Quantitative-Trading Firm XTX Markets To Build €1 Billion Finnish Data Hub in Machine-Learning Bet

From Bloomberg, January 21:

• Billionaire’s quant firm plans five data centers in Finland
• The move bucks trend of relying on third-party infrastructure

Billionaire Alex Gerko’s quantitative-trading firm XTX Markets is investing more than €1 billion ($1 billion) building five data centers in Finland to underpin its growing use of machine learning.

The London-based market maker, which uses complex algorithms to trade over $250 billion worth of assets a day, will build the hub in the area around Kajaani, in central Finland, where it owns a 478-acre site, XTX said in a statement on Wednesday. 

The first data center, which it expects to complete next year, will have a floorspace of 15,000 square meters — approximately equivalent to two football pitches — and the whole project may take about five years.

XTX is bucking the industry trend of farming out its computational needs to third-party run infrastructure — which can be a comparatively fast process. Chief Technology Officer Joshua Leahy says the firm’s big bet on using machine learning to produce price forecasts means it’s ultimately more cost-effective and easier to guarantee capacity with its own infrastructure.

“By building things ourselves, we can build ahead of our needs,” he said in an interview. “Because of the way we use machine learning to build our trading strategies, we have been confident that we can apply more compute power to ultimately generate better returns.”

Finland’s cool climate has attracted similar investments from other companies and Alphabet Inc. also announced a €1 billion investment last year. Kajaani is already home to Europe’s LUMI supercomputer, one of the fastest globally....

....MUCH MORE

As we said at the start of last year's GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2024):

In Nvidia's World, If You (and your company) Don't Have Money You Will Not Be Able To Compete (NVDA)

SoftBank and Temesek-Backed Aquaculture Unicorn Apparently A Fraud

Sometimes I wonder if SoftBank actually does due diligence. The poster child for bad SoftBank deals was WeWork but there have been quite a few others.

It wouldn't be much more than a curiosity except for the fact Mr. Son et Cie is going to be heading up the $500 billion American AI thingy, Stargate.

From Singapore's Straits Times, January 22:

Indonesian unicorn eFishery allegedly faked most of its sales

Singapore – One of Indonesia’s most prominent start-ups, eFishery, may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years, according to an internal investigation triggered by a whistle-blower’s claim about the company’s accounting.

A preliminary, ongoing probe into the agritech start-up – backed by investors, including Japan’s SoftBank Group and Singapore’s Temasek – estimates that management inflated revenue by almost US$600 million (S$811 million) in the nine months to September in 2024, according to a 52-page draft report circulated among investors and reviewed by Bloomberg News. That would mean more than 75 per cent of the reported figures were fake, the report said. 

The company, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, was a darling of the nation’s start-up scene and turned unicorn with a valuation of US$1.4 billion when G42, an artificial intelligence firm controlled by the United Arab Emirates royal, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, backed its latest funding round. Unicorns are start-ups that reach a valuation of US$1 billion and are not listed on the stock market.

The start-up has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to modernise the country’s fish industry, providing farmers with smart feeding devices as well as feed and then buying their produce to sell into the broader market.

Investors were initially enticed by its profitability at a time when layoffs, chief executive officer resignations and plummeting valuations in the tech sector dominated headlines. It presented a US$16 million profit for the first nine months of 2024 to investors, but the investigation commissioned by the board alleges the firm actually generated a US$35.4 million loss.

Revenue for the period was estimated at US$157 million, rather than the US$752 million investors were told, according to the report. Management also inflated revenue and profit numbers for several previous years, the report said.

The report was initiated after a whistle-blower approached a board member with allegations that the accounts were not accurate, according to people familiar with the matter....

....MUCH MORE

"Here are the products and companies most at risk from Trump’s tariff plans"

From CNBC, January 20:

• Tariff proposals put the complex global supply chain front and center as President-elect Donald Trump was inaugurated Monday.
• On the campaign trail, Trump said he would add tariffs for goods made in other countries, especially China.
• Those higher costs on sneakers, cars, furniture and more could force many consumers to change their buying habits.

Many of the items that U.S. shoppers browse and buy in retailers’ aisles come from far-away factories or farms — a reality that could soon force many consumers to change their buying habits.

Sneakers, T-shirts, beer and other common household items are often made in countries like China, Mexico and Canada before they wind their way to a big-box retailer, grocer or mall in the U.S. That complex global supply chain was front and center Monday as President-elect Donald Trump was inaugurated. He is widely expected to announce new tariffs on imports in the coming weeks.

While tariffs have become a familiar concept for more Americans since Trump implemented them on metals and other key materials during his first term in office, the levies he has threatened for his return to the White House could have a much bigger effect on household budgets.

Most people have little grasp of just how many items could see price hikes due to the duties: from avocados to children’s toys, to chocolate and cars, experts told CNBC. Proposed tariffs on products from China, Mexico and Canada — the three-largest U.S. trading partners — would likely affect U.S. consumers the most.

The exact details of those tariffs, including which countries would be affected and how high the duties might be, remain unclear and could change. On the campaign trail, Trump spoke about implementing 10% to 20% tariffs on all countries, and putting levies as high as 60% on Chinese goods.

While news reports in recent weeks have suggested Trump could scale back his tariff proposals, and could be using them as a negotiating tactic to bend foreign governments to his will, the president-elect has denied those reports....

....MUCH MORE, they go deep.

Frances Fox Piven On President Trump: "Throw Sand In the Gears of Everything"

This is a repost from Inauguration Day 2017 because a quick search of the news doesn't return any rabble-rousing by Ms. Piven over the last year or so.

Of course, she is 92 years old and may have other concerns. We have also posted the article she did with her husband that made her bones in the poli. sci. and sociology arenas, link in the intro below.

Original post:

You may remember her name if you studied political science or the history of the U.S. in the 1960's.
She and fellow Columbia U. professor Richard Cloward proposed a plan to achieve their political goals, including universal basic income, that became known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

The strategy was laid out in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine in an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" about which the copy hosted at Common Dreams says "The theory here, to force change through chaos, was among the most provocative of the 1960s."

A few years ago The Nation commissioned a new introduction from Ms. Piven, her husband Mr. Cloward having died in 2001, which the magazine published as part of their 150th anniversary issue.

Here's her latest, again at The Nation, January 18, 2017:

Throw Sand in the Gears of Everything
When it comes to stopping Trump, petitions aren’t going to do it.

