(Reuters) -Britain’s competition regulator said on Tuesday it has launched a “Phase 1” probe into Amazon.com Inc’s planned $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot Corp, which makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner. The probe launch by the UK watchdog comes at a time antitrust regulators, including those in the U.S. and the European Union, have become increasingly…
By Foo Yun Chee and Supantha Mukherjee BRUSSELS/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The European Union agreed a 43-billion-euro ($47 billion) chip subsidies plan on Tuesday but the relatively modest budget, lack of a domestic market for cutting-edge chips and red tape could hamper efforts to catch up with the United States and Asia. The size of subsidies…
(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is developing its own artificial intelligence chip code-named “Athena” that will power the technology behind AI chatbots like ChatGPT, the Information reported on Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The company, which was an early backer of ChatGPT-owner OpenAI, has been working on the chip since 2019 and it…
(Reuters) – Electric-vehicle company Lordstown Motors Corp said on Tuesday production and deliveries of its Endurance electric pick-up truck resumed this month after a pause in February to address quality issues. EV startups have been struggling with dwindling cash balances and production challenges as access to capital tightens amid rising U.S. interest rates to tame…
ROME (Reuters) – British American Tobacco and Amazon are under investigation in Italy over what regulators say is potentially misleading advertising for the Glo Hyper X2 tobacco heater, the Italian Competition Authority said on Tuesday. “It is not made clear, or it is inadequately stated” in the advertising that Glo Hyper X2 is a nicotine-based…
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese automaker Nissan Motor aims to have seven electrified vehicle models by 2026 and 80% of its line-up to be electrified by 2030 in China, chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta said on the sidelines of the Shanghai auto show on Tuesday. He said that China had already passed the tipping point where…
By Hyunjoo Jin and Sheila Dang SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he will launch an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that he calls “TruthGPT” to challenge the offerings from Microsoft and Google. He criticised Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, of “training the AI to lie” and said OpenAI has…
(Reuters) -Alphabet Inc shares fell as much as 4% on Monday following a report South Korea’s Samsung Electronics was considering replacing Google with Microsoft-owned Bing as the default search engine on its devices. The report, published by the New York Times over the weekend, underscores the growing challenges Google’s $162-billion-a-year search engine business face from…
LONDON (Reuters) – As the need for climate action intensifies, governments and industries are exploring how to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in grants to companies that will capture and permanently store the gas using a process known as Direct Air Capture (DAC). Here’s how the…
By Kane Wu and Julie Zhu HONG KONG (Reuters) – State-owned China Mobile Ltd is exploring a buyout of Hong Kong’s leading telecoms company HKBN Ltd, four people with knowledge of the matter said, which could spark a bidding war for the firm currently valued at $1 billion. China Mobile in recent weeks sent a…
