Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov speaks at a Nov. 3 press conference at the 2022 Web Summit event.
Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images
The Ukrainian government is looking for alternatives to Starlink, the satellite internet arm of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Thursday.
Musk’s continued support for Starlink in Ukraine was called into question last month when the billionaire said his space venture could no longer fund the operation in Ukraine “indefinitely.” He has since said he will continue to do so.
During a press conference Thursday at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Fedorov said that he hasn’t seen any issues with Musk’s financing of Starlink in Ukraine continuing. The operation is currently working fine, he said.
However, Fedorov, who is also Ukraine’s digital minister, said the government is searching for new satellite communication tools to support IT infrastructure in Ukraine, which has been disrupted by Russia’s invasion. Fedorov said he had recently received reports of a blackout in Ukraine, as Russia launched an assault on the country’s energy infrastructure.
“We’re also using other satellite communication tools,” said Fedorov. “We’re working with other operators, not only SpaceX.”
“One of the reasons I came to Web Summit is to look for new partnerships and engage with new partners,” he added.
One of the alternative partners Ukraine is already working with is ICEYE, a Finnish firm which has been helping the country with its remote satellite imaging capabilities.
For now though, it doesn’t appear as though Starlink will cease operating in Ukraine at this stage.
Last month, Musk said SpaceX couldn’t continue funding Starlink terminals in Ukraine “indefinitely.” The shock announcement came after a CNN report that his space company had asked the Pentagon to cover the costs.
Eventually Musk reversed his decision to cut off the funding. “The hell with it,” the billionaire tweeted, “even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”
SpaceX’s donated Starlink internet terminals have been crucial in keeping Ukraine’s military online during the war against Russia, even as communication infrastructure gets destroyed. Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in late February.
Musk, who is no stranger to controversy, has been criticized for comments he made about the war in Ukraine. In a Twitter poll, he suggested regions illegally annexed by Russia should be allowed to hold U.N.-monitored referendums to decide whether they wish to become part of Russia.
He also said it was his belief that the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, was “formally part of Russia” and should be handed to Moscow.
In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hit back at Musk, putting out his own Twitter poll asking “Which Elon Musk do you like more? One who supports Ukraine [or] one who supports Russia.”
Musk was even told by Ukraine’s outgoing ambassador to Germany to “f— off.” When pressed on why he had wanted to pull the plug on funding for Starlink in Ukraine, Musk said he was “just following his recommendation.”
Ukraine has had a notable presence at Web Summit, where it is seeking assistance from public and private sector sources to bolster its fight against Russia. Earlier in the press conference, Microsoft President Brad Smith announced a $100 million investment in technology aid for Ukraine, taking the company’s total contribution to the war effort to $400 million.
There’s been “a new type of hybrid war combining cyber weapons and other assaults on digital technology,” Smith said.
Microsoft’s move will “enable the government and other organizations in Ukraine to continue to run their services through the Microsoft cloud and our public data centers spread across Europe,” Smith said.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”