Gina Raimondo, US secretary of commerce, speaks at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Standing against conservative critiques of the Biden administration’s conditions on computer chip-manufacturing funding, the tech industry group Chamber of Progress urged the government to maintain its requirements, which include providing child care for workers.
The group counts Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta among its corporate backers. Though they are not the target audience to receive the funding created by the CHIPS and Science Act, Chamber of Progress spokesperson Chris MacKenzie said it’s important to the group that the program run both effectively and on time, since chip manufacturing is important to the entire tech economy in the U.S.
In the letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo shared exclusively with CNBC, Chamber of Progress and the National Asian/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship wrote that competitive benefits and fair labor practices are necessary to achieve the CHIPS Act’s “grand scope” both on time and on budget.
MacKenzie said the group aimed to push back on GOP attacks on so-called wokeness in business. In the letter, they argue that incentivizing child care is good business. It will encourage more women and people from underrepresented racial backgrounds to enter or remain in the chip manufacturing field, they wrote, an essential step for the industry to maintain a robust workforce.
Firms like Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) are among those hoping to take advantage of the funding for their plans to build major chipmaking facilities in the U.S. Both companies have already announcedmassive projects to build up U.S. chip-manufacturing capacity. But the strings attached to the government money have raised concerns among the industry and conservatives.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that TSMC was worried about rules involving profit-sharing of surplus gains and providing details about operations. Chairman Mark Liu called some of the conditions “unacceptable” at an industry event in Taiwan last month, according to the Journal, adding they “aim to mitigate any negative impact from these and will continue discussions with the U.S. government.”
Some Republicans have also railed against the rules.
“What President Biden is doing by jamming woke and green agenda items into legislation we pass is making it harder for him to ever get legislation passed again,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who supported the law’s passage, according to The Associated Press.
But the Commerce Department has maintained that the rules are necessary to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure a stable workforce.
“We simply will not be successful in achieving the national security goals of the CHIPS initiative unless we invest in our workforce, period. Full stop,” Raimondo told CNN in an interview published in late February. “For decades, we’ve taken our eye off the ball with manufacturing, which means the worker supply of people with the skills to do super technical manufacturing has withered. And so, we need to be honest about that, but also embrace it as an opportunity to come up with creative solutions.”
The $52 billion law was designed to strengthen the chip-manufacturing industry in the U.S., limiting dependence on other countries and shoring up the supply chain for an important component used in computers, cars and medical equipment.
In their letter Monday, the chambers also argued that wage and labor contract requirements serve an important business purpose for controlling costs and timeline. They applauded stipulations that would bar companies that accept government money from pursuing stock buybacks for five years. And they supported a policy to require those companies to share a portion of the surplus returns they receive after accepting CHIPS Act funding with the U.S. government, beyond what they projected in their proposals.
“To ensure continued political and public support for the program, implementing strong transparency measures and safeguards now is the best path forward,” the groups wrote.
Shares of grocery delivery service Instacart dropped about 7% in extended trading on Wednesday, following a report that said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun an investigation into the company’s pricing practices.
The FTC sent a civil investigative demand to Instacart, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people.
A study released last week showed that prices for the same products in the same supermarkets that work with Instacart can vary by around 7%, which can result in over $1,000 in extra annual costs for customers. Instacart responded by saying that retailers determine prices listed in the app.
In 2022, Instacart spent $59 million to acquire Eversight, a company specializing in artificial intelligence-driven pricing and promotions for retailers and consumer packaged goods. Instacart sought to “create compelling savings opportunities for customers in real-time” with Eversight, according to a regulatory filing.
The FTC and Instacart did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jim Cramer implores Amazon not to engage in “sham-like” circular AI deals that remind him of the kind of speculation that fueled the 1990s dotcom bubble that burst more than two decades ago. According to multiple reports on Wednesday, Amazon is in talks about a potential $10 billion investment in OpenAI in exchange for the ChatGPT creator agreeing to use the cloud giant’s custom AI chips. “They really need Trainium chips sold so badly that they give somebody $10 billion to buy them,” Jim said during the Club’s Morning Meeting on Wednesday . “I would love to see them not play this game.” “I really respect Amazon, and this shocks me that they’re willing to put up with this,” Jim said on “Squawk on the Street” earlier Wednesday. “You can’t do these deals. These deals are not real.” Over the past several years, many investors have been sounding the alarm over the growing levels of AI-related spending from megacap hyperscalers to compete in the so-called AI arms race. The push for AI requires the buildout of data centers and high-performance chips to run the systems. Jim said the current spate of interconnected investment activity is similar to deals in the lead-up to the year 2000. “The market is not going to let this happen,” Jim predicted, calling the stock market a “cruel task master,” in a stark warning about excess that drove the tech-heavy Nasdaq to a then-record high in March 2000 and the 78% crash over 2½ years that followed. OpenAI has been on a deal spree in 2025, securing massive amounts of computing power from firms including Nvidia , Advanced Micro Devices , Oracle , and Amazon’s cloud unit. That has amounted to the AI startup making $1.4 trillion in infrastructure commitments in recent months. Jim recently referred to OpenAI’s deal activity as “2000 in a nutshell,” as it continues to make aggressive, leveraged bets, raising concerns about an AI bubble. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMZN, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Rohit Prasad, Senior VP & Head Scientist for Alexa, Amazon, on Centre Stage during day one of Web Summit 2022 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.
Ben McShane | Sportsfile | Getty Images
Rohit Prasad, a top Amazon executive overseeing its artificial general intelligence unit, is leaving the company at the end of this year, the company confirmed Wednesday.
As part of the move, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company is reorganizing the AGI unit under a more expansive division that will also include its silicon development and quantum computing teams. The new division will be led by Peter DeSantis, a 27-year veteran of Amazon who currently serves as a senior vice president in its cloud unit.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.