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By Joice Alves LONDON (Reuters) -The boom in investment in artificial intelligence is starting to be felt for the first time in currency markets across Europe, and analysts reckon the Swedish crown and sterling stand to benefit the most. Trading in the almost $10 trillion-a-day FX markets this year has been driven by broad dollar weakness given tariff-related concerns and U.S. rate cut expectations. But dig deeper and the impact of AI, which has helped drive stocks to record highs, is rippling across to currencies. According to JPMorgan, the resilience of the Swedish crown, or krona, and sterling in recent months may be partially attributable to tech as Sweden and Britain stand out on measures of AI investment and their currencies are receiving a tailwind from this dynamic, even if only a small one. By one measure, the UK and Sweden received just over $4 billion each last year in private AI investments, ranking third and fourth in a Stanford University AI index of biggest beneficiaries of such investments, behind the United States and China.  Sweden's krona is the strongest-performing major European currency against a weak dollar so far this year, having climbed almost 15%. Sterling has rallied 7%.     Dissecting the exact impact of AI on currency moves is hard, analysts say, given other factors at play such as interest rate expectations or fiscal unease, especially with sterling. "Large AI investments have been announced for both countries," said Rabobank's head of FX strategy Jane Foley. "The inward investment could certainly have created some demand for sterling and Swedish crown respectively and created some resilience".  The crown is also up against the euro and other Scandinavian currencies. Sterling, hurt by fiscal worries, is down against the euro and Swiss franc, however. Investments in Swedish AI companies, which bring higher demand for crowns, would cause a visible spike in the currency, while the impact of such investments on sterling would be less visible because it is already so heavily traded, Rabobank's Foley said.   Sterling is the world's fourth most-traded currency, accounting for just over 10% of all trades, while Sweden's crown accounts for less than 2%, according to the Bank for International Settlements. BIG PROMISES Britain and the United States last month agreed a technology pact, with top U.S. firms led by Microsoft pledging 31 billion pounds ($42 billion) in UK investments. AI giant Nvidia plans to provide its data centre platform to Swedish companies including telecoms gear maker Ericsson, and drug developer AstraZeneca. Microsoft, Facebook's owner Meta, Google's owner Alphabet and Canada's Brookfield Asset Management plan data centres in Sweden given the country's reliable electricity supplies and infrastructure. While it's too soon to say what impact AI will have on economic growth or unemployment, which could potentially add to strains on public finances, the announcements offered a favourable backdrop for the krona and sterling, analysts said. A report by SEB released earlier this year looking at major Swedish participants in the FX market showed their net overweight position in the crown was close to record highs. Societe Generale head of corporate research for FX and rates Kenneth Broux said U.S. tech investment pledges can diminish pessimism ahead of Britain's November budget, when taxes are expected to rise, lifting sterling's appeal. Latest CFTC positioning shows investors are neither heavily in favour nor against sterling. Speculators have eroded bullish dollar positions against the pound from August's almost three-year high of $3.3 billion to just $165 million, reflecting waning conviction that the greenback will rally against sterling. "What AI does potentially change is the outlook for productivity growth, the Achilles' heel of the UK economy", said Broux.  An aging population in the West opens the door to “reskilling and upskilling” which can help keep a lid on welfare payments and potential unemployment benefits caused by AI, he added.  Some are broadly positive on sterling. Investment firm St James's Place has an overweight position. Deutsche Bank expects sterling to rise to $1.45 over the next couple of years, compared with roughly $1.34 currently.  And HSBC Private Bank's global CIO Willem Sels said that while his near-term view on sterling was not too positive given the looming budget, he sensed that investor sentiment towards the UK was more "constructive" than it appears. "One of the reasons for that is that people see the UK as a relatively interesting destination for AI-related investment," Sels said.   "This is why we also saw (Nvidia CEO) Jensen Huang sitting next to the Prime Minister (Keir Starmer earlier this year) and talking about the strength of the UK." (Reporting by Joice Alves; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Hugh Lawson)

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By Stephen Nellis and Harshita Mary Varghese (Reuters) -Oracle said on Thursday it expects cloud infrastructure revenue to grow to $166 billion in fiscal 2030, which would make up nearly 75% of its total sales by then. Chief Executive Officer Clay Magouyrk gave the cloud infrastructure prediction during a meeting with financial analysts, where he said new bookings were coming in from a range of customers, not just OpenAI. Dough Kehring, Oracle's chief financial officer, said the company expects $225 billion in overall revenue and adjusted profits of $21 per share by the firm's fiscal 2030. Analysts had been expecting $198.4 billion in overall sales and adjusted profits of $18.92 per share for fiscal 2030, according to LSEG data. Oracle shares closed up 3% after the cloud computing announcement, but declined about 2% in after-hours trading after the broader revenue and profit forecasts. Oracle said last month that it has racked up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure bookings and is working with ChatGPT creator OpenAI on a $500 billion project that will include five new data centers. For the most recent quarter, Oracle reported cloud revenue jumped 28% to $7.2 billion. Magouyrk said that during a single 30-day period during the previous quarter, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, the company's cloud unit, had booked $65 billion in new commitments, which included a $20 billion deal with Meta Platforms. He said that the newest $65 billion of bookings came from customers other than OpenAI. "I know some people are questioning, 'Hey, is it just OpenAI?' The reality is, we think OpenAI is a great customer, but we have many customers," Magouyrk said. "This is literally seven deals, four customers, all of them other than OpenAI." Oracle also sought to address concerns among investors about its gross margins, which were 68.7% in its most recent quarter and which analysts predict will fall slightly in its fiscal 2027, according to LSEG estimates. Oracle said it expected to have adjusted gross margins of between 30% and 40% for delivering AI cloud computing infrastructure, while other segments such as more conventional cloud software and infrastructure for business customers would have margins of between 65% and 80%. Oracle also said that those margins would be steady over the term of a contract, showing a hypothetical example of an AI infrastructure rollout where the company would have about $6.4 billion of costs in each year of a six-year, $60 billion cloud contract. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Vijay Kishore, Mark Porter and Sonali Paul)

