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US considers breaking up Google

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A proposal to break up Alphabet-owned Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department following a landmark court ruling that the company has monopolised the online search market.

According to Bloomberg, the move would be Washington’s first attempt to break up a company for illegal monopolisation since the failed attempt to break up Microsoft two decades ago.

Less serious options include forcing Google to share more data with rivals and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in artificial intelligence products, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.

Alphabet’s shares fell 3.8% as of 10:13 a.m. in New York yesterday, the biggest drop since August 5, when a federal judge ruled the company had an illegal monopoly in the search market.

Android and Chrome could be divested if there is no fragmentation

Regardless, the government is almost certain to seek a ban on the specific types of contracts at the heart of its case against Google.

If the Justice Department insists on a break-up plan, the units most likely to be divested are the Android operating system and Google’s Chrome web browser, officials said.

Officials are also considering forcing a possible sale of the AdWords platform, which the company uses to sell text ads.

Google has said it will appeal the 5 August ruling, but Mehta ordered both sides to begin planning for the second phase of the case, which will include the government’s proposals to restore competition, including a possible motion to dismiss.

The US plan will have to be accepted by Mehta, who will order the company to comply with it. A forced break-up of Google would be the largest break-up of a US company since the break-up of AT&T in the 1980s.

Justice Department lawyers advising companies affected by Google’s practices have expressed concern in interviews that the company’s dominance in search gives it an advantage in developing artificial intelligence technology.

As part of the solution, the government may try to stop the company from forcing websites to allow their content to be used for some of Google’s artificial intelligence products in order to appear in search results.

Google to sign consent decrees for Gmail and Play Store

Divestment of the Android operating system, which is used on some 2.5 billion devices worldwide, is one of the most frequently discussed remedies by Justice Department lawyers. In his ruling, Mehta found that Google requires device makers to sign agreements to provide access to its applications, such as Gmail and the Google Play Store.

These agreements also require Google’s search widget and Chrome browser to be permanently installed on devices, effectively preventing other search engines from competing.

Mehta’s ruling follows a December jury verdict in California that found the company had monopolised the distribution of Android apps. The judge in that case has not yet ruled.

The Federal Trade Commission, which also enforces antitrust laws, filed a brief in the case this week, saying in a statement that Google should not be allowed to “reap the rewards of unlawful monopolisation”.

Google has paid companies up to $26 billion to make its search engine the default on devices and web browsers, including $20 billion to Apple.

Google’s huge advertising revenues also in the crosshairs

Mehta’s ruling also revealed that Google has a monopoly on so-called search text ads, which appear at the top of search results pages to attract users to websites.

These ads are sold through Google Ads, which was renamed AdWords in 2018, and allows marketers to run ads for specific search terms related to their business.

According to testimony at last year’s hearing, about two-thirds of Google’s total revenue comes from search advertising, and will exceed $100 billion by 2020.

If the Justice Department does not require Google to sell AdWords, it may require interoperability requirements that would allow it to run smoothly on other search engines, the people said.

Google could be forced to share more data

Another option would be to require Google to transfer or licence its data to competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing or DuckDuckGo.

According to Mehta, Google’s contracts not only ensure that the search engine receives the most user data (16 times more than its nearest competitor), but this influx of data also prevents its rivals from improving their search results and competing effectively.

Recently introduced digital gatekeeping rules in Europe imposed a similar requirement on Google to make some of its data available to third party search engines. The company has publicly stated that sharing data could raise privacy concerns for users, so it only provides information on searches that meet certain thresholds.

Requiring monopolists to give competitors some access to technology has been a remedy in previous cases. In the first case brought by the Justice Department against AT&T in 1956, the company was required to grant royalty-free licences to its patents.

In the antitrust case against Microsoft, the settlement required the technology giant to make some of its applications, called application programming interfaces or APIs, available to third parties for free.

APIs are used to enable software programs to communicate and exchange data effectively.

Google uses data to develop artificial intelligence

For years, websites have given Google’s web crawler access to ensure they appear in the company’s search results. But recently, some of that data has been used to help Google improve its artificial intelligence.

Last autumn, Google created a tool that allows websites to block scraping for AI, after companies complained.

But this opt-out doesn’t apply to everything. In May, Google announced that some searches will now come with ‘AI overviews’, narrative answers that save people the trouble of clicking through various links. The AI-powered panel appears below queries and provides summarised information from Google search results across the web.

Google does not allow website publishers to opt out of appearing in AI Overviews because it is a ‘feature’ of search, not a separate product. Sites can opt out of Google’s use of snippets, but this applies to both search and AI Overviews.

