What's up: Antitrust enforcers prepare a final blitz against Big Tech; AI is shaping earnings-day prep; would you send your colonoscopy to a chatbot?

Good morning, CIOs. The coming wave of artificial-intelligence usage won’t just strain data centers and power grids. Networking, the so-called plumbing supporting today's AI chatbots and tomorrow's AI agent-to-AI agent-to-AI agent interplay, is due for a revamp, the WSJ's Belle Lin reports.

Chip giant Nvidia, networking equipment maker Cisco, data center providers and internet carriers and exchanges like Lumen Technologies and DE-CIX are eyeing opportunities

“The amount of traffic that’s starting and will continue to be generated with AI, where you get into a machine-to-machine environment, that amount of traffic is going to be monumental,” said Chris Sharp, chief technology officer of data center operator Digital Realty.

The good news. The expected AI networking upgrade won't hit every business ... at least not yet.

Many business technology leaders are training or using AI models in the cloud, rather than in their own data centers. That puts the responsibility on their cloud providers to upgrade network capacity.

Case study. Wayfair relies mostly on Google’s cloud platform, so it doesn’t need to make AI-specific adjustments, said Fiona Tan, the online furniture retailer’s chief technology officer. But if Wayfair’s needs surpass what Google or others can provide, it could explore its own networking options, Tan said. Read the story.

Antitrust enforcers prepare final blitz against Big Tech. The Biden administration’s top antitrust officials plan to take more shots at the tech industry before leaving office, the WSJ's Dave Michaels reports.

Google. The Justice Department is preparing to ask a judge to consider structural changes to Google’s business. Google would have to divest its Chrome browser or Android mobile operating system if it doesn’t limit how it ties its mobile products to the use of its search engine

Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The department’s antitrust division also is preparing a possible legal challenge to HPE's’s $14 billion bid for Juniper Networks, people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft. The Federal Trade Commission is laying the groundwork to open an investigation into Microsoft’s cloud business and other practices

Trump picks Brendan Carr as FCC chair. The senior Republican on the five-member commission and one of the authors of the Project 2025 policy paper, Carr has outlined plans to remove regulations conservatives consider overbearing or outdated.

The Journal reports that Carr supports current efforts to ban TikTok in the U.S. and he has also urged the government to strip big tech companies of existing legal protections for the content they host.

How AI is shaping earnings-day prep. Generative AI is being increasingly used by investor-relations departments to predict and ready answers to analyst questions on earnings calls, refine word choice in prepared remarks and more, WSJ CFO Journal reports.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Nope, say readers. A new study found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5  can produce poetry indistinguishable to works composed by real-live humans like William Shakespeare. Worse, many of the study’s participants preferred the chatbot’s poetry. (Smithsonian)

Incoming SF mayor taps OpenAI’s Altman. The chief executive, a city resident, will serve on Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie’s transition team. (SF Standard)

Would you share your colonoscopy with Elon Musk’s X? The New York Times reports that MRIs, CT scans and other medical images are being shared with X’s chatbot by users looking for a diagnosis. Medical professionals don’t think it’s a great idea. For one, posting medical information on a social media account is not bound by the HIPPA, the NYT says.

And yet ...  In a separate study ChatGPT scored a 90% average diagnosing medical conditions from case reports and explaining its reasoning. Human doctors scored 74%. (New York Times)

AI is people too. Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, are in Silicon Valley hunting for top AI tech talent, even as Washington looks to curb access to AI chips and other technologies. (FT)

Google + Nvidia → quantum computing. Google will use an Nvidia Eos supercomputer to design processors for quantum computing, the two companies said Monday. (Bloomberg)

A cloud for the trades to go public. ServiceTitan, which sells cloud software to contractors, filed to go public under the ticker TTAN. (CNBC)

El Capitan on top as world’s most powerful supercomputer. The supercomputer, housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, clocked 1.742 exaFLOPs of performance, bumping Frontier, found at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to the number two position. (Top500)

Ranga Dias, a physics professor who made headlines with claims that he had discovered a room-temperature superconductor and then was found to have engaged in research misconduct, is no longer employed by the University of Rochester. (WSJ)

Private-equity giant Blackstone is nearing a deal for closely held Jersey Mike’s Subs in a deal that would value the sandwich chain at around $8 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. (WSJ)

Donald Trump’s advisers are weighing a new slate of contenders for Treasury secretary amid a messy fight over the crucial economic position that has irritated the president-elect and his team in recent days. (WSJ)

A witness told the House Ethics Committee she saw Matt Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a party in 2017, while he was serving in Congress, a lawyer for the woman said Monday. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.