Category: Business

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled an expanded 14-count indictment accusing former Google software engineer Linwei Ding of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for.  Ding, 38, a Chinese national, was charged by a federal grand jury in San Francisco with seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.  Each economic espionage charge carries a maximum 15-year prison term and $5 million fine, while each trade secrets charge carries a maximum 10-year term and $250,000 fine.  The defendant, also known as Leon Ding, was indicted last March on four counts of theft of trade secrets. He is free on bond. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  Ding’s case was coordinated through an interagency Disruptive Technology Strike Force created in 2023 by the Biden administration.  The initiative was designed to help stop advanced technology from being acquired by countries such as China and Russia or potentially threatening national security.  Prosecutors said Ding stole information about the hardware infrastructure and software platform that lets Google’s supercomputing data centers train large AI models.  Some of the allegedly stolen chip blueprints were meant to give Google an edge over cloud computing rivals Amazon and Microsoft, which design their own, and reduce Google’s reliance on chips from Nvidia.  Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later when he was being courted to join an early-stage Chinese technology company.  Ding allegedly uploaded more than 1,000 …

PARIS — France hosts top tech players next week at an artificial intelligence summit meant as a “wake-up call” for Europe as it struggles with AI challenges from the United States and China. Players from across the sector and representatives from 80 nations will gather in the French capital on February 10 and 11 in the sumptuous Grand Palais, built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition. In the run-up, President Emmanuel Macron will on Feb. 4 visit research centers applying AI to science and health, before hosting scientists and Nobel Prize winners at his Elysee Palace residence on Wednesday. A wider science conference will be held at the Polytechnique engineering school on Thursday and Friday. “The summit comes at exactly the right time for this wake-up call for France and Europe, and to show we are in position” to take advantage of the technology, an official in Macron’s office told reporters. In recent weeks, Washington’s announcement of $500 billion in investment to build up AI infrastructure and the release of a frugal but powerful generative AI model by Chinese firm DeepSeek have focused minds in Europe. France must “not let this revolution pass it by,” Macron’s office said. Attendees at the summit will include Sam Altman, head of OpenAI — the firm that brought generative models to public consciousness in 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT. Google boss Sundar Pichai and Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis, who leads the company’s DeepMind AI research unit, will also come, alongside Arthur Mensch, founder of …

LONDON — Britain will become the first country to introduce laws against AI tools used to generate sexual abuse images, the government announced Saturday. The government will make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate sexualized images of children, punishable by up to five years in prison, interior minister Yvette Cooper revealed. It will also be illegal to possess AI “pedophile manuals” which teach people how to use AI to sexually abuse children, punishable by up to three years in prison. “We know that sick predators’ activities online often lead to them carrying out the most horrific abuse in person,” said Cooper. The new laws are “designed to keep our children safe online as technologies evolve. It is vital that we tackle child sexual abuse online as well as offline,” she added. “Children will be protected from the growing threat of predators generating AI images and from online sexual abuse as the U.K. becomes the first country in the world to create new AI sexual abuse offences,” said a government statement. AI tools are being used to generate child sexual abuse images by “nudeifying” real life images of children or by “stitching the faces of other children onto existing images,” said the government. The new laws will also criminalize “predators who run websites designed for other pedophiles to share vile child sexual abuse content or advice on how to groom children,” punishable by up to ten years in prison, said the government. The measures will be …

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — When Chinese startup DeepSeek released its AI model this month, it was hailed as a breakthrough, a sign that China’s artificial intelligence companies could compete with their Silicon Valley counterparts using fewer resources. The narrative was clear: DeepSeek had done more with less, finding clever workarounds to U.S. chip restrictions. However, that storyline has begun to shift. OpenAI, the U.S.-based company behind ChatGPT, now claims DeepSeek may have improperly used its proprietary data to train its model, raising questions about whether DeepSeek’s success was truly an engineering marvel. In statements to several media outlets this week, OpenAI said it is reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have trained its AI by mimicking responses from OpenAI’s models. The process, known as distillation, is common among AI developers but is prohibited by OpenAI’s terms of service, which forbid using its model outputs to train competing systems. Some U.S. officials appear to support OpenAI’s concerns. At his confirmation hearing this week, Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick accused DeepSeek of misusing U.S. technology to create a “dirt cheap” AI model. “They stole things. They broke in. They’ve taken our IP,” Lutnick said of China. David Sacks, the White House czar for AI and cryptocurrency, was more measured, saying only that it is “possible” that DeepSeek had stolen U.S. intellectual property. In an interview with the cable news network Fox News, Sacks added that there is “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” adding that stronger efforts are needed …

