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Qatari telecoms provider Ooredoo told CNBC Wednesday that its new tie-up with Nvidia is compliant of all U.S. regulations and will still allow it to have access to the latest technology.

Ooredoo earlier this week signed a partnership with Nvidia, marking the chipmaker’s first large-scale entry into the Middle East market. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal.

The deal will see thousands of Nvidia’s GPUs (graphics processing units) deployed in 26 data centers across Qatar and five other countries: Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia and the Maldives. These chips will help the data centers process massive amounts of information, which will feed AI chatbots and other tools, essential components of a country’s AI infrastructure.

The tie-up comes after the United States last year restricted the sale of certain advanced chips to some Middle Eastern nations, over fears the technology could be intercepted by China.

Washington does allow the export of some Nvidia chips to the region, and Nvidia, AMD and Intel have all indicated plans to create less powerful chips for export to the Chinese market. The restrictions focus on A100 and H100 chips, not GPUs (another type of semiconductor) which are central to this deal.

Qatar's Ooredoo discusses Nvidia's Middle East launch

Ooredoo told CNBC that the deal is compliant of all U.S. regulations. Under the partnership, no new licenses for different chips have been created.

“As a telecom operator, dealing with very stringent regulation is business as usual. We are used to dealing with regulators and government authorities, whether they’re local or international,” Ooredoo’s CEO told CNBC.

“We are working very closely with the different regulators and with Nvidia to see all the required approvals and to provide all the guarantees required,” he added.

A tug of war between China and the United States has played out in the race to obtain and protect the latest artificial intelligence technology. The United Arab Emirates’ top AI group G42 vowed to phase out Chinese hardware to appease Washington, later seeing through a deal with Microsoft worth $1.5 billion.

Gulf states are leveraging their vast energy wealth to try to become pioneers in artificial intelligence, investing in developing the technology and importing massive quantities of chips used in AI data centers.

According to Ooredoo’s CEO, the chips are latest generation GPUs, catered specially for artificial intelligence and “will be able to deliver extreme machine learning and model utilization of these AI models and generative AI.”

They will be used in citizen services for governments, and to enhance productivity and efficiency for general corporations and research and development.

The cloud partnership between Ooredoo and Nvidia aims to position the chipmaker as the central source for AI technology in the region, and according to Ooredoo will drive innovation, development and create jobs. The countries will get access to Nvidia’s latest full-stack AI platform, catering to both Ooredoo and non-Ooredoo customers through independent data centers.

Ooredoo also committed to investing $1 billion to boost its regional data center capacity even before announcing its partnership with Nvidia. Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Ooredoo’s CEO, told CNBC’s Dan Murphy that he expects that investment to be returned in the years to come.

“The demand we’re seeing just from the cloud and now adding that layer of AI to it is already outstripping our most optimistic plan, so we will probably exceed that investment in the next three to five years.”

Qatar Investment Authority-backed Ooredoo, which is listed in both Qatar and Abu Dhabi, plans to develop a platform driven by AI and powered by Nvidia in the hope of meeting market demand.

Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company last week, overtaking Microsoft. The chipmaker rebounded in Tuesday trade, reversing a three-day losing streak which wiped over $550 billion from its market value.

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Japan chip stocks extend losses as DeepSeek worries fuel Wall Street tech rout

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Japan chip stocks extend losses as DeepSeek worries fuel Wall Street tech rout

A sales clerk shows off Elpida Memory Inc. memory chips at an electronics shop in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, March 5, 2009.

Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares in Japan’s chip-related companies extended declines for a second day as Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI competitiveness calls into question the United States’ leadership in the field.

Semiconductor testing equipment supplier Advantest slid over 10%, Tokyo Electron fell 3.6%, while Renesas Electronics traded 2.29% lower Tuesday.

Softbank Group, which owns chip designer Arm, slid 5.26%. Data center-related shares also continued to take a hit, with wire and cable firms Furukawa and Fujikura dropping 8.22% and 8.1%, respectively.

DeepSeek released a free, open-source large language model in late December, claiming it was created in only two months with a budget of under $6 million. Last week, the lab introduced R1, a reasoning model that outperformed OpenAI’s latest o1 in several third-party tests.

“There will be a lot more pain to follow today as we follow the U.S. down,” said Andrew Jackson, head of equity strategy at ORTUS Advisors. 

“The big questions is whether the U.S. will U-turn on their approach and deregulate chip and SPE restrictions seeing as they are (currently) ineffectual or try and ramp things up even more,” Jackson wrote in an email. DeepSeek had to navigate strict semiconductor restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on China, which limited access to advanced chips.

