विज्ञान

By David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chair of the House Select Committee on China said Thursday that a licensing agreement for use of the TikTok algorithm as part of a deal by Chinese-based ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of the short video app would raise "serious concerns." Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican, is waiting for a briefing to get more details on the deal that White House officials said previously would include the new owners of TikTok's U.S. assets licensing the algorithm. "I think anytime you have (China) with leverage over the algorithm, I think that's a problem," Moolenaar said at a forum. TikTok did not immediately comment. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 25 declaring the plan to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to a consortium of U.S. and global investors meets the national security requirements set out in a 2024 law and gave them 120 days to complete the transaction. "I just believe you have to have a new algorithm, and I don't know that you can reprogram," Moolenaar added, pointing to technology experts saying that it is unclear precisely what is in the algorithm. "I would say it's still very much a work in progress." Trump last month delayed until January 20 enforcement of the law banning the app used by 170 million Americans unless its Chinese owners sell it. Trump's order says the algorithm will be retrained and monitored by the U.S. company's security partners, and operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture. The agreement on TikTok’s U.S. operations includes the appointment by ByteDance of one of seven board members for the new entity, with Americans holding the other six seats. ByteDance would hold less than 20% in TikTok U.S. to comply with requirements set out in the 2024 law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if ByteDance did not sell its U.S. assets. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper, Editing by Franklin Paul)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Sudarshan Varadhan and Ashley Tang KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Laos is considering halting electricity supply to cryptocurrency miners by the first quarter of 2026, as it seeks to redirect domestic power to industries that contribute more to economic growth, the country's deputy energy minister told Reuters. Crypto operators, drawn by cheap non-fossil energy, flocked to the landlocked Southeast Asian nation following a 2021 policy shift that triggered a rapid expansion in mining activity. But the government now aims to prioritise power for sectors such as AI data centres, metals refining and electric vehicles, its deputy energy minister Chanthaboun Soukaloun said on Thursday. Laos has already begun scaling back supply to crypto miners, who currently consume around 150 megawatts of electricity, down 70% from a peak of 500 MW in 2021 and 2022, Soukaloun said. BETTER VALUE FOUND ELSEWHERE "Crypto doesn't create value compared to supplying it to industrial or commercial consumers. We proposed to the government in 2021 to supply to crypto mining due to the oversupply of electricity domestically," Soukaloun told Reuters, adding that the industry creates few jobs and does not have a supply chain that benefits the economy. Soukaloun said that Laos had initially planned to end supply this year, but continued due to abundant rainfall that boosted hydropower output and enabled increased exports to neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam. "I think by the end of the first quarter of 2026, we might stop (supply to crypto) entirely," he said on the sidelines of the ASEAN energy ministers meeting. Reuters was unable to find associations representing the crypto mining industry, or ascertain which miners operate there. Laos, often dubbed the "battery of Southeast Asia" for its hydropower export potential, plays a key role in the region’s clean energy transition. Hydropower exports are crucial for decarbonising neighbouring countries that face challenges scaling up solar and wind. Laos, which exports most of its hydropower to independent power producers in cross-border deals with Thailand and Vietnam, is considering further increasing its bilateral export capacity to Vietnam from 8,000 MW currently, Soukaloun said. CHINA ARBITRATION, EXPORTS TO SINGAPORE Soukaloun said Laos has had bilateral talks with China about an arbitration suit filed by a unit of state-owned Power Construction Corp of China against its state utility Electricite du Laos (EDL), seeking $555 million in unpaid dues from its $2.73 billion hydropower project. "It's their right to do so (sue) under the power purchase agreement. We have to move on until the process is completed or unless the claimant withdraws the claim," Soukaloun said. He declined to comment on whether Laos had sought a revision of the claims, citing confidentiality, but said the dues stemmed from a mismatch between projected and actual demand. Laos also expects exports to Singapore through the Lao-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore (LTMS) power transmission corridor to "resume soon," Soukaloun said, without providing further details. Exports through the corridor had been halted as Thailand is yet to finalise terms of an extension to the deal, Thai and Singapore authorities said last year. On Thursday, the four countries issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to continue advancing multilateral cross-border power trade and continue discussions, but did not specify when exports would resume. (Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Ashley Tang, Editing by Louise Heavens)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms was set to seal an almost $30 billion finance package for its data center site in rural Louisiana, which would be the largest private capital deal on record, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. Large-scale cloud service providers, called hyperscalers, have been racing to build AI infrastructure, with most of the investment going towards powering data centers. Meta and alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital will split ownership of the Hyperion data center site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, with the social media giant retaining just 20%, Bloomberg said, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Morgan Stanley arranged more than $27 billion debt and about $2.5 billion equity into a special purpose vehicle to finance the build-out, according to the report. Meta is not borrowing the capital itself, but the financing entity is, under the SPV structure, Bloomberg News reported. Meta will be the developer, operator and tenant of the project, to be completed in 2029. The social media giant has tapped U.S. bond company PIMCO and Blue Owl Capital to spearhead $29 billion in financing for the data center expansion, Reuters reported in August. The parties took the final step to price the bonds — in the 144A format — with PIMCO as the anchor lender on October 16, according to Bloomberg News. A few other investors are receiving some allocations of the debt, which matures in 2049, the report said. Meta, Blue Owl and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Meta said on Wednesday it would invest $1.5 billion in a data center in El Paso, Texas, breaking ground at its 29th such facility globally as it expands infrastructure to support AI workloads. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