A snippet is a piece of source code that does not work on its own, but is used as a shortcut in code.

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Trump’s tariffs drive Nvidia to invest heavily in US manufacturing

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Nvidia’s CEO said that the company, which is trying to withdraw its supply chain from Asia in the face of tariff threats from US President Donald Trump, will spend hundreds of billions of dollars for chips and other electronic products manufactured in the US in the next four years.

The massive spending forecast of the world’s most valuable semiconductor group follows billions of dollars of US investment plans announced by other technology companies, including Apple, as the impact of Trump’s “America First” trade policies ripple through the global economy.

Nvidia’s CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang told the Financial Times (FT), “Overall, we will likely supply a total of half a trillion dollars worth of electronic products over the next four years, and I think we can easily see ourselves producing a few hundred billion of that here in the US.”

Huang said that the leading artificial intelligence chip manufacturer can now produce its latest systems in the US through suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Foxconn, and that it sees an increasing threat of competition from Huawei in China.

At Nvidia’s annual developers conference this week, Huang introduced the new generation of artificial intelligence chip, Vera Rubin, and outlined plans to create clusters of millions of interconnected chips that will require a large power supply in huge data centers.

Huang said he believes the Trump administration can accelerate the development of the US artificial intelligence industry. The CEO said, “Having the support of an administration that cares about the success of this industry and does not allow energy to be an obstacle is an extraordinary result for artificial intelligence in the US.”

This month, TSMC announced that it would invest $100 billion in its chip production facilities in Arizona, in addition to the $65 billion investment decided under the Biden administration.

Huang said that Nvidia’s latest Blackwell systems are now manufactured in the US, adding, “TSMC’s investment in the US allows us to take an important step in our supply chain flexibility.”

In recent years, America’s largest technology companies, including Nvidia and Apple, have become heavily dependent on TSMC’s state-of-the-art chip manufacturing facilities in Taiwan.

Huang said, “The most important thing is to be prepared. At this point, we know that we can manufacture in the US, we have a sufficiently diversified supply chain.”

The Nvidia executive argued that if any disaster threatens production in Taiwan, it would be “uncomfortable but not a problem.”

While Nvidia still generates billions of dollars in revenue from China, it faces renewed competition from Huawei, whose Ascend AI chips have recently made progress.

Huang said, “Huawei is the most challenging technology company in China. They have conquered every market they have entered.” According to Huang, US efforts to restrict the Chinese technology company “ended badly,” given Huawei’s continued success.

Saying that Huawei’s presence in the field of artificial intelligence is increasing every year, Huang said, “We cannot assume that they will not be a factor.”

Intel, the only US company that can theoretically produce pioneering chips similar to Nvidia’s, has faced serious difficulties in the casting business. The leadership gap at Intel was filled last week with the appointment of Lip-Bu Tan as CEO.

Huang denied reports that Nvidia was in talks to form a consortium with companies such as TSMC to invest in Intel, and avoided committing to using US chip manufacturing services as part of this ‘onshoring’.

“We regularly evaluate casting technologies and continue to do so,” said Nvidia’s CEO, adding that they are also reviewing Intel’s chip packaging services.

Referring to Intel’s ability to be competitive in advanced chip technologies, Huang said, “I am confident that Intel has the ability to do this.”

Huang also added that “Intel’s success and prosperity” is important, and “But it takes some time to convince yourself and each other that a new supply chain needs to be established.”

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US tariffs on steel and aluminum set to impact $150 billion market

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The 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products imposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday is expected to create upward pressure on prices for approximately $150 billion worth of imports, negatively impacting the profits of American automakers and other companies.

The US imports about one-fifth of the steel it consumes. More than 20% of this import by weight comes from Canada, followed by Brazil at 16%, and the European Union at 7%, with Japan ranking seventh at 4%. Canada is also the largest supplier of aluminum to the US.

Because the direct cost of tariffs falls on importers, this will mean higher costs, especially for manufacturers in the US auto industry.

US-based Wolfe Research anticipates the 25% tariff will drive the price of steel products up by as much as 16% above the 2024 average. Aluminum prices, which are already trending upward, are expected to nearly double.

Nomura Securities research analyst Anindya Das estimates the impact on automakers’ fiscal 2025 operating profits from a 10% increase in steel and aluminum prices compared to the 2024 average. According to this analysis, American players Ford Motor and General Motors will face a hit of approximately 3% to 4% if they cannot pass on their costs through higher prices.

Toyota Motor will experience a smaller decline of 0.5%, while the impact on Subaru, which conducts a large portion of its production in North America, will be around 2%.

