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Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
IBM CEO makes play for AI market and more US investment
May 6 (Reuters) - IBM (IBM.N), opens new tab on Tuesday made a play for more sales in the crowded artificial intelligence field, touting tools that could help customers manage a fleet of AI agents for their key business applications. In an interview, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said he saw an opening to provide software that integrates customers' AI agents from other providers -- among them Salesforce (CRM.N), opens new tab, Workday (WDAY.O), opens new tab and Adobe (ADBE.O), opens new tab -- and lets them build their own agents for untapped use cases, with IBM's help. "We help our clients integrate. We want to meet them where they are," he said, ahead of IBM's annual Think conference sessions on Tuesday. IBM's tools to help customers create their own agents, a process it said would take under five minutes, draw on the IBM Granite family of AI models, as well as alternatives from Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab and Mistral, Krishna said. Krishna said that customer interest in using different AI models for different tasks would build demand for IBM, which last month reported that it has built a $6 billion "book of business" on ChatGPT-like generative AI. A small cloud provider relative to Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, IBM has tailored its tech to clients wanting multiple clouds or their own infrastructure to manage their data. "All of these capabilities will only accelerate that rate of growth on those numbers," he said of IBM's new tools. IBM also announced in April that over the next five years, it would invest $150 billion in the United States, where it has manufactured mainframe computers for more than 60 years. It will make quantum computers in the United States as well, Krishna said. "Between mainframe, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we think there's going to be a very healthy market that behooves us to invest and lean in," he said. Krishna added that the technology focus and reduction in regulations from President Donald Trump's administration would set the economy up for growth.
Reuters
12-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Exclusive: Alphabet, Nvidia invest in OpenAI co-founder Sutskever's SSI, source says
SAN FRANCISCO, April 11 (Reuters) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab have joined prominent venture capital investors to back Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a startup co-founded by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever that has quickly risen to become one of the most valuable artificial intelligence startups months after its launch, a source familiar with the matter said. The funding illustrates renewed interest from the big tech and infrastructure providers in making strategic investments in the startups developing cutting-edge AI that requires massive amounts of computing power. Alphabet, which has its own AI models, earlier in the week announced a deal by its cloud computing arm to sell SSI access to tensor processing units (TPUs), its in-house AI chips. SSI, which sources say was recently valued at $32 billion in a round led by Greenoaks, is one of the highest-profile startups working on AI model research, thanks to Sutskever's stellar track record in predicting the next big thing in AI development. Like many of its competitors, it has a huge demand for chips. Reuters could not determine the exact terms of Alphabet's and Nvidia's investment in SSI. Spokespeople for all three companies declined to comment. The twin moves by Alphabet's corporate and cloud division with high-profile AI labs including SSI and Anthropic show the tech giant's evolving AI hardware strategy. Google originally reserved TPUs for in-house use. The deal to sell SSI chips in significant quantities to support its frontier AI research exemplifies the company's ongoing strategy to expand sales to external customers, Darren Mowry, a managing director in charge of Google's partnerships with startups, said in an interview with Reuters this week. "With these foundational model builders, the gravity is increasing dramatically over to us," he said. AI developers have historically preferred Nvidia's graphics processing units, which hold more than 80% of the AI chips market. But SSI is so far primarily using TPUs rather than GPUs for its AI research and development, two sources said. Google offers both Nvidia GPUs and its own TPUs through its cloud service. Its own chips are intended to excel at specific AI tasks and are more efficient than general-purpose GPUs. These chips have been used to build large-scale AI models, such as Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Anthropic, an OpenAI competitor that has received billions of dollars of funding from Google and Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab. Google and Nvidia also face a challenger in Amazon, which is building its own competing processors called Trainium and Inferentia. Amazon has said as far back as 2023 that Anthropic would develop its technology on those chips. The tech giant announced in December that Anthropic would be the first customer to use a massive supercomputer powered by hundreds of thousands of its own chips. In the meantime, Anthropic continues to use TPUs for its AI development and has not decreased spending on Google's chips, two sources said. It is increasingly common for major cloud providers to invest heavily in AI startups that not only build foundational models but also serve as significant customers of their infrastructure. For instance, Amazon and Google have both invested in Anthropic, while Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab has placed substantial bets on OpenAI. Nvidia has also backed OpenAI, as well as Elon Musk's xAI.
