Latest news with #CNBC
CNBC
an hour ago
- Business
- CNBC
Wizz Air exits Abu Dhabi
"The Middle East isn't an easy market to fly into," Mark Martin, CEO of Martin Consulting tells CNBC's Dan Murphy after low-cost Hungarian carrier Wizz Air announced it would exit Abu Dhabi.
West Australian
an hour ago
- Business
- West Australian
Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's ‘horrific' antisemitic posts
The European Union on Monday called in representatives from Elon Musk's xAI after the company's social network X, and chatbot Grok, generated and spread anti-Semitic hate speech, including praise for Adolf Hitler, last week. A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC via e-mail that a technical meeting will take place on Tuesday. xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sandro Gozi, a member of Italy's parliament and member of the Renew Europe group, last week urged the Commission to hold a formal inquiry. 'The case raises serious concerns about compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) as well as the governance of generative AI in the Union's digital space,' Gozi wrote. X was already under a Commission probe for possible violations of the DSA. Grok also generated and spread offensive posts about political leaders in Poland and Turkey, including Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Over the weekend, xAI posted a statement apologising for the hateful content. 'First off, we deeply apologise for the horrific behaviour that many experienced. ... After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot,' the company said in the statement. Musk and his xAI team launched a new version of Grok Wednesday night amid the backlash. Musk called it 'the smartest AI in the world.' xAI works with other businesses run and largely owned by Musk, including Tesla, the publicly traded automaker, and SpaceX, the US aerospace and defence contractor. Despite Grok's recent outburst of hate speech, the US Department of Defence awarded xAI a $US200 million ($305 million) contract to develop AI. Anthropic, Google and OpenAI also received AI contracts. CNBC
CNBC
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- CNBC
I'm in Norway — and EVs are everywhere. Here's what the country has done differently
OSLO, Norway — Electric vehicles are pretty much everywhere you look in Norway. The wealthy Nordic country, which is known for its massive oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, has long been blazing a trail in the transition away from internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. A steady stream of measures to support the uptake of EVs, from tax exemptions to reduced fees, has now put the country on the cusp of completely erasing gasoline and diesel vehicles from its new car market. For some of the country's major cities, about 30% of all passenger cars on the roads are now fully electric, according to Norway's EV Association (NEVA), which represents electric car owners in the country. The rate in capital city Oslo, meanwhile, is as high as 40%. It is perhaps no surprise then that standing at a crosswalk in Oslo's city center means waiting for a near-constant stream of fully electric models to come to a stop. "It is very visible. And I think some people don't even really realize how good this is because it has happened quite fast," Christina Bu, secretary general of NEVA, told CNBC during an interview at the association's office in Oslo. "The air is cleaner, it is quieter, and this is a change that hasn't really cost consumers that much. They actually love driving an EV and it works quite well," Bu said. Norway's sales of EVs have increased from less than 1% of total auto sales in 2010 to 88.9% last year — and this trend doesn't show any sign of slowing. Data published by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, which is responsible for the country's national road network, found that EVs accounted for more than 93% of the new cars sold in 2025 so far. By comparison, electric vehicle sales accounted for 15.4% of the total European Union market share in the first few months of 2025. Norway is not a member of the EU. Stateside, the share of new passenger EV sales hit 10% in 2023, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, up from 1% adoption as recently as 2017. Norway's State Secretary in the Ministry of Transport Cecilie Knibe Kroglund said the country's success in transitioning away from combustion cars has been driven by long-term and consistent policymaking. "We have a lot of tax incentives and user incentives, which are the most important things, and also infrastructure, of course," Kroglund said during an interview in Oslo. Some of Norway's EV incentives include a VAT exemption, discounts on road and parking taxes and access to bus lanes. The government has also heavily invested in public charging infrastructure, and many Norwegian households are able to charge their cars at home. The lack of an automaker lobby in Norway is also thought to have benefited the country's EV adoption rate over the years. NEVA's Bu said last week that the country of about 5.5 million people achieved a new electric milestone of 10,000 fast chargers nationwide. The roll-out of these charging stations has not been consistent across the country, however, with far more installed in the south compared to the far north. Nonetheless, the ever-growing number of fast-charging stations has defied concerns from critics who had previously warned that the power grid may not be able to cope. "Norway has had strong policies for many years. It's not just about tax exemptions [for EVs] but also higher and higher taxes on internal combustion engine cars. So, the last three years or so, the general purchase taxes have doubled – and it was already very high," NEVA's Bu said. "Cars that pollute are taxed out of business in Norway," she added. Norway's journey to becoming a global leader in EV adoption has not been without its critics, however. Some lawmakers have raised concerns about the fairness of its EV incentives, saying they can disproportionately benefit higher-income individuals and potentially come at the expense of other, more sustainable transportation options, such as walking and cycling. Norway, which is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2030, has also faced questions about its role in tackling the climate crisis. The country's economy is heavily reliant on fossil fuel revenues, creating something of a contradiction with its stated green ambitions. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas is the chief driver of the climate crisis. Looking ahead, Kroglund said the country plans to fully transition to electric city buses in 2025, while making heavy-duty vehicles 75% renewable by the end of the decade. "We have to acknowledge that transport has a role in climate change. I think 30% of pollution comes from the transport sector, so we had to do something," Kroglund said. "We have to move forward on other parts of the transport sector, like city buses. We have good numbers on that too, but the next level is heavy-duty vehicles," she added.
