Sunak pledges extra £100m to buy semiconductors as global AI race heats up August 20, 2023 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is dedicating a further £100m of public funds to procure more semiconductors to help Britain in the global AI race. Through ongoing negotiations with tech giants Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, the government is looking to ramp up their chip supply and establish a national “AI Research Resource”, after a recent report [...]
BAE Systems: Analysts give thumbs up to £4bn-plus Ball acquisition August 17, 2023 BAE Systems, the British defence giant, is set to buy US spacecraft manufacturer Ball Corporation’s Aerospace arm in a $5.55bn (£4.36bn) mega-deal. Shares in BAE slid down over four per cent on Thursday morning after it announced plans to “strengthen” its position as a global provider of space systems and defence technologies with the multi-billion [...]
Sunak’s global AI safety summit plans ‘vague’ despite provisional autumn date August 16, 2023 The government is yet to announce details for its global AI safety summit, which it is planning to hold in the UK later this year. In June, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK’s plans to host the first major global summit on AI safety in autumn this year. Speaking at London Tech Week, Prime [...]
Intel: £4.2bn deal to buy Israeli chipmaker Tower Semiconductor lapses on China stall August 16, 2023 Intel and Israeli chipmaker Tower Semiconductor have “mutually agreed” to call off their $5.4bn (£4.2bn) deal due to regulatory hurdles from China. In a statement on Wednesday, leading semiconductor manufacturer Intel said it will pay a termination fee of $353m to Tower after the merger failed to get approval from regulators by its 15 August deadline. [...]
Liberty Global inks €1.5bn deal with IT giant Infosys to scale up Horizon entertainment platform August 15, 2023 International telecoms firm Liberty Global (LG) has struck a €1.5bn (£1.3bn) deal to outsource its Horizon entertainment platform to Indian IT consultancy Infosys. The two corporate giants are poised to collaborate over a five-year period, with Infosys helping Liberty Global expand its Horizon entertainment platform, a TV and video streaming service used by over 10m. [...]
UK banks handling interest rates better than US counterparts – but are lagging on AI August 15, 2023 UK financial services execs are coping better with the bleak market conditions compared to their US counterparts, according to a study by New York-listed Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). While 91 per cent of financial services company executives in the US have expressed that soaring interest rates have been hampering their investments, only 78 per [...]
How ‘tourist’ venture capital investors scarpered and popped the valuation bubble August 15, 2023 A flood of so-called ‘tourist’ cash flowing into the venture capital industry has dried up over the past 12 months and helped trigger a plunge in the valuation of UK and European startups, new research has shown.
Most European financial services bosses wary of ‘unintended consequences’ of AI August 14, 2023 A new survey has revealed the extent to which chief executives of European financial services companies are concerned about the potential dangers of AI. The latest EY CEO Outlook Pulse Survey has revealed that 63 per cent of financial services bosses are concerned not enough is being done to manage the “unintended consequences” of artificial [...]
Apple supplier Foxconn cautious despite beating earnings forecasts August 14, 2023 Apple supplier Foxconn beat estimates for second-quarter earnings on Monday thanks to a booming artificial intelligence sector – but the firm retained a cautious outlook for this year due to global economic uncertainties. The world’s largest contract electronics maker downgraded its outlook for full-year revenue to a slight decline from a previous guidance of flat as it [...]
Anthropic secures $100m boost from SK Telecom for new AI venture August 14, 2023 Anthropic, the US artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI luminaries, is set to receive $100m (£78.7m) in backing from South Korean telecoms company SK Telecom (SKT). The cash injection will fund the creation of a multilingual large language model (LLM), jointly developed by Anthropic and SKT, according to an announcement made by the telecoms giant [...]