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USA Today
17-07-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Trump joins tech leaders to launch $90 billion AI push at Pittsburgh summit
President Donald Trump joined executives from some of the largest U.S. tech and energy companies for a summit in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as the administration prepares more measures to power the U.S. expansion of artificial intelligence. Top economic rivals, the U.S. and China, are locked in a technological arms race over who can dominate AI as the technology takes on increasing importance everywhere from corporate boardrooms to the battlefield. The Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University brought tech executives and officials from top energy and tech firms, including Meta META.O, Microsoft MSFT.O, Alphabet GOOGL.O and Exxon Mobil XOM.N, to discuss how to position the U.S. as a leader in AI. Trump and the summit's host, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick, a Republican ally from Pennsylvania, highlighted some $90 billion in artificial intelligence and energy investments in the state. "This is a really triumphant day for the people of the Commonwealth and for the United States of America, we're doing things that nobody ever thought possible," Trump told the attendees. Big Tech is scrambling to secure enough electricity to power the energy-guzzling data centers needed for its rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. Companies began announcing their plans early on Tuesday, with Google inking a $3 billion electricity deal and CoreWeave CRWV.O touting a $6 billion AI data center. Artificial intelligence: Nvidia becomes first company to reach $4 trillion market cap. What are the top 5? Google said it secured as much as 3 gigawatts of U.S. hydropower in a deal between the tech firm and Brookfield Asset Management that includes initial 20-year power purchase agreements for electricity generated from two facilities in Pennsylvania. Asset management firm Blackstone's BX.N President Jon Gray also said they will announce on Tuesday a $25 billion investment in data centers and energy infrastructure in Pennsylvania. The CEOs that attended included Khaldoon Al-Mubarak of Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala, Rene Haas of Arm O9Ty.F, Larry Fink of BlackRock BLK.N, Darren Woods of Exxon Mobil, Brendan Bechtel of Bechtel and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The White House is considering executive actions in the coming weeks to make it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid and also provide federal land on which to build the data centers needed to expand AI technology, Reuters previously reported. The administration is also weighing streamlining permitting for data centers by creating a nationwide Clean Water Act permit, rather than requiring companies to seek permits on a state-by-state basis. Trump ordered his administration in January to produce an AI Action Plan that would make "America the world capital in artificial intelligence" and reduce regulatory barriers to its rapid expansion. That report, which includes input from the National Security Council, is due by July 23. Trump is set to mark that deadline with a major speech as part of an event titled 'Winning the AI Race,' organized by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and his co-hosts on the All-In podcast, a White House official told Reuters. U.S. power demand is hitting record highs this year after nearly two decades of stagnation as AI and cloud computing data centers balloon in numbers and size across the country. The demand is also leading to unprecedented deals between the power industry and technology companies, including the attempted restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania between Constellation Energy CEG.O and Microsoft. The surge has led to concerns about power shortages that threaten to raise electricity bills and increase the risk of blackouts, while slowing Big Tech in its global race against countries like China to dominate AI. Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Stephen Coates, Tomasz Janowski and Marguerita Choy
USA Today
30-06-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Canada scraps digital services tax to advance stalled US trade talks
OTTAWA, June 29 (Reuters) - Canada scrapped its digital services tax targeting U.S. technology firms late on Sunday, just hours before it was due to take effect, in a bid to advance stalled trade negotiations with the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump will resume trade negotiations in order to agree on a deal by July 21, Canada's finance ministry said in a statement. Trump abruptly called off trade talks on Friday over the tax targeting U.S. technology firms, saying that it was a "blatant attack." He reiterated his comments on Sunday, pledging to set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week, which threatened to push U.S.-Canada relations back into chaos after a period of relative calm. More: Trump says U.S. will end trade talks with Canada, could move deadline for other tariffs The breakdown in trade talks comes after the two leaders met at the G7 in mid-June and Carney said they had agreed to wrap up a new economic agreement within 30 days. Canada's planned digital tax was 3% of the digital services revenue a firm takes in from Canadian users above $20 million in a calendar year, and payments were to be retroactive to 2022. It would have impacted U.S. technology firms, including Amazon AMZN.O, Meta META.O, Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O and Apple AAPL.O, among others. Monday collection will be halted, the Canada's finance ministry statement said, and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will bring forward legislation to rescind the Digital Services Tax Act. "The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians," the statement said. "Canada's preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation." Stocks index futures rose after the news the digital tax will be rescinded and the bullish sentiment spilled over into Asian markets. Canada is the second-largest U.S. trading partner after Mexico, and the largest buyer of U.S exports. It bought $349.4 billion of U.S. goods last year and exported $412.7 billion to the U.S., according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The Biden administration had requested trade dispute settlement consultations over the tax in 2024, saying it was inconsistent with Canada's North American trade deal obligations. Canada had escaped Trump's broad tariffs imposed in April but faces 50% duties on steel and aluminum. (Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru and Promit Mukherjee in Ottawa; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry)
Express Tribune
30-06-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Canada drops digital tax on US tech firms
Canada scrapped its digital services tax targeting US technology firms late on Sunday, just hours before it was due to take effect, in a bid to advance stalled trade negotiations with the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump will resume trade negotiations to agree on a deal by July 21, Canada's finance ministry said in a statement. Trump abruptly called off trade talks on Friday over the tax targeting US technology firms, saying that it was a "blatant attack." He reiterated his comments on Sunday, pledging to set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week, which threatened to push US-Canada relations back into chaos after a period of relative calm. The breakdown in trade talks comes after the two leaders met at the G7 in mid-June and Carney said they had agreed to wrap up a new economic agreement within 30 days. Canada's planned digital tax was 3% of the digital services revenue a firm takes in from Canadian users above $20 million in a calendar year, and payments were to be retroactive to 2022. It would have impacted US technology firms, including Amazon AMZN.O, Meta META.O, Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O and Apple AAPL.O, among others. Monday collection will be halted, the Canada's finance ministry statement said, and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will bring forward legislation to rescind the Digital Services Tax Act. "The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians," the statement said. "Canada's preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation." Stocks index futures rose after the news the digital tax will be rescinded and the bullish sentiment spilled over into Asian markets. Canada is the second-largest US trading partner after Mexico, and the largest buyer of U.S exports. It bought $349.4 billion of US goods last year and exported $412.7 billion to the US, according to US Census Bureau data. The Biden administration had requested trade dispute settlement consultations over the tax in 2024, saying it was inconsistent with Canada's North American trade deal obligations. Canada had escaped Trump's broad tariffs imposed in April but faces 50% duties on steel and aluminum.
