Latest news with #cloudcomputing
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
CoreWeave Commits $6 Billion for Data Center in Pennsylvania; Shares Jump
CoreWeave (CRWV) shares jumped on Tuesday as the artificial intelligence cloud computing firm said i
Fox News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
National security experts raise concerns after Microsoft program exposed as possible avenue for Chinese spying
A new ProPublica report accused Microsoft of allowing China-based engineers to assist with Pentagon cloud systems with inadequate guardrails in an effort to scale up its government contracting business, raising espionage concerns from national security experts. The report cited current and former employees and government contractors who worked on a cloud computing program deployed by Microsoft in 2016 that would allow the tech giant to sell its cloud services to the government, known as a "digital escort" framework. The security measure, meant to meet federal contracting regulations, was effectively a program that included a "digital escort" chaperone for global cybersecurity officials, such as those based in China, so they can work on agency computing systems. Defense Department guidelines require that people handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. According to sources who spoke to ProPublica, including some who had intimate familiarity with the hiring process for the $18-per-hour "digital escort" position, the tech employees being hired to do the supervising lacked the adequate tech expertise to prevent a rogue Chinese employee from hacking the system or turning over classified information to the CCP. The sources elaborated that the escorts, often former military personnel, were hired for their security clearances more than their technical abilities and often lacked the skills to evaluate code being used by the engineers they were supervising. In China, people are governed by sweeping laws compelling government cooperation with data collection efforts. "If ProPublica's report turns out to be true, Microsoft has created a national embarrassment that endangers our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Heads should roll, those responsible should go to prison and Congress should hold extensive investigations to uncover the full extent of potential compromise," said Michael Lucci, the CEO and founder of State Armor Action, a conservative group with a mission to develop and enact state-level solutions to global security threats. "Microsoft or any vendor providing China with access to Pentagon secrets verges on treasonous behavior and should be treated as such." "This is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse and arming the chickens with sticks in case the fox gets mad," Michael Sobolik, a Hudson Institute foreign policy senior fellow, added. "It beggars belief." Microsoft uses its escort system to handle sensitive government information that falls below "classified," which includes "data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin," ProPublica reported. At the Defense Department, the data is categorized as "Impact Level" four and five, which ProPublica reported includes materials directly supporting military operations. A Microsoft spokesperson defended the company's "digital escort" model, saying all personnel and contractors with privileged access must pass federally approved background checks. "For some technical requests, Microsoft engages our team of global subject matter experts to provide support through authorized U.S. personnel, consistent with U.S. government requirements and processes," the spokesperson added. "In these instances, global support personnel have no direct access to customer data or customer systems." The Defense Information Systems Agency's (DISA) public information office was initially unaware of the program when ProPublica began asking questions about it, but it eventually followed up to point out that "digital escorts" are used "in select unclassified environments" at the Defense Department for "advanced problem diagnosis and resolution from industry subject matter experts." Fox News Digital reached out to the DISA and DOD but did not immediately receive a response. In 2023, Chinese hackers infiltrated Microsoft's cloud servers and stole data belonging to senior U.S. government officials, including data and emails from the commerce secretary, the U.S. ambassador to China and others involved in national security work. Hackers were able to access tens of thousands of emails from the Defense Department. A postmortem from the federal Cyber Safety Review Board, which has since been disbanded, cited Microsoft security failures that allowed hackers to infiltrate the cloud. However, the after-incident report did not include any links to the "digital escort" program, according to ProPublica. Microsoft said in response to the recent ProPublica report that it considers "anyone" with access to sensitive government systems, no matter their location or role, a potential risk. "We establish layers of mitigation at the platform level with security and monitoring controls to detect and prevent threats. This includes approval workflows for system changes and automated code reviews to quickly detect and prevent the introduction of vulnerabilities," a company spokesperson told Fox News Digital. The spokesperson added that Microsoft adheres to the federal security requirements outlined by the Defense Department and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which was established in 2011 to address the risks associated with moving from entirely government-controlled servers, to cloud-based computing. "This production system support model is approved and regularly audited by the U.S. government," the spokesperson concluded. Still, if the ProPublica allegations are true, Lucci says the federal government should cease its work with Microsoft. "If these [ProPublica] allegations are credible, the federal government should never again rely on Microsoft to protect the data that keeps our men and women in uniform safe, especially given Microsoft's extensive record of being compromised by the CCP," Lucci said Monday. "Our military cannot operate in security and secrecy if a vendor repeatedly and intentionally invites the enemy into the camp."