As many are saying, we woke from a nightmare to find it was our new reality. A gaggle of inflated far-right self-promoters and operatives, big businessmen and their toadies, and homegrown fascists will control the presidency and determine the Supreme Court majority, maybe for a generation or more. The Congress is firmly in Republican hands, save for the uncertain possibility that Senate Democrats will muster the gumption to filibuster. And that possibility could also evaporate with the 2018 midterm elections, when as many as 20 or more Democrats will have to defend their seats. No wonder that everyone I speak with searches for someone to blame—Clinton or Comey or white women or the white working class or the Bernie troops—and then asks plaintively: What do we do now?

There are lots of answers floating about. State governments should band together to pass laws that bind their representatives in the Electoral College to support the winner of the popular vote. Or we should begin the hard work of reconstructing the Democratic Party, finally purging the influence of the Democratic Leadership Council and its Wall Street allies, so that it speaks more convincingly to the aspirations of working people and minorities. Or we should push for the reforms that will somehow prevent gerrymandered districts after the 2020 Census. Or we should restore the Voting Rights Act and push for automatic voter registration. And of course—again, somehow—we should restrict the role of big money in elections.

I support all of these efforts, needless to say, and I sign the petitions and respond to the fund-raising appeals that their advocates generate. But I am not very hopeful that any of them can succeed, at least not in the limited time we have to protect the planet from global warming or nuclear catastrophe or both.

There is another impulse evident in the spontaneous reactions that followed Trump’s election in the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Miami, Portland, and elsewhere. Lots of people—especially young people—gathered, made speeches, marched, shouted, and held up signs and banners. All of us who participated can report the lift to our morale the experience offered. We were performing the elementary rites of a social movement, rites that the influential historian Charles Tilly labeled “WUNC”—meaning that people gather together to demonstrate their worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment.

Chanting crowds are the familiar insignia of movements. And I think movement politics may even make resistance to a Trump regime possible. But while the great movements of American history were the crucial determinant of our most important democratic reforms—from the basic electoral elements of representative democracy, to Emancipation, to labor rights, to women’s and LGBTQ rights—none of these movements achieved their successes simply through the gathering of people to show their commitment. People gathered, of course, but what makes movements a force—when they are a force—is the deployment of a distinctive power that arises from the ability of angry and indignant people to at times defy the rules that usually ensure their cooperation and quiescence.

Movements can mobilize people to refuse, to disobey, in effect to strike. In other words, people in motion, in movements, can throw sand in the gears of the institutions that depend on their cooperation. It therefore follows that movements need numbers, but they also need a strategy that maps the impact of their defiance and the ensuing disruptions on the authority of decision-makers.

The repercussions of such mass refusals can be far-reaching, simply because social life depends on systems of intricate cooperation. So does our system of governance. Perhaps the US government, with its famous separation of powers on the national level and its decentralized federal structure, is especially vulnerable to collective defiance. To be sure, the right wing has now taken over many of the veto points in the national government, and it dominates half of the state governments as well (although that could change in 2018, when many hard-right Republican governors will be defending their seats). But the big cities, where a majority of the population lives, have not been captured. Center-left mayors preside over cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco, for example. And that fact can nourish urban resistance movements.

People don’t easily break the rules of institutional life, and especially not collectively and publicly, if only because of the punishments that can be visited on rule-breakers. Think of the possible responses of a Trump administration! And, in fact, movements from the lower reaches of society—whose members are often the most marginalized and vulnerable—usually don’t emerge if people think they’ll have no influence over the regime in power. People are much likelier to risk defiant collective action if leading politicians appear accountable to movement constituencies. The great strike movement among industrial workers arose under Franklin Roosevelt, who promised to speak for “the forgotten man” in the midst of the Great Depression. The civil-rights movement escalated at least partly because of the reluctant encouragement of Democratic presidents newly concerned about the loyalty of urban black voters, and it triumphed under a president who felt it strategic to echo the words of the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”

* * *

There’s a slogan among organizers to the effect that all organizing is local, meaning that people come together in local workplaces and communities to articulate their grievances and their hopes, and to develop the muscle to act. Local organizing against Trump’s initiatives will be bolstered by the support of local politicians, and movement organizing in turn can stiffen the backs of local politicians when the Trump administration threatens to cut funding to city governments. There would be many opportunities to play a role: Even ordinary householders can take in and shield immigrants. And all of us can render registries useless by insisting on registering ourselves as Muslims or Mexicans or Moldovians. A sanctuary movement gives lots of people a role that matters. Most important, in our complex federal system, where the policies of the national government depend on cooperation by state and local authorities, these local movements have the potential to block initiatives by the incoming Trump regime. ...MUCH MORE

Professor Piven's most impactful effort is the little acknowledged 1993 "Motor Voter" Act.

I've mentioned it a few here's one from last winter:

March 20 - "Hotshot Wharton professor sees $34 trillion debt triggering 2025 meltdown as mortgage rates spike above 7%: ‘It could derail the next administration’": 

If I were a Democrat strategist I would propose letting Donald Trump win a second term while concentrating on House and especially Senate (to bottle up judicial, including Supreme Court, nominees) races.

A Trump win would give an excuse for riots (for the visuals) and if he is handcuffed by the Legislative branch to limit the range of possible responses, you go beyond polycrisis to the omnicrisis. Throw in a bit of Frances Fox Piven with her "overwhelm the system" and "motor voter" strategies and you could see one-party rule for thirty years.

Here's Professor Piven back in the day:

Columbia University 1968 - Photo #38 - Elsewhere on campus

Tom Hayden helping Frances Fox Piven, a Columbia University School of Social Work professor and well-known author and activist, back into Math, April 1968. The young girl in the red-orange sweater is her daughter, Sarah. A couple days later I shared a cell in the Tombs with Tom.

Photo: Life Magazine, 10 May 1968.

Acknowledgment: Professor Holly Ackerman, University of Miami, Florida, formerly of the Columbia School of Social Work, for identifying Professor Piven, and Prof. Piven herself for confirmation.

Nancy Pelosi's Trading, Part II

Following on the post immediately below, "REPOST: "Nancy Pelosi discloses buys of Alphabet, Amazon, more; sells Apple" (GOOG; AMZN; AAPL; NVDA)".

While not yet in the Institutionalized Investor Hall of Fame the former Speaker has one of the best long-term records of any politician in this century.

The California Rep. leads her Dem. team, Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF (NANC) to an impressive performance over the S&P 500 and a trouncing of the Repubs. Unusual Whales Subversive Republican ETF (KRUZ).

And congratulation to Madame Speaker for her timing on the AAPL sell, as the stock is down $8.55 (3.72%) on news of the Jeffries downgrade, blood-minerals investigation and collapsing sales in China. 

