Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Activist hedge fund Elliott Management has built a sizeable stake in Global Payments as the payment processing group looks to win back investors after its $24.2bn acquisition of Worldpay caused shares to plunge to a 10-year low, said people familiar with the matter. The investment comes as the Atlanta-based payments group plots its future after buying Worldpay earlier this year in its biggest acquisition to date as it tries to grow its core business of processing payments for merchants.The three-way, cash-and-shares acquisition…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.No engineer left behind. On Friday night, Google said it would hire the top talent of a developer of artificial intelligence tools called Windsurf, including its chief executive. As part of the $2.4bn package, it will also license Windsurf’s technology. Welcome to Silicon Valley, where the line between acquiring people and acquiring businesses gets ever fuzzier.While tech giants are getting a warmer reception from US President Donald Trump’s administration than they did under Joe Biden, making acquisitions is still far from easy.…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Mira Murati’s artificial intelligence start-up has named chip giants Nvidia and AMD among its new investors, as the former OpenAI chief technology officer closes one of the largest initial funding rounds in Silicon Valley history.Thinking Machines Lab raised $2bn at a $12bn post-money valuation in a “seed” round, previously reported by the Financial Times, despite there being few details about what the company is working on or a product.Based in San Francisco, the company on Tuesday announced the Andreessen Horowitz-led round, with…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.One Japanese tech group has emerged a significant, yet under-appreciated, beneficiary of the global artificial intelligence boom. Shares of Fujitsu have risen by nearly two-thirds from last year’s lows as it positions itself as a serious contender in enterprise AI transformation. Fujitsu has launched proprietary generative AI platforms and invested heavily in hybrid computing infrastructure as well as developing advanced liquid cooling systems that help reduce data centre power consumption. Yet even as its AI momentum accelerates, a crisis from the UK…

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…