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)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Dan Catchpole and Allison Lampert SEATTLE (Reuters) -Hackers took over the public address systems on Tuesday at four airports, three in Canada and one in the United States, to broadcast messages praising Hamas and criticizing President Donald Trump, according to officials and news reports.  An "advertisement streaming service" at the Kelowna International Airport in British Columbia "was briefly compromised and unauthorized content was shared," according to the Kelowna Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP said it is investigating the hack with other agencies and declined to provide further details.  Hackers broadcast messages in a foreign language and music over the PA system at Victoria International Airport in British Columbia, according to an airport spokesperson. The hackers breached third-party software to access the PA system, and the airport switched to an internal system to regain control, the spokesperson said. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security is assisting the airport and the RCMP with the investigation. Hackers similarly took control of the PA system at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post on Wednesday.  The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and airport officials are investigating the breach, he said. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hackers also breached the flight information display screens and public address system Tuesday evening at Windsor International Airport in Ontario, and displayed "unauthorized images and announcements," according to airport officials. The breach was to a "cloud-based software provider" used by the airport, and "our systems returned to normal shortly thereafter," according to the airport's statement. The four locations are smaller, feeder airports. In 2024, the busiest, Kelowna, served just over 2 million passengers, compared to the more than 25 million travelers who passed through Vancouver International Airport – British Columbia's largest airport. (Reporting by Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by Sonali Paul)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chair of the House Select Committee on China said Thursday that a licensing agreement for use of the TikTok algorithm, as part of a deal by China-based ByteDance to sell U.S. assets of the short video app, would raise "serious concerns." Representative John Moolenaar, a Republican, is waiting for a briefing to get more details on the deal that White House officials said previously would include the new owners of TikTok's U.S. assets licensing the algorithm. "I think anytime you have (China) with leverage over the algorithm, I think that's a problem," Moolenaar said at an event at the Hudson Institute. TikTok did not immediately comment. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 25 declaring that the plan to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to a consortium of U.S. and global investors meets the national security requirements set out in a 2024 law and gave them 120 days to complete the transaction. "I just believe you have to have a new algorithm, and I don't know that you can reprogram," Moolenaar added, pointing to technology experts who say it is unclear precisely what is in the algorithm. "I would say it's still very much a work in progress." Trump last month delayed until January 20 enforcement of the law banning the app used by 170 million Americans unless its Chinese owners sell it. Trump's order said the algorithm will be retrained and monitored by the U.S. company's security partners, and operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture. The agreement on TikTok's U.S. operations includes the appointment by ByteDance of one of seven board members for the new entity, with Americans holding the other six seats. ByteDance would hold less than 20% in TikTok U.S. to comply with requirements set out in the 2024 law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if ByteDance did not sell its U.S. assets. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Franklin Paul and Edmund Klamann)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

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)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

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)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Manya Saini (Reuters) -Crypto heavyweight Kraken said on Thursday it has acquired futures exchange Small Exchange from IG Group for $100 million, paving the way to launch a fully U.S.-based derivatives suite. The cryptocurrency sector is maturing as digital assets gain broader acceptance and traditional financial firms increasingly engage through regulated products such as futures, options and tokenized securities. Small Exchange is a U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission-licensed designated contract market, giving Kraken a regulated venue to offer futures and options to both retail and institutional clients. "Under CFTC oversight, Kraken can now integrate clearing, risk and matching into one environment that meets the same standards as the largest exchanges in the world," Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, said in a statement. Once the preserve of banks and brokers, the derivatives market is drawing digital asset firms looking for liquidity and risk management. Analysts say adoption is likely to accelerate as more institutional and traditional financial players enter the digital asset space. "Digital asset firms are no longer content being sideshow players. They aim to wrest seats in the core capital markets ecosystem," said Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and CIO at Running Point Capital Advisors. The derivatives market is likely to pull closer together, with big exchanges and fintech firms first testing offerings like tokenized futures and hybrid products at the edges, then rolling them out more widely, he added. Crypto-linked futures and options have been among the fastest-growing segments as investors seek to manage risk. "By securing the necessary licensing and infrastructure today, Kraken is laying the groundwork for institutional-grade markets as crypto matures," the company said. The deal comes as a more crypto-friendly regulatory tone under U.S. President Donald Trump encourages digital asset firms to expand in the United States with promises of clearer rules. Earlier this year, Kraken agreed to buy retail futures trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion. (Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By AJ Vicens and Raphael Satter (Reuters) -A breach at U.S.-based cybersecurity company F5 has been blamed on state-backed hackers from China, two people briefed on the investigation said Thursday. On Wednesday, U.S. government officials said federal networks are being targeted by an unidentified "nation-state cyber threat actor" that's trying to exploit vulnerabilities in products made by F5. The company and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), when contacted by Reuters, did not confirm whether the breach was carried out by Chinese state-backed hackers. "These same risks extend to any organization using this technology, potentially leading to a catastrophic compromise of critical information systems," CISA Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala said in a statement, without specifying who was behind the hack. The two people briefed on the investigation said the hackers were inside F5's network for more than a year.  (Reporting by Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens. Devika Nair, Gnaneshwar Rajan, and Nilutpal Timsina provided additional reporting; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Rashmi Aich and Franklin Paul)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)