Meanwhile, Nvidia has given up early gains as word of Nancy's repositioning spreads, and is now flat on the day.

REPOST: "Nancy Pelosi discloses buys of Alphabet, Amazon, more; sells Apple" (GOOG; AMZN; AAPL; NVDA)

Liking her some LEAPS.

From Seeking Alpha, January 21:

A new congressional trading form filed by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi disclosed that she increased her holdings in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and several other technology companies at the end of last year and the start of this year.

According to the form, the Congresswoman representing the 11th district in California purchased 50 call options with a $150 strike and an expiration date of Jan. 16, 2026 on Alphabet, with the position worth between $250,001 and $500,000. The trade was made on Jan. 14, 2025.

    She also purchased 50 call options with a $150 strike and an expiration date of Jan. 16, 2026 on Amazon, with the position worth between $250,001 and $500,000. This trade was also made on Jan. 14, 2025.

    Conversely, she sold 31,600 shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) on Dec. 31, 2024, with the sale worth between $5M and $25M.

    Pelosi also tweaked her holdings in Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), selling 10,000 shares on Dec. 31, with the sale worth between $1M and $5M. However, she also exercised 500 call options on Dec. 20, 2024, which were purchased on Nov. 22, 2023, at a strike price of $12 and had an expiration date of Dec. 20, 2024. Pelosi also purchased between $250,000 and $500,000 of Nvidia shares on Jan. 14.

    The 84-year-old Congresswoman also purchased stakes in cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks (PANW) (worth between $1M and $5M), artificial intelligence health company Tempus AI (TEM) (worth between $50,001 and $100,000) and Vistra (VST) (worth between $500,000 and $1M), with the dates varying.

    The trades filed by Pelosi were the first since July 2024, when she disclosed she had added to her stake in Nvidia and sold some shares in Microsoft (MSFT).

    Dear readers: We recognize that politics often intersects with the financial news of the day, so we invite you to click here to join the separate political discussion....

Related:
Nancy Pelosi's Trading, Part II

Professor Turley On The Biden Family Pardons

From Jonathan Turley via The Hill, January 20:

The final corruption of Joe Biden

With only 15 minutes to go as president, Joe Biden snatched infamy from the jaws of obscurity.

With record-low polling and widely viewed as a “failed” president, Biden completed his one-man race to the bottom of ethics by issuing preemptive pardons to members of his own family. 

The pardons were timed to guarantee that the media would not focus on yet another unethical act by this president. He need not have worried. For four years, the media worked tirelessly to deny or deflect the corruption scandal surrounding the Biden family.  

The pardoning of James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens and Francis Biden brought an inescapable clarity to the corruption of what is known in Washington as Biden Inc.

I have written about the Biden family’s corruption for decades. Influence-peddling has always been the favorite form of corruption in Washington, but this city has never seen the likes of the Biden family. Millions of dollars were secured from foreign sources and distributed to various Biden family members.

Biden repeatedly lied about the influence peddling. He long denied knowing about his son’s foreign clients or business. He denied ever meeting Hunter’s clients. Later, photos and emails showed that Biden had clearly met these clients and knew about the business deals. He was fully aware that his family was cashing in on his name and various offices.

Even Biden’s claims about handling the Trump cases were recently contradicted. While long claiming that he left these cases to the Justice Department and took no position on the merits, the Washington Post recently reported that Biden was irate over the failure to prosecute Trump before the election. He also reportedly lashed out at Attorney General Merrick Garland and said he regretted his appointment in light of the failure to nail Trump.

One of the most glaring lies was that he would never pardon his son. Few people believed him. Indeed, Hunter Biden’s bizarre criminal defense made no sense unless he knew that he had a pocket pardon if all else failed.

Once he was forced out of the presidential race, Biden was freed up to sign a pardon for any and all crimes committed over a ten-year period by his son. He insisted that he really hadn’t been lying. He claimed that no ordinary person would have been tried for his son’s crimes — a manifestly untrue statement. He also emphasized that he had to take this step as a father of a son who was a hopeless addict and has now been clean for years.

However, the latest family pardon shatters even that rationalization. These Bidens are not even charged with any crimes, but Biden wanted to give them cover from any possible prosecution for anything. It was the ultimate sign of contempt for the intelligence of the American public and the integrity of his office.

Biden has long exercised situational ethics and, with his powers coming to an end, the situation demanded that he cash out before his credit ended. In granting these pardons, Biden was seeking to protect not just his family but also himself. He was the object of the influence peddling and repeatedly lied to bury the scandal. This insulation of his family serves to move the threat farther from himself.

Biden, however, may have been too clever by half this time. In the final moments of his presidency, He broke into the open and exposed not just himself but his allies in the media. Reporters are now fully visible as willing dupes in one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of this country....

....MUCH MORE

The one I'm curious about is Anthony Fauci, MD's preemptive pardon: why does it cover any crimes committed by Fauci going back to 2014?

Is Acceptance Of A Pardon A Confession Of Guilt?

Maybe.

Maybe not. 

Many commenters and pundits are touting the Supreme Court Ruling in Burdick v. United States and 2024's Biden Admin DOJ admonition to convicted January 6, 2021 rioters, trespassers, paraders etc. as saying a pardon imputes guilt and acceptance of the pardon confesses to it. First, from the Burdick decision:

U.S. Supreme Court
Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915)
Burdick v. United States
No. 471
Argued December 16, 1914
Decided January 25, 1915
236 U.S. 79
ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Syllabus

Acceptance, as well as delivery, of a pardon is essential to its validity; if rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, the court has no power to force it on him. United States v. Wilson, 7 Pet. 150.

Quaere whether the President of the United States may exercise the pardoning power before conviction.

A witness may refuse to testify on the ground that his testimony may have an incriminating effect, notwithstanding the President offers, and he refuses, a pardon for any offense connected with the matters in regard to which he is asked to testify.

There are substantial differences between legislative immunity and a pardon; the latter carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it, while the former is noncommittal, and tantamount to silence of the witness.

There is a distinction between amnesty and pardon; the former overlooks the offense, and is usually addressed to crimes against the sovereignty of the state and political offenses, the latter remits punishment and condones infractions of the peace of the state.

211 F. 492 reversed.

The facts, which involve the effect of a pardon of the President of the United States tendered to one who has not been convicted of a crime nor admitted the commission thereof, and also the necessity of acceptance of a pardon in order to make it effective, are stated in the opinion...

And the DOJ as relayed by Politico, December 11, 2024:

Justice Department: Jan. 6 defendants who accept pardons will make ‘a confession of guilt’

However in Lorance v. Commandant, U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a September 2021 decision:

A United States military court-martial convicted Petitioner-Appellant Clint A. Lorance of murder (and a variety of lesser offenses) for actions he took while leading a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan.

