Trump calls on Big Tech to protect households from AI power costs Tech The White House has requested formal pledges from US tech giants that the swelling data centre boom will not drive up electricity bills for households, as concern mounts over AI’s energy demands. Donald Trump has approached behemoths like Microsoft and Alphabet, who have notoriously rallied behind his administration, about signing voluntary, non-binding agreements committing them [...]
Amazon and Alphabet’s AI spending faces billion-dollar litmus test Tech Investors will get a clearer read this week on whether Big Tech’s vast AI spending is turning into real returns, as Alphabet and Amazon report earnings amid heightened market sensitivity to cloud growth, margins and costs. Both tech giants sit at the centre of the AI boom, but recent volatility in US tech stocks has [...]
Amazon confirms 16,000 job cuts after internal email error Tech Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs globally, just hours after staff were mistakenly alerted to the redundancies in an internal email that was not meant to be sent. The latest round of layoffs follows the 14,000 corporate roles Amazon said it would axe in October, taking total white-collar cuts to around 30,000 in [...]
Big Tech steps up energy hiring as grid creaks under AI pressure January 14, 2026 Big Tech is increasingly recruiting energy specialists as access to electricity becomes a central constraint on the expansion of AI infrastructure. Energy-related hiring at tech firms rose 34 per cent year on year in 2024, according to Workforce.ai data, and has remained around 30 per cent above pre-2022 levels. The increase reflects growing demand for [...]
The Magnificent 7 in 2025 – and the survival of the richest December 31, 2025 In the spirit of end-of-year round-ups, it is worth scrutinising the fortunes of the so-called Magnificent Seven: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla and their dominance of global equity markets, which shows no signs of abating. Yet 2025 was a year that highlighted both the extraordinary influence and the vulnerabilities of these mega-cap [...]
‘High valuations alone rarely end a rally’ say UBS analysts on AI stock surge December 17, 2025 The rapid rise in the share prices of AI-adjacent stocks could continue well into 2026, analysts at one of Europe’s top banks have said. Valuations of top tech stocks have been running hot since the start of the year as investors rushed to build a stake in the burgeoning technology, with the US S&P 500 [...]
Big Tech cashes in on £1 trillion ad market boom December 11, 2025 The global ad market is booming, with spend forecast to reach $1.19 (£1.04) trillion in 2025, up 8.9 per cent from last year, according to WARC’s recent report. Growth is projected to accelerate to $1.30 trillion in 2026 and $1.40 trillion by 2027, a doubling in size since the pandemic. But while the market is [...]
How Natwest, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC fired up the FTSE 100 in 2025 December 9, 2025 If 2025 was supposed to be the year of the AI bubble, nobody told Britain’s banking giants. Amidst the noise of the US tech boom, the UK’s FTSE 100 banking heavyweights, Natwest, Lloyds, Barclays, and HSBC, have staged a formidable, if understated, rally. Lloyds delivered an astonishing 75.8 per cent gain, while Barclays surged 65 [...]
Big Tech pays up as Reeves keeps digital tax November 27, 2025 The Treasury slipped out its long-awaited review of the UK’s Digital Services Tax alongside yesterday’s Budget – and despite months of diplomatic sabre-rattling from Washington, the government is digging in. Big Tech, it seems, will still have to cough up. The report, required by legislation and published with all the enthusiasm of a rainy Tuesday, [...]
AI bubble fears: Which of the Magnificent Seven will pop? November 17, 2025 The spectacle of the so-called Magnificent Seven – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia – has been the defining market story of this generation. Synonymous with the AI boom, their collective valuation, now commanding a fifth of global markets, is underpinned by the fervent belief that they alone will win the AI arms [...]