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Global online shopping platform Temu.

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Two U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission members are urging the agency to probe safety practices of “foreign-owned” e-commerce platforms such as Shein and Temu, specifically the alleged sale of “deadly baby and toddler products.”

In a letter late Tuesday, CPSC Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak said the agency should examine Temu and Shein’s safety and compliance controls, relationships with third-party sellers and consumers and “any representations they make when products are imported.”

“We seek to better understand these firms, particularly their focus on low-value direct-to-consumer — sometimes called de minimis — shipments and the enforcement challenges when firms with little or no U.S. presence distribute consumer products through these platforms,” the commissioners wrote.

Last month, The Information reported Temu was offering padded crib bumpers, which are outlawed in the U.S. due to suffocation hazards, while Shein sells children’s hoodies with drawstrings that regulators have said are a safety hazard.

A Shein spokesperson said in a statement that customer safety is a top priority and the company is investing millions of dollars to strengthen its compliance programs, including partnering with testing agencies to enhance its product safety practices.

A representative from Temu said in a statement that it requires all sellers on its site to comply with laws and regulations, including those related to product safety.

“Our interests are aligned with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in ensuring consumer protection and product safety, and we will cooperate fully with any investigation,” the Temu spokesperson said.

Discount retailers Temu and Shein have exploded in popularity in the U.S. by going on an online marketing blitz and offering consumers inexpensive goods from China, whether it is a $3 pair of shoes or a $15 smartwatch.

Shein launched in the U.S. in 2017 and has recently flooded Google and Facebook with ads to fuel expansion. It is reportedly valued at $66 billion. Temu, owned by PDD Holdings, debuted in the U.S. in 2022, and quickly plowed billions of dollars into marketing, most noticeably through its “Shop Like a Billionaire” TV spot that ran during this year’s Super Bowl. Its rise has caught the attention of major e-commerce players including Amazon, which has sought to launch a competing discount storefront, CNBC previously reported.

Shein and Temu leverage their relationships with small manufacturers and suppliers in China to ship goods directly from China to the U.S. Much of their growth, according to some industry experts, is the result of a trade loophole, known as the de minimis exemption, which allows for packages shipped from China valued at under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free.

CPSC officials have asked for more funding to hire staffers to monitor emerging e-commerce platforms such as Temu and Shein over safety practices, according to The Information.

Lawmakers are also scrutinizing the platforms. Last April, a congressional commission released a report detailing issues with Shein, Temu and other “Chinese ‘fast fashion’ platforms.'” They alleged the sites have numerous product safety hazards, are connected to the use of forced labor and are exploiting trade loopholes, among other concerns.

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Temu still has 'a long way to go' in taking market share from larger incumbent e-commerce players

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Quantum computing startup IQM raises $320 million as investors pile into the tech

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September 3, 2025

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Quantum computing startup IQM raises 0 million as investors pile into the tech

Quantum computing firm IQM says it’s raised $320 million of fresh funding to ramp up investments in technology and commercial growth.

The startup, which is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, was founded in 2018 by a team of scientists with the aim of building powerful quantum computers in Europe like the machines companies such as Google and IBM are building in the U.S.

Quantum computers are machines that use the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers, which store information in bits (ones and zeroes). Quantum computers use quantum bits, or “qubits,” which can be zero, one or something in between — the aim being to process much larger volumes of data to facilitate breakthroughs in areas like medicine, science and finance.

IQM’s funding round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, a U.S. cybersecurity-focused investment firm, while Finnish venture capital firm Tesi also invested. It gives the seven-year-old company “unicorn” status, meaning it’s valued at $1 billion or more, according to co-CEO and co-founder Jan Goetz.

The investment underscores heightened investor buzz around the quantum computing space. Shares of publicly-listed quantum firms like IonQ and D-Wave Quantum have seen huge rallies in the past year. IonQ stock is up nearly 480% in the last 12 months, while D-Wave Quantum’s shares have spiked over 1,400%.

“If you compare us directly to the companies which are Nasdaq-listed and take KPIs like people, revenue, patents, things like this, actually we are not behind. We can actually compete on this level,” Goetz told CNBC in an interview.

Goetz said that IQM has come a long way since the early days of building the company. The company has 350 employees globally and has built out finance and sales operations as well as a factory in Espoo where it builds its machines.

Europe vs. the U.S.

There are now a number of European companies working on quantum computers, including IQM, Pasqual and Quandela. However, they are yet to achieve the scale of their U.S. counterparts.

In a speech earlier this year, the European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen said that European quantum computing startups often struggle to scale due to a lack of private capital, noting that the European Union receives only 5% of global private funding compared to 50% for the U.S.

“If you just look at what is happening in Europe in these deep tech fields which come out of universities, naturally we have quite a lot of startups because we have so many good universities in Europe. But then it’s really hard to make them grow,” IQM’s Goetz said.