An estimated nine million Nigerians are deaf or have hearing impairments, and many cope with discrimination that limits their access to education and employment. But one initiative is working to change that — empowering deaf people with tech skills to improve their career prospects. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja. Camera: Timothy Obiezu …

Days after Chinese upstart DeepSeek revealed a breakthrough in cheap AI computing that shook the U.S. technology industry, the chief executives of Microsoft and Meta defended massive spending that they said was key to staying competitive in the new field. DeepSeek’s quick progress has stirred doubts about the lead America has in AI with models that it claims can match or even outperform Western rivals at a fraction of the cost, but the U.S. executives said on Wednesday that building huge computer networks was necessary to serve growing corporate needs. “Investing ‘very heavily’ in capital expenditure and infrastructure is going to be a strategic advantage over time,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a post-earnings call. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said the spending was needed to overcome the capacity constraints that have hampered the technology giant’s ability to capitalize on AI. “As AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we will see exponentially more demand,” he said on a call with analysts. Microsoft has earmarked $80 billion for AI in its current fiscal year, while Meta has pledged as much as $65 billion towards the technology. That is a far cry from the roughly $6 million DeepSeek said it has spent to develop its AI model. U.S. tech executives and Wall Street analysts say that reflects the amount spent on computing power, rather than all development costs. Still, some investors seem to be losing patience with the hefty spending and lack of big payoffs. Shares of Microsoft — widely seen …

A small Chinese company sent shockwaves around the tech world this week with news that it has created a high-performing artificial intelligence system with less computing power and at a lower cost than ones made by U.S. tech giants. Michelle Quinn reports. …

A report issued Wednesday by Google found that hackers from numerous countries, particularly China, Iran and North Korea, have been using the company’s artificial intelligence-enabled Gemini chatbot to supercharge cyberattacks against targets in the United States. The company found — so far, at least — that access to publicly available large language models (LLMs) has made cyberattackers more efficient but has not meaningfully changed the kind of attacks they typically mount. LLMs are AI models that have been trained, using enormous amounts of previously generated content, to identify patterns in human languages. Among other things, this makes them adept at producing high-functioning, error-free computer programs. “Rather than enabling disruptive change, generative AI allows threat actors to move faster and at higher volume,” the report found. Generative AI offered some benefits for low-skilled and high-skilled hackers, the report said. “However, current LLMs on their own are unlikely to enable breakthrough capabilities for threat actors. We note that the AI landscape is in constant flux, with new AI models and agentic systems emerging daily. As this evolution unfolds, [the Google Threat Intelligence Group] anticipates the threat landscape to evolve in stride as threat actors adopt new AI technologies in their operations.” Google’s findings appear to agree with previous research released by other large U.S. AI players OpenAI and Microsoft, which found a similar failure to achieve novel offensive strategies for cyberattacks through the use of public generative AI models. The report clarified that Google works to disrupt the activity of threat actors …

Washington — Just one week after its initial release, China’s new artificial intelligence assistant, DeepSeek, has shocked American financial markets, technology companies and consumers, rocking confidence in America’s lead on emerging large-language models. The tool caused a nearly $1 trillion loss in market value for U.S.-based companies with connections to AI. DeepSeek has beat out ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on Apple’s app store. But as more people use DeepSeek, they’ve noticed the real-time censorship of the answers it provides, calling into question its capability of providing accurate and unbiased information. The app has gone through a series of real-time updates to the content it can display in its answers. Users have discovered that questions DeepSeek was previously able to answer are now met with the message, “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.” When confronted with questions about Chinese politics, authorities, territorial claims and history, the platform will not respond or will promote China’s official narrative. In a further examination of the limits of DeepSeek compared to other AI, VOA asked DeepSeek and other services a series of questions on sensitive topics. Here are some of the responses: VOA: Describe the current state of U.S.-China relations. DeepSeek: U.S.-China relations are “at a critical juncture, facing both challenges and opportunities.” “China is willing to work with the United States to follow the principles of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation, to promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations, and to …

