 | May 19, 2025 | | | | | | Welcome back! The U.S. government is scrutinizing Apple's plan to work with Alibaba to release AI features in China. Nvidia is in advanced talks to invest in quantum computing startup PsiQuantum. Cable operator Charter is buying rival Cox in a $34.5 billion deal.
| | | | The U.S. government is scrutinizing Apple's plan to work with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to release AI features in China, The New York Times reported. U.S. officials are worried the deal will help Alibaba improve its AI capabilities, broaden the reach of Chinese chatbots that censor information and deepen Apple's exposure to Chinese regulations related to censorship and data, the newspaper said. The move comes as the U.S. attempts to contain China's AI industry out of concern it might pose a threat to national security if it's used to advance China's military capabilities. However, Apple has little choice but to use the AI models of a Chinese firm if it wants regulatory approval to launch Apple Intelligence in China. The Information first reported that Apple and Alibaba were working together to roll out AI features in China and that the features already had been submitted for regulatory approval. However, Apple still hasn't release the features, known collectively as Apple Intelligence, in China. | | | | Nvidia is in advanced talks to invest in PsiQuantum, a quantum computing startup, The Information reported on Sunday. The talks come as PsiQuantum is in the process of raising at least $750 million in a funding round. The investment would be the latest signal that Nvidia has shifted its stance on quantum computing. Earlier this year CEO Jensen Huang seemed to cast doubt on the quantum computer industry, saying it was likely two decades away from being a useful technology Palo Alto-based PsiQuantum is one of a handful of startups racing to build a quantum computer capable of outperforming traditional computers in complicated tasks, such as simulating molecule interaction to speed up drug discovery. Founded in 2016, the company has raised more than a billion dollars from investors including BlackRock, Playground Global, Microsoft's venture arm M12 and the Australian government. | | | | Two of the biggest cable TV and broadband operators, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, are combining, in a sign of how the decline of cable TV and competition in broadband is forcing another stage of consolidation. Charter is buying Cox in a deal that values Cox at $34.5 billion, including $12.6 billion of net debt. Cox Enterprises, the family-owned media conglomerate that controls Cox Communications, will receive $21.9 billion in cash and stock. The combined company will have 35.9 million internet customers and about 14 million TV customers, making it a bit bigger than Comcast Corp., now the biggest firm in the industry. Cable TV was once the core business of cable operators but that business has shrunk in recent years, as consumers have defected to cheaper streaming services. That has made internet-access the core business, although growth in signing up new internet customers has stopped and cable operators are now losing customers to mobile phone companies. | | | | Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday that the company will allow customers to combine its own hardware with that of other vendors for its AI servers. The new offering, known as NVLink Fusion, allows customers to pair Nvidia's chips with chips designed by other vendors. Previously, Nvidia only allowed customers buying its AI servers to mostly use Nvidia hardware. However, major customers like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are now designing their own AI chips as alternatives to Nvidia's offerings. With NVLink Fusion, those customers can use Nvidia's technology with their own AI chips. Huang also said that the company's next flagship AI chips, known as the GB300, will launch in the third quarter of this year. The GB300 will be an upgrade from an existing product, the GB200, which is currently used by major cloud providers. | | | | Logistics startup Stord said Friday it raised $80 million in equity funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, as well as $120 million in debt financing, likely setting up the company to acquire more U.S. warehousing operations. Stord provides fulfillment and warehousing services to help merchants compete with Amazon on speedy shipping, and also offers supply chain management software. It made two small acquisitions last year, acquiring ProPack Logistics, a temperature-controlled warehousing and fulfillment company, and an e-commerce fulfillment warehouse from Pitney Bowes. Fortune reported on Friday that Stord is in "advanced conversations" for more deals. The company's new valuation is a slight increase from a valuation of $1.3 billion when it raised money in 2022. Logistics valuations have largely crumbled in recent years, but firms with domestic warehousing operations argue they can benefit from steep new U.S. tariffs as merchants revamp their supply chains. Strike Capital led Stord's equity round, and Silicon Valley Bank and Orix provided the debt financing. | | | | Qualcomm, known for designing and licensing smartphone processors, said earlier this week it would develop data center chips for artificial intelligence, starting in Saudi Arabia. The move adds Qualcomm to the long list of challengers to Nvidia, whose chips dominate the AI data center market. The little-noticed announcement came during a flood of press releases from the White House and American technology firms whose executives accompanied President Trump to the Middle East to warm up relations with leaders in the region. Qualcomm said it would work with Humain, a newly formed Saudi AI firm, to develop the new chips. Humain announced separate partnerships this week with rival chipmakers Nvidia and AMD to use their chips in its AI data centers. The Qualcomm announcement marks its official return to the data center market after prior efforts fizzled. Years ago, Qualcomm tried to take on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices by developing central processing units for data centers. Qualcomm then tried to break into the AI chip market in 2019 but failed after Facebook, a large potential customer, had concerns about the chip's software. | | | | ByteDance is targeting revenue growth of about 20% this year, which could help it catch up to rival Meta Platforms, according to Bloomberg. The TikTok parent company expects revenue to rise to about $186 billion in 2025, up from $155 billion last year, Bloomberg reported. Analysts expect Meta to generate about $187 billion in revenue, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. TikTok continues to face the threat of a ban in the U.S., but the short-form video app operates globally and ByteDance owns other businesses, including TikTok's sister app Douyin in China. | | | | Young people's interest in social media and video games has cut into the leisure time previous generations spent drinking, says Atsushi Katsuki, the chief executive of Asahi, a Japanese beer company. The increasing amount of time spent on digital entertainment outweighs a growing trend for non-alcoholic beer and less drinking, he said. "Alcohol used to occupy a much bigger share of people's entertainment and joy," Katsuki said. "In the past 10 years, the number of entertaining things has grown including gaming, so I believe alcohol's share of fun, enjoyment and happiness has decreased." | | | | OpenAI said Friday it released an artificial intelligence coding "agent" that can automate software engineering tasks such as fixing bugs and answering questions about a codebase. It's following startups including Anthropic and Cognition that have released similar coding assistants. The coding agent, Codex, is powered by a version of OpenAI's o3 reasoning model that can spend more computational resources on harder questions. Codex can be accessed through ChatGPT, and when users provide it with tasks, it works in the background with users' codebases to complete those tasks. Codex is currently available for ChatGPT Pro users, who pay $200 per month, as well as Enterprise and Team users, whose companies pay at least $25 per user per month to access more advanced features. The release deepens OpenAI tools aimed at helping engineers code. Already, millions of users leverage ChatGPT to help them write code and fix bugs. | | | | Chobani said Friday it had acquired smoothie and frozen meal startup Daily Harvest, marking the latest dealmaking activity among healthy food startups. Terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. Daily Harvest was founded in 2015 and raised nearly $190 million total from investors at a peak valuation of $1.1 billion, according to Pitchbook. The acquisition is Chobani's second deal to branch out into more products—the yogurt maker bought the coffee brand La Colombe for $900 million in late 2023. Chobani ditched initial public offering plans in 2022, though founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya has said it could revisit an IPO. In 2022, some Daily Harvest customers reported getting sick and needing to have emergency surgery after consuming the company's French Lentil and Leek Crumbles. Daily Harvest and its suppliers reached a settlement last year to resolve food poisoning claims in a class action lawsuit. | | | | | | | Opportunities Empower your teams to stay ahead of market trends with the most trusted tech journalism.
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