Tech Titans: Samsung's AI Surge, Microsoft's Cloud Woes, and AMD's AI Ambitions

Samsung's Record Profits, Microsoft Azure Struggles, and AMD's AI Chip Boost

Samsung Profit Surge Fuels Plan to Boost High-end Memory Output - Bloomberg

• Samsung Electronics reported its fastest net income growth since 2010 due to the AI boom in its semiconductor division.

• The semiconductor unit posted a better-than-expected 6.45 trillion won operating profit, boosted by rising memory prices and robust demand for high-bandwidth memory chips (HBMs).

• Samsung has won the long-awaited approval from Nvidia for a version of its HBM chips called HBM3, and it anticipates approval for the next generation in two to four months.

• South Korea’s semiconductor exports in jumped 57.5% in the first 20 days of July, indicating a pick-up in global technology demand.

Microsoft Says Azure Outage Began as DDoS Cyberattack - Bloomberg

• Microsoft is investigating outages of Office applications and services.

• The issue is impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services and features.

Microsoft’s Azure Growth Slows, Testing Investors’ Patience - Bloomberg

• Microsoft Azure cloud service posted a slowdown in quarterly growth, disappointing investors.

• Microsoft shares fell about 7% in extended trading.

AMD Surges After Demand for AI Chips Bolsters Sales Forecast - Bloomberg

• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) forecasts revenue of $6.7 billion in the third quarter, exceeding analysts’ estimates.

• AMD is making headway in its pursuit of Nvidia Corp. in the market for AI accelerators, with its own lineup called MI300.

• The company still gets most of its revenue from personal computer and server microprocessors, and supplies Microsoft and Sony Group Corp. with the main component in their game consoles.

NBCUniversal Says Ad Sales at Paris Olympics Hit a Record - Bloomberg

• NBCUniversal says advertising revenue for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics surpassed the record $1.25 billion sold for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

• Strong ratings have translated into greater demand for the unsold inventory that NBC brought into the Games, which run through Aug. 11.

• The opening ceremony drew over 28.6 million viewers, the largest audience since London 2012, while prime-time viewership over the first weekend average 34.5 million, up 79%.

• Over 70% of the sponsors are new, and this year’s games include a record number of marketers, including technology companies, pharmaceutical, and automotive companies.

Movie Editors and Animators Fear A.I. Will Kill Jobs - New York Times

• Actors and writers won limits on artificial intelligence in last year’s contract negotiations, but other workers face a growing challenge.

• Thomas R. Moore, a picture editor on network television shows, fears that the job of sound editing will soon be hollowed out due to the advent of artificial intelligence (A.I.)

• The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) can negotiate A.I. protections on behalf of workers, but their union recently approved a contract that clears the way for studios to require employees to use the technology, just as Mr. Moore and his colleagues have feared

• Some labor experts believe that the protections negotiated by the union may be the best it could do during an industrywide downturn, but the failure to secure stronger protections bodes poorly for workers

• Technological breakthroughs have been upending Hollywood for more than a century, and editors have not been immune

• Sound editors used to eliminate various clinks and clanks in dialogue by finding a clean version of an obstructed word from different takes and splicing it in dialogue

• Software from a company called iZotope made it possible to identify the blemish and cut it out

• Artists are increasingly using sound editors to save time and effort in their work.

Germans Combat Climate Change With D.I.Y. Solar Panels - New York Times

• Lightweight solar panels are being installed in yards and on balcony railings across Germany, driven by bargain prices and looser regulations.

• Plug-and-play solar panels can be easily installed on balconies and plugged into a wall socket to feed energy produced by the sun directly into homes without the need for an electrician or heavy tools

• Individual plug-in panels sell for as low as 200 euros, or about $217, at big box stores

• New laws that relaxed rules around solar panel installation in China have contributed to a boom in use in Germany

• Germany is expected to add more solar power capacity than any other European country, according to Rystad Energy

• Some of the solar panels sold in Germany are made by European companies, but most are produced in China, whose dominance in the global industry allows for lower costs

• Solar installations are not only popular in homes but also in businesses

• The European Union aims to quadruple the amount of power generated through photovoltaic sources by 2030

Chinese E.V. Makers Are Upending Thailand’s Auto Market - New York Times

• China’s electric vehicle companies are making inroads in Thailand, a key industry hub, as Europe and the United States impose tariffs to keep them out.

• Thailand is one of the first countries to experience the sudden influx of China’s automobile brands and is confronting how their ambition and competitiveness are reshaping its car industry.

• Aion, an electric vehicle maker from China, established its first overseas operation for GAC Aion in Thailand a year ago and sold its first electric vehicle 74 days after arriving. Aion adapted its Chinese cars for the local market, turning up the power of the air-conditioning and strengthening the chassis for poor road conditions. The international push for Chinese electric vehicles has been met with tariffs in major auto markets to prevent a glut of Chinese vehicles from crushing homegrown competitors. The overseas push is the next phase in Beijing’s long-term strategy to focus on new energy vehicles and upend the balance of power in the automobile industry.

U.S. Accuses Norfolk Southern of Delaying Amtrak Trains - New York Times

• Norfolk Southern accused of violating federal law by delaying Amtrak passenger trains along the route between New Orleans and New York

• Complaint filed in federal court alleging failure to give preference to passenger trains

• Failure to prioritize passenger trains led to notable delays in several instances

• Top cause for delays along the Crescent route was freight train interference, accounting for 11,537 minutes in delays from Jan. 1 to March 31

• Company committed to complying with law and working with Amtrak to improve on-time performance of Crescent passenger train

• Latest legal challenge for Norfolk Southern following recent freight train derailment in Ohio

The Stranger in Seattle Gets a New Owner, With Plans for Expansion - New York Times

• Noisy Creek, a new media company, has bought The Stranger and The Portland Mercury, two of the country’s best known alt-weeklies.