Conservationists in Kenya are using an artificial intelligence-powered application to monitor forest degradation and launch reforestation. The data collected by the application is also used to project the amount of carbon that can be stored by a growing patch of forest. Juma Majanga reports from Nyeri, Kenya. …

The multibillion-dollar Stargate Project announced by U.S. President Donald Trump will focus on building data centers with the goal of turning the U.S. into a computing power empire, according to experts. Some believe the significant boost in U.S. computational capabilities will widen the gap with China in artificial intelligence. “And this is an industrial buildout that, at least right now, China really is not in a position to do because of the [semiconductor] export controls that the United States is placing,” said Dean W. Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. However, there are signs that China is catching up with U.S. companies in key AI metrics by relying on open-source software. Click here for the full report in Mandarin. …

Chinese researchers backed by a Hangzhou-based hedge fund recently released a new version of a large language model (LLM) called DeepSeek-R1 that rivals the capabilities of the most advanced U.S.-built products but reportedly does so with fewer computing resources and at much lower cost. High Flyer, the hedge fund that backs DeepSeek, said that the model nearly matches the performance of LLMs built by U.S. firms like OpenAI, Google and Meta, but does so using only about 2,000 older generation computer chips manufactured by U.S.-based industry leader Nvidia while costing only about $6 million worth of computing power to train. By comparison, Meta’s AI system, Llama, uses about 16,000 chips, and reportedly costs Meta vastly more money to train. Open-source model The apparent advance in Chinese AI capabilities comes after years of efforts by the U.S. government to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors and the equipment used to manufacture them. Over the past two years, under President Joe Biden, the U.S. put multiple export control measures in place with the specific aim of throttling China’s progress on AI development. DeepSeek appears to have innovated its way to some of its success, developing new and more efficient algorithms that allow the chips in the system to communicate with each other more effectively, thereby improving performance. At least some of what DeepSeek R1’s developers did to improve its performance is visible to observers outside the company, because the model is open source, meaning that the algorithms it uses to answer queries …

LONDON/SINGAPORE — Investors hammered technology stocks on Monday, sending the likes of Nvidia and Oracle plummeting, as the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model cast doubts on Western companies’ dominance in this sector.  Startup DeepSeek last week launched a free assistant it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent players’ models, possibly marking a turning point in the level of investment needed for AI.   Futures on the Nasdaq 100 slid almost 4%, suggesting the index could see its biggest daily slide since September 2022 later on Monday, if those losses are sustained.  Those on the S&P 500 dropped 2%. Shares in AI chipmaker Nvidia fell more than 11%, rival Oracle dropped 8.5% and AI data analytics company Palantir lost 6.5% in pre-market trading.   DeepSeek, which by Monday had overtaken U.S. rival ChatGPT in terms of downloads on the Apple Store, offers the prospect of a viable, cheaper AI alternative which has raised questions about the sustainability of the level of spending and investment on AI by Western companies, including Apple and Microsoft.   From Tokyo to Amsterdam, shares in AI players tumbled.  “We still don’t know the details and nothing has been 100% confirmed in regards to the claims, but if there truly has been a breakthrough in the cost to train models from $100 million+ to this alleged $6 million number this is actually very positive for productivity and AI end users as cost is obviously much lower meaning lower cost …

Plastic waste accounts for 10 to 12 percent of all solid waste in Kenya, according to the United Nations Environmental Program. A Kenyan tech company is using plastic waste to print 3D models that help college students with their learning while reducing damage to the environment. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi. …

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was in talks with multiple people over buying TikTok and would likely have a decision on the popular app’s future in the next 30 days. “I have spoken to many people about TikTok and there is great interest in TikTok,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a flight to Florida. Earlier in the day, Reuters reported two people with knowledge of the discussions said Trump’s administration is working on a plan to save TikTok that involves tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to effectively take control of the app’s operations. Under the deal being negotiated by the White House, TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, would retain a stake in the company, but data collection and software updates would be overseen by Oracle, which already provides the foundation of TikTok’s Web infrastructure, one of the sources told Reuters. However, in his comments to reporters on the flight, Trump said he had not spoken to Oracle’s Larry Ellison about buying the app. Asked if he was putting together a deal with Oracle and other investors to save TikTok, Trump said: “No, not with Oracle. Numerous people are talking to me, very substantial people, about buying it and I will make that decision probably over the next 30 days. Congress has given 90 days. If we can save TikTok, I think it would be a good thing.” The sources did say the terms of any potential …

HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA — Looking for a quick fix for their fast-growing electricity diets, tech giants are increasingly looking to strike deals with power plant owners to plug in directly, avoiding a potentially longer and more expensive process of hooking into a fraying electric grid that serves everyone else.  It’s raising questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid. Federal regulators are trying to figure out what to do about it, and quickly.  Front and center is the data center that Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, is building next to the Susquehanna nuclear plant in eastern Pennsylvania.  The arrangement between the plant’s owners and AWS — called a “behind the meter” connection — is the first to come before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For now, FERC has rejected a deal that could eventually send 960 megawatts — about 40% of the plant’s capacity — to the data center. That’s enough to power more than 500,000 homes.  That leaves the deal and others that likely would follow in limbo. It’s not clear when FERC, which blocked the deal on procedural grounds, will take up the matter again or how the change in presidential administrations might affect things.  “The companies, they’re very frustrated because they have a business opportunity now that’s really big,” said Bill Green, the director of the MIT Energy Initiative. “And if they’re delayed five years in the queue, …

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — From his home in northern California, Nick Russell, a former farm manager, is monitoring the Los Angeles-area fires. He knows that about 600 kilometers south, people in Los Angeles are relying on his team’s live neighborhood-by-neighborhood updates on fire outbreaks, smoke direction, surface wind predictions and evacuation routes. Russell is vice president of operations at Watch Duty, a free app that tracks fires and other natural disasters. It relies on a variety of data sources such as cameras and sensors throughout the state, government agencies, first responders, a core of volunteers, and its own team of reporters. An emergency at his house, for example, would be “much different” from one at his neighbor’s house .4 kilometers away, Russell said. “That is true for communities everywhere, and that’s where technology really comes in.” Watch Duty’s delivery of detailed localized information is one reason for its success with its 7 million users, many of whom downloaded the app in recent weeks. It acts as a virtual emergency operations center, culling and verifying data points. Watch Duty’s success points to the promise that technologies such as artificial intelligence and sensors will give residents and first responders the real-time information they need to survive and fight natural disasters. Google and other firms have invested in technology to track fires. Several startup firms are also looking for ways to use AI, sensors and other technologies in natural disasters. Utility firms work with Gridware, a company that places AI-enhanced sensors on power lines to …

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order related to AI to “make America the world capital in artificial intelligence,” his aide told reporters in the White House’s Oval Office. The order sets a 180-day deadline for an Artificial Intelligence Action Plan to create a policy “to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” Trump also told his AI adviser and national security assistant to work to remove policies and regulations put in place by former President Joe Biden. Trump on Monday revoked a 2023 executive order signed by Biden that sought to reduce the risks that artificial intelligence poses to consumers, workers and national security. Biden’s order required developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government, in line with the Defense Production Act, before they were released to the public. Trump also signed an executive order creating a cryptocurrency working group tasked with proposing a new regulatory framework for digital assets and exploring the creation of a cryptocurrency stockpile. The much-anticipated action also ordered that banking services for crypto companies be protected, and banned the creation of central bank digital currencies that could compete with existing cryptocurrencies. The order sees Trump fulfill a campaign trail pledge to be a “crypto president and promote the adoption of digital assets.” That is in stark contrast to Biden’s …

London — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are facing fresh scrutiny from Britain’s competition watchdog, which announced investigations Thursday targeting the two tech giants’ mobile phone ecosystems under new powers to crack down on digital market abuses.  The Competition and Markets Authority said it launched separate investigations to determine whether the mobile ecosystems controlled by Apple and Google should be given “strategic market status” that would mandate changes in the companies’ practices.  The watchdog is flexing its newly acquired regulatory muscles again after the new digital market rules took effect at the start of the year. The CMA has already used the new rules, designed to protect consumers and businesses from unfair practices by Big Tech companies, to open an investigation into Google’s search ads business.  The new investigations will examine whether Apple or Google’s mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers give either company a strategic position in the market. The watchdog said it’s interested in the level of competition and any barriers preventing rivals from offering competing products and services.  The CMA will also look into whether Apple or Google are favoring their own apps and services, which it said “often come pre-installed and prominently placed on iOS and Android devices.” Google’s YouTube and Apple’s Safari browser are two examples of apps that come bundled with Android and iOS, respectively.  And it will investigate “exploitative conduct,” such as whether Apple or Google forces app makers to agree to “unfair terms and conditions” as condition for distributing apps on their …