CNBC
2 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Inside Europe's billion-dollar wooden city
A huge, new city is being built in Sweden, but it's not being constructed using steel or concrete — its main building material is wood. Part of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, is set to become the "world's largest wooden construction project," according to its developer Atrium Ljungberg, which will invest 12 billion Swedish krona (about $1.25 billion) into the project. Sickla — an industrial area to the south of Stockholm's center once known for manufacturing diesel engines — is being redeveloped using cross-laminated timber, with the material being used in its buildings' core, floors and walls. The new wooden homes, offices, schools and stores, will be interwoven with older structures, some of which have been converted into libraries or cinemas, and the area will extend to 250,000 square meters, or around 2.7 million square feet. Håkan Hyllengren, head of business development at Atrium Ljungberg, said Sickla aims to be a showcase for sustainable development. The construction sector produces 37% of the world's carbon emissions, making it "by far" the biggest culprit when it comes to greenhouse gases, according to the U.N. Environment Programme. "We are really in a sector where we can make a change, if we can build differently and we can run the buildings in more environmental way," Hyllengren told CNBC via video call. Doing so also contributes to Atrium Ljungberg's goal of cutting its construction emissions to almost zero by 2030, a "bold and tough" decision by the company, according to Hyllengren. Studies show that mass timber buildings produce much lower emissions than those made from steel or concrete: a 2024 study by academics from the USDA Forest Service suggested that timber buildings have global warming potential (a measure of emissions) that is at least 81% lower than concrete, while the figure for steel was 76% lower. Nearly 70% of Swedish territory is made up of forests, and the country has used timber in construction for many years. "We have a close cultural connection to the forest," said Oskar Norelius, lead architect at White Arkitekter, which is working with Atrium Ljungberg on the project. "A lot of Swedes spend time in the forest to unwind and do different activities. But it's also a very big part of the economy, not just for construction, but also for energy, for pulp, for bio-based products," Norelius told CNBC by video call. But Hyllengren said wooden buildings are "usually a single house here and there," so creating an entire city from timber is new. Norelius designed Sara Kulturhus, a 20-story building in the north of Sweden made from timber that comprises museum and gallery spaces, an event hall, a library and a 200-room Wood Hotel. The project helped people in the industry see the potential for constructing larger structures in wood, which can be perceived as being difficult because of the rules around fire risk. "We've shifted the mindset in seeing that timber is a driver for architecture rather than a restraint," Norelius said. The first part of the development, a residential area of 80 apartments named Kvarter 7, will be completed by the end of 2025, while White Arkitekter is working on designs for Sickla's first office block. The project also has planning permission for dual-use buildings, meaning that homes could become offices in future, giving the buildings a "second life," Norelius said. Around 2,000 more apartments are planned for 2027. Beyond the sustainability of building in timber, people seem to love wood. Visitors to Sara Kulturhus have been seen hugging its wooden columns, something that has the potential to happen in Sickla, Norelius said. The structure of the buildings will be visible, including pipes and ventilation equipment, which means there may be more wooden columns that people could "lean on, or touch," he said. Like other European countries, Sweden suffered a real estate crash as interest rates rose in 2023, and Hyllengren said there is a "feeling it's starting to change." Given Sickla's transport links — trains and trams run to central Stockholm and the city's subway will be extended to the development — Hyllengren said he is optimistic about the future. While a floor slab of concrete is about 20% cheaper than one made from timber, Hyllengren said building from wood is much faster than using traditional methods, meaning apartments and offices are ready to rent earlier. And the pleasing aesthetics of wood might also lead to financial benefits for the developer. "We believe what we create is something that will be attractive — and we'll get higher rental income for it," Hyllengren said.
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Business Standard
4 hours ago
- Automotive
- Business Standard
Trump admin to allow resumption of H20 AI chip sales to China: Nvidia
Nvidia on Tuesday announced that the US government has assured it of being granted licences to resume the sale of its H20 general processing units to clients in China, the company said in a statement. Sharing an update with its customers, Nvidia's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jensen Huang said that the company has started filling out applications to sell the NVIDIA H20 GPU again, adding that the company hopes to resume the deliveries soon. This comes after the sale of its H20 chips was halted in April and were designed specifically to bypass the US export controls targeting China. The development comes amid a preliminary trade deal between the US and China last month, which sought China to resume the exports of rare earth and the US to relax its export curbs, CNBC reported. The announcement of a potential policy reversal comes as Huang met with US President Donald Trump last week and policymakers in Washington.
