Huawei is back in the spotlight in Europe after a report suggested Germany may ban some equipment from the Chinese telecommunications giant in its 5G network.
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Computer storage company Seagate will pay a $300 million penalty for allegedly continuing an unauthorized $1.1 billion relationship with Chinese technology firm Huawei after the company was added to a U.S. trade blacklist in 2020.
The $300 million settlement, announced by the Department of Commerce on Wednesday, is the largest ever imposed by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which enforces export controls against blacklisted companies like Huawei.
Federal regulators said Seagate was Huawei’s sole provider of hard drive disks, or HDDs, resulting in around $150 million in profit for the hard drive maker.
Seagate shipped over 7.4 million HDDs to Huawei from Aug. 2020 to Sept. 2021, federal regulators said. Neither Huawei nor Seagate made an apparent effort to hide their relationship, according to federal charging documents. “Seagate well seized the opportunity and successfully won the big share,” Huawei allegedly said.
Seagate also allegedly extended lines of credit totaling $1 billion to the Chinese company. Those lines of credit allowed Huawei to order an “increasing volume” of HDDs, federal regulators said, that Huawei wouldn’t have been able to pay for otherwise.
“All the while, Seagate’s competitors declined similar exports,” a Commerce Department press release said.
Even after export controls were imposed, a senior Seagate executive publicly justified the continued relationship with Huawei, regulators alleged. “I don’t see any particular restriction for us,” the executive reportedly said.
Seagate prioritized its relationship with Huawei over at least one U.S. customer, federal regulators alleged, with one executive writing that the company “moved supply to support China,” even after export controls had been imposed.
“Even after Huawei was placed on the Entity List for conduct inimical to our national security, and its competitors had stopped selling to them due to our foreign direct product rule, Seagate continued sending hard disk drives to Huawei,” assistant secretary for export enforcement Matthew Axelrod said in a statement.
“While we believed we complied with all relevant export control laws at the time we made the hard disk drive sales at issue, we determined that engaging with BIS and settling this matter was the best course of action,” Seagate CEO Dave Mosley said in a statement.
Seagate shares slipped a little over 2% in pre-market trading on disappointing third-quarter results.
Seagate confirmed that it had settled with the Commerce Department but did not offer further comment beyond the company’s press release.
Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Applied Digital shares jumped 16% on Friday after the company posted strong first-quarter revenue that was boosted by artificial intelligence data center demand, putting the stock up more than 350% for the year.
Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG estimates:
Loss per share: Loss of 7 cents vs. a loss of 13 cents expected
Revenue: $64.2 million vs. $50 million expected
First quarter revenue of $64.2 million was up 84% from a year ago, when it reported $34.85 million in revenue.
The data center company reported earnings after the bell on Thursday.
During the quarter, Applied Digital built on its $7 billion lease agreement with CoreWeave that was announced in June for another 150 megawatts at the firm’s Polaris Forge 1 campus in North Dakota. The additional capacity brings the anticipated contracted lease revenue for the project up to $11 billion.
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“With hyperscalers expected to invest approximately $350 billion into AI deployment this year, we believe we are in a prime position to serve as the modern-day picks and shovels of the intelligence era,” CEO Wes Cummins said in a release.
The new 150 MW building will join two other data cell blocks, each hosting 100 MW and 150 MW. The company noted that one building is nearly complete and construction will begin on the other.
Applied Digital also secured funding from Macquarie Equipment Capital for a second campus in North Dakota, dubbed Polaris Forge 2. The estimated $3 billion factory will hold two 150 MW buildings, bringing the total leased capacity to 600 MW across both campuses.
An initial 200 MW of power is expected to come online in 2026 and reach full capacity in 2027, the company said.
The company had a net loss of $18.5 million in the first quarter, a loss of 7 cents per share. A year ago, the company posted a net loss of $4.29 million, a loss of 3 cents per share.
Analysts polled by LSEG expect a loss of 15 cents per share for the second quarter on revenue of $76 million.
Rocket Lab shares have added more than a quarter in value this week as the aerospace company inked new launch deals in the burgeoning space tech industry.
The stock was flat on Friday, but has surged over 20% this week. Shares were up nearly 50% over the last two weeks and traded near fresh highs on Friday.
The stock has nearly tripled since the start of the year.
On Friday, the company said it secured two launches with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, scheduled for December and in 2026.
Earlier in the week, Rocket Lab announced a multi-launch agreement with Japanese space start Q-shu Pioneers of Space. That’s on top of four contracted missions.
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Late last month, the company also secured 10 additional launch missions for Synspective, bringing its total with the Japanese satellite company to 21. The first is scheduled for later this month.
Rocket Lab’s extreme stock movement could also be a result of some short covering, which occurs when short sellers buy a security to close a position and mitigate losses. Short interest accounted for nearly 14% of Rocket Lab’s float at the end of September.
Investors have poured more money into the space sector this year as the government greenlights more contracts and funding.
Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Campus, a college startup backed by Sam Altman, has hired Meta‘s former AI Vice President Jerome Pesenti as its technology head, the company announced Friday.
As part of the deal, Campus will buy Pesenti’s artificial intelligence learning platform Sizzle AI for an undisclosed amount and integrate its personalized AI-generated educational content already used by 1.7 million people.
The acquisition advances the company’s “roadmap” by two to three years and helps the platform cater learning toward individual student needs, said Tade Oyerinde, Campus founder and chancellor.
“This is a game changer,” he told CNBC.
Campus was founded to disrupt the community college system by “maximizing access to world-class education,” according to its website. It offers accredited associate degrees taught by adjunct professors from the likes of Stanford, Princeton and New York University.
The platform has over 3,000 enrolled students, charges $7,320 per academic year and accepts Pell Grants, according to its website. It also provides attendees with a laptop, mobile Wi-Fi pack, personal success coach and 24/7 tutoring access. Professors make upwards of $8,000 per course.
Campus has raised over $100 million from the likes of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, General Catalyst, NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and Figma CEO Dylan Field.