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Boston Globe
5 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Suffolk Sheriff Steve Tompkins due for arraignment Thursday
Weinberg is a longtime Boston-area defense attorney who's been involved in high-profile cases, including handling the appeals process for Karen Read, the Mansfield woman ultimately acquitted of the killing of her boyfriend. Tompkins has hired Weinberg rather than requesting the court appoint an attorney, according to court filings. Arraignments are typically short court proceedings, in which the defendant enters a plea of not guilty and a judge makes a decision on setting bail. Two weeks ago, Tompkins appeared in federal court in Florida, where he turned himself in after the FBI sought him at his Hyde Park home. Then, a judge released him on $200,000 bail with orders to return to Massachusetts, where his case would proceed. Advertisement Tompkins has served as sheriff since 2013, overseeing the Nashua Street and South Bay jails in Boston and other detention operations in Suffolk County. He was initially appointed sheriff by former governor Deval Patrick, and then won the seat in the following election. Advertisement He has been ubiquitous in state and local Democratic politics, offering up At times over his tenure, his influence-peddling has run afoul of the law. He paid fines in 2015 and 2023 after admitting to noncriminal ethics violations. Now he is charged with pressuring owners of the cannabis company Ascend Mass by threatening to revoke a partnership between the sheriff's office and the company, which was central to its licensing application. In Massachusetts, cannabis companies applying for annual licenses need to show how their business will have a 'positive impact,' especially on communities adversely affected by the nation's war on drugs. For Ascend, the answer ran through Tompkins, with whom they partnered on a program to train and hire people recently released from jail. This partnership gave Tompkins leverage; without it, according to prosecutors, company officials feared they would not have their license renewed to operate a shop downtown. Prosecutors allege that in addition to forcing for $50,000 before the venture went public, Tompkins subsequently demanded he be repaid after the value of his shares sank below his initial investment. Tompkins had not signed any agreement that would have guaranteed a refund on his initial investment, according to the indictment, but the official paid him back anyway. Tompkins has not resigned nor given any indication that he plans to in light of the criminal charges, though Advertisement The only entities with Any elected official sentenced to state or federal prison time is deemed to have vacated their seat, according to state law. If Tompkins is convicted, each charge of extortion carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison. Sean Cotter can be reached at
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Suffolk Sheriff Steven Tompkins's arraignment on extortion charges pushed to Thursday
Tompkins, a prominent Democrat in Boston political circles, was arrested earlier this month in Florida for allegedly pressuring the company under the threat of revoking a partnership with his office that was central to its licensing application. Prosecutors allege that in addition to forcing a company official to sell him stock for $50,000 before the venture went public, Tompkins subsequently demanded he be repaid after the value of his shares sank below his initial investment. Advertisement Tompkins has served as sheriff since 2013, overseeing the Nashua Street and South Bay jails in Boston and other detention operations in Suffolk County. He was initially appointed sheriff by former governor Deval Patrick, and then won the seat in the following election. He has been very active in local Democratic politics, offering up Tompkins has not resigned nor given any indication that he plans to in light of the criminal charges, though Advertisement Before he was named sheriff, Tompkins worked as the department's chief of external affairs and created the Common Ground Institute, a vocational training program for inmates about to be released, as well as The Choice Program, which sends correctional officers into Boston's public schools. As part of the legislation that shaped the cannabis industry in Massachusetts, the state requires businesses, as part of the licensing process, to lay out plans to promote diversity and invest in individuals and communities disproportionately affected by previous cannabis prohibitions. Federal prosecutors allege a cannabis company hoping to open in Boston sought to meet that licensing requirement through an agreement with Tompkins to train and hire people recently released from jail. But Tompkins used that partnership to extort the stock deal, prosecutors allege. The indictment of Tompkins didn't name the cannabis company. But a person familiar with the matter confirmed it is Ascend Mass, part of Ascend Cannabis, a multistate retailer whose local operations were once run by Tompkins's close friend Andrea Cabral. Cabral has since left the company. She was previously Suffolk County sheriff, and Tompkins was her top aide. When she was appointed to a statewide post as public safety secretary in late 2012, Patrick tapped Tompkins as her successor. Cabral is not the Ascend official who was allegedly extorted, according to the source, who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about it publicly. Ascend continues to operate the store in question on Friend Street in Boston, which was relicensed most recently in November, according to the state's Cannabis Control Commission. Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report. Advertisement Travis Andersen can be reached at
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Seven months after stunning the world, China's DeepSeek AI leans on US technology for critical upgrade