After exhausting his direct appeals, Lorance filed a federal habeas petition challenging his convictions. Lorance now appeals the district court’s dismissal of that petition. The sole issue presented in this appeal is whether Lorance’s acceptance of a full and unconditional presidential pardon constitutes a legal confession of guilt and a waiver of his habeas rights, thus rendering his case moot. This is an issue of first impression in this Court.

We conclude that Lorance’s acceptance of the pardon did not have the legal  effect of a confession of guilt and did not constitute a waiver of his habeas rights.
Despite Lorance’s release from custody pursuant to the pardon, he sufficiently alleges ongoing collateral consequences from his convictions, creating a genuine case or controversy and rendering his habeas petition not moot. Accordingly, exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse and remand for further proceedings....

....MUCH MORE

So you tell me, Mr. Internet Legal Scholar, LLP.

Dear President Trump, This Would Be A Good Time To Invade Greenland

The blue-eyed colonizers are in disarray. With the collapse of former standard-bearer Ørsted and competition coming to Novo Nordisk the country has little chance of rebuilding its military. So no need for any Dane-geld.*

From ¡No pasarán!, January 10:

The Systematic Destruction of Denmark's Military Over 30 Years: "Ships that cannot sail; Planes that cannot fly; And cannons that cannot fire — Everything is missing" 

Unfortunately for Denmark, the kingdom's position in relation to Donald Trump and Greenland is unlikely to be improved by the book that was published last November, Defenceless (When the Biggest Threat Comes From Within). (Mange tak for the Instalink, Sarah.)

Sjællandske Nyheder has spoken with Peter Ernstved Rasmussen:

Editor and founder of the online media OLFI, the former reserve officer in the Danish Life Guard, Peter Ernstved Rasmussen, is known as a man who dares to speak out. Especially when it comes to the contents of his heart, Denmark's defense.

And there is little doubt that he does that in ‘FORSVARSLØS - Når den største trussel kommer indefra’, published by Lindhardt & Ringhof. 

The subject of the book is what Peter Erntsved Rasmussen calls the systematic destruction of the kingdon's Defense for more than 30 years.

"Today it consists of ships that cannot sail. Planes that cannot fly. And cannons that cannot fire. Everything is missing, from soldiers, air defense, artillery, anti-aircraft defense, submarines, tanks, night combat equipment, weapons, ammunition, radios, and binoculars to things as banal as socks, notebooks, and printer paper," he writes in a press release, where he also addresses who is to blame for the Armed Forces' miserable condition.

"The book describes a national tragedy that could only be made possible because successive prime ministers, finance ministers, defense ministers, department heads, defense chiefs and top officers lied with open eyes, manipulated and withheld the truth about the state of the Armed Forces — and at the same time tried to convince the population that we had the world's best defense."

 … [Incidentally, the film 'The Post' about the Pentagon Papers] has many parallels to the situation in the Danish defense and to the book 'FORSVARSLØS', adds Peter Ernstved Rasmussen....

....MORE 

*Bringing to mind the thoughts of a now disreputable English writer:

Dane-geld  

A.D. 980-1016

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
    To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
"We invaded you last night — we are quite prepared to fight,
    Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
    And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
    And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
    To puff and look important and to say: —
"Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
    We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
    But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
    You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
    For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
    You will find it better policy to say: —

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
    No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
    And the nation that plays it is lost!"

—Rudyard Kipling, 1911

"This wind power company just took a $1.7 billion write-down — and that excludes Trump executive order impact"

And the hits just keep on coming. The stock is down 14.80% today and down over 70% from its 2022 high.

BigCharts

From MarketWatch, January 21: 

Orsted blames rising interest rates and project delays

Shares of Orsted fell as much as 18% on Tuesday after announcing a 12.1 billion Danish kroner ($1.7 billion) write-down that the Danish wind power company said didn’t include the impact of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

Orsted took a 4.3 billion kroner write-down from the rise in long-dated U.S. interest rates, a 3.5 billion kroner hit from the reduced valuation of its seabed leases off the coasts of New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware, and a 4.3 billion kroner impairment on delayed commissioning and higher-than-expected project costs for Sunrise Wind, a project 30 miles east of Long Island’s Montauk Point.

“The Sunrise Wind impairment is particularly disappointing as it further exemplifies the execution risks within U.S. offshore wind and will be unhelpful for the case for U.S. offshore wind development,” said analysts at Jefferies.

Analysts at JPMorgan said the announced impairments were three times more than they expected from the move in bond yields alone....

....MORE

"Nvidia CEO's whirlwind Taiwan tour: from Lunar New Year banquets to night market visits" (NVDA)

From the South China Morning Post via Yahoo Finance, January 21:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wrapped up a fast-paced 55-hour visit to Taiwan, which included engagements with top industry leaders and visits to key manufacturing sites, underscoring the island's role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor industries.

On Sunday, Huang hosted a high-profile lunch in Taipei, attended by 36 top executives from Taiwan's leading technology companies.

This rare gathering included Foxconn Technology Group chairman Liu Young-way, Foxconn industrial internet chairman Brand Cheng, Acer chairman Jason Chen, Quanta Computer chairman Barry Lam and vice-chairman C.C. Leung, Wistron chairman Simon Lin, Asus chairman Jonney Shih, ASRock president Hsu Lung-luen, Pegatron chairman TH Tung, MSI chairman Joseph Hsu, Inventec chairman Sam Yeh and president Jack Tsai, and more.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) chairman Mark Liu, who had dined with Huang the day before, also joined the event....

....MUCH MORE

"Trump officials to receive secret briefing on ‘super agent’ AI breakthrough"

From The Telegraph via MSN, January 20:

US government officials are to receive a private briefing on a breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) “super agents” as Silicon Valley executives flock to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, is preparing to give a behind-closed-doors briefing to US officials next week where the company will discuss the latest developments in its technology. Advances reportedly include its work on chatbots capable of PhD-level thinking.

Technology companies have been developing “AI agents” that can take on tasks typically undertaken by human workers, doing them by controlling parts of a user’s computer or phone to manage a diary or respond to routine emails.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is said to be using an AI tool developed by OpenAI to help her respond to some emails.

These bots are growing increasingly sophisticated, with expectations that AI chatbots will soon be able to perform tasks such as building a working app from scratch or engaging in long-term planning. This emerging form of AI could begin to do complex work normally taken on by a human, such as computer programming.

