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The Biden administration is rolling out new export controls on critical technologies, including quantum computing and semiconductor goods, as China makes advances in the global chips industry.

Released by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday, the rules cover quantum computers and components; advanced chipmaking tools; some components and software related to metals and metal alloy; as well as high-bandwidth chips, a critical component for AI applications.

The department cited “national security and foreign policy reasons” for the move, and said it was the product of extensive discussions with international partners.

These restrictions cover worldwide exports, but adds exemptions for countries that add similar controls, such as Japan and the Netherlands have done in the past. The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) expects more countries will move to impose similar measures.

“Today’s action ensures our national export controls keep step with rapidly evolving technologies and are more effective when we work in concert with international partners,” Alan Estevez, under secretary of the bureau, said in a statement.

“Aligning our controls on quantum and other advanced technologies makes it significantly more difficult for our adversaries to develop and deploy these technologies in ways that threaten our collective security,” he added. 

Officials will hold a 60-day public comment period before issuing a final ruling.

Along with semiconductors, both China and the U.S. seek to be leaders in quantum computing, which they see as a potentially transformative technology. 

Though China is not explicitly named in the documents, the controls are in line with a series of moves the Biden administration has taken to limit Beijing’s developments in areas such as AI and computing.

BIS also said it is also continuing to strengthen relationships with its allies to boost the effectiveness of export controls aimed at degrading Russia’s military capabilities, as well as its “enablers” such as Belarus and Iran.

U.S. export control efforts hit road bumps

Amid increased restrictions and tech sanctions from the Washington, Beijing has ramped up its sufficiency push, setting up billions in investments in critical technologies to strengthen its chip-making industry.

A recent analysis of China’s semiconductor technology, by Tokyo-based semiconductor research company TechanaLye, found that Chinese-made processor chips are approaching a level just three years behind the industry leader, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, according to Nikkei Asia.

The actual focus behind the U.S.-China chip war is AI, says 'Chip War' author Chris Miller

As the U.S. continues to step up controls, the global industry has shown a degree of reluctance.

China is the largest semiconductor market in the world, and its firms remain key clients of many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies, including those in the U.S.  

On Wednesday, the chief executive of Dutch chip equipment giant ASML, which is restricted from providing its industry-leading advanced semiconductor equipment to China, reportedly said that the U.S.-led restrictions have become more “economically motivated” over time, adding he expects more push-back.

The Dutch government has said it will take ASML’s economic interests into account when deciding whether to tighten semiconductor export rules further. 

Meanwhile, South Korean Trade Minister Cheong Inkyo reportedly said this week that the U.S. should offer more incentives if it wants Seoul to comply with additional export curbs on China’s semiconductors.

Beijing has long maintained that the U.S. and its allies’ chip restrictions are anti-competitive and hurt the global semiconductor supply chain.

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Deliveroo founder Will Shu to step down as CEO after DoorDash takeover

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Deliveroo founder Will Shu to step down as CEO after DoorDash takeover

Deliveroo CEO Will Shu.

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LONDON — Deliveroo CEO Will Shu is set to step down from the food delivery company he co-founded over a decade ago.

Shu, who established Deliveroo in 2013 with childhood friend Greg Orlowski, said Thursday that he will step down as CEO after its takeover by U.S. rival DoorDash is completed.

DoorDash announced its deal to buy the British online takeout platform in May. The acquisition values Deliveroo at £2.9 billion ($4 billion).

“I have decided that now is the right time for me to step down,” Shu said in a statement Thursday. “Taking Deliveroo from being an idea to what it is today has been amazing.”

“Today the Company’s growth and profitability are accelerating and we are delivering on our mission to transform the way people shop and eat, but after 13 years I want to contemplate my next challenge,” Shu added.

Deliveroo said that its acquisition by DoorDash “continues to progress as anticipated” and is expected to close on Oct. 2 following a scheduled Sept. 30 court hearing to sanction the deal.