Some parts manufacturers affiliated with Toyota bring steel from Japan for use in their US production facilities, and there have been calls for the company to cover the higher costs resulting from the tariffs.

A Toyota executive stated, “Tariffs are a factor outside their control, so we will respond appropriately.”

Japan has pushed to be exempted from the tariffs. “Steel and aluminum products from Japan do not harm the national security of the US,” Cabinet Chief Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on Wednesday. “On the contrary, high-quality Japanese products are difficult to substitute and are necessary to make the US manufacturing sector more competitive, and greatly contribute to US industry and employment,” he added.

According to EU-based Global Trade Alert, the tariffs announced by the Trump administration last month cover a total of 289 categories, excluding overlaps between the steel and aluminum lists. These items, which also include kitchen and sporting goods, accounted for approximately 4.5% of the US total last year, with $151 billion in imports.

China was the largest importer at $35 billion, followed by Mexico at $30.6 billion, the EU at $20.3 billion, and Canada at $17.1 billion. Japan ranked seventh at $7 billion. When EU members were counted as separate countries instead of a single bloc, 27 economies had exposures exceeding $500 million.

To avoid tariffs, steel and aluminum exports previously destined for the US may be sold in other markets instead. Jakob Stausholm, CEO of Anglo-Australian iron ore miner Rio Tinto, said last month that selling aluminum in other markets such as Europe was an option.

Tadashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Iron and Steel Federation and president of Nippon Steel, recently stated that the biggest concern is that the tariffs “contribute to the market collapse caused by China’s excessive exports.”

With China’s economy declining, steelmakers are selling products at low prices elsewhere that cannot be absorbed by the domestic market. If they face higher barriers in the US, these goods could flow to other countries.

The US is also the world’s largest exporter of scrap iron and steel, and rising scrap prices leaving the country are likely to reverberate in the global market.

A representative from Japanese aluminum manufacturer UACJ said, “The short-term impact will be small, but it could be larger in the long term.”

Although the company generally produces products for the US domestically, it imports some products with special requirements from Japan in small quantities. According to UACJ, starting alternative production in the US could take three to four years.

Other companies are turning to completely different materials. Coca-Cola stated last month that it would switch some packaging from aluminum to plastic if the tariffs came into effect.

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Trump signs order for ‘strategic crypto reserve’

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US President Donald Trump, in a move aimed at revitalizing the digital assets sector, has signed an executive order authorizing the federal government to stockpile cryptocurrency assets seized through law enforcement agencies.

According to a post on X by David Sacks, the White House’s crypto and artificial intelligence czar, under the executive order, the federal government will retain bitcoin assets seized by federal law enforcement, which will enter a “strategic bitcoin reserve.”

Sacks added that the reserve “will not cost taxpayers a single penny,” further authorizing the Treasury and Commerce departments to “develop budget-neutral strategies to acquire additional bitcoin, provided these strategies do not incur any additional costs on American taxpayers.”

Sacks wrote about bitcoin, “The reserve is like a digital Fort Knox. The early sale of Bitcoin has already cost US taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value. Now, the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings.”

The order also established a separate “US Digital Asset Stockpile” to include other cryptocurrencies seized by the government. Earlier this week, Trump hinted at the possibility of including tokens such as Ripple’s XRP, Solana, and Cardano, alongside bitcoin and ether, in what he termed the “Crypto Strategic Reserve,” causing the prices of these tokens to rise with investors’ hopes that the US government would enter the market as a major buyer of digital assets.

However, crypto prices fell immediately after Sacks’s post and recovered shortly thereafter. According to CoinGecko data, as of 4:45 PM (presumably local time, though unspecified), bitcoin was trading at approximately $88,000, down 2.8% from the previous 24 hours.

The creation of the reserve and stockpile is part of a broad shift in Washington towards policies aimed at benefiting the crypto industry. It comes ahead of a crypto summit to be held at the White House on Friday, which will be attended by leading figures in the digital assets world.

For supporters, the bitcoin reserve is a chance for the US to participate in the growth of the original cryptocurrency, and many in the market believe that the market is poised to climb higher as Trump pursues a crypto-friendly regulatory agenda.

Yet, there are still many questions about how the reserve and stockpile will operate. For example, some critics doubt that the federal government can cash in its bitcoin holdings without spooking other investors and triggering a sell-off.

Trump first promised to create a crypto reserve during a speech at a major bitcoin conference in July.

Sacks said, “I want to thank the President for his leadership and vision in supporting this cutting-edge technology and for his swift action in supporting the digital asset industry. His administration is truly moving at ‘technology speed’.”

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