Developers and supporters of the technology say it will improve productivity and free up workers to focus on other tasks. However, the rapid advances threaten to upend millions of jobs.

Mira Murati, the former OpenAI technology chief, said last year that she expected many creative jobs that “maybe shouldn’t have been there in the first place” to “go away”.

AI companies are ultimately striving to develop superintelligence – or artificial general intelligence (AGI) – that far surpasses the capabilities of the human brain.

Axios reported that Mr Altman would meet officials in the US capital on Jan 30 to discuss its progress. However, the OpenAI founder sought to downplay the significance of its upcoming announcements.

Mr Altman said: “We are not going to deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it. We have some very cool stuff for you but [please] chill and cut your expectations 100x.”....

....MUCH MORE

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, 

as if millions of securities analysts suddenly 

cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. 

—Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi, former E.F. Hutton and Bache Halsey Head of Research

"Bureaucracy vs. Corruption – Two Sides of the Same Coin"

From Neue Zürcher Zeitung's TheMarket.ch, January 16:

The terms «bureaucracy» and «corruption» often evoke distinct images. However, upon closer examination, these two phenomena share crucial similarities: they are united by their ability to misallocate resources, distort economic incentives, and erode public trust.

Deutsche Version

Bureaucracy conjures thoughts of slow, rigid administrative processes, while corruption suggests illicit exchanges of power for personal gain. At first glance, they seem worlds apart – bureaucracy represents lawful administrative order, while corruption symbolizes criminal misconduct.

However, upon closer examination, these two phenomena share a crucial similarity: both lead to a profound misallocation of capital, impeding economic efficiency and undermining societal trust.

«Any allocation of capital other than productive is a form of corruption, benefitting individuals at the expense of society as a whole, thereby creating stresses that will eventually be its undoing.»
_{Andrew Lees, British economist (*1967)¹}

Bureaucracy and corruption both distort economic decision-making, diverting resources away from their most productive uses.

«The quest for equality is often the road to tyranny.»
_{Friedrich A. Hayek, Austrian-British economist (1899–1992)²}

In «The Road to Serfdom», Friedrich Hayek warns against expanding bureaucratic control, noting that centralized planning inevitably leads to inefficiency.

Bureaucracies operate under rigid rules designed to ensure fairness and accountability. However, these rules often create bottlenecks, delay decisions, and stifle innovation. Resources are allocated based not on market efficiency but on compliance with procedural mandates. It took 29 years to build the Berlin airport from planning to completion. This compares to four years and six months in case of the new Beijing airport.

«He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.»
_{Ludwig von Mises, Austrian-American economist (1881–1973)³}

Consider the permitting process for new businesses in highly regulated economies. Lengthy approval timelines and excessive paperwork discourage entrepreneurship, misallocating human capital and stifling economic growth. It is said that buying a skyscraper in New York is easier than buying a one-room apartment in Italy.

Ludwig von Mises, in «Bureaucracy», argues that when government agencies prioritize rule-following over outcomes, they incentivize waste rather than productivity.

«Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.»
_{George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, critic, political activist (1856-1950)⁴}

Unlike bureaucracy, corruption bypasses official rules altogether. In corrupt systems, resources are allocated based on favouritism, bribes, and nepotism. Thomas Sowell, in works like «Knowledge and Decisions», discusses how corruption short-circuits the market’s natural processes by replacing merit-based outcomes with patronage.

Nassim Taleb, in «Skin in the Game», emphasizes the importance of accountability in decision-making, particularly in engineering and infrastructure. He argues that when decision-makers lack personal risk– i.e., «skin in the game» –, the likelihood of catastrophic failures increases. For instance, in a corrupt construction project, contracts may be awarded not to the most efficient or capable firms but to those offering the highest kickbacks. This leads to inferior infrastructure, higher costs, and reduced economic output.

«It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.»
_{David Brin, American scientist and author (*1950)⁵}

From an ethical perspective, fighting bureaucracy and corruption is not merely an economic imperative but a moral one. Bureaucratic overreach undermines personal autonomy by subjecting individuals to impersonal, inflexible rules.

Corruption, by contrast, erodes social trust by substituting public interest with private gain. Whether the unjust gain is monetary or political doesn’t matter that much.

Both systems violate the principle of justice. Bureaucratic rule-following without consideration for fairness leads to Kafkaesque absurdities where people suffer due to procedural technicalities. Corruption, on the other hand, directly contravenes fairness by rewarding dishonesty and penalizing integrity....

....MUCH MORE

"Google Rival, Jeff Bezos-Backed Perplexity AI Seeks TikTok Merger"

As mentioned a few weeks ago Elon Musk is working on an AI-based search engine. Here's one that is further along. From Investor's Business Daily, January 19:

Perplexity AI, a new rival to Alphabet's Google in the internet search market, on Saturday submitted a bid to TikTok parent ByteDance seeking a merger with the U.S. business of the social media firm, according to a CNBC report. With TikTok, Perplexity could emerge as a stronger rival to Alphabet (GOOGL) , a potential blow to Google stock.

Started in 2022, Perplexity is both a search engine and AI chatbot. It recently launched a shopping assistant supported by payment firm Stripe.

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the federal law that will ban TikTok unless the China-based parent company sells the popular short video app's U.S. operations. TikTok late Saturday said it has temporarily shut down U.S. operations. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that he plans to give ByteDance more time to resolve issues. He takes office on Monday.

Congress passed the law banning TikTok on national security grounds. Lawmakers have demanded that TikTok take steps to prevent the sharing of data from U.S. users with the Chinese government. A TikTok ban or sale could boost social media stocks such as Meta Platforms (META) and Snap (SNAP).

Further, Oracle (ORCL) would take a financial hit if TikTok shuts downs temporarily or for a long time. Oracle provides cloud computing services to TikTok.

Bezos, Nvidia Among Perplexity Investors

Perplexity's proposal would create a new merged entity also including new capital partners, according to a report.

Perplexity holds a $8 billion valuation after its latest funding round. Its early investors included Amazon.com (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, Nvidia (NVDA) and the venture firm New Enterprise Associates.

ByteDance reportedly has explored the option of a TikTok deal with Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk, who has emerged as a key advisor to Trump. Musk owns social media platform X, formerly called Twitter.

To finance a deal with TikTok-parent ByteDance, Perplexity would need to line up support from deep-pocketed investors.

"We see the Perplexity bid as having no chance given its inherent value is too low for what likely is a $40 billion-plus deal," Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives told IBD in an email. "Musk is a front runner in what could be a very competitive bid process for TikTok"....

