Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nvidia delivered solid results on Wednesday as the $4tn tech giant at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom signalled resilient growth, with markets jittery about whether the momentum around AI can continue.The company reported revenue of $46.7bn for the quarter to July 28, up 56 per cent year on year and slightly above consensus estimates of $46.5bn, according to Visible Alpha.Nvidia said it expected $54bn in sales for the current quarter, plus or minus 2 per cent, compared with expectations of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.AT&T is back in the M&A game. Compared with some of the US telecoms giant’s previous efforts, its shareholders seem more enthusiastic. On Tuesday, AT&T said it would buy $23bn worth of spectrum licences from satellite operator EchoStar, whose founder Charlie Ergen has thrown in the towel on creating a fourth national mobile phone operator. This follows AT&T’s earlier $6bn purchase of fibre internet assets from Lumen Technologies, which, like EchoStar, was an overleveraged company that needed to raise cash.AT&T is no…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldPresident Donald Trump has threatened tariffs and export controls on countries whose taxes, rules or laws on tech companies “discriminate” against the US.In a post on his Truth Social platform late on Monday, Trump railed against “Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations” and warned he could impose more levies and institute tighter controls on exports of US technologies.“As the President of the United States, I will stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies. Digital Taxes, Digital…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is a senior partner at William Fry and a member of Ireland’s AI Advisory CouncilGenerative artificial intelligence poses two copyright puzzles. The first is the widely discussed question of compensation for work used to train AI models. The second, which has yet to receive as much attention, concerns the work that AI produces. Copyright is granted to authors. So what happens to work that has no human author? The US has drawn the clearest line in the sand to date. In…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Meta and artificial intelligence start-up Character.ai are being investigated by Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton over whether the companies misleadingly market their artificial intelligence chatbots as therapists and mental health support tools. The attorney-general’s office said it was opening the investigation into Meta’s AI Studio, as well as the chatbot maker Character.AI, for potential “deceptive trade practices”, arguing that their chatbots were presented as “professional therapeutic tools, despite lacking proper medical credentials or oversight”, according to a statement on Monday.“By posing as sources of…

Large tech groups including Meta, Alphabet and Nvidia have significantly increased their spending on personal security as tech bosses play an ever more public role in US politics and confront hostility towards corporate executives.The security budgets for the CEOs of 10 big tech companies analysed by the Financial Times rose to more than $45mn in 2024. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, and Palantir all increased their protection budget by more than 10 per cent year on year. Security experts say the spending and concern around threats to tech bosses has only increased this year after high-profile attacks in the US targeting…

These spikes threaten cascading power outages, affecting homes and businesses that feed off the same grid network. Last summer, utility providers in Virginia had to grapple with a sudden surge in power after a cluster of facilities switched to back-up generators as a safety precaution, leading to an excess supply that risked grid infrastructure.With abundant power the priority, operators have also ended up in areas with significant water constraints. Hyperscale and colocation sites in the US consumed 55bn litres of water in 2023, according to researchers at the LBNL. Indirect consumption tied to energy use is markedly higher at 800bn…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.‘The New Geography of Innovation’, by Mehran GulThe US has created most of the technologies that define our age: personal computers, smartphones, search engines and social networks. In his sprightly written and anecdote-rich book exploring tech hotspots around the world, Mehran Gul sets out to answer the question: is that now changing? Anyone familiar with Betteridge’s law of headlines may not be surprised by the answer: No. With the partial exception of China, Gul argues that the US still out-innovates the rest of…

Today on the show, Aiden Reiter talks with Lex editor John Foley about three things to watch this summer: 24-hour trading, tech earnings and Tesla’s new approach to robotaxis. Also, they go short Bank Holidays, and long properly measuring GDP. For more on 24-hour trading, check out Jennifer Hughes’ guest appearance on the FT’s Behind the Money podcast. Link here.Sign up for the FT Weekend Festival at ft.com/festival and use the promo code “FTPodcasts” for 10 per cent off. For a free 30-day trial to the Unhedged newsletter go to: https://www.ft.com/unhedgedoffer.You can email Robert Armstrong and Katie Martin at unhedged@ft.com.View…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Booming AI demand helped Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to its highest quarterly net profit, but the world’s largest chip manufacturer gave a more cautious outlook, citing risks from US tariffs and foreign exchange volatility.TSMC reported NT$398.3bn (US$13.5bn) in net earnings on Thursday for the second quarter, a 60.7 per cent jump year-on-year, along with a 39 per cent jump in revenues to NT$933.8bn. Chief executive CC Wei attributed the record results to “continued robust demand” for AI and high-performance computing applications.The company…