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The Print
4 days ago
- Business
- The Print
5 yrs, 33 foreign trips: Modi's global outreach cost exchequer Rs 362 cr between 2021 & 2025
The three remaining foreign trips in 2025 include his visit to France and the US in February, a tour of Thailand and Sri Lanka in April, and another trip to Saudi Arabia at the end of April. The combined cost of these three trips was Rs 67 crore. The Prime Minister made 33 trips abroad from 2021 to 2025, and the Rs 362 crore account for foreign visits up to his tour of five nations earlier this month, the data furnished by MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh shows. The bills for three of Modi's foreign visits in 2025—to Canada, where he attended the G7 summit; to Brazil, where he participated in the BRICS summit; and to Mauritius—are not fully settled, so not not included in the calculations. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign visits from 2021 to 2025 cost the exchequer Rs 362 crore, which does not include expenses of his current trip to the UK and the Maldives or unsettled bills, the Minister of State for External Affairs of India informed the Rajya Sabha Thursday. Among these trips, his February tour to France and the United States incurred the highest costs this year. Starting 10 February and lasting till 12 February, his visit to France cost the exchequer Rs 25.59 crore. In the period, Modi co-chaired an Artificial Intelligence Action Summit. On 13 February, he visited the US, and the one-day trip cost Rs 16.54 crore. In France, this year, Modi had at least nine engagements, including the inauguration of the new Indian consulate in Marseille and a scheduled visit to Mazargues War Cemetery. He also had bilateral engagements with French President Emmanuel Macron. In the US, Modi had bilateral engagements with President Donald Trump, followed by dinner. He also held several meetings with American personalities, including Elon Musk, as well as officials. Modi travelled to the US in 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025, visits that have cumulatively cost Rs 74.41 crore. Among his 2025 trips, the visit to Thailand and Sri Lanka cost slightly over Rs 9 crore. On the other hand, his trip to Saudi Arabia alone cost the exchequer Rs 15.54 crore. Modi, however, had to cut short the trip to the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah due to the 22 April Pahalgam terror attack. He returned to India before completing the planned two-day visit. His 11 foreign trips in 2024 cost the exchequer Rs 109.5 crore and included visits to 17 countries. At Rs 15.3 crore, a three-day US tour, starting from 21 September 2024, was the most expensive that year. The PM also took his first foreign trip in his third term in 2024, visiting Italy for the G7 summit. It cost Rs 14.36 crore. Overall, 2024 was the second-most expensive year—in terms of the combined cost of his foreign trips—after 2025. In 2023, the Prime Minister travelled to 11 countries across six trips, costing the exchequer Rs 93.6 crore. In that year, Modi toured Japan, the United States, and France, spending Rs 17.1 crore, Rs 22.8 crore, and Rs 13.74 crore, respectively. In 2021 and 2022, the PM travelled to 14 countries across 10 trips. The two years combined saw the Centre pay out over Rs 90 crore. On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister visited Bangladesh, the US, Italy and the UK across three trips in 2021. In 2022, the PM made seven international visits, covering 10 nations, such as Germany, Denmark, France, Nepal, the UAE, and Indonesia. Over the years, international summits, including the 2021 G20 Summit hosted by Italy, the 2022 G20 Summit in Indonesia, and the 2024 G20 Summit in Brazil, have necessitated many such foreign trips. The PM, during these travels, usually visits another country or two, whenever possible. Other summits the Prime Minister regularly attends include the East Asian Summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings in Southeast Asia. In 2022, the former Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar—instead of the Prime Minister—represented India at these summits, then held in Cambodia. In 2023 and 2024, the PM travelled to Indonesia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), respectively, for annual summits. In 2022, Modi visited Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meet of heads of State. He did not attend its 2024 edition. India hosted the SCO in virtual format in 2023. (Edited by Madhurita Goswami) Also Read: India to resume visas for Chinese nationals as thaw continues ahead of likely Modi-Xi meet
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Brookfield Asset Management to invest $10bn in Sweden's AI Infrastructure
Brookfield Asset Management has announced an investment of up to Skr95bn ($10bn) to develop AI infrastructure development in Sweden. The investment will focus on a new AI centre in Strängnäs, Sweden, designed to support the country's national AI strategy. Brookfield has secured a land allocation agreement for approximately 350,000m², enabling the data centre site to expand its capacity from 300MW to 750MW. Brookfield described the facility as the first of its kind in Sweden and among the first in Europe. Brookfield Europe head Sikander Rashid said: 'We are pleased to extend our partnership with Sweden and support their ambitions to become a leading AI hub in Europe. 'To compete in the development of AI and realise its economic productivity, it is important to invest at scale in the infrastructure underpinning this technology.' Since entering the Swedish market in 2018, Brookfield has invested in telecom towers, renewable energy, social infrastructure, and logistics. Brookfield has allocated more than €100bn ($113.9bn) to digital infrastructure, renewable power, and semiconductor manufacturing worldwide. Earlier this year, the firm announced a €20bn ($22.7bn) infrastructure investment programme in France, including a €10bn ($11.3bn) commitment to the country's first AI factory, which will provide 1GW of new capacity and become Europe's largest AI infrastructure cluster. The investment, confirmed by a La Tribune Dimanche and news agency AFP, will primarily fund the construction of AI-focused data centres. The announcement forms part of a series of investments as world leaders and tech executives prepare for the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, France. Brookfield Asset Management, headquartered in New York, manages $1tn in assets across renewable power and transition, infrastructure, private equity, real estate, and credit. "Brookfield Asset Management to invest $10bn in Sweden's AI Infrastructure" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
CNN
08-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
Trump axes controversial Biden-era restrictions on AI chip exports
