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A representation of cryptocurrency Ethereum is placed on a PC motherboard in this illustration taken on June 16, 2023.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

The price of ether jumped on Wednesday as investors moved into the cryptocurrency ahead of key upside catalysts expected in January.

Ether was last higher by 6%, according to Coin Metrics. Solana’s SOL token, among the top performers in crypto this year, was up 2%.

“We believe it’s attributed to … a rotation back into the Ethereum ecosystem from other [Layer] 1s, which so far have outperformed ETH,” Needham analyst John Todaro told CNBC. “Solana and Avax among others have outperformed ETH, and now ETH is playing catch up on the rotation.”

Ether has trailed SOL throughout 2023. This month, it’s up about 15% compared to the SOL token’s 82% gain. On the year, ether has advanced 95%, while SOL has soared more than 980%.

Ether’s rise on Wednesday “signals that the market is finally rotating into an ETH-centric trade, though it probably will not fully manifest until after the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF receives appropriate regulatory approvals,” said Matt Maximo, a senior research analyst at Grayscale Investments. “Ethereum’s on-chain activity remains extremely strong, so I believe it is less of ‘if’ rather than ‘when’ ETH will catch up.”

Investors are watching two key events in January. The first is Ethereum’s big “Dencun” upgrade, expected around Jan. 17. It’s meant to reduce the costs associated with Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions, Maximo told CNBC.

Investors have also been closely monitoring developments in the potential approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The decision is widely expected to come in January.

Some investors are trading on optimism that if a spot bitcoin ETF gets the green light, that could bode well for the potential of a spot ether ETF, Todaro said.

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Tencent reports profit beat on games growth, touts AI benefits

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Tencent reports profit beat on games growth, touts AI benefits

Chinese tech company Tencent is a gaming giant and the parent company of WeChat, the ubiquitous social messaging app in China.

Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Chinese social media and gaming company Tencent on Wednesday reported better-than-expected profit in the third quarter, spurred by growth in games, advertising and cloud services.

Tencent reported profit attributable to shareholders of 53.23 billion yuan ($7.37 billion) in the third quarter, compared with a LSEG estimate of 46.18 billion yuan over the period.

The company’s revenue came in at 167.19 billion yuan, short of the 167.82 billion yuan analyst forecast.

This breaking news story is being updated.

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China is catching up with the West on tech, Microsoft president says

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China is catching up with the West on tech, Microsoft president says

'In many ways China is close to or is even catching up,' Microsoft's Brad Smith says

The West shouldn’t assume that China is lagging behind the U.S. and Europe on tech developments, Microsoft’s president and vice-chairman warned.

U.S-China tensions in the past few years have centered on the battle between the two nations for tech supremacy, culminating in a slew of export controls on critical technologies. Late last year, China’s Huawei surprised the market with the release of a smartphone whose reviews indicated downloads speeds associated with 5G, sparking speculation of an apparent chip breakthrough that defied U.S. tech sanctions.

Speaking at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Tuesday, Microsoft’s Brad Smith told CNBC that “in many ways,” China is close to or is even catching up on technology.

“I think one of the dangers, frankly, is that people who don’t go to China too often assume that they’re behind,” he told CNBC’s Karen Tso. “But when you go there, you’re impressed by how much they’re doing.”

He predicted that Chinese and American companies will be competing on technology into the distant future and urged U.S. and European companies to collaborate to grow economies and bring new advancements like artificial intelligence to the rest of the world.

Microsoft CEO Brad Smith participates in a meeting at The Westin Palace Hotel, on 20 May, 2022 in Madrid, Spain.

Cezaro De Luca | Europa Press | Getty Images

Microsoft has operated in China since 1992, according to the company’s web page, including through its largest research and development center outside the U.S. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last year that the firm wasn’t focused on China as a domestic market, but that it provides services to Chinese companies and has a more visible presence locally than do many other U.S. tech giants.

Asked about whether trade and tech transfers — or the movement of data, designs or innovations — with China will get more challenging as Washington transitions between the administrations of U.S. incumbent leader Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump, Smith it was too early tor know.

“The truth is, as an American technology company, we can do business in China only when we are offering a service that the Chinese government wants to have there, and the U.S. government wants us to bring there,” he said, adding, “And in some cases they look at, say, a data center to support a Mercedes or a Siemens or a Starbucks or a General Motors — there seems to be a level of comfort. In consumer services, not really.”

He predicted that we’ll live in a world where some technology will move to China, and it won’t be the tech firms that decide.

—CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this article.

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Startup CEO says humans won’t be needed for translation in 3 years as it launches AI app

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Startup CEO says humans won't be needed for translation in 3 years as it launches AI app

Vasco Pedro, co-founder and CEO of Unbabel, on the first day of the 2023 Web Summit at the Altice Arena in Lisbon.

Miguel Reis | SOPA | Lightrocket | Getty Images

LISBON — Unbabel on Wednesday announced a translation service powered by artificial intelligence, adding another rival to a highly competitive space — with its CEO warning that humans may not be needed for translation at all in three years.

Widn.AI is Unbabel’s new product and is based on the company’s proprietary large language model (LLM) called Tower. An LLM is an AI model that underpins applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Unbabel’s LLM allows AI translation in 32 languages, Vasco Pedro, the company’s CEO, told CNBC in an interview at the Web Summit in Lisbon.

“When we started in Unbabel 10 years ago, AI was not at the stage that it is now, and so we were very much focused on creating hybrid solutions that would combine AI and human,” Pedro said.

“But I think for the first time, we believe that translation is now fully in the realm of AI capabilities, and that you can do a lot of things without needing humans at all in the case of translation.”

Unbabel’s traditional product was one that combined so-called machine learning, a type of AI, to translate words, but with human editors to check the final product.

Pedro said Widn.AI will not require humans.

“I think humans still have a slight advantage in very hard use cases. But that advantage right now is so razor thin that except for really the … most difficult use cases, we believe AI is getting really there, and it’s hard for me to see right now how three years from now, you will need humans to be translating anything,” Pedro said.

“There’s still going to be humans responsible for making sure that things get translated and are delivered in the right places,” he added.

Widn.AI is the latest product in an increasingly competitive market which includes Google Translate and products from German startup DeepL.

Those companies see translation as a key area in which LLMs can be used effectively and have trained models specifically to tackle various languages.

Pedro acknowledges that the revenue per translated word is going to “drastically reduce.” But he said there will be an increase in the amount of content translated which will sustain the company’s growth.

Unbabel is speaking to investors and is looking to raise between $20 million and $50 million in funding to fuel the growth and development of Widn.AI, according to Pedro.

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