....MORE

How China Plans To Boost Growth

From CNBC, January 16:

China’s slowing economy is waiting for more stimulus. Here’s how the country plans to boost growth

• China’s slowing economy is still waiting for the promised government support to kick in.
• Senior economic and finance officials have told reporters in the last two weeks that fiscal support is in the works, and the issuance of ultra-long bonds to spur consumption would exceed last year’s.
• Stimulus will begin to take effect this year, but it will likely take time to see a significant impact, Mi Yang, head of research for north China at property consultancy JLL, told reporters in Beijing last week.

As promised government support is still to meaningfully kick in, China’s economy hasn’t yet seen the turnaround investors have been waiting for.

While policymakers have, since late September, cut interest rates and announced broad stimulus plans, details on highly anticipated fiscal support won’t likely come until an annual parliamentary meeting in March. Official GDP figures for 2024 are due Friday.

“China’s fiscal stimulus is not yet enough to address the drags on economic growth ... We are cautious long term given China’s structural challenges,” BlackRock Investment Institute said in a weekly report Tuesday. The firm, which is modestly overweight Chinese stocks, indicated it was ready to buy more if the circumstances changed.

Of growing urgency in the meantime is the drop in domestic demand, and worries about deflation. Consumer prices barely rose in 2024, up by just 0.5% after excluding volatile food and energy prices. That’s the slowest rise in at least 10 years, according to records available on the Wind Information database.

“Consumer spending remains weak, foreign investment is declining, and some industries face growth pressure,” Yin Yong, Beijing city mayor, said Tuesday in an official annual report.

The capital city targets 2% consumer price inflation for 2025, and aims to bolster tech development. While nationwide economic goals won’t come out until March, senior economic and finance officials have told reporters in the last two weeks that fiscal support is in the works, and issuance of ultra-long bonds to spur consumption would exceed last year’s.

China’s announced stimulus will begin to take effect this year, but it will likely take time to see a significant impact, Mi Yang, head of research for north China at property consultancy JLL, told reporters in Beijing last week....

....MUCH MORE

With a population of around 22 million Beijing would, by itself, be the world's 62nd most populous country, just behind Sri Lanka and, ahem, Taiwan. 

"LA wildfires: 17,027 structures damaged or destroyed. Insured loss estimates avg $32.5bn"

From Artemis, January 20:

According to the latest official data from California fire authorities, the wildfires in the Los Angeles region have damaged or destroyed 17,027 structures so far, while the early insurance industry loss estimates from risk modellers average $32.5 billion.

Which would suggest an average insurance claim of around $1.9 million, although this would not leave any allowance for other claims vectors such as business interruption.

Analysts at investment bank Peel Hunt noted this morning that, “There is a risk that insured losses will increase further as the two main fires (Palisades and Eaton) are still not fully contained.”

With new red flag warnings for dangerous or extreme fire weather in place for the next few days, with officials cautioning of the risk of fires growing, there is a chance the damage increases further from these still burning fires.

It’s also worth noting that official data that now states 17,027 structures were damaged or destroyed by these two wildfires may rise whether the burns worsen or not, as the analysis of impacts continues at this time.

“It is still unclear what proportion of insured losses will be retained by insurers in the admitted market, how much exposure has been transferred to the E&S market in the past few years, and what will be picked up by the reinsurance industry,” Peel Hunt’s analyst team said....

....MUCH MORE, including links to other insurance-loss estimates. 

The latest best guess from AccuWeather for total damage and economic impact is between $250 billion and $275 billion.

Palmer Luckey's "Anduril Plans US Drone Dominance With 5 Million Sq Ft Smart Weapons Factory"

That's a big roof.

From Interesting Engineering, January 17:

Earlier last year, Anduril had announced securing of $1.5 billion of funding for its Series F round.

Anduril Industries – the maker of autonomous systems and weapons – has selected Columbus in Ohio for its first hyperscale manufacturing facility.

The facility named Arsenal-1 will be built with the motive of making the United States and its allies self-sufficient in the race for autonomous systems and drones.

At full scale, the facility will span 5 million square feet and produce tens of thousands of military systems annually, as per Anduril. Moreover, the company also says that there is further scope of expansion of the manufacturing facility.

Arsenal-1 in Ohio will join Anduril’s other factories including its solid rocket motor factory in Mississippi, the robotic submarine facility in Rhode Island, a launched effects factory in Georgia, the XL-AUV factory in Australia and production facilities in California.

Anduril’s new manufacturing facility – Arsenal-1
Anduril states that the Arsenal-1 is primed for long-term scalability and will manufacture and produce most of its autonomous weapons, sensors and systems at full rate production.

The company, through a press release, states that the facility is located near Rickenbacker airport. The location provides “access to two 12,000-foot runways and a 75-acre private apron capable of supporting military-scale aircraft, ensuring rapid delivery of components and systems to our customers.”

Anduril also said that it is investing nearly $1 billion dollars into the development of Arsenal-1 and it is estimated to bring more than 4,000 direct jobs in the state of Ohio....

....MUCH MORE 

And some background from the Columbus Dispatch, also January 17:

How did the defense contractor Anduril decide to build a massive weapons factory in Ohio?

If interested see also "Silicon Valley Freakshow: 'Silicon Valley’s Long History of Government Codependence'" or ""Do venture capitalists want forever war?" or "The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem" or any of the posts on Palmer Luckey and his company Anduril:

• Modern War: "Anduril Is Building Out the Pentagon’s Dream of Deadly Drone Swarms"
• Autonomous Fighter Jet Company Anduril And Anti-Drone Technology For Your Home" 
• Palmer Luckey's "Anduril poised to fill America’s missile supply gap"
• From Virtual Reality To Remaking Our Bloated Defence Industry, Palmer Luckey Is Trying To Forge A New America. Will It Let Him?
• First World Problems: "Billionaire Palmer Luckey keeps getting stuck in the elevator of his car mansion, lawsuit claims"

"Oculus founder plans to double UK workforce for defence company Anduril"

Anti-drone technology is so hot right now.

"Laser wars: US-China in drone-killing, directed-energy arms race"

US Army should ditch tanks for AI drones, says [ex-GOOG CEO] Eric Schmidt

Your Personal Land-Based Aircraft Carrier With eVTOL Air Taxi

From New Atlas, January 14:

6-wheeled electric cyber van launches its own personal air taxi  

From crazy concept to crazier reality: 

Xpeng AeroHT has officially brought its land-air mobility concept to life

In the future, daily commuters may have to decide between a traditional motor vehicle and a flying car. Or maybe not. Xpeng AeroHT is developing a stunning dual-mode transporter it calls the "Land Aircraft Carrier" (LAC), a six-wheeled van built to launch a two-person foldable eVTOL out its trunk, promising a new era of hybrid land-air travel. The LAC once appeared to be a fanciful concept but has been progressing rapidly since last year, and now has a full demo launch and flight under its belt.