USA Today
10-04-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Exclusive: Chinese sellers on Amazon to hike prices or exit US as tariffs soar
Exclusive: Chinese sellers on Amazon to hike prices or exit US as tariffs soar SHENZHEN, China, April 10 (Reuters) - Chinese companies that sell products on Amazon AMZN.O are preparing to hike prices for the U.S. or quit that market due to President Donald Trump's unprecedented tariff hikes, sellers and the head of China's largest e-commerce association said. Trump said on Wednesday he would raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 125% from the 104% level already in effect, escalating the high-stakes confrontation between the two world's largest economies. "This isn't just a tax issue, it's that the entire cost structure gets entirely overwhelmed," said Wang Xin, the head of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, which represents more than 3,000 Amazon sellers. "It'll be very hard for anyone to survive in the U.S. market," she told Reuters, noting the tariffs could also lead to customs delays and higher logistics costs. "So for all of us in the cross-border e-commerce business today, this is truly an unprecedented blow." More: Trump pauses tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, ups China's levy to 125% Some sellers are looking to increase prices in the U.S. while others are looking to find new markets, Wang said, in comments backed by five Shenzhen-based Amazon sellers interviewed by Reuters on Thursday. China is home to around half of Amazon's sellers, with over 100,000 Amazon businesses registered in the southern city of Shenzhen alone, generating annual revenues of $35.3 billion, according to e-commerce services provider SmartScout. China also hosts the manufacturing bases of other major e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu. Imports and exports involving cross-border e-commerce were worth 2.63 trillion yuan ($358 billion) last year, according to China's State Council. No other country comes even close to U.S. consumption power, significantly limiting the production the rest of the world can absorb and raising the risk of intensifying price wars among Chinese exporters squeezing profitability. More: What Trump's 90-day tariff pause means for your wallet Of the five sellers who spoke to Reuters, three said they would look to raise prices for their exports to the U.S., while two planned to leave the market entirely. Dave Fong, whose products range from schoolbags to Bluetooth speakers, said on Thursday he has raised prices in the U.S. by up to 30% and would let inventory levels fall and lower spending on Amazon advertising fees, which once took up 40% of his U.S. revenue. "For us and anyone else, you can't rely on the U.S. market, that's quite clear," Fong said. "We have to reduce investment, and put more resources into regions like Europe, Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world." Brian Miller, who has sold on Amazon from Shenzhen for seven years, said he did not see a reason to develop new products in the current environment and anticipated he and other sellers would need to raise prices steeply when current inventories run out in one or two months. More: iPhones, Shein and toys among top-traded items potentially impacted by US-China tariff war Building blocks for children that sell on Amazon for $20 that cost his company $3 to produce would now cost $7 including the tariff. Maintaining margins would require raising the price by at least 20%, and prices for higher-cost toys might see 50% increases, he said. "I don't see a scenario, if things don't change, that serving the U.S. from China is viable any more and manufacturing that serves the U.S. will have to be transferred to other countries like Vietnam, or Mexico," Miller said. Given the severe impact on China's small enterprises and manufacturers, the tariffs risk leading to a rapid acceleration in China's unemployment rate, Wang said. ($1 = 7.3450 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by David Kirton; Editing by Jamie Freed)
Reuters
07-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
AI firm Anthropic announces 100 roles in Europe, new EMEA head
LONDON, April 7 (Reuters) - Anthropic, the U.S. AI company behind the Claude chatbot, said on Monday it would create more than 100 roles in Europe, including in Dublin and London, as it appointed Guillaume Princen as its Europe, Middle East and Africa head. The company, which is backed by Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, said the jobs would be in sales, engineering, research and business operations, mainly across its Dublin and London offices. Princen, who previously led Stripe's European expansion and was CEO of expenses management platform Mooncard, said the growth in Europe and the UK came at a critical moment when businesses needed advanced AI capabilities. Claude, which competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, has been deployed by companies such as ad group WPP, automaker BMW ( opens new tab and pharma firm Novo Nordisk ( opens new tab, Anthropic said. Anthropic raised $3.5 billion last month at a $61.5 billion post-money valuation in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and other new and existing investors.
USA Today
19-03-2025
- Automotive
- USA Today
Zoox, Amazon's robotaxi unit, recalls after NHTSA investigation finds braking flaws
Zoox, Amazon's robotaxi unit, recalls after NHTSA investigation finds braking flaws Show Caption Hide Caption GM gives up on loss-making Cruise robotaxi business General Motors is giving up on its Cruise robotaxi business. The auto giant said Tuesday that it would end development at the loss-making unit, which had once been a top priority. GM said too much time and resources would be required to make Cruise a success. AMZN.O self-driving unit Zoox agreed to recall 258 vehicles due to issues with its automated driving system that could cause unexpected hard braking, after a U.S. investigation, according to a company filing Wednesday. The recall affects vehicles equipped with self-driving software versions released before November 5. The California-based company said it has addressed the issue by updating the software on the company-owned vehicles. In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into self-driving Zoox vehicles due to unexpected braking leading to two rear-end collisions that injured motorcyclists. Autonomous vehicles: Tesla robotaxis by June? Musk turns to Texas for hands-off regulation Zoox said in its filing with NHTSA Wednesday that there were two issues addressed by the software updates: One if a bicyclist is in or near an adjacent crosswalk and the Zoox vehicle had a newly green traffic signal, the software may have reacted overcautiously and braked unnecessarily hard. The other is if a motorcyclist or bicyclist is rapidly approaching the rear of the vehicle, the software may have incorrectly anticipated a collision and braked unnecessarily hard. Zoox said there have been no additional occurrences and said it was agreeing to the recall "in light of NHTSA's position and in the interest of promoting transparency." Zoox has ramped up testing over the past year. Last June, the company announced plans to begin testing its autonomous vehicles in two new cities. Self-driving vehicle companies, including General Motors' Cruise GM.N and Google-owned Waymo GOOGL.O, are under heightened scrutiny following a 2023 incident where a pedestrian was seriously injured by a Cruise vehicle. Last year, Waymo recalled more than 670 self-driving vehicles after one of its driverless vehicles struck a wooden utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona. NHTSA in March 2023 opened a probe into the self-certification by Zoox in 2022 of a robotaxi without traditional driving controls that remains open. Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Elaine Hardcastle
