Nvidia beat Wall Street expectations in its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, marking another in a string of financial wins for the computer hardware giant. It reported 44.1bn in revenue in the quarter ending in April, up 69% from the previous year. The company exceeded investors' predictions of 43.3bn in revenue. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 0.81, under investor expectations of an adjusted earnings per share of 88 cents. The company also reported 39.1bn in data center revenue, up 73% from the year prior.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said that the market for artificial intelligence chips in China could reach 50 billion in the next couple of years, making it crucial for U.S. companies to have access to the country. "It would be a tremendous loss not to be able to address it as an American company," Huang said in an interview on CNBC. "It's going to bring back revenues. It's going to bring back taxes. It's going to create lots of jobs here in the United States."

Samsung Electronics is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce global headcount by thousands of jobs, according to people familiar with the situation. The layoffs could affect about 10% of the workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary may vary, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10% in certain markets, said the person. The South Korean company has about 147,000 staff overseas, more than half of its total employees of more than 267,800, according to its latest sustainability report.

Google has officially been named a monopoly. On Aug. 5, a federal judge charged the tech giant with illegally using its market power to harm rival search engines, marking the first antitrust defeat for a major internet platform in more than 20 years--and thereby calling into question the business practices of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies. Many experts have speculated the landmark decision will make judges more receptive to antitrust action in other ongoing cases against the Big Tech platforms, especially with regards to the burgeoning AI industry. Today, the AI ecosystem is dominated by many of the same companies that the government is challenging in court, and those companies are using the same tactics to entrench their power in AI markets. Judge Amit Mehta's ruling in the Google case centered on the massive sums of money the company paid firms like Apple and Samsung to make its search engine the default on their smartphones and browsers.

Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia face increased antitrust scrutiny of their roles in the artificial intelligence industry after a report that US regulators have reached an agreement on investigating the companies. The New York Times reported that the US justice department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached an agreement on investigations into the main protagonists in the AI market. The deal is expected to be completed in the coming days, according to the report. The justice department will lead on investigating whether Nvidia, the leading maker of chips that train and operate AI systems, has broken antitrust laws that oversee fair competition in business and aim to prevent monopolies, said the NYT on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal also reported on Thursday that the FTC is investigating whether Microsoft structured a recent deal with startup Inflection AI to avoid an antitrust inquiry.

The UK competition watchdog has stepped up its scrutiny of big tech involvement in artificial intelligence startups, asking for comment on three deals by Microsoft and Amazon. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it was examining Microsoft's investment in the French firm Mistral and the hiring of the DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as head of the US company's new AI division. The watchdog is also scrutinising Amazon's 4bn ( 3.2bn) investment in the US AI firm Anthropic. The CMA has issued "invitations to comment" on the tie-ups, a procedural move that paves the way for a formal investigation, amid concerns that these partnerships are effectively giving the big tech companies backdoor control over potential rivals and stifling competition. The watchdog has already asked for comments on Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.

During a five-day tour of India earlier this month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited four cities, dined with tech executives and researchers, took numerous selfies, and sat for a one-on-one conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the AI sector. Huang's India itinerary was so crammed that he confessed to surviving entire work days on spicy masala omelets and cold coffees. Huang may have been treated like a head of state, but the trip's purpose was all business. For Nvidia, whose graphics processors are vital to the development of artificial intelligence systems, the South Asian nation of 1.4 billion people presents a rare opportunity. As the U.S. increasingly clamps down on exports of high-end chips to China and the world seeks an alternative electronics manufacturing base, India could shape up to be a source of AI talent, a site for chip production and a market for Nvidia's products.

The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market. As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a "pre-warning" to the sector, will publish its findings in September. In the US, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, has invited the chief executives of the leading AI firms ChatGPT, Microsoft and Google-owner Alphabet to the White House on Thursday to discuss how to deal with the safety concerns around the technology. The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees competition in the US, has signalled it is also watching closely, saying this week its staff were "focusing intensely" on how companies might choose to use AI technology, in ways that could have "actual and substantial impact on consumers".

This week, over 1,750 academics, engineers and some notable names in the tech space signed an open letter asking for all Artificial Intelligence (AI) labs to "immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4". We discuss the issue from a few perspectives. Early this week, tech news platforms were abuzz about an open letter that had been signed by engineers from big tech companies, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and by well-known tech leaders including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, along with more than 1,000 experts, petitioning for a pause in "Giant AI Experiments". In the letter, which was authored by the think tank the Future of Life Institute, concern was expressed that though currently, there is an intense race to develop even more powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems "…that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control…", the focus on exploring the risks and developing the attendant guidelines, protocols and systems to manage those risks, are considerably under-developed. In response to the perceived situation, the letter's authors are advocating for a pause in AI development for at least six months: Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

WASHINGTON--FTC Chair Lina Khan on Monday said her agency would protect competition in the nascent market for artificial-intelligence tools, warning that big-tech companies could "start to panic" and try to block new entrants through unlawful tactics. Speaking at an antitrust conference, Ms. Khan said the Federal Trade Commission would be watching to ensure startups can compete in the AI industry.