Good morning. Andrew here. Could Google win the artificial intelligence race? Over the past week, it has introduced a Gemini chatbot model that has Silicon Valley in awe: “I’ve used ChatGPT every day for 3 years. Just spent 2 hours on Gemini 3. I’m not going back,” Marc Benioff of Salesforce declared recently. And now there’s a report that Meta is in talks to use Google-designed chips for its data centers, a potentially big blow to Nvidia. Of course, it is likely that the leader in large language models will change hands over and over again. But Google has unique advantages — such as its enormous distribution platform, including products like Gmail and Android, and a staggering amount of user data that should help make its models more personalized and smarter. (Hopefully with your permission.) We’ll talk to Dario Amodei, the co-founder of Anthropic, which just released another new model, about the A.I. race at the DealBook Summit on Dec 3. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
The Fed and Big Tech back in focusMarkets appear to have their mojo back as investors grow more optimistic, largely over hopes that the Fed will cut interest rates at its meeting next month. That return of animal spirits was best seen in tech stocks — especially Alphabet, Google’s parent company — as the Nasdaq Composite had its best one-day surge since May. But some market watchers are pointing out that Fed officials remain deeply divided about how to tailor a rates policy that tames inflation but doesn’t sink hiring and growth. What to watch for today: A drip feed of delayed government data continues with retail sales and the Producer Price Index. The releases should give Fed policymakers and investors more clues about the strength of consumer and business spending. The odds of a Fed rate cut next month have rebounded sharply in recent days. They’re at roughly 80 percent, from less than 30 percent last week. Chris Waller, a Fed governor considered a front-runner to succeed Jay Powell as the central bank’s chair, told Fox Business yesterday that he saw a cut as prudent. Others in the dovish camp include John Williams, the New York Fed president, and Mary Daly, the San Francisco Fed president. That said, next month’s policymaker vote could provide high drama, with multiple dissents expected, The Wall Street Journal reports. Several economists, including Mohamed El-Erian and Torsten Slok of Apollo Global Management, warned of the inflation risks should the Fed lower borrowing costs. Investors’ exuberance was most obvious in tech stocks. The so-called Magnificent Seven group of companies were big gainers yesterday. The fears about an A.I. crash that jolted the market a week ago appear to have receded for now. Shares of Alphabet were climbing again in premarket trading, putting it on the cusp of becoming the next $4 trillion company. Google’s parent company has been on a tear recently as investors see promise in its latest A.I. advancements. Yesterday it also benefited from a report by The Information that Meta was weighing using its high-end chips in some of its data centers. That has sent shares of Nvidia, a big supplier to Meta and perhaps the biggest mover among A.I. stocks, lower today. But there are worries in other parts of the market. Yesterday’s rally still saw roughly half of the S&P 500 fall. The consumer staples segment of the benchmark index fell 1.3 percent yesterday as concerns about household finances grow. That will put added focus on this year’s Black Friday shopping data, as well as earnings reports this week by retailers including Best Buy, Urban Outfitters and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Russia attacks Kyiv after Ukraine and the U.S. discuss a peace proposal. Moscow hit Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, with missiles and drones hours after the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations met in Geneva. The peace framework that emerged from the meeting left many contentious issues unresolved, but it is significantly different from an earlier draft that was widely seen as much more favorable to Moscow. Dan Driscoll, the U.S. Army secretary, is in the United Arab Emirates for scheduled meetings with a Russian delegation today. Zohran Mamdani names business leaders to his transition team. Among those whom New York City’s mayor-elect added as advisers are Margaret Anadu, a former partner at Goldman Sachs; Jed Walentas, a real estate developer; and Kathy Wylde, the departing head of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has been trying to allay worries that his proposals, including a rent freeze and a wealth tax, would hurt the city’s business community. The Trump administration’s cases against James Comey and Letitia James are dismissed. A federal judge ruled that the prosecutor President Trump chose to bring the cases against Comey, the former F.B.I. director and James, the New York attorney general, was unlawfully appointed. It’s a setback for Trump, and raises questions about what will happen to other efforts by his administration to move against several of the president’s perceived enemies. E.U. tech rules under pressure, againThe Trump administration is tightening the screws on Europe as it tries to weaken the E.U.’s tech regulations, David Meyer writes. Howard Lutnick, the U.S. commerce secretary, told Bloomberg yesterday that the bloc could receive concessions on steel and aluminum tariffs and secure more U.S. investment if E.U. officials “take the foot off this regulatory framework and make it more inviting for our companies.” European Commission officials are fuming. “The European digital rule-book is not up for negotiation,” Teresa Ribera, the commission’s top antitrust regulator, wrote in a social media post yesterday. “We, Europeans, have adopted our rules to ensure fair markets and to protect consumers rights while backing Europe’s digital future.” This is not the first time the administration has tried to use tariffs to force the issue. In August, President Trump implicitly threatened the E.U. with new tariffs for what he characterized as an unfair targeting of U.S. tech firms. But the E.U.’s stance on tech regulation already appears to be softening. Last week, the commission proposed delaying the implementation of rules governing high-risk artificial intelligence systems and revising the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R. Digital rights advocates say the changes would blunt the privacy law’s teeth and give A.I. companies free rein to train their models on Europeans’ information. Big Tech’s lobbyists claim that the proposed changes wouldn’t go far enough. The Brussels office of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, complained that the proposal’s “narrow scope leaves much of the E.U.’s patchwork untouched.” If Europe does relax the rules, it won’t be because of external pressure alone. Few European countries have come out publicly in favor of softening the bloc’s tech rules — but Germany, an influential member whose automotive industry is a major issue in the E.U.-U.S. trade negotiations, is one of them. “My understanding is Nvidia has some managers who are telling their people to use less A.I. Are you insane?”— Jensen Huang, the C.E.O. of Nvidia, in an internal meeting last week, responding to a question about employees being told to reduce their use of A.I., according to Business Insider. Huang told workers that he wanted every task that could be automated with A.I. to be automated: “I promise you, you will have work to do,” he added. Inside Washington’s billion-dollar deal spreeGovernment intervention in the free market had long been taboo for Republicans. Not so for the Trump administration, which has shown a growing appetite for acquiring ownership stakes in private companies. The administration has committed more than $10 billion in taxpayer funds to the effort, and shows no signs of slowing down, The Times’s Ana Swanson writes: The government’s growing portfolio of corporate ownership involves minority stakes, or the option to take them in the future, in at least nine companies involved in steel, minerals, nuclear energy and semiconductors, a New York Times analysis found. The deals were all struck in the past six months, with the bulk made in October and November. The effort appears mostly driven by national security concerns, particularly a desire for the government to prop up strategic industries and lessen America’s reliance on foreign countries like China for key resources. Some officials are hopeful the equity stakes will generate a windfall for taxpayers, but the likelihood of that is unclear. Many of the companies are facing financial headwinds, and some could take years to become profitable. The government has long taken stakes in private companies, through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. But the Trump administration is now using the weight of other agencies to buy up equity stakes in companies. Here are some of those deals:
China looms over the administration’s strategy. State-sponsored industrial policy helped China develop a stronghold in critical minerals and semiconductors. In Washington, many policymakers on both sides of the aisle have embraced a similar approach as necessary to compete with Beijing. Critics warn that the president’s deal-making is too fast and loose. “In a number of these cases, there seems to be almost no serious review,” Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Times. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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