Like seemingly all things a part of China's "low altitude economy," the Land Aircraft Carrier has been moving forward at an alarmingly fast pace. 

The two-part vessel has only been around for a little over a year, having debuted as a wild rendered concept in October 2023. It didn't look particularly plausible at the time, but Xpeng AeroHT promptly confirmed development plans last year.

And a few months later, the eVTOL half was whisking through the air to the soundtrack of "oohs and ahhs" from the crowd watching intently below....

....MUCH MORE

"Federal Reserve Says It Will Leave Climate Change Organization"

From the AP via US News & World Report, January 17:

The Federal Reserve said Friday that it is leaving an international grouping of central banks that focused on how the financial system could help combat climate change

The Federal Reserve said Friday that it is leaving an international grouping of central banks that focused on how regulation of the financial system could help combat climate change. The Fed's membership has been criticized by Republicans in Congress.

In a short statement, the Fed said it had “appreciated” working with the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System. But it added that the organization “has increasingly broadened in scope, covering a wider range of issues that are outside of the Board’s statutory mandate.”....

....MUCH MORE

"The Evolution of China’s Semiconductor Industry under U.S. Export Controls"

From American Affairs Journal:

This article is an American Affairs online exclusive, published November 20, 2024. Figure 3 was added on December 6, 2024, after the announcement of a new round of U.S. export controls.

Since I last wrote about China’s responses to U.S. export controls in these pages, in February 2024, much has changed, both in terms of U.S. export control measures and the situation on the ground in China. The relative strength of China’s domestic semiconductor industry has also received substantially more media attention. Teardowns of advanced semiconductors produced by domestic foundry leader SMIC purport that China is only three years behind global foundry leader TSMC, though these types of predictions can be misleading.

In fact, gaining a detailed understanding of what is happening in China’s semiconductor industry is becoming increasingly difficult.¹ In May, the Chinese Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) issued an ominous warning to industry insiders to avoid disclosing technical information to media and outside consultants.² The pattern for the semiconductor manufacturing industry in China is following a trajectory similar to that of the high performance computer (HPC) sector. Justified by the concern that HPCs could be used for military applications, U.S. export controls were imposed in 2015 and have essentially forced China’s supercomputing sector to stop publicly revealing new systems and technological progress.³

Complicating the semiconductor industry situation in China is the close association of U.S. controls across the sector with the development of artificial intelligence. So far, companies developing advanced generative AI in China have not had to conceal news about their model development because they are operate in the consumer and enterprise space.⁴ Continued U.S. pressure on the Chinese semiconductor industry will eventually force these developers into hiding and make it more difficult to assess progress across the AI stack in China and limit U.S. visibility into an area of national security concern.

Understanding where Chinese companies currently stand in terms of development—from tech conglomerate Huawei, to toolmakers, to smaller players innovating in the development of process gases and materials for advanced semiconductor manufacturing—is also becoming more difficult, as the topic is now politically sensitive. The latest round of U.S. export controls has added yet another dimension to the issue: scores of Chinese companies, including fabs, toolmakers, and smaller companies up and down the supply chain, are now caught up in the broader U.S.-China competition over technology in general and semiconductors in particular. The United States has also added critical components such as high bandwidth memory (HBM) to its controls. The expansion of controls reinforces what National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan calls the “small yard and high fence” strategy focused on containing China’s ability to develop advanced capabilities in AI.⁵ China’s responses, including retaliatory measures such as the Unreliable Entity List (UEL) Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law and many other internal policies, are now part of the equation. Beijing has also tightened restrictions on the export of critical minerals, including some essential for semiconductor manufacturing, namely gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony, and soon, tungsten.⁶

At the same time, Chinese firms and officials are recognizing that raw hardware manufacturing capacity for advanced semiconductors is not the only decisive factor. As Huawei transforms from a hardware company into a hybrid hardware-software giant, it is struggling to cultivate a robust software development environment for its Ascend series of advanced GPUs. Meanwhile, the firm’s HarmonyOS mobile operating system has gained broad traction over the past year, and the firm is now ramping up its software engineering prowess in a bid to compete head-to-head against the likes of Nvidia in the GPU and AI datacenter space.⁷ Gaining access to advanced semiconductor hardware for compute, which means capacity for training large language models (LLMs), is now highly complex in China.

Beijing continues to tinker with models and mechanisms of government support for its complex, sprawling, and still very much global technology sector. So far, it has employed a mix of government assistance for the sector and critical pieces of supply chains, coupled with novel financing and policy incentives, to ensure China’s access to more advanced semiconductors over the next decade. Thus, there are both short-term and longer-term dynamics at play in the industry and among industrial policy planners in Beijing. The industry continues to defy efforts to centrally plan development, so Beijing relies on public-private partnerships, targeted funding, and greater leeway for linchpin companies such as Huawei to drive progress in the “chokepoint technologies” targeted by U.S. export controls and investment restrictions. For their part, companies at the forefront of the industry in China must continue to innovate despite severe limitations on their access to technology, support, and spare parts, while planning for a future largely free of U.S. and other foreign technology in their supply chains.

The View from Beijing

Beijing’s sense of the importance of the semiconductor industry has only grown over the past year. As Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, have ramped up rhetoric critical of U.S. export controls, Beijing has considered retaliatory measures and looked to put its domestic semiconductor industrial complex in order.

Senior Chinese officials have gradually ramped up criticism of U.S. controls. In March, Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that controls had reached “a bewildering level of unfathomable absurdity.”⁸ Building on strong language first delivered in November 2023, President Xi sharply criticized U.S. export control policy on a video call with President Biden in April 2024. Xi argued that the restrictions represented an effort to “suppress China’s trade and technology development.”⁹ During the call, Xi apparently put the issue of U.S. export controls nearly on par with U.S. support for Taiwan independence as a redline for Beijing.¹⁰ Xi’s comparison of the two issues reflects how Chinese leaders see technological control as a much more serious short-term challenge to economic growth, while Taiwan remains a longer-term challenge. When the United States  releases a new export control package in December, Beijing’s response has the potential to reinforce a dynamic of tit-for-tat controls with the potential to disrupt global semiconductor supply chains.¹¹

As I stressed in my last article, Beijing’s primary response to U.S. technology controls involves developing new structures to provide better support for the domestic semiconductor industry. These tools and policies continue to be designed, built, and fine-tuned across the government at all levels. Developments during 2024 demonstrated a much higher degree of involvement of domestic industry than ever before in complex long-term industrial policy planning, in addition to high levels of cooperation across multiple industry supply chains.

