Savvy countries will discover there's a way to mitigate the harm incurred by Trump's tariffs--and it'll boost their own economies while making goods cheaper too. In 2026, the leaders of America's (former) trading partners are going to have to grapple with the political consequences of tit-for-tat tariffs. A tariff is a tax paid by consumers, and if there's one thing the past four years have taught us, it's that the public will not forgive a politician who presides over a period of rising prices, no matter what the cause. Luckily for the political fortunes of the world's leaders, there is a better way to respond to tariffs. Tit-for-tat tariffs are a 19th-century tactic, and we live in a 21st-century world--a world where the most profitable lines of business of the most profitable US companies are all vulnerable to a simple legal change that will make things cheaper for billions of people, all over the world, including in the US, at the expense of the companies whose CEOs posed with Trump on the inaugural dais.

AI investments are pulling the US economy forward. Despite United States President Donald Trump's tariff and immigration policies roiling businesses, the US economy is relatively stable. Experts say the country can thank the artificial intelligence (AI) industry for that. "AI machines--in quite a literal sense--appear to be saving the US economy right now," George Saravelos of Deutsche Bank wrote to his clients at the end of September. "In the absence of tech-related spending, the US would be close to, or in, recession this year." AI companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure and development, and other US companies are spending billions on AI products.

Nvidia has notched a market capitalisation of 4 trillion, making it the first public company in the world to reach the milestone and solidifying its position as one of Wall Street's most-favoured stocks. On Wednesday, shares of the leading chip designer rose as much as 2.5 percent to an all-time high of 164, benefiting from the continuing surge in demand for artificial intelligence technologies. The stock's recent rally comes despite a sluggish start to the year, when the emergence of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model developed by DeepSeek shook confidence in stocks linked to the sector. Nvidia achieved a 1 trillion market value for the first time in June 2023 and tripled it in about a year, faster than Apple and Microsoft, the only other United States firms with a market value of more than 3 trillion. Microsoft is the second-biggest US company, with a market capitalisation of 3.75 trillion.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's salvo against Chinese students, promising to "aggressively revoke" their visas, is the latest move in heightening tensions between the world's two largest economies. Despite a temporary tariff truce reached between them earlier this month, divisions between Washington and Beijing remain wide, with recent ruptures over higher education, artificial intelligence (AI) chips and rare earth minerals. Here's all we know about how relations between China and the United States are worsening despite diplomatic efforts. A US-China trade spat escalated after Trump's administration raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent earlier this year, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent. Under an agreement reached on May 12 following two days of trade talks in Geneva, tariffs on both sides were dropped by 115 percentage points for 90 days, during which time negotiators hope to secure a longer-term agreement.

A United Arab Emirates (UAE) academic lab today launched an artificial intelligence world model and agent, two large language models (LLMs) and a new research center in Silicon Valley as it ramps up its investment in the cutting-edge field. The UAE's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) revealed an AI world model called PAN, which can be used to build physically realistic simulations for testing and honing the performance of AI agents. Eric Xing, President and Professor of MBZUAI and a leading AI researcher, revealed the models and lab at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California today. The UAE has made big investments in AI in recent years under the guidance of Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al Nahyan, the nation's tech-savvy national security advisor and younger brother of president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Xing says the UAE's new center in Sunnyvale, California, will help the nation tap into the world's most concentrated source of AI knowledge and talent.

Donald Trump's jaunt to the Middle East featured an entourage of billionaire tech bros, a fighter-jet escort, and business deals designed to reshape the global landscape of artificial intelligence. On the final stop of the tour in Abu Dhabi, the US President announced that unnamed US companies would partner with the United Arab Emirates to create the largest AI datacenter cluster outside of America. Trump said that the US companies will help G42, an Emirati company, build five gigawatts of AI computing capacity in the UAE. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who leads the UAE's Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council, and is in charge of a 1.5 trillion fortune aimed at building AI capabilities, said the move will strengthen the UAE's position "as a hub for cutting-edge research and sustainable development, delivering transformative benefits for humanity." A few days earlier, as Trump arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia announced Humain, an AI investment firm owned by the kingdom's Public Investment Fund.

China has banned the export of rare but critical earth minerals used in the manufacture of important semiconductors to the United States in the latest move in an ongoing tech war between the two superpowers. Beijing's announcement on Tuesday came just one day after the US ramped up restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China, which affects the country's ability to develop advanced weapons systems and artificial intelligence. So why is a "tech war" brewing between China and the US, and why does it matter? For months, the two countries have been involved in tit-for-tat export restrictions. The US hopes to cripple China's military and artificial intelligence (AI) advances as well as hamper its ambitions to become a global leader in clean energy and other technologies.

Garante, the Italian data protection authority, apparently jumped the gun at the end of March when it imposed a temporary ban on ChatGPT, a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate texts that seem as if they were created by humans, and computer games. The watchdog was less concerned by the use of AI -- the simulation of human intelligence by computer systems -- than by breaches of data protection legislation. Garante then told the Microsoft Corp-backed company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, that it would have to be more transparent with its users about how their data were processed. It also said that the US company had to obtain permission from users if their data were to be used to further develop the software -- that is, to help it learn -- and that access to minors had to be filtered. In a press release, the Italian authority said that the ban would be lifted if OpenAI met these conditions by April 30.

Barcelona & Partners, Barcelona Global's investment attraction agency, shared the powerful tech ecosystem of Barcelona and the business opportunities the city offers to scale ups, corporates, and investors. This happened during the Fast Growth Summit, a high-level event organized by the New York-based venture capital firm called Left Lane Capital. The city of Barcelona has emerged as a prominent innovation hub. The access to skilled talent at scale, and ability to attract it, its thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, the increasing number of global companies, and great quality of life, are just some of the elements that make Barcelona one of the world's best cities to expand a business to. Recommended AI: Consider Your DOOH Buying Methods Wisely: Direct Sales vs. Programmatic Buying "As an investment agency, our aim is to continuously grow the number of multinational companies as well as scaleups looking to invest in our city and transform Barcelona into a global reference. New York is undoubtedly the perfect platform to present why US companies are flocking to Barcelona", stated Montse Puig, CEO of Barcelona & Partners during the event.

Don't look now, but using Google Analytics to track your website's audience might be illegal. That's the view of a court in Austria, which in January found that Google's data product was in breach of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as it was not doing enough to make sure data transferred from the EU to the company's servers in the US was protected (from, say, US intelligence agencies). Well for those working in AI and biotech, it matters, especially to those working outside of Europe with a view to expansion there. For a start, this is a major precedent that threatens to upend the way many tech companies work, since the tech sector relies heavily on the safe use and transfer of large quantities of data. Whether you use Google Analytics is neither here nor there; the case has shown that Privacy Shield -- the EU-US framework that governs the transfer of personal information in compliance with GDPR -- may not be compliant with European law after all.