The Chinese artificial intelligence company aims to stand out from its competitors by focusing on its reasoning abilities, where the model creates a “chain of thought” before providing the final answer to improve the accuracy of its responses.

“DeepSeek is a risk to the U.S. exceptionalism narrative, further questioning the ‘Magnificent 7’ dominance,” Citi analysts wrote in a note.

Sell-off in chip stocks ‘quite a mistake’

Chip giant Nvidia lost almost $600 billion in market cap on Monday, logging the largest drop for a company in a single day in the U.S. The company posted its worst day in the market since March 2020 after its stock price plunged 17%. However, a rotation into more defensive areas of the U.S. market helped ease Monday’s losses.

Overnight, other chip-related shares in international markets also fell. Netherlands-based chip companies ASML and ASM International saw declines during European trading hours. Micron and Arm Holdings dropped more than 11% and 10%, respectively.

DeepSeek either builds on existing inference infrastructure, or will itself stimulate new AI demand, said Richard Kaye, an analyst at global asset management group Comgest. 

“In both cases, semiconductor intensity remains high,” Kaye told CNBC via email.

“The deep fall in semiconductor equipment stocks, Tokyo Electron, ASML, Applied Materials, is quite a mistake,” he added.

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Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ in Maps app after government updates

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Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America' in Maps app after government updates

The Gulf of Mexico as seen on Google Maps.

Source: Google Maps

Google said Monday it will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in Google Maps after the Trump administration updates its “official government sources.”

The company also said it will start using the name “Mount McKinley” for the mountain in Alaska currently called Denali.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed executive actions that included an order to make the name changes on official maps and federal communications.

“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps,” the company said in an X post. “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

Google added that the name Gulf of Mexico will remain displayed for users in Mexico. Users in other countries will see both names, the company said.

Trump said he will restore former President William McKinley’s name to the mountain. He said McKinley made the country “very rich” through tariffs and talent.

The mountain was named Mount McKinley until 2015, when President Barack Obama’s administration changed it to Denali as a symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives.

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Amazon taps Whole Foods CEO to oversee grocery business

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Amazon taps Whole Foods CEO to oversee grocery business

Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel speaks onstage during the 2023 Concordia Annual Summit.

Leigh Vogel | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Amazon has tapped Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel to oversee its sprawling grocery business, the company announced Monday.

Doug Herrington, the company’s worldwide retail chief, wrote in a memo to employees posted to Amazon’s site that Buechel will “take on an expanded responsibility leading Worldwide Grocery Stores” while continuing to lead Whole Foods. Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.

“In his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high-quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers, helping WFM achieve record sales growth and expand to over 535 locations,” Herrington said.

Buechel became CEO of Whole Foods in 2022 after co-founder John Mackey retired from the company. In his expanded role leading Amazon’s grocery business, Buechel will succeed Tony Hoggett, who left Amazon last October to join Wonder, a food delivery startup led by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore.

Buechel will oversee not only Whole Foods, but also Amazon’s larger grocery business, which includes its line of Fresh supermarkets, Go cashierless stores and online grocery service. Buechel will report to Herrington, who is one of the closest executives to Jassy and serves on the S-team, a tight-knit group of more than a dozen senior executives from almost all areas of Amazon’s business.

Amazon has long been determined to cement itself as a grocery destination for shoppers. Since acquiring Whole Foods, it has launched its own chain of Fresh supermarkets, and it has taken steps to unify its online and brick-and-mortar grocery operations while appealing to a broader swath of consumers.

Herrington said he is “incredibly energized” by the momentum of Amazon’s grocery business.

“Since creating a single WW Grocery Stores organization in 2022, we have made notable progress in our vision to make grocery shopping simpler, faster, and more affordable for customers,” Herrington wrote in the memo. “We’ve taken steps to integrate our huge grocery selection across our broader logistics network, and create a more seamless experience for customers, especially Prime members. This work will continue under Jason’s leadership.”

The company has further tweaked its grocery division in recent years by shuttering some Fresh and Go stores as part of Jassy’s broader cost-cutting efforts. Last April, Amazon said it would begin removing its pricey and elaborate cashierless checkout system from Fresh stores in the U.S. Instead, it has focused on selling the technology, called Just Walk Out, to third-party retailers.

Amazon has also brought its Fresh and Whole Foods grocery businesses closer together since the 2017 acquisition. The company last October began piloting a new concept at one of its Whole Foods locations outside of Philadelphia, where it attached an automated warehouse onto the store that lets Amazon shoppers purchase goods from brands not typically stocked at the organic grocer.

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