Ford At Its Limit With UAW Contract Offer
A senior Ford executive said yesterday that the automaker is “at the limit” of what it can spend on higher wages and benefits for the United Auto Workers, and warned the union’s strike at the company’s most profitable factory could harm workers and slash profits.
SPAC To Return $533 Mln For Trump Deal
Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O), the SPAC that plans to merge with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s media and technology company, said this week it would return to investors USD 533 million raised for the deal, after some have already backtracked on USD 467 million worth of commitments.
Oil Reserves Gains After Large Crude Build By The U.S.
Oil prices reversed early gains yesterday in a volatile session, after a large build in U.S. crude stockpiles outweighed expectations that U.S. interest rates had peaked. Brent futures settled up by 18 cents to USD 86.00 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell by 58 cents to USD 82.91 a barrel.
Today’s News
The Biden administration is weighing additional curbs on China’s ability to access critical technology, including restricting the sale of high-end chips that are mainly used to power artificial intelligence (A.I.), according to five people familiar with the matter.
The curbs would clamp down on the sales to China of advanced chips made by companies like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, which are needed for the data centers that power A.I.
Biden officials have said that China’s A.I. capabilities could pose a national security threat to the United States by enhancing Beijing’s military and security apparatus. Among the concerns are the implementation of A.I. in guiding weapons, carrying out cyber warfare and the ability to power facial recognition systems that are designed to track dissidents and minorities.
Such curbs would be a blow to semiconductor manufacturers, including those in the United States, who still generate much of their revenue in China.
Nvidia’s shares closed down by 1.8 percent on Wednesday after reports of the potential export crackdown. The company has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the A.I. boom with its share price surging approximately 180 percent this year.
Other related news include:
Further Chip Curbs By The U.S. Looms
The Biden administration is considering closing a loophole that gives Chinese companies access to American A.I. chips through units located overseas, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Since 2022, trade wars between the U.S. and Beijing had resulted in new restrictions on shipments of A.I. chips and chipmaking tools to China, an attempt to disrupt the nation’s military advances as well as its economy, directly affecting various industries in the process. The aforementioned rules are seemingly set to be further tightened in the coming days.
TSMC Has Already Received A U.S. Chip Waiver Extension
Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) has received a waiver extension from the U.S. to supply U.S. chip equipment to the company’s factories in China, Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said earlier today.
Last October, the Biden administration published a sweeping set of export controls, including a revised measure to cut off China from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. tools, vastly expanding the reach of a bid to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.
China Responds To New Restrictions Imposed By The U.S.
In response, China has published proposed security requirements for firms offering services powered by generative A.I., including a blacklist of sources that cannot be used to train A.I. models.
Generative A.I., popularised by the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, learns how to take actions from past data to create new content in the form of text or images based on that training. The requirements were published on Wednesday by the National Information Security Standardization Committee, which includes officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the police.