“Now I think there is a risk of, if you have very high valuations in companies in the U.S., that they just drive M&A consolidation using their high share price.” Indeed, IonQ in June announced it would buy U.K. quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.1 billion in a deal consisting primarily of stock.

IQM has now sold a total of 15 quantum computers to date. The company sells two main products: its flagship machine, Radiance, and a more affordable quantum computer called Spark, which the company sells to universities.

Going forward, IQM is planning to move beyond just hardware. Goetz said the firm will use part of the cash it’s raised to develop a software platform aimed at making quantum computing accessible to developers who aren’t experts in the field.

The other main goal for IQM is global expansion, with plans to scale up commercial and sales operations in the U.S. and Asia. Goetz said IQM has sold two systems in Asia so far — one in Taiwan and the other in South Korea — and recently sold its first machine in the U.S.

While an initial public offering may be an option for IQM further down the line, Goetz insisted the company has no IPO plans for the moment, adding there are still “attractive routes” in the private markets for raising capital.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to “build a sustainable, profitable business and really make it a kind of company that’s there to stay and to shape the future of compute over a long time.”

“We will do whatever is necessary to make that happen,” Goetz added.

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Sen. Rand Paul blasts Trump’s stake in Intel as ‘a step towards socialism’

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September 3, 2025

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Sen. Rand Paul blasts Trump's stake in Intel as 'a step towards socialism'

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., does a TV interview in the Russell Senate Office Building on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration’s decision to take a 10% stake in embattled chipmaker Intel, calling the investment “a step towards socialism.”

Intel announced last month that the U.S. government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel noted that the price the government paid was a discount to the current market price.

Rand said government ownership is “a bad idea.”

“It’s always a mistake to say, ‘Well we have this one bad policy, all right, we’ll tolerate a little socialism, but we don’t want anymore,” Paul told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “I think it’s a bad idea.”

President Donald Trump said on Truth Social last month that the government’s stake in the chipmaker is a “great Deal for America, and, also, a great Deal for INTEL.”

Trump has taken an increasingly heavy hand in the private sector, raising concern among conservative lawmakers like Paul, who have long opposed big government. In August, the Trump administration said the government would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials. It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.

Among the most vocal supporters in Congress of Trump’s Intel proposal has been Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont. Sanders, a longtime and vocal Trump critic, told news outlets last month that, “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

But Rand said it’s not smart to involve the government in the free market.

“I worry that the free market movement, the movement that was a big part of the Republican Party, is being diminished over time,” Rand said.

WATCH: Sen. Rand Paul on U.S. government’s stake in Intel: It’s a step towards socialism

Sen. Rand Paul on U.S. government's stake in Intel: It's a step towards socialism

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Translation startup DeepL launches an AI ‘agent’ in challenge to players like OpenAI

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4 hours ago

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September 3, 2025

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Translation startup DeepL launches an AI 'agent' in challenge to players like OpenAI

DeepL CEO Jaroslaw “Jarek” Kutylowski.

DeepL

German startup DeepL on Wednesday said it was expanding beyond artificial intelligence-powered translation into general AI agents focused on businesses.

The term “agent” refers to an AI tool that can carry out tasks in the background in response to user prompts.

DeepL Agent is designed to complete “repetitive, time-intensive tasks across a wide variety of functions” according to the company. It can responds to natural langauge commands from a users. DeepL Agent can be used in various teams from human resources to marketing, the company added.

Agents or agentic AI have become buzzwords in the technology industry, underscoring how companies see how these digital assistants automating more mundane tasks. Companies such as Microsoft with Co-Pilot and Anthropic’s Claude are products focused on the enterprise customer.

The move is a step beyond what DeepL, which is valued at $2 billion, has focused on since it was founded in 2017. It potentially pits the company against major AI players like Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft, which are targeting enterprise customers.

DeepL CEO Jarek Kutylowski told CNBC on Wednesday that the company’s agent was a natural extension of its translation product.

DeepL launches AI agent that goes beyond translation

“We found out that the technology is as capable of helping you whenever you’re doing research or whatever you’re doing,” Kutylowski said.

“All of those tedious tasks in your office when you have to switch between different systems and take some data from one system, put it into another one, AI, and those autonomous agents, and the DeepL Agent in particular, can help solve so much better.”

DeepL’s translation product is based on its self-developed large language models. Kutylowski said DeepL Agent is based on its own models, as well as on those available “externally” from other providers.

While there are a large number of companies advertising AI agents, the market is still in a very early stage. Overall investor interest in AI companies is meanwhile still high. Amazon-backed Anthropic on Tuesday announced a funding round that put the firm at a $183-billion post-money valuation.

Technology listings appear to be gathering steam, with both fintech firm Klarna and crypto exchange Gemini this week unveiling details of their upcoming initial public offerings.

Against this backdrop, CNBC asked Kutylowski if DeepL was considering an IPO, to which he responded: “That’s not a short term plan that we would be considering right now.”

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