China's Revolutionary DeepSeek Turns to American Hardware for Upgrade- China's much-hyped DeepSeek project, once touted as a breakthrough in homegrown AI independence, has quietly circled back to American hardware after its gamble on Huawei's Ascend chips fell short. Engineers found the Chinese processors too unstable for large-scale training of the company's new R2 model, forcing DeepSeek to rely again on Nvidia GPUs — the very technology U.S. export rules were meant to keep out of Beijing's reach. The move underscores a hard truth: while China can innovate at the software and algorithmic level, its AI future still hinges on semiconductors designed in California. This reliance not only exposes the fragility of China's self-reliance narrative but also raises pressing questions about how far Washington's export curbs can really go in controlling the global AI race. DeepSeek's Huawei gamble falters When DeepSeek announced it would train its next-generation R2 model on Huawei's Ascend GPUs , the move was hailed in Beijing as proof that China could shed its reliance on American semiconductors. The plan didn't last long. By June 2025, engineers inside DeepSeek privately acknowledged that Ascend chips failed to deliver the consistency required for massive-scale training. Sources familiar with the project told the Financial Times (July 2025) that the Ascend processors suffered from unstable performance, weaker interconnect bandwidth, and a lack of mature software tools — all critical weaknesses in an era when model training can consume tens of thousands of GPUs simultaneously. Live Events The result: Huawei's silicon is still being used, but only for inference workloads (running the trained model), while training has quietly shifted back to Nvidia hardware, the very dependency China's AI sector was under political pressure to escape. Why Nvidia still dominates China's AI race Despite U.S. export controls, Nvidia's grip remains unshaken. Even China's most sophisticated AI companies struggle to replicate the CUDA software ecosystem that Nvidia has spent nearly two decades refining. Training a model like DeepSeek's R2 — rumored to involve over 700 billion parameters — is less about raw chip speed and more about orchestration, driver support, and optimization libraries. In practice, Chinese engineers describe Huawei's platform as 'running a marathon in sandals while Nvidia wears carbon-fiber spikes.' That blunt analogy, shared by one engineer who worked on both setups, captures the gap. Hardware is only half the battle; software maturity is the other half, and Nvidia still leads. How DeepSeek got its Nvidia chips Here's the thorny part. U.S. rules technically bar Nvidia from selling its most advanced chips, such as the A100 and H100, directly to China. Yet congressional investigators revealed in April 2025 that DeepSeek somehow amassed tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs through shell distributors in Singapore and the Middle East. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill now accuse DeepSeek of sidestepping export rules, with several Republicans calling for tighter scrutiny. Nvidia, for its part, points to its H20 line of 'downgraded' GPUs — designed to meet U.S. restrictions — which it can legally export. But multiple industry insiders note that DeepSeek's scale suggests it also tapped into backchannels to acquire restricted units. This dual reality highlights Washington's dilemma: export bans slow China, but they don't stop it. What this means for China's AI ambitions DeepSeek's return to Nvidia exposes the contradiction at the heart of Beijing's technology push. On one hand, China is pouring billions into domestic chip design and production. On the other, its most visible AI breakthrough still leans on American silicon . For policymakers in Washington, this is both reassurance and alarm. Reassurance, because it confirms that U.S. technology remains indispensable. Alarm, because despite layers of export controls, Chinese companies are still finding ways to secure the hardware. For Chinese AI startups, the lesson is more pragmatic: innovation at the algorithmic level — as DeepSeek demonstrated with its mixture-of-experts architecture that slashed training costs — can stretch limited resources, but it cannot fully replace cutting-edge chips. The bigger picture: an AI arms race with supply chain chokepoints The DeepSeek saga isn't just about one company's hardware choices. It underscores a larger geopolitical reality: the global AI race hinges not only on data and talent but on who controls the chip supply chain . China's vulnerability: Without access to advanced lithography tools (still dominated by ASML in the Netherlands), domestic fabs cannot produce chips on par with Nvidia's. U.S. leverage: Washington's chip restrictions remain the single most effective lever in slowing Chinese AI ambitions. Market implications: Nvidia stock surged past a $3 trillion market cap in June 2025 , driven in part by relentless demand from both Western hyperscalers and Chinese firms willing to pay premiums through gray channels. As one Beijing-based venture capitalist told: 'Every AI startup pitch deck begins with the same line — how many Nvidia GPUs they can get. Nothing else matters until that question is answered.' China's DeepSeek may represent cutting-edge algorithmic ingenuity, but its reliance on American hardware reveals the fragile foundation of the country's AI push. For now, the future of Chinese AI still runs, quite literally, on Nvidia. The critical question going forward: can Beijing close the gap before Washington tightens controls further? Or will the world's most ambitious AI firms continue to operate in a paradox — building revolutionary software on hardware they cannot officially buy? Either way, the story of DeepSeek's pivot back to U.S. chips is a reminder that in the AI arms race, semiconductors remain the real battlefield. FAQs: Q1. Why is China's DeepSeek using American Nvidia hardware instead of Huawei chips? Because Huawei's Ascend chips were unstable for large-scale AI training, forcing DeepSeek to return to Nvidia GPUs. Q2. What does DeepSeek's reliance on Nvidia mean for China's AI future? It shows China's AI breakthroughs still depend heavily on U.S. semiconductors despite domestic innovation efforts.
