Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nvidia has said the Trump administration has relaxed restrictions on exporting a key artificial intelligence product designed specifically for the Chinese market, saying it hoped to resume deliveries of its H20 chip “soon”.The US chipmaker on Tuesday said it had received assurances from the US government that it would approve licences for the H20. In April, Nvidia said it expected to take a $5.5bn earnings hit as a result of Donald Trump’s move to stop China sales of the product, which had…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Chinese ecommerce giants JD.com and Alibaba have ignited a battle for the country’s fast-growing instant retail market, luring shoppers with huge discounts in a push to grab market share amid weak consumer spending. The two groups have launched rapid delivery offerings in recent months, supplying food and consumer staples within 30 minutes via their fleet of drivers. That has intensified competition in a sector that has largely been dominated by Beijing-based Meituan for the past few years.Alibaba is ploughing $7bn into promoting…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.China’s antitrust regulator has conditionally approved a $35bn takeover by US tech company Synopsys of smaller rival Ansys, with its decision coming soon after the Trump administration quietly eased restrictions on exports of chip design software tools.Monday’s green light comes after China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) paused the approval process in May, the Beijing-based regulator said in a statement, confirming a Financial Times report last month. Its statement revealed a quick turnaround, with SAMR taking just one day to grant…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Meta luminaries will publicly testify in a Delaware corporate law court this week over shareholder allegations that board mismanagement was directly responsible for billions in sanctions that the social media group paid over data breaches. Two of Facebook parent company’s best known executives, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, are listed as witnesses in the eight-day trial, which starts on Wednesday. Longtime director and investor Marc Andreessen, as well as former board members Jeff Zients, a former top…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.One of the biggest policy challenges of our times will be how to regulate artificial intelligence appropriately. As the powerful general purpose technology is rapidly adopted across society and the economy, the task will be to maximise its upsides while minimising its downsides. AI is already proving a helpful boost to productivity in sectors such as software, marketing and administration. But its widespread use also raises real concerns about its more harmful impacts, ranging from algorithmic discrimination to deepfakes and disinformation. The…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A former Sequoia Capital Partner who left the Silicon Valley firm after a bitter boardroom battle at Klarna is set to launch a $400mn UK-based venture capital fund. Matt Miller has been raising money from institutional investors in recent months, according to people familiar with the moves, seeking to become one of the best-funded solo investors focused on backing European tech start-ups.He has already secured at least $355mn from institutional investors, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, while…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Elon Musk’s xAI is preparing to raise more money from investors in a deal that could value the artificial intelligence company as high as $200bn — 10 times its value early last year, according to people close to the talks.The fundraising, which is being discussed and could start formally next month, would be its third large share sale in less than two months. It raised $10bn through loans and cash investments in July, and in June sold $300mn of shares in a…

Last week, Elon Musk announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI had upgraded the Grok chatbot available on X. “You should notice a difference,” he said. Within days, users indeed noted a change: a new appreciation for Adolf Hitler. By Tuesday, the chatbot was spewing out antisemitic tropes and declaring that it identified as a “MechaHitler” — a reference to a fictional, robotic Führer from a 1990s video game. This came only two months after Grok repeatedly referenced “white genocide” in South Africa in response to unrelated questions, which xAI later said was because of an “unauthorised modification” to prompts…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Amazon Prime Day is often referred to as Black Friday in July. For good reasons. What started out as a one-day event back in 2015 for shoppers to snag discounts on big-ticket items has morphed into an annual extravaganza that is widely copied by other retailers.Last year’s Prime Day generated about $13.4bn in gross merchandise value over a 48-hour period, according to Bank of America. That’s a 10 per cent increase on 2023 and represents about 6 per cent of Amazon’s online…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldGoogle will heavily discount cloud computing services for the US government, as the Trump administration pressures technology groups to slash prices on long-standing, lucrative contracts.The agreement comes after Oracle last week cut a deal with the government, including a 75 per cent discount on some software contracts for a limited period and “substantial discounts” on its wider cloud computing contracts.Google’s cloud contract is likely “to land in a similar spot”, according to a senior official at the General Services Administration…