Connect with us

Published

on

Visitors look at Apple Inc. iPhones and iPads on display at the SK Telecom Co. T Factory flagship store in Seoul, South Korea, June 11, 2021.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea has become the first country to impose curbs on Google and Apple’s payment policies that force developers to only use the tech giants’ proprietary billing systems.

Those policies usually require developers to pay Google and Apple a commission as high as 30% in every transaction.

The South Korean parliament approved a bill on Tuesday that will ban major app store operators — like Google and Apple — from requiring developers to use their payment systems to process the sale of digital products and services.

It means that developers can avoid paying commission to Google and Apple by directing users to pay via alternate platforms.

A Google spokesperson said its service fee “helps keep Android free, giving developers the tools and global platform to access billions of consumers around the world.”

“We’ll reflect on how to comply with this law while maintaining a model that supports a high-quality operating system and app store, and we will share more in the coming weeks,” the Google spokesperson added.

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

The law, sometimes referred to as the Anti-Google Law, was submitted to parliament last August, according to Yonhap News.

Some 180 lawmakers out of 188 voted in favor of passing amendments made to the Telecommunications Business Act, Reuters reported.

Media reports last week said the legislation and judiciary committee of the National Assembly approved revisions of a bill aimed at stopping app store operators from forcing developers to use specific payment systems.

Regulatory scrutiny

Regulators worldwide are focusing more on the app stores and fees that Google and Apple are charging developers — and the ruling in South Korea will likely be the first step toward greater scrutiny, according to Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities.

“It’s a potential watershed moment,” Ives said on CNBC’ “Street Signs Asia” on Monday ahead of the decision in Seoul. “Not necessarily for what this means in itself, but for the ripple effect as it shows that they’re not just words, but actually actions.”

Ives added that while there might be monetization opportunity for others, such as telecommunication services providers, it ultimately depends on how consumers would respond.

“The question is what will consumers ultimately do? Because the path of least resistance is to go through Apple and go through Google – and that’s what consumers have gotten used to,” he said.

What happened?

Last year, Google said it was planning to enforce a policy requiring developers that distributed software on the Google Play Store — a digital service to download apps — to use its proprietary in-app payment system. That means other payment alternatives will not be allowed.

Google’s billing system takes a 30% cut for most in-app purchases, similar to what Apple does on its App Store.

The move was criticized by developers and regulators scrutinized Google’s and Apple’s hold over the smartphone operating systems and the price they charge programmers who develop apps for those platforms. Majority of the world’s smartphones either run on Google’s Android operating system or on Apple’s iOS platform.

Both companies have since said they would cut their commission rates for certain developers.

In Apple’s case, the company said it will halve charges from 30% to 15% for software developers with less than $1 million in annual net sales on the App Store. Google said in March it would cut Google Play Store fees from 30% to 15% for the first million dollars a developer makes on the platform per year.

The iPhone maker last week also reversed course on another important App Store policy: It said developers on the App Store will be allowed to email users and encourage them to pay directly, instead of through Apple — a move that was previously prohibited.

However, if users continue to make payments through the App Store, developers will have to use Apple’s billing system and pay a commission.

CNBC’s Kif Leswing and Sam Shead contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Technology

Joby Aviation says it is doubling production at its air taxi manufacturing hub

Published

on

By

Joby Aviation says it is doubling production at its air taxi manufacturing hub

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, stands near an electric air taxi by Joby Aviation at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.

Roselle Chen | Reuters

Joby Aviation is ramping up its manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. as it races to roll out air taxi service in 2026.

The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) maker said Tuesday that it’s launching production at its remodeled components facility in Dayton, Ohio, and plans to double capacity at its Marina, California, manufacturing hub.

“Reimagining urban mobility takes speed, scale, and precision manufacturing. Our expanded manufacturing footprint in both California and Ohio is preparing us to do just that,” said product chief Eric Allison in a release.

Shares jumped more than 7%, building on a 16% year-to-date gain.

Joby Aviation and competitors such as Archer Aviation and Eve Air Mobility are aiming to roll out eVTOLs worldwide that can ease traffic congestion in crowded city centers, but they are awaiting regulatory approval.

The company is currently in the process of gaining Federal Aviation Administration approval for its vehicles.

Read more CNBC tech news

Last month, Joby Aviation shares popped on news that it delivered its first eVTOL to the United Arab Emirates, with plans to launch service in the region next year. The company agreed to an exclusive six-year deal to roll out air taxi service in Dubai last February.

Joby said the new facilities will create hundreds of new full-time jobs and underscore its commitment to fostering American innovation. At full capacity, the 435,500-square-foot California factory will manufacture as many as 24 aircraft annually.

The electric air transport company also said the opening coincided with the flight of its sixth aircraft.

Engineers from Toyota will help ramp up aircraft production to 500 annually at the Ohio facility. The companies inked a $500 million deal last year.

Shares of Joby and its competitors have ballooned in value this year as interest in the technology gains steam.

In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that included the creation of an air taxi testing program.

WATCH: Joby Aviation CEO on UAE delivery: This is a huge milestone for us

Joby Aviation CEO on UAE delivery: This is a huge milestone for us

Continue Reading

Technology

Commerce Secretary Lutnick says China is only getting Nvidia’s ‘4th best’ AI chip

Published

on

By

Commerce Secretary Lutnick says China is only getting Nvidia’s ‘4th best’ AI chip

Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce speaks during the Pennsylvania Energy And Innovation Summit 2025 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on July 15, 2025.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said the Trump administration reversed course on allowing Nvidia to sell its AI chips to China because the U.S. company will not be giving over its best technology.

