomputers that require extensive space and energy, Project Digits operates from a standard power outlet, enabling users to develop and test their AI models locally as opposed to in the cloud. Huang described it as "a cloud computing platform that sits on your desk." At the heart of the product is Nvidia's new chip, the GB10, developed in collaboration with MediaTek, a Taiwanese company known for its expertise in mobile chip design. Huang separately unveiled new chips for gamers that use AI to help render their graphics. The chips, part of a product line called RTX Blackwell, are cheaper and smaller than previous generations but still offer similar performance due to their use of AI to help render graphics. | | | | The Semiconductor Industry Association on Monday urged the Biden Administration to withhold releasing a planned export control regulation until after Trump takes office, saying the rule could "significantly undercut U.S. leadership and competitiveness" in semiconductor technology. The association, whose members include Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel, said the rule was developed without industry input. "We respectfully caution against making such a swift and significant shift in policy during this transitional period, and without meaningful consultation with industry," the SIA said in a statement. Similarly, Ken Glueck, executive vice president of Oracle, lamented in a blog post that the new rule "will go down as one of the most destructive to ever hit the U.S. technology industry." The new restrictions, which have not been released publicly, are meant to close loopholes in the Commerce Department's current export control regimes, which have failed to prevent Nvidia's advanced artificial intelligence chips from being smuggled into China. | | | | Meta Platforms named three new directors—including Dana White, CEO of mixed martial arts company Ultimate Fighting Championship—expanding its board to 13 members. The other new directors are John Elkann, CEO of investment company Exor, and Charlie Songhurst, an investor and former executive at Microsoft, Meta said in a blog post Monday. "Dana, John and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables and the future of human connection," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. White—a friend of Zuckerberg, who is a mixed martial arts fan—has campaigned for President-elect Donald Trump. Elkann is also the chair of carmakers Stellantis and Ferrari. Songhurst has advised Meta on its artificial intelligence products since May. | | | | The Department of Defense added Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co, the world's largest electric-vehicle battery maker, to a blacklist over alleged ties with the Chinese military. The list carries no specific sanction implications, except for precluding companies named from supplying to the DoD. Both Tencent and CATL called the addition "a mistake" and said the designation would have no impact on their businesses, adding that they will engage with the department to address the issue. CATL, a supplier to Tesla, said it would take "legal action, if necessary." Still, being added to the list carries reputational damage. Shares of Tencent, the world's largest video-gaming company by revenue, closed 7.3% down in Hong Kong trading on Tuesday. CATL, which is listed in Shanghai, fell 2.8%. The Defense Department's "Chinese military companies" list is revised annually and allows for companies to appeal to the department directly for removal. In 2021, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. was removed from the list after filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government. | | | | A Google executive on Monday criticized Microsoft's Bing search engine for potentially making users think they are using Google Search rather than Bing. Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft's Edge browser, which comes preinstalled on Windows computers. Typing "Google" into the browser's search bar—and on Bing.com—brings up a graphic and search bar that looks similar to Google's homepage. After reports about the Bing practice surfaced Monday, Google Vice President Parisa Tabriz accused Microsoft of employing "tricks to confuse users and limit choice." Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. While it is hugely profitable for Microsoft, Bing has long struggled to make gains against Google. Bing's launch of a conversational artificial intelligence chatbot option, similar to ChatGPT, more than a year ago also failed to make much of a dent, according to web analytics firm StatCounter. | | | | Walt Disney Co. is selling its streaming cable business Hulu + Live TV to smaller rival Fubo TV, in exchange for a 70% stake in Fubo. The deal both allows Disney to get out of the streaming cable business, whose future is not bright, and resolve litigation stemming from last year's aborted effort to launch a sports streaming service. The deal doesn't involve Hulu's main business, a Netflix-like video on demand service, which had 47.4 million subscribers at Sept. 30. Instead, Disney is transferring the cable-like business, which had 4.6 million subscribers, to Fubo, which had about 1.5 million subscribers at the same date. The newly enlarged Fubo, to be controlled by Disney, will be in a better position to compete with YouTube TV, a similar business which offers cable TV packages streamed online for a slight discount to cable packages. YouTube TV had 8 million subscribers a year ago. The cable TV business has been in a steady decline, as consumers switch to streaming services like Netflix. Streaming cable services emerged about a decade ago as a lower cost option to cable, but with digital extras, but the steady rise in programming costs has wiped out their cost advantage. Fubo loses money, although Disney and Fubo said the combined company would be "cash flow positive immediately." As part of the deal, Fubo settled litigation with Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox over their plan to launch a sports streaming service that a judge blocked last year on antitrust grounds. That service would have posed a dire threat to Fubo. Fubo shares jumped nearly 200% in pre-market trading on the news. | | | | The Federal Reserve's top banking regulator Michael Barr announced he would step down from the position on Feb. 28, or earlier if a successor is confirmed, meaning President-elect Donald Trump can appoint a replacement with a more favorable stance toward crypto and other financial technologies. Trump will need to pick from existing Fed board members to replace Barr, who was originally supposed to stay in the vice chair role through 2026. Barr said he would continue to serve as a member of the board. Trump now has the opportunity to appoint key leadership roles at all three federal banking regulators—the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg previously also announced plans to resign. | | | | Uber announced an "accelerated" $1.5 billion stock buyback, to be mostly done on Monday, reflecting its view that "our stock is undervalued," Uber CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah said in a statement. Shares of the ride-hailing firm have fallen 24% since mid-October, reflecting growing questions about the impact of self-driving cars on ride-hailing firms. Uber announced a $7 billion repurchase agreement last February but it had only bought back $701 million in the first nine months of last year, as its stock rallied before the more recent sell off. Uber said under the agreement, it will pay Bank of America the full $1.5 billion on Monday and receive most of thes shares immediately although the full share repurchase will be completed by the end of March. | | | | Salesforce has promoted Kaylin Voss, a six-year company veteran who has spent the past year as chief revenue officer of Slack, to lead sales of its AI agent and data management software, she announced in a LinkedIn post. Voss will oversee two of Salesforce's most important products: Agentforce, which customers use to build AI agents that can handle tasks like online product returns, and Data Cloud, which they use to manage the data that informs the agents' actions. Co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff declared last February that 2024 would be "the year of Data Cloud," and he recently told The Information that more than half of his sales team has an Agentforce deal in progress. Voss becomes the first dedicated leader of Agentforce and Data Cloud, although part of her new role was previously held by Clara Shih, the former Salesforce CEO of AI who departed for Meta in November. Voss will report to Eric Eyken-Sluyters, a 22-year Salesforce veteran who is chief revenue officer of its MuleSoft unit, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter. | | | | "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary has signed onto billionaire Frank McCourt's attempted bid to acquire TikTok. But it's unclear if O'Leary has made a capital commitment, and if so how much. The celebrity investor in May 2024 floated his interest in buying the app, at a significant discount. At the time, O'Leary said on CNBC that he was putting together a syndicate for a potential takeover of TikTok, with a starting bid of $20 billion to $30 billion, an up to 90% cut to its valuation. Parent company ByteDance has publicly said it doesn't want to sell the app. On Friday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in TikTok's effort to block the U.S. law that could ban it on Jan. 19 if it doesn't sever its ties with ByteDance. | | | Popular articles By Michael Roddan and Cory Weinberg
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