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
In raising campaign cash, Sheriff Steve Tompkins relies on frequent donors: his employees
Advertisement Current and former employees at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, as well as their family members, have accounted for one of every two donations Tompkins has taken in that time frame, according to a Globe analysis of campaign finance data. All told, they've contributed nearly $54,000 in that time, the Globe found — making up 51 percent of the cash Tompkins raised from donors. Tompkins pulled in the donations during a relatively quiet time for campaigning, after his 2022 reelection and years before his seat is back on the ballot in 2028. Elected officials can legally take contributions from those they oversee. But doing so — and in such large amounts — creates the perception that employees are expected to give and, at its core, employee fund-raising can appear inherently coercive, experts say. Advertisement Tompkins's haul of employee donations also goes far beyond what most other Massachusetts sheriffs collected from their subordinates, and continues a practice that investigators two decades ago said should be banned at the Suffolk County department when it sat under a different cloud of controversy. Tompkins did not respond to a request for comment, nor did aides in the sheriff's department. A woman who answered the phone at Tompkins's office said he was not in on Friday, the deadline for when he was supposed to report to federal court in Boston. He has not said whether he plans to step down from his seat, though he has Federal prosecutors charged Tompkins this month with pressuring a cannabis company to sell him stock before it went public. Prosecutors said he then demanded a refund on his $50,000 as his campaign costs mounted ahead of his 2022 reelection fight. The cannabis executive identified as 'Individual A' in the indictment is longtime Tompkins was arrested on Aug. 8 in Florida and is slated to be arraigned in federal court in Boston on Wednesday. In Massachusetts, cannabis companies applying for annual licenses need to show how their business will have a 'positive impact.' For Ascend, the answer ran through Tompkins, with whom they This partnership gave Tompkins leverage, according to prosecutors, who said that without his cooperation on the hiring program, company officials feared they would not have their license to operate a shop in downtown Boston renewed. Advertisement Tompkins ultimately did get his $50,000 back, which prosecutors said was paid out in five installments, the first of which — for $12,500 — he received in May 2022. Days later, state records show, Tompkins lent his campaign $20,000, one in a series of loans eventually totaling $67,500 that he gave his campaign over a roughly 14-month span around the election. Tompkins held off a Democratic primary challenger in the fall of 2022 before running unopposed for a six-year term that November. For all of 2022, he reported raising $197,216, about 30 percent of which was money he personally loaned his campaign. His campaign reported spending $204,434 in that year. Tompkins has personally recouped most of those loans, paying himself back $44,500 from his campaign account since May 2023. Collectively, the repayments are, by far, his biggest campaign expense since 2023. He's also reported making monthly payments to MLM Strategies, totaling nearly $28,000, for consulting costs. The single largest expense was a $15,000 payment he made to the law firm CEK Boston in April 2023, weeks after he admitted to violating state law by creating a no-bid job for his niece. Tompkins previously disclosed paying CEK Boston for legal services for a 'state ethics commission case.' Donations from his employees helped provide the cash for those costs along the way. Tompkins took contributions from members of his executive team, correction officers, and executive assistants at the department, records show, some for as large as the maximum $1,000 and others for as little as $20. All told, he's raised nearly $106,000 since January 2023, excluding money he loaned his campaign, with employees accounting for a little more than half of that. Advertisement Christine Cole, a Boston-based public safety consultant, said that while such contributions aren't illegal, 'is it the kind of look you want to give?' 'When the boss is willing to accept those campaign dollars, it suggests a blind loyalty,' she said. David Hopkins, a Boston College political science professor, said the high share of employee donations likely reflects a combination of factors, though one possibility is that there's an expectation to give to their boss's campaign. 