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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a press conference at San Francisco City Hall on Oct. 23, 2025 in San Francisco, California.

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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who was recently thrust into a national debate about the safety of big cities, told CNBC on Thursday that he feels “pressure every day” to continue improving conditions for residents.

Last week, President Donald Trump reversed plans for a “federal surge” in San Francisco. The potential National Guard deployment hit the headlines when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told the New York Times that he’d support Trump’s call for federal troops to be sent to the city.

Benioff’s sentiments were supported by Elon Musk and David Sacks, high-profile techies with close ties to the Trump administration. Benioff quickly backtracked as criticism mounted.

Unlike California Governor Gavin Newsom, Lurie has tried to avoid clashing with Trump since taking office in January. But he has spoken up to say that the city is progressing on business development and crime, often citing data to back up his claims.

In Thursday’s interview, Lurie’s first on television since the Trump incident, the mayor said there’s plenty of hard work ahead.

“I felt that pressure in January, I feel it today,” Lurie said, when asked about support from tech leaders. “I think they understand… when San Francisco is strong, America is strong.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie: We are open for business

Lurie, a moderate Democrat, pointed to an array of data that show the city is making progress on a post-pandemic comeback, largely driven by the boom in investment and usage of artificial intelligence. CBRE data on venture funding show 2025 is expected to surpass the record reached in 2021, thanks in large part to AI investments in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

In addition, crime rates are down 30% from 2024, as event bookings and tourism are up, residential real estate is becoming more scarce and the office market is getting hot.

“We have a lot of competition out there in the world, and we are on the rise,” Lurie said. “Anything that would have hindered that rise is something that we don’t need.”

Lurie is also leveraging philanthropic commitments to work with the city in cleaning up streets and supporting small businesses. He shared on CNBC Thursday that the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation has now raised $50 million for this effort, up from the $40 million at launch.

The goal is to spark a comeback, with the help of the tech boom in the city, but one that paves the way for all businesses to thrive, he said.

“What we’re trying to build here is a broad-based recovery at City Hall,” Lurie said. “Our job is to create the conditions so that not only these [tech] companies can succeed, but our restaurants and small businesses can succeed. We’re stripping away red tape. We’re telling everybody that we’re open for business. We want you here, and we want you to be part of the community.”

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Samsung building facility with 50,000 Nvidia GPUs to automate chip manufacturing

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Samsung building facility with 50,000 Nvidia GPUs to automate chip manufacturing

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the keynote address at the Nvidia GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.

Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Korean semiconductor giant Samsung said on Thursday that it plans to buy and deploy a cluster of 50,000 Nvidia graphic processing units to improve its chip manufacturing for mobile devices and robots.

The 50,000 Nvidia GPUs will be used to create a facility Samsung is calling an “AI Megafactory.” Samsung didn’t provide details about when the facility would be built.

It’s the latest splashy partnership for Nvidia, whose chips remain essential for building and deploying advanced artificial intelligence.

The collaboration with Samsung comes after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday announced in Washington, D.C., that Nvidia was selling collaborating with companies including Palantir, Eli Lilly, CrowdStrike and Uber.

Shortly after the speech, Huang was spotted in South Korea drinking beer with Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and other business leaders, according to local media. Other Korean companies, including SK Group and Hyundai, are also deploying similar amounts of GPUs, Nvidia said.

“We’re working closely with the Korean government to support its ambitious leadership plans in AI,” Raymond Teh, Nvidia’s senior vice president of Asia-Pacific, said on a call with reporters on Wednesday.

The partnerships support Huang’s claim on Tuesday that Nvidia has a book of business that totals $500 billion from its current generation GPU, called Blackwell, in addition to its next-generation GPU, called Rubin.

The forecast helped boost Nvidia’s stock, making the company the first to reach a market cap of $5 trillion.

On Thursday, Nvidia representatives said they will work with Samsung to adapt the Korean company’s chipmaking lithography platform to work with Nvidia’s GPUs. That process will results in 20 times better performance for Samsung, the Nvidia representatives said. Samsung will also use Nvidia’s simulation software called Omniverse. Known for its mobile phones, Samsung also said it would use the Nvidia chips to run its own AI models for its devices.

In addition to being a partner and customer, Samsung is also a key supplier for Nvidia.

Samsung makes the kind of high-performance memory Nvidia uses in large quantities, alongside its AI chips, called high bandwidth memory. Samsung said it will work with Nvidia to tweak its fourth-generation HBM memory for use in AI chips.

