Biden pushes to further limit AI chip exports

Find the answer in the “Endstop Triggered” section below. —Andrew Nusca

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Biden pushes to further limit AI chip exports

Days before Joe Biden leaves the White House, the U.S. is moving to expand semiconductor trade restrictions on much of the world in an attempt to control the flow of American-made AI chips.

Regulations could be issued as soon as Friday and would create three tiers of chip restrictions, according to a Bloomberg report. The top tier, reserved for 18 top U.S. allies, would allow American AI chip imports with little restriction. The bottom tier, reserved for U.S. adversaries, would effectively block them. 

The middle tier would limit total imports to a given country. Global corporations with headquarters in these nations could receive higher caps by agreeing to specific U.S. government security requirements and human rights standards, according to the report.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Nvidia objected to the proposal: “A last-minute rule restricting exports to most of the world would be a major shift in policy that would not reduce the risk of misuse but would threaten economic growth and U.S. leadership.”

American chipmakers have long been subject to restrictions for selling technology to key U.S. foes like China and Russia, including through intermediaries in other regions. U.S. AI chips currently outperform those made by China, stoking global demand for them. —AN

Musk pushes to drop dates from X posts, plans $8 sign-up fee

Elon Musk has asked staffers at X to explore removing dates from posts displayed in the main timeline, Fortune has learned. The company is also moving to implement a one-time fee of $8 for all new users who sign up, said two people familiar with X’s plans.

Musk floated the idea of nixing date and time stamps from the timeline to X to employees in recent weeks, a person familiar with internal conversations told Fortune. Musk has told staffers he believes the change will improve the user interface of X; the suggestion has raised worries among some staffers for its potential to exacerbate misinformation.

Along with the sign-up fee—which has been in the works for months, one source says—the moves would represent some of the most significant changes yet to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk acquired for $44 billion in late 2022. 

Since then, Musk has eliminated more than three-quarters of the company’s staff, including members of the trust and safety team tasked with policing the site’s content, and loosened rules around the types of content that can be shared. —Kali Hays

Trump tariffs will boost U.S. PC prices by 68%

President-elect Trump’s promise to stick a new 60% tariff on Chinese-made laptops could slightly delay the “AI PC” revolution, according to analysts at IDC.

As The Register reports, the latest estimate is that this will increase U.S. PC prices by 68%. With AI PCs already commanding a premium — they usually feature an extra component called a neural processing unit or NPU — the tariff threat seem to be “overshadowing some of the progress and excitement around AI PCs,” said IDC group VP Ryan Reith.

“But,” Reith continued, “on-device AI for PCs is inevitable, therefore, right now it is about suppliers trying to be patient as their customers are dealing with headwinds unrelated to these technology advancements.”

According to IDC, the PC industry saw 1% growth in shipments last year, largely thanks to government subsidies in China, end-of-year sales in the U.S. and Europe, and the looming end of support for Windows 10. —David Meyer

More data

—Waymo chief backs U.S. self-driving car standard. Tekedra Mawakana weighs in on the incoming Trump administration.

—Wiz hires a CFO to prep for IPO. The cybersecurity company rejected a $23 billion Google acquisition offer in July.

—Google, Microsoft each donate $1 million to Trump inauguration, joining Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, and Uber.

—Ubisoft hires advisors to explore strategic options. A Tencent buyout of the video game company was reported in October.

—What’s Eric Schmidt up to? Working on an AI video platform called Hooglee.

—Hyundai promises $16.6 billion investment in South Korea. For EV and AI development amid global competition.

—Microsoft’s Activision spent $450 million to $700 million on the development of recent Call of Duty games, according to a lawsuit filing. 

—Spotify has 55 million U.S. users, but only 607,000 have signed up for its new basic plan.

Endstop triggered

C.) 2.4 million

Taiwan's National Security Bureau said this week that its Government Service Network received a daily average of 2.4 million attacks last year, double that of 2023.

Most of the disruptions—to telecom, transport, defense, etc.—were attributed to hackers linked with China, which claims Taiwan as its own. (Taiwan feels differently.) 

It’s a little early for talk about Valentine’s Day, but nothing says “be mine” like a distributed denial-of-service attack. —AN