Once it closes, the takeover will represent an end to Deliveroo’s tumultuous time in the public markets.

Deliveroo saw its shares plunge 30% in 2021 on the day of its initial public offering, dealing a significant blow to London’s ambitions to compete with New York for more high-profile tech listings.

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Cold shoulder: Why Beijing is freezing Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market

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Cold shoulder: Why Beijing is freezing Nvidia's access to the Chinese market

The Nvidia logo appears on a smartphone reflecting the flags of China and the U.S.

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Beijing has reportedly halted purchases of yet another AI chip from Nvidia, freezing it out of the market completely — a move industry experts say reflects the country’s growing confidence in domestic chip makers and an attempt at gaining trade leverage.

It was only a few months ago when Jensen Huang announced, from China, that the U.S. would allow it to resume sales of its made-for-China H20 graphics processing units, reversing a previous halt on their exports. 

At the time, Huang had also revealed the company’s new RTX Pro GPU for the Chinese market, which had been tailored for AI smart factories and logistics. 

But Nvidia’s fortunes flipped in August, when it was reported that regulators in China had begun mandating tech firms to halt purchases of Nvidia’s H20s pending a national security review. 

Now that the mandate has been expanded to Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chip, rendering the company unable to sell any products to Chinese customers, according to a report by the Financial Times on Wednesday. 

That comes after Chinese regulators on Monday said that Nvidia had violated the country’s anti-monopoly law, as per a preliminary probe, adding they would continue their investigation.

While the exact motives of China’s actions against Nvidia remain unclear, tech and geopolitical analysts say the developments show China has become more confident in its own ability to make AI chips and is wielding that as a leverage against the U.S. 

Another Nvidia chip crumbles 

The reported reasons for Chinese regulators’ intervention in the H20 had been the need for a national security review over concerns that Nvidia chips could be outfitted with certain tracking systems — an idea proposed by American lawmakers.

Experts had characterized the move as part of Beijing’s efforts aimed at encouraging Chinese AI companies to explore domestic alternatives, though they forecast that exports would eventually be cleared due to high demand from Chinese AI players. 

Meanwhile, some Chinese AI companies had indicated they would order tens of thousands of the RTX Pro 6000D, and had started testing and verification work with Nvidia’s server suppliers up until they were asked to cease such activities, according to FT’s reporting. 

China banning purchases of Nvidia chips would likely hurt smaller companies: Analyst

The country’s regulators, however, blocked access to those Nvidia chips after summoning domestic AI chip makers and concluding they had reached performance comparable to the U.S. company’s made-for-China products, according to the FT. 

However, performance isn’t the only challenge facing China’s AI chips. Analysts contend that capacity is also a major barrier, with the domestic industry still unable to produce enough chips at scale. 

Reporting from the FT suggests Beijing has also become more confident in this area, with local chipmakers seeking to triple the country’s total output of AI processors next year.

“All these recent actions show that China has much more confidence in their domestic sector than they used to,” said Qingyuan Lin, a senior analyst covering China semiconductors at Bernstein.

China’s chip progress

There are signs that China’s AI ecosystem has been progressing. 

Chinese tech giant Huawei announced Thursday new AI compute infrastructure using its in-house Ascend chips, claiming they would be the “world’s most powerful.”

Research firm SemiAnalysis found in April that Huawei’s latest-generation CloudMatrix system was able to outperform Nvidia’s competing AI compute system on some metrics — despite each Ascend chip delivering only about one-third the performance of an Nvidia processor. Huawei built its advantage by having five times as many chips linked together.

Meanwhile, Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek had hinted last month that its latest AI model would be compatible with the country’s “next generation” homegrown AI chips. China’s Alibaba and Baidu have reportedly started using internally designed chips to help train their AI models, partly replacing those made by Nvidia. 

Still, analysts are skeptical about China’s ability to cut its dependence on Nvidia chips. 