WATCH: Night out in Seoul: Nvidia, Samsung, and Hyundai bosses bond over fried chicken and soju

Night out in Seoul: Nvidia, Samsung, and Hyundai bosses bond over fried chicken and soju

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Google to offer Gemini AI for free to over 500 million Jio users as global firms double down on India

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Google to offer Gemini AI for free to over 500 million Jio users as global firms double down on India

The Google AI Studio application is displayed on a mobile phone with Google in the background, in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on October 26, 2025.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Google will offer its Gemini AI service for free to over 500 million Reliance Jio users in India, as global artificial intelligence firms double down on acquiring customers in the country.

The U.S. tech giant revealed Thursday that it had signed a pact with Reliance Intelligence, a joint venture between Reliance Industries and Meta, to provide Google’s AI Pro plan, which includes Gemini 2.5 Pro, expanded access to NotebookLM for study and research, and 2 TB of cloud storage, among other things.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, said his firm aims to make India “AI-empowered” through collaborations with strategic and long-term partners such as Google. Reliance Jio is India’s largest telecom services operator.

Google services, worth 35,100 rupees per user ($396), will have a staggered roll out with early access for 18- to 25-year-old users on unlimited Jio 5G plans for for 18 months. Eventually they will be made available for free to the company’s entire customer base.

“I’m excited for how this partnership will help expand access to AI across India,” said Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google and Alphabet.

There are about 377 million Gen Zs in India, driving $860 billion in consumer spending in the country, and that is set to rise to $2 trillion by 2035, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.

India has the highest number of users globally across social media platforms such as Facebook (350 million-plus), Instagram (413.8 million), video app YouTube (over 467 million) while messaging app WhatsApp has over 500 million users, making it a key market for digital services.

In July, the second largest Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel partnered with Perplexity to offer its 360 million customers free access to Perplexity Pro, which is priced at $200 per year globally.

Airtel and Perplexity followed this up with intensive campaigns on social media platforms, enlisting leading Indian influencers who posted reels promoting the use-cases for the free AI tool.

Indian telecom market is dominated by Jio and Airtel and partnerships with these telecom operators offer the opportunity for companies to expand the reach of apps and digital tools, making them available to a mass audience.

On Tuesday, OpenAI reportedly said it would make its ChatGPT Go plan free for users in India for a year, starting Nov. 4. The offer was launched in August for 399 rupees per month, and was among the most affordable subscription plans from OpenAI.

The company is rapidly expanding its presence in India, its second largest market, and plans to set up a 1 gigawatt data center in the country.

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Disney content to go dark on YouTubeTV after contract talks collapse

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Disney content to go dark on YouTubeTV after contract talks collapse

Photo illustration of the YouTube TV logo displayed on a smartphone, with the YouTube logo in the background.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Content from The Walt Disney Company, including channels like ABC and ESPN, was removed from Google‘s YouTube TV on Thursday after the two companies failed to renew a streaming contract. 

“Despite our best efforts, we have not been able to reach a fair deal, and starting today, Disney programming will not be available on YouTube TV,” the platform said in a statement Thursday.

More than 20 channels, including ABC and ESPN, and Disney content recordings would be removed from YouTube TV, the company said.

The two sides had been engaged in negotiations but were unable to reach a new distribution agreement before their existing contract expired Oct. 30 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for further comment. The mass media and entertainment conglomerate was the first to warn about the potential content removal last week.

In a Thursday statement on its official blog, YouTube argued Disney had “used the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to force deal terms that would raise prices on our customers,” and that Disney was now following through on that threat.

“We will not agree to terms that disadvantage our members while benefiting Disney’s own live TV products,” YouTube TV said in a post on its help center webpage. Disney’s live TV offerings include Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.

“We know how disruptive it is to lose channels you enjoy, and we’re committed to continuing to work with Disney to reach an agreement,” YouTube said in its statement, adding that if the content is unavailable for an extended period of time, the company will offer members a $20 credit. 

YouTube TV pays broadcasters to stream their channels and has been engaged in several tense negotiations over contract renewals in recent months.

Last month,  content was nearly removed from YouTube TV before the companies reached an agreement after a temporary extension, preventing shows like “Sunday Night Football” and “America’s Got Talent” from being pulled.

The recent clash between Disney and YouTube has an added twist, after YouTube hired former Disney distribution executive Justin Connolly earlier this year, prompting Disney to file a breach-of-contract lawsuit.

Connolly has recused himself from the discussions, CNBC previously reported, according to the people familiar with the process.

YouTube is the top U.S. media distributor by audience engagement, capturing over 13% of TV watch-time in July, according to Nielsen. It is also on track to be the biggest media company by revenue in 2025, beating Disney, analysts at MoffettNathanson told CNBC.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.

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