In terms of broader government policy, Beijing has also revamped its science and technology bureaucracy with the aim of improving both the government and private sector’s ability to innovate. In March 2023, two critical new Party-led bodies were formed: the Central Financial Commission (CFC) and Central Science and Technology Commission (CSTC). Both were intended as major efforts to consolidate the Party’s authority in vital sectors and provide tools for assisting with long-term goals around technology development. While the CFC has been extremely active and public in driving financial regulatory reform, the CSTC has maintained a low profile. Party media outlets have reported little about its mission and actions beyond issuing instructions to certain ministries. As with other organizations and slogans, Beijing now sees little upside to highlighting who is doing what and how when it comes to sensitive technologies at the center of U.S.-China relations and competition.

The CSTC is starting to have a major impact on China’s science and technology sector and supporting ecosystems, however, by issuing new guidance to set priorities for central funding for the development of strategic technology sectors at the local level, according to the 2023 Notice on Management Measures for Central Guidance Funds for Local S&T Development.¹² The new measures stress that funds will be prioritized for (1) CSTC-approved major science and technology projects in need of central financial support and (2) regional science and technology innovation ecosystems, likely including semiconductor-focused ecosystems under development in places such as Shanghai. These priorities suggest that between the CFC and CSTC, Beijing is building a more focused and centralized approach to funding for important sectors that goes beyond basic research. Beijing appears to want to reduce what it views as wasteful spending and overcapacity in some sectors, while making up for its past inattention of core hard technology areas that require longer-term planning and investment horizons, such as semiconductors. This is a major change in thinking in Beijing.

Despite the secrecy surrounding China’s semiconductor plans, new leaders and supporting structures have started to emerge. One major new structure for developing policy goals for the semiconductor industry is a Leading Small Group (LSG) under Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. This LSG also approves mergers and acquisitions, and coordinates with other central bodies such as the CSTC. In June 2024, Chinese state media revealed Ding to be the head of the CSTC, a role that gives him a lofty perch to channel government R&D in the semiconductor industry into private sector companies targeting strategic technological choke points.¹³ Information about roles, subordinations, and plans for the LSG, as well as Ding’s role and function as CSTC chief, remain scarce, reflecting Beijing’s increased level of sensitivity around the sector. Another official embodying Beijing’s commitment to the semiconductor industry is Xiangli Bin, vice chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, a powerful executive department primarily responsible for macroeconomic management. Before his appointment to the NDRC, Xiangli spent his career at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) leading research into optics and precision electronics; at the NDRC, he has a leading role on semiconductor issues, as well as a major portion of other sectors Beijing terms “choke point technologies.”¹⁴

The View from Washington

From Washington’s perspective, tighter controls on semiconductor manufacturing technology and GPUs are serving their purpose. Policymakers must steadily expand the “small yard and high fence,” and annual updates on export controls are now the norm. The U.S. Commerce Department is planning to issue a complex set of new technology control rules in the waning days of the Biden administration, building on the major releases of October 2022 and October 2023.¹⁵ These rules are expected to cover new technologies critical to AI hardware, such as HBM. The rules also likely include a substantial rewrite of the foreign direct product rule (FDPR), giving U.S. officials more flexibility in restricting sales of manufacturing tools from overseas facilities of U.S. and other foreign toolmakers. Additionally, the new rule will expand the types of tools that are restricted for export to certain designated facilities in China....

....MUCH MORE (he goes deep into Huawei, GPUs, etc.)

Media: Contemplating Using The BBC's Pidgin Service As Our Default BBC

As an example, January 15:

Biden say bye bye from Oval Office as Trump dey set to take over 

United States President Joe Biden go conclude im 50 years political career on Wednesday wit one final Oval Office speech, wit hope say im go fit maintain achievements as Trump dey return to di White House.

Biden bin run for president for 2020, and at di age of 80 im bin wan contest for reelection, wit mind say im na di only Democrat wey fit beat Trump.

For July Democrats force am out of di race afta one disastrous debate against Trump.

Some of dem blame Biden for dia November wipeout, afta Vice President Kamala Harris bin collect di ticket and put togeda one sharp sharp campaign.

For im time, Biden goment bin oversee U.S. COVID recovery, fund infrastructure revival, spark new semiconductor chips manufacturing, plus tackle climate change as dem try to rebalance inequality and invest in di future.

Im dey leave behind U.S. economy wey don over perform, plus optimistic businesses.

But e get tins wey Biden bin no fit do during im time for office.

Im bin no fit heal divisions for di kontri di way wey im bin hope, or stop democratic backsliding around di world.

Im major achievement – defeating Trump for 2020 – bin only dey temporary.

Now di Republican president-elect don swear say im go change most of wetin di Democratic administration bin achieve....

....MUCH MORE 

It just seems more human, and in the case of political reporting, more understandable.

Why Pope Francis give go-ahead to gay men to become priests
Di Vatican don approve new guidelines wey allow gay men to become priests as long as dem stay away from sex.
 

TikTok Users don dey run go Chinese app RedNote as US ban dey near

BBC Pidgin service, home.

COVID-19: Department of Health and Human Services Bars EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Dazak From Receiving Federal Funding

From the New York Post, January 18:

HHS bans EcoHealth Alliance and group’s ex-prez from receiving federal funding for 5 years after Wuhan virus experiments  

The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday barred EcoHealth Alliance and the group’s former president, Peter Daszak, from receiving federal funding for five years after they failed to report potentially dangerous gain-of-function research experiments to the government. 

HHS determined that a five-year period of debarment for the Manhattan-based nonprofit and Daszak was “necessary to protect the Federal Government’s business interests,” according to a letter sent to both parties by the government agency. 

The House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had been investigating the novel bat virus research that EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak conducted out of China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak.... 

....MUCH MORE

note: this is the Biden Administration, there is probably more to come under the new administration. From the Oversight Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, May 3, 2024:

Hearing Wrap Up: EcoHealth Alliance Should be Criminally Investigated, Formally Debarred

As we said in the introduction to January 18's "As Covid Hit, Washington Officials Traded Stocks With Exquisite Timing":

Just as there are a lot of secrets in Ukraine that will come to light, there are secrets regarding the events in Wuhan in the late summer and fall of 2019, and in U.S. financial markets  from September 2019 to April 2020 that will eventually be exposed. The following is almost a sideshow, cartoonish in its petty avarice compared to some of the big money moves.