Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday released a study that found that artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, or as much as $1.2 trillion in wages across finance, health care and professional services.

The study was conducted using a labor simulation tool called the Iceberg Index, which was created by MIT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The index simulates how 151 million U.S. workers interact across the country and how they are affected by AI and corresponding policy.

The Iceberg Index, which was announced earlier this year, offers a forward-looking view of how AI may reshape the labor market, not just in coastal tech hubs but across every state in the country. For lawmakers preparing billion-dollar reskilling and training investments, the index offers a detailed map of where disruption is forming down to the zip code.

“Basically, we are creating a digital twin for the U.S. labor market,” said Prasanna Balaprakash, ORNL director and co-leader of the research. ORNL is a Department of Energy research center in eastern Tennessee, home to the Frontier supercomputer, which powers many large-scale modeling efforts.

The index runs population-level experiments, revealing how AI reshapes tasks, skills and labor flows long before those changes show up in the real economy, Balaprakash said.

The index treats the 151 million workers as individual agents, each tagged with skills, tasks, occupation and location. It maps more than 32,000 skills across 923 occupations in 3,000 counties, then measures where current AI systems can already perform those skills.

What the researchers found is that the visible tip of the iceberg — the layoffs and role shifts in tech, computing and information technology — represents just 2.2% of total wage exposure, or about $211 billion. Beneath the surface lies the total exposure, the $1.2 trillion in wages, and that includes routine functions in human resources, logistics, finance, and office administration. Those are areas sometimes overlooked in automation forecasts.

The index is not a prediction engine about exactly when or where jobs will be lost, the researchers said. Instead, it’s meant to give a skills-centered snapshot of what today’s AI systems can already do, and give policymakers a structured way to explore what-if scenarios before they commit real money and legislation.

The researchers partnered with state governments to run proactive simulations. Tennessee, North Carolina and Utah helped validate the model using their own labor data and have begun building policy scenarios using the platform.

Tennessee moved first, citing the Iceberg Index in its official AI Workforce Action Plan released this month. Utah state leaders are preparing to release a similar report based on Iceberg’s modeling.

North Carolina state Sen. DeAndrea Salvador, who has worked closely with MIT on the project, said what drew her to the research is how it surfaces effects that traditional tools miss. She added that one of the most useful features is the ability to drill down to local detail.

“One of the things that you can go down to is county-specific data to essentially say, within a certain census block, here are the skills that is currently happening now and then matching those skills with what are the likelihood of them being automated or augmented, and what could that mean in terms of the shifts in the state’s GDP in that area, but also in employment,” she said.

Salvador said that kind of simulation work is especially valuable as states stand up overlapping AI task forces and working groups.

The Iceberg Index also challenges a common assumption about AI risk — that it will stay confined to tech roles in coastal hubs. The index’s simulations show exposed occupations spread across all 50 states, including inland and rural regions that are often left out of the AI conversation.

To address that gap, the Iceberg team has built an interactive simulation environment that allows states to experiment with different policy levers — from shifting workforce dollars and tweaking training programs to exploring how changes in technology adoption might affect local employment and gross domestic product.

“Project Iceberg enables policymakers and business leaders to identify exposure hotspots, prioritize training and infrastructure investments, and test interventions before committing billions to implementation,” the report says.

Balaprakash, who also serves on the Tennessee Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, shared state-specific findings with the governor’s team and the state’s AI director. He said many of Tennessee’s core sectors — health care, nuclear energy, manufacturing and transportation — still depend heavily on physical work, which offers some insulation from purely digital automation. The question, he said, is how to use new technologies such as robotics and AI assistants to strengthen those industries rather than hollow them out.

For now, the team is positioning Iceberg not as a finished product but as a sandbox that states can use to prepare for AI’s impact on their workforces.

“It is really aimed towards getting in and starting to try out different scenarios,” Salvador said.

WATCH: Amazon targets middle managers in mass layoffs, memo suggests more cuts coming as AI thins Big Tech

Apple is set to ship more smartphones than Samsung in 2025, the first time it will have done so in 14 years, Counterpoint Research said in a note on Wednesday.

Apple will ship around 243 million iPhone units this year versus 235 million shipments from Samsung, Counterpoint told CNBC. Apple is likely to end up with a 19.4% share of the global smartphone market while Samsung’s share will be 18.7%.

Shipments refer to the number of devices vendors ship to retail channels and do not directly equal sales. However, they provide insights into demand and expectations of sales from smartphone makers.

Apple’s success is being driven by its iPhone 17 series launched in September, which, according to Counterpoint, had a “bumper” holiday sales season.

