U.S. Republican lawmakers asked the administration of President Joe Biden for an intelligence assessment of Microsoft's 1.5 billion investment in UAE-based artificial intelligence firm G42 over concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology and G42's historic ties to China. Rep. Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and John Moolenaar, leader of the Select Committee on China, made the request for a briefing in a letter dated Wednesday to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the committees said. The Republicans said they want the briefing on the deal, announced in April, before it advances to a second phase involving the transfer of export-restricted semiconductor chips and model weights, sophisticated data that improves an AI model's ability to emulate human reasoning.

Activision Blizzard Inc. reported earnings and revenue that missed analysts' estimates just weeks after Microsoft Corp. announced its $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher. Adjusted revenue fell 18% to $2.49 billion in the fourth quarter, Activision Blizzard said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had expected $2.84 billion, according to an average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.25, compared with analysts' forecasts for $1.31. The company cited "lower than expected performance" in its Activision division, which produces Call of Duty. Microsoft swooped in at a crucial time for Activision Blizzard, which is behind hit games such as Candy Crush and World of Warcraft.

Swiss pharma giant Novartis has partnered with tech giant Microsoft and launched its Novartis AI innovation lab as a means to leverage data and artificial intelligence to transform drug discovery and development. The new Novartis AI lab aims to significantly bolster Novartis AI capabilities from research through commercialization and help accelerate the discovery and development of transformative medicines for patients worldwide, the company announced Monday. As part of the strategic collaboration between the two companies, Novartis and Microsoft have committed to a multi-year research and development effort with a focus on AI empowerment and AI exploration. With AI empowerment, Novartis said the goal is for every employee in the lab to have the AI program on their computer. Using Novartis' datasets and Microsoft's AI solutions, the company said the lab will create new AI models and applications that can augment their discovery and development capabilities.

Earlier this year Uber sold off its ride-hailing business in southeast Asia to a competitor, Grab, which is now raising $3 billion to further expand operations. Today Microsoft announced it's making a "strategic investment" in Grab, as the two launch a "broad partnership" to use Microsoft's machine learning and AI tech. The first step is adopting Microsoft's Azure servers as the cloud platform backing Grab's ride-hailing and digital wallet. After that the plans get bigger, as it anticipates using machine learning and image recognition to let passengers share their location with a driver by taking a picture of their surroundings that the system recognizes and converts into an address. Otherwise it could handle recommendations, improve fraud detection, improve its maps or power facial recognition to identify drivers and passengers.