Plus: The EU asks X to explain why it cut content moderation team.
| For May 08, 2024 |  |
| Here’s a look at today's tech briefing: - Microsoft to build $3.3B data center on Foxconn site.
- FTX plans to repay customers "in full."
- U.S. revokes Intel, Qualcomm's licenses to sell to Huawei.
- EU seeks info from X about cutting content moderation team.
- U.S. chip fab capacity to triple by 2032.
- OpenAI creating ChatGPT web search.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Microsoft is investing $3.3B to build an AI data center in Wisconsin, occupying the site of a mostly failed Foxconn factory. President Biden journeyed to Racine, Wisconsin, today to unveil the project and poke fun at former President Trump's hyping of the $10B Foxconn project in 2018. More: - Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn was set to build an LCD factory at the site, but the plans were later downsized and mostly unrealized.
- Microsoft bought some of the site for $50M in 2023.
- The company said it will invest $3.3B by 2026 in cloud and AI infrastructure at the site.
- The data center campus will create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs once built, the White House said.
Zoom out: - Microsoft said it also will develop an AI innovation lab at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a data center academy at the state's Gateway Technical College.
- The company will work with community partners to give generative AI training to more than 100,000 people in Wisconsin by 2030.
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| 2 | | FTX plans to fully repay, with interest, most customers affected by its 2022 collapse. Bankruptcy attorneys say they will collect up to $16.3B in assets for the failed crypto exchange, higher than the $11B needed to cover its debts. More: - Tuesday's repayment plan was described as a rare outcome among U.S. corporate bankruptcy cases.
- Customers holding assets up to $50,000 on FTX— or 98% of users—will receive 118% of their value at the time of bankruptcy.
- However, this means Bitcoin investors will take a hit. At the time of FTX's collapse, Bitcoin was worth $18,562. Under the plan, Bitcoin holders recover about $21,903 per coin, far less than today's value of $62,575.
- Once approved by a court, FTX will start distributing funds within 60 days.
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| 3 | | The U.S. revoked licenses for Intel and Qualcomm to sell laptop and phone chips to China's Huawei. As a result, Intel lowered its sales outlook for the current quarter. More: - While Huawei has been on a U.S. trade blacklist since 2019, a license from the Trump administration has allowed Intel to supply some processors to Huawei for laptops.
- As a result, Huawei recently launched an AI laptop with Intel's new Core Ultra 9 processor, angering some U.S. GOP lawmakers.
- House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) confirmed the Biden administration has now blocked all chip sales to Huawei.
- He said this is key to preventing China from developing advanced AI.
Zoom out: - In response, China's foreign ministry accused the U.S. of "over-stretching the concept of national security and abusing export controls to suppress Chinese companies without justification."
- Beijing has been pushing to switch from Western to domestic technologies amid U.S.-China tensions and the tighter U.S. tech export rules.
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| 4 | | The EU is seeking details from social media platform X about its decision to cut its team of content moderators. The request is part of the EU's first major investigation into X, formerly Twitter, launched in December under the bloc's new online content rules. More: - The European Commission is enforcing the Digital Services Act (DSA), its law demanding stricter online content moderation from platforms.
- The commission is concerned by X's March transparency report showing a 20% cut in content moderators since October.
- X cut its EU language coverage for moderation from 11 to 7 languages, the report showed.
- The EU is also asking for clarification on generative AI's risks to elections and other areas, a likely reference to X's Grok chatbot.
- X has until May 17 to provide the information.
Zoom out: - The larger probe into X focuses on illegal content, manipulative design, ad transparency, and data access for researchers.
- The EU has said it's concerned X violated the DSA for spreading disinformation about Hamas' attacks on Israel.
- The commission is also investigating Meta's Facebook and Instagram under the law.
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| 5 | | U.S. chip fab capacity is expected to triple by 2032, reducing U.S. reliance on East Asia, an SIA-commissioned study found. The Semiconductor Industry Association expects the U.S. to grow its global fab capacity share from 10% to 14% by 2032, fueled by the U.S. CHIPS Act. 
What the numbers show: The U.S. share of the world's fab capacity plummeted from 37% in 1990 to 10% by 2022. U.S. capacity is now expected to rise by 203% by 2032, bringing its share up to 14%. Meanwhile, China's capacity is projected to grow at only 86% through 2032, significantly less than its 365% surge from 2012 to 2022. Zoom out: The CHIPS Act allocated $39B in grants and $75B in loans to encourage chipmakers like Intel and TSMC to build and expand chip factories in the U.S. Without such incentives, the study found the U.S. fab capacity share could have fallen to 8%. Zoom out: The SIA, which pushed hard for the CHIPS Act, is touting its benefits but believes more funding is necessary given the heavy concentration of chip manufacturing in East Asia. "We've always said that the Chips Act was a strong first step, but we're going to need more to get to the promised land," SIA Chief Executive Officer John Neuffer told Bloomberg. | | | |
| 6 | | OpenAI is creating a new web-searching feature for ChatGPT that cites sources, according to Bloomberg. One version of the tool also shows relevant images alongside written answers to search queries. More: - A previous report by The Information said OpenAI is developing a web search product, which could use Microsoft's Bing.
- Some social media users have noted the existence of a web page search.chatgpt.com, which was temporarily re-routed to chatgpt.com over the weekend.
- ChatGPT has a limited online search feature, which sometimes includes citations, but it's only available to paying users.
Zoom out: - The feature would put ChatGPT in competition with Perplexity's AI-powered search engine and Google's Search Generative Experience, which has been undergoing limited testing.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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