Sales of the iPhone 17 series in the U.S. — including the iPhone Air — during the first four weeks after launch was 12% higher than that of the iPhone 16 series, excluding the iPhone 16e, the research firm said. In China, a critical market for Apple, sales of the iPhone 17 series during the same period were 18% higher than its predecessor.

“Beyond the highly positive market reception for the iPhone 17 series, the key driver behind the upgraded shipment outlook lies in the replacement cycle reaching its inflection point. Consumers who purchased smartphones during the COVID-19 boom are now entering their upgrade phase,” Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Yang Wang, said in the note.

Samsung meanwhile, could face challenges in the low-to-mid tier of the smartphone market from Chinese players, which could hamper the South Korean giant’s ability to reclaim the top spot, Counterpoint said.

Apple benefited from a lower-than-expected impact from tariffs given the trade truce between the U.S. and China. This helped Apple’s broader supply chain and growth in certain regions, such as emerging markets. The tech giant also benefited from a weaker U.S. dollar and a “resilient economic outlook” that boosted consumer confidence.

“With these structural tailwinds, Apple is well-positioned to surpass Samsung in annual shipments in 2025,” Wang said.

Meanwhile, Apple is expected to launch the entry level iPhone 17e next year as well as a foldable smartphone, Counterpoint forecast. The research firm said it expects the previously-announced improvements to Apple’s virtual assistant Siri as well as a “major iPhone design revamp” in 2027, to also underpin Apple’s dominance over the next few years.

“By expanding its lineup across multiple price tiers, including the growing “e” series, and potential adjustments to the Pro and Base launch cycles, Apple is strategically positioning itself to capture rising demand from aspirational consumers, particularly in emerging markets, and to strengthen its presence in the lower premium segment, which is projected to grow faster than the overall market,” Counterpoint said.

“Given an increasing preference for the iOS ecosystem, compatibility between devices and a substantial number of older models within Apple’s installed base due for renewal, Apple will retain the lead over other smartphone OEMs through the end of the decade.”

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Shares of artificial intelligence czar Nvidia fell 2.6% on Tuesday as signs of unrest continued rippling through its kingdom.

Over the month, Nvidia has been contending with concerns over lofty valuations and an argument from the “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry that companies may be overestimating the lifespan of Nvidia’s chips. That accounting choice inflates profits, he alleged.

The pressure intensified last week in the form of a potential challenger to the crown. Google on Nov. 18 announced the release of its new AI model Gemini 3 — so far so good, given that Nvidia isn’t in the business of designing large language models  — powered by its in-house AI chips — uh–oh.

And on Monday stateside, Meta, a potential kingmaker, appeared to signal that it is considering not just leasing Google’s custom AI chips, but also using them for its own data centers. It seemed like Nvidia felt the need to address some of those rumblings.

The chipmaker said on the social media platform X that its technology is more powerful and versatile than other types of AI chips, including the so-called ASIC chips, such as Google’s TPUs. Separately, Nvidia issued a private memo to Wall Street that disputed Burry’s allegations.

Power, whether in politics or semiconductors, requires a delicate balance.

Remaining silent may shroud those in power in a cloak of untouchability, projecting confidence in their authority — but also aloofness. Deigning to address unrest can soothe uncertainty, but also, paradoxically, signal insecurity.

For now, the crown is Nvidia’s to wear — and the weight of it is, too.

The UK Autumn Budget 2025 is here. Britain prepares for a “smorgasbord” of tax hikes to be unveiled Wednesday. Follow CNBC’s coverage of the Budget throughout the day on our live blog here. 

U.S. stocks advanced on Tuesday. Major indexes had their third straight winning session, erasing earlier intraday losses. Asia-Pacific markets rose Wednesday. Shares of Foxconn climbed more than 3% after the firm received approval for a contract amendment.

Meta is looking to use Google AI chips. That’s according to a Monday report by The Information. Nvidia on Tuesday wrote on X that its chips are “a generation ahead of the industry.” The chipmaker also sent analysts a memo on alleged bubble claims.

Taiwan President pledges $40 billion more for defense. Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s leader, on Wednesday said the self-governing island will improve its self-defense capabilities in the face of “unprecedented military buildup” by China.

[PRO] What to watch as UK budget is unveiled. Strategists told CNBC they will be monitoring the budget’s effects on interest rates, economic growth and the British pound — and one “rabbit out of the hat” from U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves.

The UK’s Autumn Budget is coming: Here’s what it could mean for your money

The run-up to this year’s U.K. Autumn Budget has been different from the norm because so many different tax proposals have been floated, flagged, leaked and retracted in the weeks and months leading up to Wednesday’s statement.

It has also made it harder to gauge what we’re actually going to get when Finance Minister Rachel Reeves finally unveils her spending and taxation plans for the year ahead.

— Holly Ellyatt