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By Milana Vinn NEW YORK (Reuters) -Renesas Electronics Corp. is exploring a sale of its timing division in a deal that could value the business at close to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The Japanese semiconductor manufacturer is working with investment bankers at JPMorgan on the potential divestment, which is in its early stages, the sources said. The process is expected to draw interest from other major chipmakers, including U.S.-based Texas Instruments and Germany's Infineon, the sources added, requesting anonymity to discuss confidential information. Renesas and JPMorgan declined to comment. Texas Instruments and Infineon didn't immediately return requests for comment. The division develops and supplies specialized integrated circuits that manage clock, timing and synchronization functions. These components are critical for ensuring the orderly flow of data in high-speed networking equipment. Key markets for the unit include data centers, where its products support communication between servers, as well as telecommunications infrastructure and the build-out of 5G mobile networks. The potential sale comes as demand for components that power data centers and high-speed communications networks has surged, driven by the growth of artificial intelligence and 5G technology. A divestment would allow Renesas to raise significant capital and potentially sharpen its focus on its core markets, such as automotive and industrial chips, while a buyer would acquire a valuable asset in a high-growth segment of the semiconductor industry. Renesas is one of the world's largest suppliers of microcontrollers and a chip supplier to the automotive industry. The company has grown through a series of acquisitions in recent years to broaden its portfolio of analog and power management chips. The potential divestment of the timing business reflects a broader trend in the highly competitive semiconductor industry, where companies frequently review their portfolios to shed non-core assets and double down on areas of strategic priority. Timing and clock ICs are fundamental components in virtually all advanced digital electronics. They act as a metronome for electronic systems, generating precise signals to ensure that data is processed and transmitted in a synchronized manner, preventing errors in complex, high-speed applications. (Reported by Milana Vinn; Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Mark Porter)

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By Heekyong Yang and Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it expects its biggest quarterly profit in over three years, as the global race to boost production of AI chips has tightened supply and driven up prices of conventional memory chips, the tech giant's mainstay. Strong demand for conventional memory chips used in data centre servers helped offset weaker sales of advanced artificial intelligence chips of Samsung, which has been lagging rivals in the race to supply to Nvidia, analysts said. The world's leading memory chipmaker estimated an operating profit of 12.1 trillion won ($8.5 billion) for the July-September period, up 32% from a year earlier and well above a 10.1 trillion won LSEG SmartEstimate. That would mark its best quarterly profit in 13 quarters. Samsung shares slipped 0.5% as of 0302 GMT after rising as much as 2.9% earlier to their highest level since January 2021. Analysts attributed the decline to profit-taking following the rally. The stock has risen about 75% this year. "The third-quarter earnings surprise came from the chip business," said Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities. Strong demand for conventional memory to support general-purpose servers, combined with robust HBM demand for AI servers, have together fuelled overall memory demand, he said. Although progress in supplying advanced high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to major clients such as Nvidia was slower than expected, gains in commodity memory, supported by tight supplies, helped cushion the impact, analysts said. "Samsung is a big beneficiary of growing demand for commodity chips," said Sohn In-joon, an analyst at Heungkuk Securities. Sohn attributed the earnings beat to stronger-than-expected prices of commodity DRAM and NAND chips, stemming from demand for data centre servers, and lower chip inventory by chipmakers that gave them bargaining power in pricing. Analysts said Samsung also benefited from narrower losses at its foundry unit, which makes logic chips, as utilisation rates helped ease fixed-cost pressures. The company said revenue would likely rise 8.7% to a record high of 86 trillion won from a year earlier, also helped by the weaker South Korean currency. Samsung is expected to release detailed results including a breakdown of earnings for each of its businesses on October 30. Expanding on its stock incentives for senior executives, the company has decided to launch a performance-linked stock compensation plan for all employees in South Korea over the next three years, according to an internal memo dated October 14, seen by Reuters. Samsung declined to comment on the plan. SHORTAGE STOKES CONVENTIONAL CHIP PRICES Analysts said memory makers' focus on investing in advanced chips in recent years may have limited the production of conventional chips, which extended a supply shortage and spurred price increases for conventional chips. Prices of some DRAM chips, widely used in servers, smartphones and PCs, jumped 171.8% in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to TrendForce data. Analysts expect the commodity memory supply shortage to continue into 2026, with big tech companies expanding their spending on AI-related investments, including data centres and servers capable of handling the growing workloads from AI services. While recent chip supply deals with major tech companies, such as Tesla and OpenAI, eased investor concerns about Samsung, analysts cautioned that uncertainties remain that could hurt Samsung's consumer products, including potential U.S. tariffs, an intensifying trade war between the U.S. and China, as well as China's tightened export controls on rare earth materials used in advanced chips and manufacturing equipment. Samsung has been the world's biggest memory chipmaker for three decades but it is facing increasing competition in advanced AI chips after losing its No. 1 DRAM market share to SK Hynix in the first quarter of this year. Analysts expect Samsung’s HBM sales to gradually improve after the company made meaningful progress in supplying its latest 12-layer HBM3E chips to Nvidia, though some said shipment volumes remain limited. Samsung is betting on next-generation HBM4 products to narrow the gap with SK Hynix. Morgan Stanley said in a report that Samsung is on track with next-generation HBM4 development, working closely with major U.S. customers. Commercial shipments and sales contributions are expected to begin in 2026. ($1 = 1,427.1000 won) (Reporting by Heekyong Yang, Hyunjoo Jin and Joyce Lee; Editing by Chris Reese and Sonali Paul)