President Donald Trump will rescind a set of Biden-era curbs meant to keep advanced technology out of the hands of foreign adversaries but that has been panned by tech giants. The move could have sweeping impacts on the global distribution of critical AI chips, as well as which companies profit from the new technology and America's position as a world leader in artificial intelligence. 'I vocally opposed this rule for months, and indeed, the ranking member and I together urge the Biden administration not to adopt it, and I'm very pleased that President Trump has now confirmed he plans to rescind it,' US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during a Senate committee hearing to discuss AI regulation on Thursday. Cruz said he will soon introduce a new bill that 'creates a regulatory AI sandbox.' OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith and CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator testified during the hearing. The curbs, which were set to take effect on May 15 and were introduced during the final days of former President Joe Biden's administration, sorted countries into three tiers subject to specific AI-related trade regulation. Those in the top tier, which include the United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Germany and Ireland among other countries, face the least restrictions, while countries like China and Russia are in the tier with the strictest constraints. It's the countries that fall in between that have raised concern among critics like Microsoft. Microsoft's Smith wrote in February that countries that fall into this second bucket may look elsewhere for AI, potentially China. 'The unintended consequence of this approach is to encourage Tier Two countries to look elsewhere for AI infrastructure and services,' he wrote. 'And it's obvious where they will be forced to turn.' AI chip giant Nvidia has also publicly pushed back against the curbs. The Trump administration has pushed for less regulation around AI, with Vice President JD Vance saying that 'excessive regulation of the AI sector' could 'kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off' during remarks at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris. Trump is also pushing for the US to be a leader in both the AI industry and in technology manufacturing, frequently touting vows from TSMC and Apple to expand their US infrastructure as victories. The year kicked off with the arrival of Chinese tech startup DeepSeek's supposedly cheap yet sophisticated AI model, shaking both Wall Street and Silicon Valley and escalating the US-China rivalry in AI. It grabbed headlines in January for the company's claims that its R1 model could roughly match OpenAI's o1 model for a fraction of the price, challenging the notion that powerful performance required costly investments. This story is developing and will be updated.
CNBC
06-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
AMD earnings beat as overall sales surge by 36%
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, attends the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Feb. 10, 2025. Advanced Micro Devices reported first fiscal quarter earnings on Tuesday that topped expectations, and provided a strong forecast for current quarter revenue. Shares of AMD rose in extended trading more than 4%. Here's how the chipmaker did versus LSEG expectations for the quarter ending March 29: Earnings per share : 96 cents adjusted vs. 94 cents expected : 96 cents adjusted vs. 94 cents expected Revenue: $7.44 billion vs. $7.13 billion expected For the current quarter, AMD expects about $7.4 billion in sales with a gross margin of 43% versus Wall Street estimates for earnings of 86 cents adjusted on $7.25 billion in sales. AMD's forecast also included $800 million in costs that the company said it would incur because the U.S. limited the export of some of the company's artificial-intelligence chips during the quarter. The company reported net income of $709 million, or 44 cents per diluted share, versus net income of $123 million, or 7 cents per share, during the year-earlier period. Revenue grew 36% on an annual basis. AMD is the second-place server central processing unit vendor, behind Intel , but its Epyc line of processors has been taking market share in recent years. The company is also the closest competitor to Nvidia for "big GPUs," or graphics processing units. Those are the kind of chips that are deployed in data centers by the thousands for building and deploying generative AI. It did $5 billion in AI GPU sales in the company's fiscal 2024. Both are reported in the company's data center segment, which came in at $3.7 billion in sales, topping a StreetAccount estimate. Data center sales were up 57% on an annual basis, which the company attributed to demand for both Epic processors as well as its Instinct GPUs. The company's other major segment, Client and Gaming, includes chips for consumer devices such as laptops, gaming PCs, and game consoles. The overall segment rose 28% on an annual basis to $2.9 billion. AMD said that sales for its laptop and PC chips, which it calls client revenue, surged 68% year-over-year because of strong demand for chips called Zen 5 the company released last summer. Gaming sales, however, declined 30% on an annual basis, which the company attributed to a decrease in console chip revenue. AMD's embedded segment, which is mostly sales from the company's 2022 acquisition of Xilinx, declined 3% on an annual basis to $823 million. WATCH: Chip stocks fall as Nvidia, AMD warn of higher costs from China export controls
The Hill
18-03-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Vance huddles with VCs
'Our workers, the populists on the one hand, the tech optimists on the other, have been failed by this government,' Vance said during his keynote address to the American Dynamism Summit hosted by the Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) venture capital firm. 'Not just the government of the last administration, but the government — in some ways — of the last 40 years, because there were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization.' Vance argued the first conceit of globalization — describing the interdependence of the world's economies and services — was the assumption the U.S. would be able to separate the manufacturing of products from their design process. The vice president described how design firms work with their manufacturing partners and often share intellectual property, practices and sometimes employees as a result. 'Now, we assume that other nations would always trail us in the value chain. But it turns out that as they got better at the low end of the value chain, they also started catching up on the higher end. We were squeezed from both ends,' he said. The second conceit, Vance argued, was the idea that cheap labor is a positive thing for innovation. 'Cheap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it's a crutch that inhibits innovation,' the vice president said. 'I might even say that it's a drug that too many American firms got addicted to now.' Vance, a former venture capitalist, has served as one of the Trump administration's main messengers of technology policy. Tuesday's address built off his speech at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris last month. Vance on Tuesday echoed his push against excessive regulation, arguing tech companies must be able to 'build, build, build.'
