Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith speaks during the annual Microsoft shareholders meeting in Bellevue, Washington on November 29, 2017.
JASON REDMOND | AFP | Getty Images
Microsoft will invest $1.5 billion into G42, an artificial intelligence firm based in the United Arab Emirates, as the U.S. giant looks to strengthen its position in the technology amid fast-rising competition.
Microsoft President Brad Smith will join the board of directors of G42. The investment expands an existing partnership between the two firms, with Microsoft now taking a minority stake.
G42 will run its AI applications and services on the Microsoft Azure cloud service, as well as deploy Microsoft’s cloud offerings.
G42 runs data centers and sells AI applications. The company has developed an Arabic large language model called Jais, which will be offered via Azure.
G42 China ties in focus
The deal itself is highly unusual. The commercial partnership is “backed by assurances to the U.S. and UAE governments through a first-of- its-kind binding agreement to apply world-class best practices to ensure the secure, trusted, and responsible development and deployment of AI,” according to Microsoft.
The U.S. and UAE governments appeared to be heavily involved in the deal.
“Both companies will move forward with a commitment to comply with U.S. and international trade, security, responsible AI, and business integrity laws and regulations,” Microsoft said.
“The work on these topics is governed by a detailed Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement between G42 and Microsoft that was developed in close consultation with both the UAE and U.S. governments.”
G42 Chairman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahya is also the national security advisor of the UAE.
The government’s involvement comes after months of scrutiny on G42 for its links to China. In January, House Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wi., chairman of the U.S. Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, called on the Commerce Department to “closely examine” G42 to see whether it should be included on a trade export blacklist.
Gallagher alleges that G42 maintains relationship with blacklisted Chinese firms, such as Huawei, and that it works with China’s military and intelligence services.
In January, G42 “categorically” denied the allegations.
“In the field of advanced technologies, we have pursued a commercial strategy since 2022 to fully align with our U.S. partners and not to engage with Chinese companies,” the company said at the time.
The Microsoft-G42 deal will give a big boost to the UAE, which has been trying to establish itself as a key technology hub in the Middle East, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the UAE could serve as the world’s “regulatory sandbox” to test AI, in what appeared to be praise for the country’s rules around the technology.
Microsoft and G42 on Tuesday said they will set up a $1 billion fund for developers in the UAE and broader region to help support the development of skilled AI workforce.
Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 21, 2024.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
Amazon said revenue in its cloud unit increased 19% in the third quarter, just missing analyst estimates.
Revenue at Amazon Web Services totaled $27.45 billion, according to a statement Thursday, while Wall Street was expecting $27.52 billion, based on StreetAccount estimates. Year-over-year growth has accelerated for five consecutive quarters.
The artificial intelligence portion of AWS is in the billions of dollars in annualized revenue, more than doubling year over year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who previously led AWS, said on a call with analysts.
“I believe we have more demand than we could fulfill if we had even more capacity today,” Jassy said. “I think pretty much everyone today has less capacity than they have demand for, and it’s really primarily chips that are the area where companies could use more supply.”
AWS leads the cloud infrastructure market over Google and Microsoft and is an important source of profit for Amazon.
On Tuesday, Google parent Alphabet said revenue from Google Cloud, which includes cloud applications as well as infrastructure, totaled $11.35 billion, up 35%. Microsoft said Wednesday that revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 33%.
AWS recorded $10.45 billion in operating income, representing 60% of its parent’s profit. Analysts expected $9.15 billion.
The unit’s operating margin came in at 38%, the widest for AWS since at least 2014. Google Cloud reported an operating margin of 17%.
“We’re being very measured in our hiring,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s finance chief, said on the call.
“If this is successful, we would love to find more pieces of their application stack that could run well in AWS and help customers do that,” AWS CEO Matt Garman told CNBC in a September interview.
Also in the quarter, AWS announced plans to discontinue some services, including code-repository tool CodeCommit. Garman told TechCrunch that AWS “can’t invest in everything.”
Amazon’s online advertising business brought in $14.3 billion in the third quarter, up 19% year over year, in line with analysts’ estimates of $14.3 billion.
The Seattle tech giant revealed the financial results of its growing advertising unit as part of its latest earnings report Thursday. Amazon’s overall third-quarter sales were $158.9 billion, ahead of analysts’ estimates of $157.2 billion.
Amazon’s online advertising business is still a fraction of the company’s overall business, but its growth over the years has made it a major competitor to Alphabet and Meta, which lead the digital advertising market. Alphabet’s Google currently represents 27.7% of the worldwide digital advertising market, followed by Meta at 22.8% and Amazon with 8.8%, according to data provided to CNBC by Emarketer.
Meta’s third-quarter advertising revenue came in at $39.9 billion, which was up 19% compared with the year prior. That was slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations of $39.49 billion, according to StreetAccount. Ads accounted for 98.3% of Meta’s overall third-quarter revenue.
Alphabet generated $65.85 billion in third-quarter ad revenue, the company reported Tuesday. That was up 10% from $59.65 billion the year prior. Additionally, advertising sales for the company’s YouTube unit rose 12% year over year to $8.92 billion.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger holds an artificial intelligence processor as he speaks during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 4, 2024.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Intel shares rose 9% in extended trading on Thursday after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected revenue and issued quarterly guidance that topped estimates.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: Loss of 46 cents adjusted
Revenue: $13.28 billion vs. $13.02 billion expected
Intel’s revenue declined 6% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Sept. 28, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $16.99 billion, or $3.88 per share, compared with net earnings of $310 million, or 7 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
As part of its cost reduction plan, Intel recognized $2.8 billion in restructuring charges during the quarter. There were also $15.9 billion in impairment charges.
Intel has been mired in an extended slump due to market share losses in its core businesses and an inability to crack artificial intelligence. CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed plans during the quarter to turn the company’s foundry business into an independent subsidiary, a move that would enable outside funding options.
CNBC reported that Intel had engaged advisors to defend itself against activist investors. In late September, news surfaced that Qualcomm reached out to Intel about a possible takeover.
The Client Computing Group that sells PC chips recorded $7.33 billion in revenue, down about 7% from a year earlier and below the $7.39 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.
Revenue from the Data Center and AI segment came to $3.35 billion, which was up about 9% and more than the $3.17 billion consensus from StreetAccount.
Intel called for fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share and revenue between $13.3 billion and $14.3 billion. Analysts had expected 8 cents in adjusted earnings per share and $13.66 billion in revenue.
During the quarter, Intel announced the launch of Xeon 6 server processors and Gaudi artificial intelligence accelerators.
As of Thursday’s close, Intel shares were down about 57% in 2024, while the S&P 500 index had gained 20%.
Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
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