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By Kamal Choudhury (Reuters) -U.S. biotech firm Nabla Bio said on Tuesday it has signed a second major research partnership with Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical, deepening their use of artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery. Under the new multi-year agreement, which builds on an earlier collaboration launched in 2022, Nabla will receive upfront and research cost payments in double-digit millions. The company is also eligible for success-based payments worth more than $1 billion. The move underscores growing momentum across the pharmaceutical industry to harness AI in drug development, with hopes of significantly reducing timelines and costs in the coming years. Nabla said it would use its proprietary AI platform, Joint Atomic Model (JAM), to design protein-based therapeutics for Takeda's early-stage pipeline. The companies will focus on hard-to-treat diseases and include multi-specific drugs and other custom biologics. Comparing to how ChatGPT answers text questions, Nabla CEO Surge Biswas said JAM responds to molecular queries by designing antibodies from scratch that bind targets with desired properties. The company claims to maintain "probably the fastest feedback loop in the industry", with a turnaround of three to four weeks from design to lab testing. "We are basically working on whatever the most pressing problems in Takeda's discovery portfolio is at any given time, and using JAM to help unlock and unblock those" Biswas told Reuters. The latest deal comes weeks after Takeda said it would exit cell therapy research to focus on faster and more scalable drug types. Earlier this month, Takeda joined a consortium, including Bristol Myers Squibb, to train AI models using shared data. Nabla expects first-in-human data from its AI-designed molecules within one to two years. (Reporting by Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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(Reuters) -Instagram will limit what users under 18 can see on the platform using filters inspired by the PG-13 movie rating system, in the latest step by its parent Meta to address criticism that it has not done enough to protect teenagers online. Modeled on the Motion Picture Association's ratings, the new system will restrict posts featuring strong language, risky stunts, drug references or other mature themes. The rules will also apply to Meta's generative AI tools, it said on Tuesday. The move follows criticism from advocacy groups and lawsuits alleging the company failed to protect young users from harmful content or misled them about the psychological harm from its platforms. A report in September showed numerous safety features Meta has implemented on Instagram over the years do not work well or exist. Reuters also revealed in August that Meta allowed provocative chatbot behavior, including letting bots engage in "conversations that are romantic or sensual". Meta said on Tuesday its latest move automatically place teen accounts under the PG-13 settings, which parents can adjust to add stricter content and screen-time controls with a "limited content setting". Teen users will also be blocked from interacting with accounts sharing age-inappropriate material. "We hope this update reassures parents," Meta said in a blog post. "We know teens may try to avoid these restrictions, which is why we'll use age prediction technology to place teens into certain content protections — even if they claim to be adults." Meta in August added safeguards for teenagers across its AI products by training its systems to avoid flirty exchanges and discussions of self-harm or suicide with minors. That followed a broader overhaul last year that introduced enhanced privacy and parental controls for Instagram users under 18. The new settings will be released in the U.S., UK, Australia and Canada, with full launch expected by the year-end. Meta is also introducing more safeguards for teens on Facebook. The move comes as Meta, ByteDance's TikTok and YouTube face hundreds of lawsuits filed on behalf of children and school districts about the addictive nature of social media. U.S. regulators are increasingly scrutinizing AI companies over the potential negative impacts of chatbots. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Arun Koyyur)

