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Microsoft president says AI could be the defining technology of our generation

Microsoft on Monday announced a new partnership with French start-up Mistral AI – Europe’s answer to ChatGPT maker OpenAI — as the U.S. tech giant seeks to expand its footprint in the fast-evolving artificial intelligence industry.

Microsoft said in a statement that it was investing in the 2 billion euro ($2.1 billion), 10-month-old business to help it unlock “new commercial opportunities” and expand to global markets, without providing further financial details.

Under the deal, Mistral’s large language models (LLM) — the technology behind generative AI products — will be available on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, becoming only the second company to host its LLM on the platform after OpenAI.

It will also see Microsoft bolster the start-up’s access to new customers as it rolls out its ChatGPT-style multilingual conversational assistant “Le Chat,” or “the cat.”

Mistral AI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen.

Anadolu | Getty Images

Microsoft President Brad Smith said on Monday that the deal was an “important” signal of the company’s backing of European technology.

“I really think this day is one of the most important days in terms of Microsoft’s technology support for Europe,” Smith told CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Mobile World Congress tech conference in Barcelona, Spain.

“What we’re fundamentally agreeing to a long-term partnership with Mistral AI so that they can train and deploy their next generation models for AI on our AI data centres, our infrastructure, effective immediately,” he added.

Growing scrutiny

It comes as Microsoft is facing pressure from EU antitrust regulators over its reported $13 billion investment in San Francisco-based OpenAI. Asked whether the investment was an effort to appease competition concerns, Smith said the company was committed to having a diverse product offering.

“It’s important for us to show that this isn’t just about Microsoft technology, it’s not just about American products. This is going to be an engine for technology, innovation and growth in Europe as well,” he said.

Smith said the investment in Mistral AI would also see funds dedicated to research and development, including AI models for public sector services in Europe.

“I think Europe wants, needs and deserves a wide range of offerings,” Smith said.

Earlier on Monday, Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica announced that it had struck a deal to integrate Microsoft’s Azure AI Studio into its digital ecosystem, Kernel, allowing staff to interpret data using generative AI language models.

Rival tech giants such as Google and Amazon have also been ramping up their investments in AI amid a growing frenzy around the emerging technology. Global markets hit record highs last week on the back of bumper results from AI chipmaker Nvidia.

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Jeff Bezos sells $737 million worth of Amazon shares

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Jeff Bezos sells 7 million worth of Amazon shares

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.

Yara Nardi | Reuters

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.

The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.

Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.

Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.

The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.

Bezos is ranked third in Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of about $240 billion. He’s behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk at $363 billion and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $260 billion.

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Google promotes ‘AI Mode’ on home page ‘Doodle’

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Google promotes ‘AI Mode’ on home page 'Doodle'

Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.

Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images

The Google Doodle is Alphabet’s most valuable piece of real estate, and on Tuesday, the company used that space to promote “AI Mode,” its latest AI search product.

Google’s Chrome browser landing pages and Google’s home page featured an animated image that, when clicked, leads users to AI Mode, the company’s latest search product. The doodle image also includes a share button.

The promotion of AI Mode on the Google Doodle comes as the tech company makes efforts to expose more users to its latest AI features amid pressure from artificial intelligence startups. That includes OpenAI which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic which makes Claude and Perplexity AI, which bills itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.”

Google’s “Doodle” Tuesday directed users to its search chatbot-like experience “AI Mode”

AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-like experience for complex user questions. The company began displaying AI Mode alongside its search results page in March.

“Search whatever’s on your mind and get AI-powered responses,” the product description reads when clicked from the home page.

AI Mode is powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, and the tool has rolled out to more U.S. users since its launch. Users can ask AI Mode questions using text, voice or images. Google says AI Mode makes it easier to find answers to complex questions that might have previously required multiple searches.

In May, Google tested the AI Mode feature directly beneath the Google search bar, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget — a place where Google rarely makes changes.

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How a beer-making process is used to make cleaner disposable diapers

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How a beer-making process is used to make cleaner disposable diapers

Clean Start: Startup focuses on making diapers renewable

Disposable diapers are a massive environmental offender. Roughly 300,000 of them are sent to landfills or incinerated every minute, according to the World Economic Forum, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. It’s a $60 billion business.

One alternative approach has been compostable diapers, which can be made out of wood pulp or bamboo. But composting services aren’t universally available and some of the products are less absorbent than normal nappies, critics say.

A growing number of parents are also turning to cloth diapers, but they only make up about 20% of the U.S. market.

ZymoChem is attacking the diaper problem from a different angle. Harshal Chokhawala, CEO of ZymoChem, said that 60% to 80% of a typical diaper consists of fossil-based plastics. And half of that is an ingredient called super absorbent polymer, or SAP.

“What we have created is a low carbon footprint bio-based and biodegradable version of this super absorbent polymer,” Chokhawala said.

ZymoChem, with operations in San Leandro, California, and Burlington, Vermont, invented this new type of absorbent by using a fermentation process to convert a renewable resource — sugar — from corn into biodegradable materials. It’s similar to making beer.

“We’re at a point now where we’re very close to being at cost parity with fossil based manufacturing of super absorbents,” said Chokhawala.

The company’s drop-in absorbents can be added into other diapers, which makes it different from environmentally conscious companies like Charlie Banana, Kudos and Hiro, which sell their own brand of diapers.

ZymoChem doesn’t yet have a diaper product on the market. But Lindy Fishburne, managing partner at Breakout Ventures and an investor in the company, says it’s a scalable model.

“Being able to build and grow with biology allows us to unlock a circular economy and a supply chain that is no longer petro-derived, which opens up the opportunities of where you can manufacture and how you secure supply chains,” Fishburne said.

Other investors include Toyota Ventures, GS Futures, KDT Ventures, Cavallo Ventures and Lululemon.  The company has raised a total of $35 million.

The Lululemon partnership shows that it’s not just about diapers. ZymoChem’s bio-based materials can also be used in other hygiene products and in bio-based nylon. Lululemon recently said it will use it in some of its leggings, which were traditionally made with petroleum.

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