'Which of course would be ethically dubious, one might say,' Hopkins said. Union officials at AFSCME Local 419, which represents correction officers at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, did not respond to a request for comment about workers' donations to Tompkins. Jonathan Corey, president of Local 419 said in a previous statement after Tompkins was indicted that union officials 'are committed to withholding assumptions or definitive positions until all relevant details have been thoroughly reviewed.' Tompkins is it found under his administration. Tompkins himself faced, Advertisement Public employees, including elected officials, are Most of the state's other 13 elected sheriffs took a smattering of donations from those who identified themselves as department employees; some did not accept any donations from employees. The only sheriff to rely on a greater share of donations from those under him than Tompkins was Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, the Globe found. Since January 2023, McDonald has taken more than $145,000 in donations from those who work, or recently worked, under him, accounting for 64 percent of what the four-term Republican raised in that time. McDonald said in an interview that he does not solicit donations from his employees, and, given many are unionized, 'no matter who the sheriff is, their jobs are secure.' 'The stake they have in it is that they like the way that the agency is run and they support me,' McDonald said. 'I would prefer not to take donations from anyone if I can avoid it. . . . There are rules that preclude solicitation of state employees, and I agree with that. The fact that a good number of my employees — union and nonunion — have chosen to support me, I'm very grateful for that." Democrats and other elected officials, McDonald said Friday that he likes Tompkins personally, but would not directly say whether Tompkins should step down. But he did say that 'simply having charges like this' would cause what he called 'leadership issues' for anyone in elected office. Advertisement 'If I was in a situation where I felt my ability to lead the agency and serve the community was compromised, I would leave,' he said. Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Matt Stout can be reached at
Business Upturn
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Upturn
Andersen Consulting Expands Risk Management Capabilities Through Nisos
By Business Wire India Published on August 16, 2025, 12:30 IST Business Wire India Andersen Consulting strengthens its capabilities through a Collaboration Agreement with Nisos, a U.S.-based human risk management firm that delivers intelligence-led solutions to identify and mitigate emerging threats targeting people, operations, and organizational integrity. Founded in 2015, Nisos specializes in human risk management, offering a suite of services that includes insider threat intelligence, executive digital protection, employment fraud protection, third-party assessments, event-driven investigations, and threat monitoring. The firm's open-source intelligence solutions identify adversarial behavior and deliver actionable insights through a combination of white-glove services and proprietary human risk management platform, Ascend. 'Nisos was founded on the belief that human-driven threats require tailored, intelligence-led solutions,' said CEO of Nisos Ryan LaSalle. 'Our team brings together expertise from national security, law enforcement, and private sector intelligence to surface risks before they escalate. Becoming a collaborating firm of Andersen Consulting allows us to continue empowering organizations to act decisively in the face of emerging human risk, and protect their people and business at scale.' 'Nisos offers a depth of experience in threat attribution and human risk intelligence that is rare in the market,' said Mark L. Vorsatz, global chairman and CEO of Andersen. 'Their approach enhances our ability to support clients navigating security, legal, and reputational risks with precision and speed, adding a valuable layer of insight to our global consulting platform.' Andersen Consulting is a global consulting practice providing a comprehensive suite of services spanning corporate strategy, business, technology, and AI transformation, as well as human capital solutions. Andersen Consulting integrates with the multidimensional service model of Andersen Global, delivering world-class consulting, tax, legal, valuation, global mobility, and advisory expertise on a global platform with more than 20,000 professionals worldwide and a presence in over 500 locations through its member firms and collaborating firms. Andersen Consulting Holdings LP is a limited partnership and provides consulting solutions through its member firms and collaborating firms around the world. View source version on Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with Business Wire India. Business Upturn take no editorial responsibility for the same. Ahmedabad Plane Crash Business Wire India, established in 2002, India's premier media distribution company ensures guaranteed media coverage through its network of 30+ cities and top news agencies.
