If you haven’t read it, you really oughta—“The vigilance of Satya Nadella” breaks down Microsoft’s AI philosophy and moves (including OpenAI) and puts it in the broader technological context.

It also makes a fantastic gift alongside the pair of stories I wrote about a certain Redmond company and its chief executive in the go-go cloud days of 2016. Y’know. Just sayin’. —Andrew Nusca

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Intel installs Lip-Bu Tan as CEO

Courtesy of Intel

Three months after Intel summarily ousted its previous CEO, America’s ailing chip giant has a new boss: Lip-Bu Tan.

A semiconductor industry veteran who served as CEO of chip design software powerhouse Cadence Design Systems for more than a decade, Tan possesses the rare combination of skills and experience to lead an organization as large, complex, and unique as Intel.

For anyone of the opinion that Intel needs a radical shake-up in order to survive, however, Tan is a curious choice. 

One of Intel’s biggest problems throughout its recent history has been its inability to make tough decisions, vacillating between tepid attempts to have it both ways. Is Intel a chip design company or a chip manufacturing company? Is it a PC and server chip company or an AI chip company?

Tan embodies Intel’s innate ambivalence and predilection for wavering. He’s the first outsider ever to get the CEO gig at Intel…sort of. He served on Intel’s board from 2022 to 2024.

Had Intel appointed a financial type for the top job, the divestiture of Intel’s chip manufacturing facilities would have been all but written on the wall. If Intel had picked a grizzled company lifer, the message of a unified, unbreakable Intel would have resonated loud and clear.  

Tan’s early statements sound like he’s committed to Intel’s chip fabrication operations, but they’re just vague enough to leave him plenty of leeway. 

Tan is the Goldilocks CEO pick with everything it takes to make everyone happy. Is he what Intel actually needs right now? That will be the big story to watch in 2025. —Alexei Oreskovic

Niantic sells gaming unit to Scopely for $3.5 billion

Pokémon Go is getting a new owner.

The San Francisco software company Niantic said Wednesday that it would sell its video game division to Los Angeles-based, Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely for $3.5 billion.

Niantic had a smash hit in 2016 with Pokémon Go, an augmented reality mobile game with a freemium business model. But its subsequent titles—Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, NBA All-World—didn’t reach such heights, and other projects (e.g. Transformers: Heavy Metal, Marvel World of Heroes) were quickly canceled.

Niantic will now fully focus on geospatial technology. “The rapid progress in AI reinforces our belief in the future of geospatial computing to unlock new possibilities for both consumer experiences and enterprise applications,” the company said in a statement.

Scopely, which was acquired by the kingdom’s Savvy Games for $4.9 billion in 2023, is considered the world’s second-largest mobile game developer in terms of revenue behind China’s Tencent. 

Presiding over titles like Monopoly Go! and Marvel Strike Force, Scopely recorded $1 billion in sales in 2024. Its parent Savvy is one of Nintendo’s largest shareholders, with a stake of about 7.5%, and owner of ESL and Faceit, the German and British e-sports companies. —AN

Google announces Gemma 3, its answer to DeepSeek

After China’s DeepSeek set the AI world alight with lightweight models that can provide strong performance on relatively low-cost equipment like phones, Google wants developers to know it’s still in the game.

On Wednesday, the search giant unveiled the latest iteration in its Gemma series of open AI models. According to Google, Gemma 3—which comes in four sizes—is the company’s “most advanced, portable, and responsibly developed” open model yet. 

Google claims Gemma outperforms DeepSeek-V3, Meta’s Llama-405B, and OpenAI’s o3-mini. This, it says, makes it the best model that can run on a single AI accelerator chip.

Gemma 3 also offers a much larger “context window” than its predecessors, meaning it can remember a lot more information at one time, allowing it to handle larger inputs.

That wasn’t all. Google on Wednesday also revealed more about its push back into the world of robotics. Google’s DeepMind division has now wrangled its flagship Gemini 2.0 model into two new models dedicated to the field.

One, Gemini Robotics, can take natural-language instructions and turn them into actions, also taking into account changes to the robot’s environment. It is supposedly dexterous enough to handle tasks like folding origami and packing things into Ziploc bags. 

The other model, Gemini Robotics-ER, focuses on spatial reasoning, meaning it can do things like figure out the appropriate way to grasp and lift a coffee mug that is placed before it. —David Meyer

More data

—Sonos abandons streaming video. The beleaguered company punts on a planned device and competition with Amazon, Apple, Google, and Roku.

—“Substantial doubt” iRobot can survive. Amazon tried to acquire the Roomba maker last year for $1.4 billion, but EU regulators blocked the deal.

—Amazon, Google, Meta sign nuclear energy pledge to triple capacity by 2050. Missing: Apple and Microsoft.

—Wonder acquires Tastemade. Marc Lore’s “mealtime super app,” which owns Blue Apron and Grubhub, picks up a popular media company.

—Indian police arrest Garantex cofounder. Aleksej Besciokov’s crypto exchange was sanctioned by the EU and U.S.

—U.K. regulators conclude Apple, Google investigation. The companies’ mobile browser duopoly is “holding back innovation,” per a final report, but no enforcement action will be taken.

—Binance minority stake acquired by Abu Dhabi's MGX. The emirate’s tech fund makes its first crypto investment for $2 billion.

—Meta whistleblower’s book temporarily blocked. Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People alleged sexual harassment; Meta countered with contractual nondisparagement.

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