TELECOMS
No French Huawei ban
French Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire yesterday said that the government would not ban China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) from investing in the nation, in contrast to the UK, which has decided to purge the firm’s equipment from its 5G network by 2027. Le Maire told France Info radio that there was “no blanket ban” on Huawei in France, but that sensitive locations would be protected. “We won’t ban Huawei from investing in 5G, we will protect our national security interests,” Le Maire said, adding that he had reaffirmed France’s position to Beijing on Monday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Borrowing hits record
Government borrowing surged to a record ￡128 billion (US$162 billion) in the first three months of the financial year, when COVID-19 lockdown measures were tightest, more than double the entire previous year’s borrowing. Borrowing last month, excluding state-owned banks, was ￡35.5 billion, the Office for National Statistics said. That was five times more than a year earlier, following a big downward revision for May. The April-to-June quarter made up the three highest months of borrowing in the kingdom’s history, even though spending on job support was lower than first estimated and tax revenues higher, the office said.
CHINA
Sentiment improving
Sentiment in the technology sector and among smaller firms improved this month, suggesting that the recovery in the second quarter continued this month, Standard Chartered PLC said. A gauge of the outlook for small and medium-sized companies rose to 53.9 this month, said the bank, which surveys hundreds of such firms each month. The index for output strengthened and export orders started expanding again, it added. A separate gauge which tracks the technology sector also improved this month, a report from Nomura Holdings Inc said. However, export demand was still weak and severe flooding in central China would weigh on the economy, it said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis profit up 9%
Swiss giant Novartis AG yesterday posted a higher profit for the first half of the year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing swings in sales. Net profit came in at US$4 billion, a 9 percent increase year-on-year when currency fluctuations were stripped out, while sales rose by 6 percent to US$23.6 billion. Novartis said that it expects mid single-digit percentage sales growth for the year, with a low double-digit percentage gain in its measure of core operating income. In the first six months of the year, core operating income rose by 19 percent.
INTERNET
LinkedIn to axe 960 jobs
Microsoft Corp’s professional networking site LinkedIn yesterday said that it is to cut about 960 jobs, or 6 percent of its global workforce, as the COVID-19 pandemic is having a sustained impact on demand for its recruitment products. Jobs are to be cut across the sales and hiring divisions of the group globally. Announcing the plan in a message posted on the company’s Web site, LinkedIn chief executive Ryan Roslansky said that the company would provide at least 10 weeks of severance pay, as well as health insurance for a year for US employees, and would hire for new roles from laid-off staff.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
BUBBLE? Only a handful of companies are seeing rapid revenue growth and higher valuations, and it is not enough to call the AI trend a transformation, an analyst said Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a more challenging phase next year as companies move beyond experimentation and begin demanding clear financial returns from a technology that has delivered big gains to only a small group of early adopters, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said yesterday. Most organizations have been able to justify AI investments through cost recovery or modest efficiency gains, but few have achieved meaningful revenue growth or long-term competitive advantage, the consultancy said in its 2026 AI Business Predictions report. This growing performance gap is forcing executives to reconsider how AI is deployed across their organizations, it said. “Many companies
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