“In terms of China’s domestic chip preparedness, I believe it is misleading to suggest the country can advance AI at a current level solely with domestic alternatives and without NVIDIA’s systematic offerings,” Ray Wang, research director for semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at Futurum Group, told CNBC. 

Seeking leverage? 

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Under the Joe Biden administration, export controls on advanced chips had been increasingly tightened with the aim of blocking China’s access to the best American technology. That trend after accelerating initially under the Trump administration is now reversing.

According to Reva Goujon, director at Rhodium Group, by rejecting the H20 and RTX Pro, Beijing could be looking to create an opportunity to negotiate access to more advanced GPUs.

She added that it’s likely not a coincidence that it comes amid other leverage-building by China this week, referring to its recent anti-dumping investigation into imports of certain analog chips from the U.S.

“As Beijing tests Trump’s transactionalism, it has to build up leverage of its own,” she said.

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Mark Zuckerberg unveils $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses

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Mark Zuckerberg unveils 9 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses

At the Meta Connect developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg, head of the Facebook group Meta, shows the prototype of computer glasses that can display digital objects in transparent lenses.

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Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the social media company’s first consumer-ready smart glasses with a built-in display.

The glasses, which costs $799, contain a small digital display that can be controlled via hand gestures through a wristband powered by neural technology, confirming a CNBC report in August. A promotional video of the new smart glasses appeared on Meta’s YouTube page on Monday but was later removed.

Tune in Thursday at 11:00 a.m. ET: Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox joins CNBC TV to discuss with Julia Boorstin the highlights of Meta’s annual Connect event, live from the company’s HQ in Menlo Park CA.

The new smart glasses are a bridge between the company’s audio-only Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and the experimental Orion augmented reality glasses that the company revealed at last year’s Connect event. Orion can overlay 3D visuals over a person’s real-world field of view with the help of a wireless computing puck, but the glasses are expensive to make and not yet available to consumers.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses come with the Meta Neural Band, an EMG wristband that allows users to control the device using hand gestures.

“These are glasses with the classic style that you’d expect from Ray-Ban, but they’re the first AI glasses with a high resolution display and a fully weighted Meta neural band,” Zuckerberg said.

With the new glasses, people can do tasks like watch videos through the display or see and respond to text messages, Zuckerberg said. The display doesn’t block a person’s view, and it disappears when not being used, he said.

The glasses go on sale in the U.S. on Sept. 30.

During a demo, Zuckerberg repeatedly attempted to call Meta tech chief Andrew Bosworth unsuccessfully.

“This is uh — you know, it happens,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta has been developing its smart glasses with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica since 2019, and last year renewed a long-term partnership agreement to continue making the products.

The company on Wednesday also debuted the Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses, intended for athletes who participate in high-intensity sports like snowboarding and mountain biking. The Oakley-branded glasses will cost $499 when they launch on Oct. 21, making it $100 more expensive than the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses that went on sale in June.

The Oakley Meta Vanguard smart glasses have a sportier look than the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses thanks to a wraparound design that extends its colorful lenses around a person’s temples. Unlike the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, the new model contains a button on the underside of its frames so that athletes who wear helmets can more easily capture photos and videos.

The new sports-centric smart glasses have up to nine hours of battery life, can capture 3K video and contain speakers that are louder than their predecessors. The glasses can connect with Garmin-branded fitness watches to track certain stats like their heart rates using the Meta AI assistant. Preorders start today.

Meta also debuted the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2), the latest version of the company’s original smart glasses. The Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) costs $379, up from $299 for the version released in 2023. The Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) has double the battery life of the previous model, lasting 8 hours on a single charge, and a more powerful camera that can capture 3K Ultra HD video. The new glasses go on sale today.

Zuckerberg also announced Horizon TV, pitching it as a way to watch television shows, sporting events and movies using the company’s Quest VR headsets. Some of Meta’s partners who will be contributing content to the app include Disney and Universal Pictures, Zuckerberg said.

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