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Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet Inc., speaks at the inaugural 2024 Business, Government and Society Forum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Stanford, California, on April 3, 2024.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is planning another big year of spending as it continues to build out its artificial intelligence offering.

“We are confident about the opportunities ahead, and to accelerate our progress, we expect to invest approximately $75 billion in capital expenditures in 2025,” Pichai said in Tuesday’s earnings release announcing the investment plan.

The capex figure came in ahead of the $59.73 billion consensus estimate for Google, according to Visible Alpha.

On its earnings call, Alphabet said it expects $16 billion to $18 billion of those expenses to come in the first quarter. Overall, the expenditures will go toward “technical infrastructure, primarily for servers, followed by data centers and networking,” finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said.

Alphabet’s announcement came alongside a mixed fourth-quarter earnings report. Shares fell 8% after the company topped Wall Street’s earnings estimates by 2 cents per share, but fell short on revenue expectations.

Alphabet and its megacap tech rivals are rushing to build out their data centers with next-generation AI infrastructure, packed with Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs. Last month, Meta said it plans to invest $60 billion to $65 billion this year as part of its AI push. Microsoft has committed to $80 billion in AI-related capital expenditures in its current fiscal year.

The recent rise of China’s DeepSeek open-source models has led to some concerns about whether companies need to invest as heavily in their buildouts. Those fears rocked financial markets early last week, spurring a sell-off that contributed to the worst one-day market value loss for a company in history.

Many technology CEOs have called attention to the Chinese startup and its implications for U.S.-based tools. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said DeepSeek is showing “real innovations,” while Palantir CEO Alex Karp told CNBC last week that competing AI models means the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to develop the technology faster.

In addition to infrastructure purchases, Alphabet said it expects headcount growth in 2025 “in key investment areas such as AI and cloud.”

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USPS temporarily suspends some inbound packages from China, Hong Kong

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USPS temporarily suspends some inbound packages from China, Hong Kong

A United States Postal Service worker pushes a cart of packages in New York City, on Dec. 4, 2023.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday it’s temporarily suspending all inbound packages from China and Hong Kong Posts.

The change is effective immediately and will remain “until further notice,” according to an alert posted to the agency’s website. Letters and large envelopes, referred to as “flats,” sent from China and Hong Kong won’t be impacted, the USPS said.

The announcement comes after President Donald Trump on Saturday signed executive orders imposing tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. Trump on Monday agreed to hold off on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days, but the 10% tax on goods from China remains.

A provision in the orders eliminates a popular trade loophole, known as “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty free.

Chinese e-commerce firms, including Shein and PDD Holdings‘ Temu, have relied on the de minimis loophole as a way to bypass tariffs, and keep prices low.

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Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons, surveillance

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Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons, surveillance

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, April 3, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Google has removed a pledge to abstain from using AI for potentially harmful applications, such as weapons and surveillance, according to the company’s updated “AI Principles.”

A prior version of the company’s AI principles said the company would not pursue “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people,” and “technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.”

Those objectives are no longer displayed on its AI Principles website.

“There’s a global competition taking place for AI leadership within an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape,” reads a Tuesday blog post co-written by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. “We believe democracies should lead in AI development, guided by core values like freedom, equality, and respect for human rights.”

The company’s updated principles reflect Google’s growing ambitions to offer its AI technology and services to more users and clients, which has included governments. The change is also in line with increasing rhetoric out of Silicon Valley leaders about a winner-take-all AI race between the U.S. and China, with Palantir’s CTO Shyam Sankar saying Monday that “it’s going to be a whole-of-nation effort that extends well beyond the DoD in order for us as a nation to win.”

The previous version of the company’s AI principles said Google would “take into account a broad range of social and economic factors.” The new AI principles state Google will “proceed where we believe that the overall likely benefits substantially exceed the foreseeable risks and downsides.”

In its Tuesday blog post, Google said it will “stay consistent with widely accepted principles of international law and human rights — always evaluating specific work by carefully assessing whether the benefits substantially outweigh potential risks.”

The new AI principles were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, ahead of Google’s fourth-quarter earnings. The company’s results missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations and drove shares down as much as 9% in after-hours trading.

Hundreds of protestors including Google workers are gathered in front of Google’s San Francisco offices and shut down traffic at One Market Street block on Thursday evening, demanding an end to its work with the Israeli government, and to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza, in San Francisco, California, United States on December 14, 2023.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Google established its AI principles in 2018 after declining to renew a government contract called Project Maven, which helped the government analyze and interpret drone videos using artificial intelligence. Prior to ending the deal, several thousand employees signed a petition against the contract and dozens resigned in opposition to Google’s involvement. The company also dropped out of the bidding for a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract in part because the company “couldn’t be sure” it would align with the company’s AI principles, it said at the time.

Touting its AI technology to clients, Pichai’s leadership team has aggressively pursued federal government contracts, which has caused heightened strain in some areas within Google’s outspoken workforce.

“We believe that companies, governments, and organizations sharing these values should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security,” Google’s Tuesday blog post said.

Google last year terminated more than 50 employees after a series of protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon that provides the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and AI services. Executives repeatedly said the contract didn’t violate any of the company’s “AI principles.”

However, documents and reports showed the company’s agreement allowed for giving Israel AI tools that included image categorization, object tracking, as well as provisions for state-owned weapons manufacturers. The New York Times in December reported that four months prior to signing on to Nimbus, Google officials expressed concern that signing the deal would harm its reputation and that “Google Cloud services could be used for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights violations.”

Meanwhile, the company had been cracking down on internal discussions around geopolitical conflicts like the war in Gaza.

Google announced updated guidelines for its Memegen internal forum in September that further restricted political discussions about geopolitical content, international relations, military conflicts, economic actions and territorial disputes, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC at the time

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Match appoints Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff as CEO

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Match appoints Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff as CEO

FILE PHOTO: Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and executive chairman of dot.LA, speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Match Group announced on Tuesday that Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff will serve as its new CEO.

Rascoff, who has served as a member of the online dating company’s board since March 2024, will replace Bernard Kim in the role, Match said.

“During his time on the Board, Spencer has demonstrated a strong strategic perspective and deep understanding of Match Group’s brands and opportunities,” said Match Group Chairman Tom McInerney, in a statement. “We are confident in his ability to drive the company’s next phase of innovation and growth.”

Along with the leadership change, Match announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter results but lackluster guidance. Match posted earnings per share of 59 cents on $860 million in revenue. That topped the 54 cents per share in earnings and $859 million in revenue expected by analysts polled by LSEG.

However, the parent of Tinder and Hinge issued disappointing revenue guidance for the first quarter. The company forecast sales of $820 million to $830 million for the quarter, falling short of the $853 million estimate from LSEG.

The shares sank 7% in extended trading after the report.

Rascoff, 49, is best known for his role at Zillow. He co-founded the real estate technology company nearly two decades ago and served in various roles, including CEO, before departing in 2019. The Harvard University graduate also founded online travel website Hotwire, which Expedia bought for nearly $700 million in 2003.

Match was fully spun out of Barry Diller’s IAC Group in 2020, but has had a tough run as an independent public company. Its market cap was about $30 billion at the time of the transaction and has since shrunk below $10 billion, reflecting a dramatic slowdown in revenue growth.

Last month, IAC said its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement market place the company acquired in 2017.

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