• The purchase was made by Brady Walkinshaw, a former CEO of Grist and former Democratic legislator in Washington State, who is the majority shareholder in the company.

• Index Newspapers, along with EverOut and Bold Type Tickets, will remain the owner of the Hump! film festival and Savage Lovecast, will continue to own the other two publications. The Stranger was started in Seattle in 1991 by Tim Keck and James Sturm, best known for “Savage Love” and won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2012. (

• Advertising remained an important part of the revenue mix for the publications, which are free online and in print, and were struggling during the pandemic but have since rebounded and grown.

Nvidia shares close down 7% as tech sell-off reignites - Financial Times

• Nvidia shares fell by 8% due to a sell-off in chipmaking stocks ahead of earnings reports from Big Tech companies this week.

• The Silicon Valley chipmaker has lost almost $750bn in market capitalization since becoming the world’s most valuable publicly traded company last month

• Arm, the semiconductor designer that has been a big beneficiary of investors’ enthusiasm for AI-related stocks this year, was also down 7%

• Investors are concerned about high profit expectations for companies involved in AI and capital spending running ahead of returns

• Tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index was down 1.9% in early afternoon trading, with shares in chipmakers AMD and Intel also trading lower

Australian inflation rises 3.8% in challenge for central bank - Financial Times

• Anita Dunn, a top Biden adviser, is leaving the White House to join a political organization supporting Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

• AMD forecasts revenue for the current quarter in a range between $6.4bn to $7bn due to strong demand for hardware needed to power generative artificial intelligence products

• Nvidia shares dropped by the most since April, sending the semiconductor group’s stock and the Nasdaq Composite to their lowest levels in about two months

• Microsoft’s cloud growth missed Wall Street expectations in the three months to June, with Azure sales growth of 29% and Microsoft’s own guidance for a jump of 30-31%

• Other Big Tech stocks had a mixed performance during the regular trading session, with Apple and Alphabet advancing but Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta slipping.

Microsoft shares fall as slower cloud growth fails to impress Wall Street - Financial Times

• Microsoft’s cloud division sales fell short of Wall Street expectations in the three months to the end of June.

• Azure sales growth of 29% missed analyst forecasts and Microsoft’s own guidance for a jump of between 30-31%.

• Overall revenue rose 15% from the previous year to $64.7bn, beating expectations.

Management consultants are the main group profiting from AI - Financial Times

• Consultancy industry is early beneficiary of AI revolution

• Concerns about accuracy, reliability and security are part of the problem

• Service companies offering AI-enabled tools are one growth area

Meta to pay $1.4bn to settle Texas facial recognition complaint - Financial Times

• Facebook owner Meta has agreed to pay $1.4bn to the state of Texas to settle claims that it harvested millions of citizens’ biometric data without consent. The settlement is the largest ever obtained from a single US state and marks one of the largest penalties levied at Meta by regulators. The penalties will be paid over five years. The original complaint was filed in February 2022, accusing Facebook and Meta of collecting biometric identifiers of millions of Texans without informed consent. Meta had shut down its facial recognition system including the tag suggestions feature in 2021. The latest fine comes amid growing concern globally over privacy and data protection risks related to facial recognition.

Apple Intelligence: Here’s When the New AI Features Come to the iPhone and iPad - Wall Street Journal

• New Siri and other tools will not be available until iOS 18.1 is released later this fall

• Apple is bringing AI to iPhone, iPad, and Mac in a big way

Amazon Paid Almost $1 Billion for Twitch in 2014. It’s Still Losing Money. - Wall Street Journal

• Twitch is experiencing slowing user growth and employees are expecting layoffs.

• Despite periods of popularity, Twitch remains unprofitable.

One of America’s Hottest Entertainment Apps Is Chinese-Owned - Wall Street Journal

• Chinese-owned chatbot app Talkie offers AI-generated conversations with virtual characters in the US

• Talkie ranks No. 5 among the most-downloaded free entertainment apps in the U.S.

• The app was launched around a year ago and traces its ownership roots to a Singapore firm, but its ultimate parent company is Shanghai-based MiniMax

• Beijing’s strict regulations and censorship have undercut free-wielding usage that could improve Chinese AI

• Talkingie brings in real revenue for MiniMax through advertisements and subscriptions

• Users can create their own virtual characters on the app and customize their look, life story, and voices

• More interactions can reap rewards, such as a digital trading card of a user’s Talkie, which can be sold to others with the app’s in-house currency.

CrowdStrike’s CEO Has Known Failure—but Never Like This - Wall Street Journal

• An errant product update from CrowdStrike caused a global outage of 8.5 million devices running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

• The issue led to flight cancellations, hospital postponements, and workers waking up to a blue screen of death at 3 a.m.

OpenAI Tests SearchGPT, Taking Aim at Google - Wall Street Journal

• OpenAI has partnered with publishers to build a new AI search tool called SearchGPT. The tool will summarize information found on websites and allow users to ask follow-up questions. It is OpenAI’s most direct challenge to Google’s dominance in search since the release of ChatGPT in 2022.- Other AI companies, such as Perplexity, are also entering the search battle. Publishers are concerned that AI-powered search tools from OpenAI or Alphabet’s Google will serve up complete answers based on news content, starving publishers of online traffic and advertising revenue. OpenAI plans to offer a wait list for U.S. users to sign up to try the tool. News publishers and creators will be among the first few testers and creators.