Before he had been in office for 48 hours, President Donald Trump sent a clear signal that to outpace China, his administration will be pursuing an aggressive agenda when it comes to pushing the United States forward on the development of artificial intelligence and the infrastructure that powers it. On his first day in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed in 2023 by former President Joe Biden that sought to place some guardrails around the development of more and more powerful generative AI tools and to create other protections for privacy, civil rights and national security. The following day, Trump met with the leaders of several leading technology firms, including Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI; Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle; and Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, to announce a $500 billion private sector investment in AI infrastructure known as Stargate. “Beginning immediately, Stargate will be building the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI, and this will include the construction of colossal data centers,” Trump said in a media event at the White House on Tuesday. Specifically, Stargate will invest in the creation of as many as 10 huge data centers in the United States that will provide the computing for artificial intelligence systems. The first data center is already under construction in Texas. The massive private sector investment will create up to 100,000 U.S. jobs, the executives said. Keeping AI in the US “What we want to do is, we want …

Singapore — TikTok’s short-lived shutdown in the United States has opened a wider debate in other countries regarding access to popular social media platforms by children. TikTok went dark temporarily Sunday in the U.S. after a new law banning it went into effect. The law required TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the app’s U.S. operation due to national security concerns over its ties to Beijing. After his inauguration on Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the ban for 75 days, giving ByteDance additional time to find a buyer. The order provides relief to the app’s 170 million American users, many of them young adults. More than 60% of teenagers in the U.S. ages 13 to 17 use TikTok, with most of them accessing the platform daily, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The U.S. is not the only country looking to regulate social media and other platforms such as online gaming. While the reasons behind the restrictions vary, a growing number of countries already regulate technology or are proposing legislation to restrict its use. In Australia, a high-profile social media ban for young adults under the age of 16 will take effect at the end of the year, prohibiting them from creating accounts on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and Snapchat. The government said the ban was a necessary measure to protect children. “Social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters last …

Millions of U.S. TikTok users are looking to newly sworn-in President Donald Trump, who has given the app’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, 75 days to strike a deal with a U.S. buyer. …

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.  The new entity, Stargate, will start building data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum.  “It’s big money and high quality people,” said Trump, adding that it’s “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration.  Joining Trump fresh off his inauguration at the White House were Masayoshi Son of SoftBank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle. All three credited Trump for helping to make the project possible, even though building has started and the project goes back to 2024.  “This will be the most important project of this era,” said Altman, CEO of OpenAI.  Ellison noted that the data centers are already under construction with 10 being built so far. The chairman of Oracle suggested that the project was also tied to digital health records and would make it easier to treat diseases such as cancer by possibly developing a customized vaccine.  “This is the beginning of golden age,” said Son, referencing Trump’s statement that the U.S. would be in a “golden age” with him back in the White House.  Son, a billionaire based in Japan, committed in December to invest …

Washington — TikTok restored services to users in the United States on Sunday after briefly blocking access due to a U.S. law banning the social media platform based on national security concerns.  The situation played out amid the change in U.S. administrations as President-elect Donald Trump said he would seek to “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect.”  He also proposed, in a post on his Truth Social platform, for the United States to take a 50% ownership stake in TikTok.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld legislation passed by Congress that called for banning TikTok unless its China-based parent company sold it by Sunday.  The Biden administration had said it would not seek to enforce the ban in its final days in office, leaving the issue to Trump after he took office on Monday.  TikTok credited Trump as it announced the restoration of its services, saying Sunday on X that he provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”  Trump’s actions marked a reversal from his first term in office when he sought to ban TikTok in connection with concerns that the service was sharing the personal information of U.S. users with the Chinese government.  At a briefing Monday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China believes companies should “decide independently” about their operations and agreements.  “TikTok has …