Lutnick made the remark speaking with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, saying that Nvidia wants to sell China its “4th best” chip, which is slower than the fastest chips that U.S. companies use.

“We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second best stuff, not even our third best,” Lutnick said.

Nvidia said Monday night that it would soon resume sales of the H20 chip to China after the Trump administration signaled that it would grant the chipmaker necessary export licenses.

Lutnick said that the administration said that the renewed sale of H20 chips to China was linked to a rare-earths magnet deal. Lutnick said it was in U.S. interests to have Chinese companies using American technology so they continue to use an American “tech stack.”

“The fourth one down, we want to keep China using it,” Lutnick said. “We want to keep having the Chinese use the American technology stack, because they still rely upon it.”

Similarly, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said in recent weeks that the U.S. should continue selling his chips to China so Chinese companies don’t invest in homegrown infrastructure. Huang on Sunday also said that the Chinese military wouldn’t use Nvidia chips anyway, and previously signaled that China’s Huawei is a legitimate competitor.

“The idea is the Chinese are more than capable of building their own,” Lutnick said. “You want to keep one step ahead of what they can build, so they keep buying our chips.”

The reversal is a major win for Nvidia. Huang had previously said that the Trump administration’s decision to require a license for the H20 chip in April “effectively closed” the China market. Nvidia said that it could have sold $8 billion in H20 chips in the current quarter before sales were stopped.

Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick on Indonesia trade deal: No tariffs there, they pay tariffs here

The administration reversed its decision after President Donald Trump met with Huang in Washington last week.

“You want to sell the Chinese enough that their developers get addicted to the American technology stack,” Lutnick said. “That’s the thinking.”

The H20 chip was introduced in 2022 in response to Biden administration export controls. It’s based on the same underlying technology as Nvidia’s Hopper-generation chips, which are sold in the U.S. as finished systems using H100 or H200 chips.

The U.S. chipmaker took some features out of the H20 in order to sell it to China, including fewer graphics processing unit cores and lower bandwidth connecting separate parts of the chip. But the success of the DeepSeek R1 model suggested that there were many Chinese companies that were just fine with the slowed-down chips. The China-specific H20 is behind Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, the H100 and the H200, Lutnick said.

Nvidia says that it releases new artificial intelligence chips every year and that serious AI developers should always try to get the latest and greatest versions because the technology is improving so quickly.

The best AI chips broadly available from clouds and system makers today are called Blackwell, and come as a GB200 chip with a paired central processing unit as well as B100 and B200 versions. Nvidia also makes a range of Blackwell-based chips for gaming and graphics that can be used for AI, but they’re generally weaker than the biggest chips designed for data centers.

A successor, called Blackwell Ultra, is only now starting to be installed in data centers, and it’s expected to ramp in volume over the next year. In 2027, Nvidia will release “Vera Rubin” chips.

Continue Reading

Technology

It’s a huge week for crypto in D.C. But the industry may not get everything it wants

Published

on

By

It's a huge week for crypto in D.C. But the industry may not get everything it wants

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 27, 2025.

Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

It’s “Crypto Week” in Washington.

The cryptocurrency industry is set to notch a major win this week if the House can pass two bills that would set up a long-lobbied-for regulatory framework for digital assets.

The stablecoin bill, known as the GENUIS Act, has already passed the Senate and looks set to become the first standalone crypto measure signed into law should the House do the same.

But the real prize for the industry is a wider and more complex bill on market structure called the CLARITY Act, which faces a more difficult path to President Donald Trump‘s desk.

Seeking CLARITY

The CLARITY Act sets the rules for when an asset is considered a security and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission versus when it’s considered a commodity that is overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC.

The act is likely to pass the House on Wednesday, given the bipartisan support when the bill cleared two committees. But the path in the Senate is murky, as Democrats could withhold their support over concerns about how Trump and his family are benefiting from crypto.

The Trump family’s growing crypto empire includes $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, a stablecoin, and a decentralized finance firm called World Liberty Financial, among other ventures.

Some lawmakers who backed the narrower stablecoin bill did so with the hopes of seeing the wider market structure package address conflicts of interest.

“President Trump’s crypto corruption distorts the digital asset marketplace,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who voted for the stablecoin bill. “Writing a bill with a corruption caveat for the president sends a clear message — that Congress is not serious about addressing corruption, which we know undermines investors’ faith in capital markets.”

Pushing it to pass

Coinbase attempted to literally sweeten the deal on the CLARITY Act for lawmakers with an advertising push that included handing out about 5,000 chocolate bars around D.C.

The candy wrappers cited a Morning Consult poll that found about “1 in 5” Americans own crypto.

Coinbase, Ripple and other crypto companies are lobbying Congress to put their concerns aside and back the market structure package, anticipating that more regulatory certainty will encourage more investment in crypto.

“When consumers buy and sell and trade these digital assets, they want to know what they’re getting and they want to know that they’re using a reputable intermediary,” Coinbase Vice President of U.S. Policy Kara Calvert told CNBC. “And what this bill does is provide that construct to do that.”

Read more CNBC tech news

The Senate is set to introduce its own market structure bill this month that is expected to differ slightly from the House version.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., is working with Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and others on the measure.

Other Democrats are planning to work with Republicans on a bill, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who worked on previous market structure bills with Lummis.

“We have a lot of work to do, and we’re going to work on a bipartisan basis over the next month,” she told CNBC in a brief interview in the Capitol.

GENIUS and the Fed

Continue Reading

Trending