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(Reuters) -A new underground transmission line was approved by the New York State Public Service Commission linking an existing Clay substation with Micron Technology's proposed semiconductor megafab facility in Onondaga County, Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Thursday. The two-mile, 345-kilovolt line is a key piece of infrastructure for Micron’s planned $100 billion investment in Central New York, the largest private investment in the state’s history, Hochul's press release said. The project is expected to create more than 50,000 jobs over the next two decades, including 9,000 direct positions at Micron. "This project is set to transform Central New York — and we're moving quickly ahead with all due speed and deliberation," Hochul said. The transmission line approval follows a 2022 agreement between Micron and New York State, when the chipmaker selected the region for its advanced manufacturing facility. The megafab aims to produce one in four of all U.S.-made semiconductors by 2030. The commission also approved environmental and construction plans for the first phase of the project, including the eastern expansion of the Clay substation and installation of equipment linking it to the Micron facility. (Reporting by Sarah Qureshi in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese car maker BYD will make its largest recall yet of more than 115,000 Tang series and Yuan Pro vehicles produced between 2015 and 2022 due to design defects and battery-related safety risks, China's market regulator said on Friday. BYD has filed a plan with the State Administration for Market Regulation to recall 44,535 Tang series vehicles produced between March 2015 and July 2017 in which certain component design flaws may cause abnormal function. It also sought to recall 71,248 Yuan Pro electric vehicles made between February 2021 and August 2022 due to manufacturing issues affecting battery installation. In January, the company made a recall of 6,843 Fangchengbao Bao 5 plug-in hybrid off-road SUVs citing fire risks. Before that, the automaker had recalled nearly 97,000 Dolphin and Yuan Plus EVs due to a manufacturing fault involving a steering control unit that posed risks of fire in September 2024. (Reporting by Liz Lee and Qiaoyi Li; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Stephen Coates)

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By Casey Hall SHANGHAI (Reuters) -OTB Group, the parent of Italian denim specialist Diesel and owner of luxury brands including Maison Margiela, is positive on the Chinese market and is investing more in it, founder and chairman Renzo Rosso said. Rosso, in China to mark Diesel's 20 years in that market, said he is continuing to invest in China in a down market, rejigging OTB's retail footprint by closing some stores, but continuing to open in new and better locations. "I am positive. I think if the market is going like this, it can be an opportunity because we can have a better space available for a better price that wasn't available before," he said. "My vision right now is to invest in the country. I believe in the country; it is so big, so important." Rosso was speaking to Reuters on Thursday ahead of a dinner for around 100 people with a view of Shanghai's famous skyline. "This year, we are doing well compared with the market. Everybody is minus, we are a little plus, so we are quite happy," he added. China's consumer appetite has been in focus for global brands, especially in the high-end and luxury sectors which count on Chinese nationals for around one-third of global purchases. In recent years, consumer demand in the world's second-largest economy has been dampened by a prolonged property market crisis and concerns about job security and wage growth in an economy buffeted by factors including slowing growth and a trade war with the U.S. In an indication of how vital China is to luxury, reports from industry bellwether LVMH earlier this week that Chinese demand is improving sparked an $80 billion stock market rally for the sector. OTB, or Only the Brave, is also home to luxury brand Jil Sander, and as a group reported turnover of 1.8 billion euros ($2.11 billion) in 2024, a fall of 4.4%. In 2024, OTB postponed plans for a public listing originally slated for this year, saying it would probably delay it until 2026. Rosso remains in no hurry to go public. "First of all, I don't need the money, I am cash positive," he said. "There's no rush, it can be one year, two years, I don't care. If I feel good, then yes." ($1 = 0.8551 euros) (Reporting by Casey Hall; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Two Indian refiners have bought 4 million barrels of Guyanese crude oil from U.S. major Exxon Mobil to be delivered at end-2025 or in early 2026, in their first imports from the South American producer, trade sources said on Friday. Indian Oil Corp, the country's largest refiner by capacity, has bought 2 million barrels of Golden Arrowhead crude which will arrive in late December or in early January, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another refiner, Hindustan Petroleum Corp, has bought 2 million barrels of Liza and Unity Gold crude also for delivery during the same period, the sources said. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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