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
CoreWeave, Once the Year's Hottest AI Stock, Takes Extended Tumble
For much of 2025, New Jersey's CoreWeave was hotter than a spicy rigatoni, its shares rocketing after one of the year's most anticipated initial public offerings. But shares in the Livingston-based AI-cloud computing firm tumbled 9% on Friday, a day after an even steeper 10% fall, which had to make investors feel a little bit like Jersey Shore residents as the annoying Bennys arrive from North Jersey and New York for their summer holidays. READ ALSO: Bitcoin Tops $120,000 With Congress Poised to Consider Key Crypto Bills and Inflation Data and Bank Earnings Kick Off a Crucial Test for Markets CoreWeave was once a bit crypto player, with its founders buying up graphics processing units in the late 2010s to mine for bitcoin at high speeds. But they took what turned out to be a serendipitous pivot after a Bitcoin crash in September 2018: They raised money, bought more GPUs from then-hard-on-their-luck crypto miners and started offering their beefed-up chip capacity as a cloud service. Wisely, the company also rebranded from the extremely New Jersey name Atlantic Crypto to the high-tech sounding CoreWeave. It now runs 33 data centers in the US and Europe, with some leased to single clients and others to multiple. Nvidia, now the world's largest publicly traded company with a $4 trillion market cap, became an early investor with a $100 million stake in 2023, which it upped by $250 million shortly before CoreWeave's March initial public offering. The backing of the Jensen Huang-led GPU juggernaut signaled a winner positioned at the heart of the artificial intelligence sector to investors. Shares ballooned after the IPO and peaked at $187, a more than 350% jump from their debut on June 20. Ever since, however, things have turned as downhill as the Kittatinny Mountains. Shares fell 23% last week and have mostly trended downward since the peak, despite business advantages: CoreWeave's relationship with Nvidia has resulted in the company being granted preferred access to the chip giant's GPUs. Last week, CoreWeave said it was the first company to make the power of the state-of-the-art Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition generally available on its platform — it was enough to move the stock up 1% on Wednesday before selling resumed to close out the week. In May, CoreWeave inked a $4 billion deal with OpenAI for access to its GPU power, on top of an existing $11.9 billion deal between the two companies. Meanwhile, CoreWeave last week announced a $9 billion all-stock acquisition of another crypto-miner-turned-data center firm, Delaware-based Core Scientific. The Downside's in the Details: Shares in Core Scientific fell 29% last week and are trading below the value of CoreWeave's offer, suggesting investors think CoreWeave's share price has room to fall more. The concerns aren't about the company itself as much as its overheated valuation. For example, analysts at Needham downgraded CoreWeave after the deal was announced: They reasoned that the benefits of 150 to 200 megawatts of capacity and $500 million in annual operating savings are already priced into the stock. The overwhelming majority of analysts tracked by MarketWatch recommend holding the stock, and their average price target of $95.50 implies a roughly 30% downside to the current $139.30. Profitability in the short term also seems out of the picture: Wall Street projects Coreweave to report a $236 million loss in the second quarter, narrower than its $315 million loss in the first quarter. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CTV News
12 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Oracle to invest US$3 billion in AI, cloud expansion in Germany, Netherlands
In this Monday, June 18, 2012, file photo, a man walks near the Oracle headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. (AP Photo / Paul Sakuma, File) Oracle will invest US$3 billion in Germany and the Netherlands over the next five years to bolster its infrastructure powering artificial intelligence and cloud offerings in the European market, the company said on Tuesday. The Austin, Texas-based company joins a growing list of technology firms that have pledged tens of billions of dollars to meet robust cloud computing demand as businesses increasingly deploy AI workloads. Last year, Amazon said it would invest 10 billion euros in Germany, bringing its total planned investments in the European country to 17.8 billion euros. Together, big tech companies are expected to spend US$320 billion on AI this year. On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers. Demand has been growing for the cloud and AI services offered by firms including Oracle, Microsoft and Google because they can replace or outperform software created by traditional IT firms, some analysts say. Oracle would spend US$2 billion in Germany and US$1 billion in the Netherlands, the company said in separate statements. Its shares rose two per cent in trading before the bell. They have risen nearly 38 per cent so far this year. The company expects its capital spending to surpass US$25 billion in fiscal 2026, with the bulk of the expenditure committed to data-center infrastructure, including for AI. 'As we bring more capacity online, our revenue and profit growth will further accelerate,' Oracle CEO Safra Catz said in June. Oracle has secured a deal with an undisclosed client that is expected to generate over US$30 billion in annual revenue for the company starting in fiscal year 2028, according to a regulatory filing last month. --- Reporting by Bipasha Dey, Dheeraj Kumar and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Anil D'Silva
Globe and Mail
13 hours ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
IBM vs. Amazon: Which Cloud Infrastructure Stock Offers More Upside?
