FBI probes whether Silicon Valley venture firm passed secrets to China: Hone Capital became one of the most prolific early investors in US tech start-ups. FT
US SEC, Coinbase clash in court over crypto rulemaking: Reuters reports Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, sued the Securities and Exchange Commission last year to compel the regulator to act on a petition for rulemaking Coinbase filed in 2022.
Congress grills CrowdStrike about multibillion-dollar July outage: WP reports a computer security company executive apologized for the flawed software update that triggered catastrophic system failures and said practices have improved.
AI is evolving faster than experts imagined, including for Bill Gates CNET
OpenAI rolls out new voice assistant to all paid ChatGPT users: Bloomberg reports the startup previously delayed the feature to work through potential safety issues.
Snap will start using Google’s generative artificial intelligence model to help power Snapchat’s AI chatbot, part of a broader plan to boost engagement and increase user time spent on the messaging app.
A chatbot is now cleared to give buy, sell investment advice: Bloomberg reports an Israeli regulator has cleared an artificial intelligence startup to launch a chatbot that offers stock-picking advice in partnership with a large bank, even as other governments have raised alarms that AI might destabilize financial markets if used widely in investing.
The man tasked with rebooting Amazon AI: The company turns to Rohit Prasad to make it a stronger rival to the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. WSJ
Yahoo: Intel launches new AI chips as takeover rumors swirl
The Biden administration has finalized its first binding award under the Chips and Science Act: a $123 million grant to Polar Semiconductor that officials say could double the company’s US manufacturing capacity within two years.
US nuclear plants won't power up Big Tech's AI ambitions right away: Reuters reports Constellation Energy and Microsoft plan to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, hoping they have scored a quick source of enough climate-friendly energy to power rapidly expanding data centers for artificial intelligence (AI).
+ US power generation capacity through the end of the decade could rise by about 2.4% to 2.7%, according to an analysis of the most recent US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data from late 2022. Data center power use is expected to more than double by 2030 to consume about 9% of all the country's electricity.
To compete with China on AI, we need a lot more power: A ChatGPT query uses 10 times the wattage of a Google search. It may already be impossible for the U.S. to match China’s centralized energy system. Daniela Rus + Nico Enriquez
+ Daniela Rus is the director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Nico Enriquez, a Stanford Graduate School of Business student, has been a Technology-to-Market Scholar at the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Google files Brussels complaint against Microsoft cloud business: FT reports the search giant seeks antitrust probe of Big Tech rival over dominance of Azure platform.
Uber’s next act: Taking on Amazon: On top of ride-sharing and takeaways, the company’s couriers now transport goods for many retailers. But is it trying to do too much? FT
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