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By Milana Vinn NEW YORK (Reuters) -Renesas Electronics Corp. is exploring a sale of its timing division in a deal that could value the business at close to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The Japanese semiconductor manufacturer is working with investment bankers at JPMorgan on the potential divestment, which is in its early stages, the sources said. The process is expected to draw interest from other major chipmakers, including U.S.-based Texas Instruments and Germany's Infineon, the sources added, requesting anonymity to discuss confidential information. Renesas and JPMorgan declined to comment. Texas Instruments and Infineon didn't immediately return requests for comment. The division develops and supplies specialized integrated circuits that manage clock, timing and synchronization functions. These components are critical for ensuring the orderly flow of data in high-speed networking equipment. Key markets for the unit include data centers, where its products support communication between servers, as well as telecommunications infrastructure and the build-out of 5G mobile networks. The potential sale comes as demand for components that power data centers and high-speed communications networks has surged, driven by the growth of artificial intelligence and 5G technology. A divestment would allow Renesas to raise significant capital and potentially sharpen its focus on its core markets, such as automotive and industrial chips, while a buyer would acquire a valuable asset in a high-growth segment of the semiconductor industry. Renesas is one of the world's largest suppliers of microcontrollers and a chip supplier to the automotive industry. The company has grown through a series of acquisitions in recent years to broaden its portfolio of analog and power management chips. The potential divestment of the timing business reflects a broader trend in the highly competitive semiconductor industry, where companies frequently review their portfolios to shed non-core assets and double down on areas of strategic priority. Timing and clock ICs are fundamental components in virtually all advanced digital electronics. They act as a metronome for electronic systems, generating precise signals to ensure that data is processed and transmitted in a synchronized manner, preventing errors in complex, high-speed applications. (Reported by Milana Vinn; Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Mark Porter)

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By Jan Wolfe WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined a chance to reassess the broad legal immunity tech companies have over content hosted on their platforms, turning away on Tuesday an appeal in a lawsuit against Grindr by a male plaintiff who was raped at age 15 by adult men matched to him via the gay dating app. The justices decided not to hear the plaintiff's appeal of a lower court's ruling to dismiss his lawsuit seeking monetary damages against Los Angeles-based Grindr because the company was protected from liability by a provision of federal law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Enacted in 1996, Section 230 allows online platforms, including social media sites and online forums, to host user-generated content without being held legally responsible as the "publisher or speaker" of that content. The provision has shielded online platforms such as TikTok and Meta Platforms from a wide range of litigation. The plaintiff in the Grindr case has remained anonymous, being referred to as "John Doe" in court filings. His lawyers argued in a court filing that Section 230 has been a "goldmine for amoral companies who need not invest in providing safe products." Lawyers for Doe said four adult men raped him on consecutive days in April 2019, when he was a high school student in a small town in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia after he signed up for Grindr and falsely represented he was at least 18 years old. Grindr requires users to be over 18, but does not verify the ages of users. Three of the men were prosecuted in Canada and received multi-year prison terms, while the fourth remains at large, according to court papers. The plaintiff filed his civil lawsuit in California state court in Los Angeles in 2023, accusing Grindr of negligence and unlawfully failing to warn users about the risks of child sexual abuse, among other claims, as well as defective app design for matching adults and children for illegal sexual activity. It sought an unspecified amount of compensatory damages for physical and emotional harm, plus punitive damages of at least $66 million. After the case was moved to federal court, the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that Section 230 barred Doe's state law claims. His lawyers in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case called it an optimal vehicle for addressing whether Section 230 "immunizes apps for their own conduct in marketing and designing defective products." Proponents of Section 230 have argued that, without it, online services would face potentially crippling legal costs and would be incentivized to censor free expression on the web. Republican President Donald Trump has been a critic of Section 230 and sought unsuccessfully during his first term in office to end the protections. The Supreme Court last addressed Section 230 in a set of rulings from 2023. In those cases, the justices declined to chip away at Section 230's scope and rejected lawsuits that sought to hold tech giants including Alphabet Inc liable for terrorism-promoting content on their platforms. Online platforms have urged courts not to weaken Section 230's protections. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. artificial intelligence investment boom may be followed by a dot-com-style bust, but it is less likely to be a systemic event that would crater the U.S. or global economy, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, said on Tuesday. There are many similarities between the late 1990s internet stock bubble and the current AI boom, with both eras pushing stock valuations and capital gains wealth to new heights, fueling consumption that added to inflation pressures, Gourinchas told Reuters in an interview. Then, as now, the promise of a new, transformative technology ultimately may not meet market expectations in the near-term and trigger a crash in stock valuations, he said. But just as in 1999, investment in the sector is not built on leverage, but by cash-rich tech companies. "This is not financed by debt, and that means that if there is a market correction, some shareholders, some equity holders, may lose out," Gourinchas said at the start of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington. "But it doesn't necessarily transmit to the broader financial system and create impairments in the banking system or in the financial system more broadly," he added. UNREALIZED GAINS Tech firms are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI chips, computing power, data centers and other infrastructure in a race to deploy the technology that promises massive productivity gains. Gourinchas said these gains have not yet been realized in the economy, just as the lofty valuations of internet stocks in the late 1990s were often not based on actual revenues, leading to the dot-com bust in 2000 and a shallow U.S. recession in 2001. But the current scale of the AI boom is smaller than the dot-com era, with AI-related investment increasing by less than 0.4% of U.S. GDP since 2022 compared to the dot-com era's investment increase of 1.2% between 1995 and 2000, according to data compiled by the IMF. While the direct impact on financial stability may be limited, Gourinchas said there was a possibility an AI correction could trigger a shift in sentiment and risk tolerance that could lead to broader repricing of assets that could put stress on non-bank financial institutions. "But it's not a direct link. We're not seeing enormous links from the debt channel," Gourinchas added. Excessive leverage at the height of the U.S. property bubble in 2008 helped bring on the global financial crisis, causing multiple large bank failures and triggering the deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. INFLATION EFFECT The IMF's World Economic Outlook, released on Tuesday, cited the AI investment boom as one of the factors propping up U.S. and global growth this year, along with U.S. tariff rates coming in lower than feared and easier financial conditions prompted in part by dollar depreciation. But Gourinchas said the added investment and consumption is helping to elevate demand and inflation pressures without associated productivity gains, even as non-tech investment falls, due in part to uncertainty over President Donald Trump's tariffs. The IMF is forecasting a smaller decline in U.S. consumer price inflation for 2025 to 2.7%, declining only to 2.4% in 2026, Gourinchas said. A year ago, the IMF had forecast that U.S. inflation would be back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target level this year. Among other factors keeping inflation elevated are reduced U.S. immigration that limits the labor supply and the delayed effect of tariffs on consumer prices. "Now, the effect of tariffs is kind of trickling in. So far, the evidence suggests that importers have absorbed it in margins, and they have not transmitted as much to the ultimate customers," Gourinchas said. "It has not been paid by the exporters." Trump famously predicted that foreign countries would pay the price of his protectionist policies, wagering that exporters would absorb that cost just to keep a foothold in the world's largest consumer market. Gourinchas' assessment agrees with the view of academic studies, surveys and business leaders that companies on the U.S. side of the border are eating the tariffs. He said import prices have not declined, "so it's not the case that the exporters have absorbed the tariffs." (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao)

