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European Union member states on Tuesday agreed the world’s first major law for regulating artificial intelligence, as institutions around the world race to introduce curbs for the technology.

The EU Council said that it reached final approval for the AI Act — a ground-breaking piece of regulation that aims to introduce the first comprehensive set of rules for artificial intelligence.

“The adoption of the AI act is a significant milestone for the European Union,” Mathieu Michel, Belgium’s secretary of state for digitization said in a Tuesday statement.

“With the AI act, Europe emphasizes the importance of trust, transparency and accountability when dealing with new technologies while at the same time ensuring this fast-changing technology can flourish and boost European innovation,” Michel added.

The AI Act applies a risk-based approach to artificial intelligence, meaning that different applications of the technology are treated differently, depending on the threats they pose to society.

The law prohibits applications of AI that are considered “unacceptable” in terms of their risk level. Forms of unacceptable AI applications feature so-called “social scoring” systems that rank citizens based on aggregation and analysis of their data, predictive policing, and emotional recognition in the workplace and schools.

High-risk AI systems cover autonomous vehicles or medical devices, which are evaluated on the risks they pose to the health, safety, and fundamental rights of citizens. They also include applications of AI in financial services and education, where there is a risk of bias embedded in AI algorithms.

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What Dick’s Sporting Goods’ earnings report tells us about Nike’s turnaround

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What Dick's Sporting Goods' earnings report tells us about Nike's turnaround

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Musk’s xAI to close $15 billion funding round in December: sources

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Musk's xAI to close  billion funding round in December: sources

Elon Musk attends the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 19, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is expected to close a $15 billion round at a $230 billion pre-money valuation next month, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.

The deadline for allocation is the end of day on Tuesday, with the round expected to close on Dec. 19, the sources said.

This confirms earlier CNBC reporting that the company was raising $15 billion. The Tesla CEO later called the report on the round “False” in a post on the social media platform X.

At the time, sources told CNBC that xAI would use a large portion of the money for funding graphics processing units responsible for powering large language models.

CNBC had previously reported in September that the startup was looking to raise $10 billion at a $200 billion valuation.

The funding round is yet another sign of the insatiable demand for AI tools. Companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have raised billions and reached sky-high valuations as investors pour more money into companies building foundational AI models.

Sam Altman‘s OpenAI finalized a $6.6 billion-share sale at a $500 billion valuation last month, and Reuters recently reported that the ChatGPT maker was eying a $1 trillion initial public offering.

Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round in September that roughly tripled its valuation from March.

Musk’s xAI is responsible for creating the Grok chatbot that has come under fire for disseminating hate speech, including antisemitic content. The company recently debuted Grokipedia, an AI-powered competitor to Wikipedia.

In March, Musk announced the merger of xAI with X in a deal valuing the social media platform at $33 billion.

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TSMC stock falls as it sues former exec alleging he took trade secrets to Intel

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 TSMC stock falls as it sues former exec alleging he took trade secrets to Intel

TSMC on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against a former senior vice president it accused of leaking “confidential information” to Intel.

Wei-Jen Lo joined Intel after 21 years at TSMC, having left in July, the Taiwanese chip maker said in a statement, announcing the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is based on Lo’s employment contract and non-compete agreement with TSMC, and regulations such as the Trade Secrets Act, the statement said.

“There is a high probability that Lo uses, leaks, discloses, delivers, or transfers TSMC’s trade
secrets and confidential information to Intel,” it said.

TSMC’s share price fell on Tuesday and was last seen over 3% lower.

Intel did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

It follows earlier reports by local media and later by Reuters, which stated Lo may have taken TSMC’s technology data to Intel. Taiwan’s High Prosecutors opened an investigation into the allegations.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg News last week that his “company respects intellectual property rights” and denied any wrongdoing.

The U.S. firm’s stock price moved 1.5% lower in mid-morning trade.

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