International Business Machines Corporation IBM and Inc. AMZN are leading players in the global cloud computing industry. IBM offers cloud and data solutions that aid enterprises in digital transformation. In addition to hybrid cloud services, the company provides advanced information technology solutions, computer systems, quantum computing and supercomputing solutions, enterprise software, storage systems and microelectronics. On the other hand, Amazon Web Services ('AWS') is the world's most comprehensive and widely adopted on-demand cloud computing platform, offering more than 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers, including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises and leading government agencies, are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile and innovate faster. It reportedly offers the widest variety of databases that are purpose-built for different types of applications to enable subscribers to choose the right tool for the job. With a focus on hybrid cloud and AI (artificial intelligence), both IBM and Amazon are strategically positioned in the cloud infrastructure market and have the wherewithal to cater to the evolving demands of business enterprises. Let us delve a little deeper into the companies' competitive dynamics to understand which of the two is relatively better placed in the industry. The Case for IBM IBM is poised to benefit from healthy demand trends for hybrid cloud and AI, which drive the Software and Consulting segments. The company's growth is expected to be aided by analytics, cloud computing and security in the long term. IBM has extended its collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation NVDA to scale AI workloads and agentic AI applications. Per the latest agreement, IBM aims to launch a content-aware storage (CAS) capability for its hybrid cloud infrastructure offering (dubbed IBM Fusion) and expand its watsonx integrations with NVIDIA while introducing new IBM Consulting capabilities. The CAS capability will enable firms to extract the hidden meaning of unstructured data for inferencing to scale and enhance AI applications without compromising security. The integration of watsonx with NVIDIA Inference Microservices will offer firms greater accessibility to leading AI models across multiple cloud environments. IBM's watsonx platform is likely to be the core technology platform for its AI capabilities. This enterprise-ready AI and data platform delivers the value of foundational models to the enterprise, enabling them to be more productive. Despite solid hybrid cloud and AI traction, IBM is facing stiff competition from AWS and Microsoft Corporation 's MSFT Azure. Increasing pricing pressure is eroding margins, and profitability has trended down over the years, barring occasional spikes. The company's ongoing, heavily time-consuming business model transition to the cloud is a challenging task. Weakness in its traditional business and foreign exchange volatility remain significant concerns. The Case for Amazon Amazon is the leading provider of cloud infrastructure as a service to enterprise customers. The expanding customer base of AWS, driven by its strengthening cloud offerings, will continue to aid Amazon's dominance in the global cloud space. Amazon's strategic expansion of its Bedrock platform has positioned it as a frontrunner in the enterprise AI race. Amazon Bedrock has emerged as a game-changing, fully managed service that offers enterprises seamless access to high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies. The platform's recent developments, including automated reasoning checks and multi-agent collaboration capabilities, address critical challenges in AI adoption while opening new revenue streams for Amazon's cloud division. The company is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, including the development of custom AI silicon like Trainium 2, which offers 30-40% better price performance than competing GPU-powered instances. Amazon aims to extend AWS' AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities to facilitate improved decision-making. It intends to expand its global infrastructure for faster and more reliable service with low latency and maximum availability. From cloud-native applications and AI-driven solutions to edge computing and sustainability initiatives, AWS is likely to push the limits in the realm of cloud computing technology. However, the substantial capital expenditure required for AI infrastructure expansion may weigh on margins in the coming quarters. In addition, while AWS' growth remains impressive, the company faces capacity constraints in AI services that could limit near-term growth potential. Moreover, AWS has historically been less open to hybrid cloud than rivals like Microsoft Azure, which integrates well with on-premise environments via tools like Azure Arc. Data localization laws and stricter regulatory requirements create friction for AWS' global expansion, while stringent government scrutiny in regions like the EU and China adds compliance complexity. How Do Zacks Estimates Compare for IBM & AMZN? The Zacks Consensus Estimate for IBM's 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 5.5% and 6%, respectively. The EPS estimates, however, have remained static over the past 60 days. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Amazon's 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 8.9% and 12.7%, respectively. The EPS estimates have been trending northward over the past 60 days. Price Performance & Valuation of IBM & AMZN Over the past year, IBM has gained 52.6% compared with the industry 's growth of 7.2%. Amazon rose 16.9% over the same period. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research IBM looks more attractive than Amazon from a valuation standpoint. Going by the price/earnings ratio, IBM's shares currently trade at 25.05 forward earnings, significantly lower than Amazon's 33.38. IBM or AMZN: Which is a Better Pick? IBM carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), while Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Both companies expect their sales and profits to improve in 2025. Long-term earnings growth expectations for IBM and AMZN are 4.3% and 21.4%, respectively. IBM has a better price performance and attractive valuation metric compared with Amazon. However, Amazon has shown steady revenue and EPS growth for years, while IBM has been facing a bumpy road. With a VGM Score of A and a superior Zacks Rank, Amazon seems to be a better investment option at the moment. 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days Just released: Experts distill 7 elite stocks from the current list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys. They deem these tickers "Most Likely for Early Price Pops." Since 1988, the full list has beaten the market more than 2X over with an average gain of +23.5% per year. So be sure to give these hand picked 7 your immediate attention. See them now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Inc. (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Free Stock Analysis Report International Business Machines Corporation (IBM): Free Stock Analysis Report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA): Free Stock Analysis Report