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By Phoebe Seers (Reuters) -Britain's financial regulator set out plans on Tuesday to encourage asset managers to "tokenise" their funds on blockchain, in a move aimed at attracting younger investors. Under the proposals being considered, UK asset managers would be able to create crypto tokens representing shares in their funds, using public blockchains like Ethereum. Until now, funds had only been able to use private blockchains. Tokenisation – the process of creating blockchain-based versions of financial assets – has seen a revival of interest this year, helped by rising crypto prices and U.S. President Donald Trump's support for the crypto industry. Proponents say it can improve efficiency and cut the costs of fund management. BRITAIN SEEKING A BIGGER ROLE IN CRYPTO "Tokenisation has the potential to drive fundamental changes in asset management, with benefits for the industry and consumers," Simon Walls, executive director of markets at Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, said in a statement launching a consultation on the plans. The move is the latest sign of Britain's push to promote digital assets. The country's finance ministry last month announced plans to co-operate with the U.S. on crypto. The FCA also sought feedback on whether to allow stablecoins – crypto assets that are pegged to a fiat currency – to be used as settlement for the funds. In a press briefing, Nike Trost, interim director buy-side at the FCA, acknowledged that the benefits could take a while to materialise, as firms take time to upgrade their technology. The watchdog said it was minded to act as technology was driving changes in consumer expectations around investing. Almost half (47%) of the users of trading apps are aged 18-34, the FCA said, and such apps typically sell low-cost investments in shares, or fractions of them, rather than funds. The regulator said the possibility of allowing regulated funds to invest in cryptocurrencies would be considered in a future review. (Reporting by Phoebe Seers. Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft. Editing by Mark Potter)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Verizon Communications said Tuesday that it will offer government workers impacted by a two-week-old government shutdown payment deferral options. Federal workers are beginning to receive partial paychecks due to the ongoing budget standoff. "If federal employees need relief during the shutdown, they can reach out to us and we will keep them connected," said Verizon CEO Dan Schulman. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )

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(Reuters) -Meta said on Tuesday that teenager accounts on Instagram will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default, as the social media company faces intense scrutiny for not doing enough to protect users under 18. A Reuters report in August revealed how Meta allowed provocative chatbot behavior, including letting bots engage in "conversations that are romantic or sensual." Meta faced backlash after the report, with the company saying it would add new teenager safeguards to its AI products by training systems to avoid flirty conversations and discussions of self-harm or suicide. The company said it will use age prediction technology to place teens into certain content protections — even if they claim to be adults. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

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