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By Joyce Zhou MACAU (Reuters) -The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba announced on Thursday a multi-year partnership, as the league stages two games in Macau to mark its return to the Chinese market for the first time since 2019. The NBA is due to play two pre-season games in the Chinese special administrative region on Friday and Sunday, part of a five-year contract with Las Vegas Sands' Macau unit Sands China. The games mark the first time the NBA is playing in Macau, the world's largest gambling hub, and follows a years-long absence amid controversy over the 2019 Hong Kong protests. The Macau games aim to bolster the NBA's profile in China, where around 300 million people play basketball, at a time of rising political tensions between the United States and China. The announcement by Alibaba Group said it would provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services with the NBA and enhance fan experiences on the NBA app in China. Alibaba Cloud will be the official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China, it said. The NBA's absence followed a firestorm of controversy around comments made six years ago by the Houston Rockets' then general manager Daryl Morey, who posted a message on social media in support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests. In the aftermath, Beijing suspended the broadcast of NBA games, prompting corporate sponsors to flee and the league to suffer what it described at the time as dramatic financial consequences. Pre-season NBA games in China were also scrapped. NBA EXPERIENCE The NBA games are being held at Sands Venetian property along with a five-day free-to-enter music, fashion and technology exhibition showcasing the NBA brand. Shaquille O'Neal is among NBA celebrities attending the event, the league said. The Brooklyn Nets, owned by Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai, will play the Phoenix Suns at sold-out games in the arena. Sands owner, the U.S. billionaire Adelson family, also own the Texas-based NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks. The casino operator announced its collaboration with the NBA in December 2024 and said it wanted to bring elite basketball directly to Chinese fans. Macau's casinos, which include Sands, Wynn Macau, SJM Holdings, MGM China, Galaxy Entertainment and Melco Resorts, have been mandated to increase their non-gaming businesses as a proportion of their overall business. They have pledged to collectively invest more than $13.5 billion in non-gambling infrastructure and projects over the next decade. Macau is the only place in China where Chinese citizens are legally allowed to gamble in casinos. A Portuguese colony until 1999, its economy remains heavily reliant on the casino industry, which contributes around 80% of government tax revenues. (Reporting by Joyce Zhou in Macau, Liam Mo in Beijing, Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Writing by Farah Master; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kate Mayberry)

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(Reuters) -The United States has approved several billion dollars worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security recently issued the Nvidia export licenses under the terms of a bilateral artificial intelligence agreement hashed out in May, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal would boost UAE's construction of data centers vital to developing AI models. Nvidia declined to comment on the report. "The Commerce Department is fully committed to the transformational U.S.-UAE AI partnership deal," a spokesperson for the government told Bloomberg. The White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comments, white representatives for the UAE could not be immediately reached. The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the Emirates' to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, Reuters reported in May. The agreement was at least through 2027, but there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. U.S. President Donald Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. Trump in May, while on a tour of the Gulf region, announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm. (Reporting by Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Additional reported by Mrinmay Dey; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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(Reuters) -The United States has approved several billion dollars worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. (Reporting by Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba announced on Thursday a multi-year partnership, as the league returns to the Chinese market for the first time since 2019, with two games in Macau. The NBA is due to play two pre-season games in the Chinese special administrative region on Friday and Sunday, part of a five-year contract with Las Vegas Sands' Macau unit Sands China. It marks the first time the NBA is playing in Macau, the world's largest gambling hub, and follows a years-long absence amid controversy over the 2019 Hong Kong protests. The Macau games aim to bolster the NBA's profile in China, where around 300 million play basketball, at a time of rising political tensions between the United States and China. The announcement by Alibaba Group said it would provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services with the NBA and enhance fan experiences on the NBA app in China. Alibaba Cloud will be the official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China, it said. (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Writing by Farah Master; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kate Mayberry)

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(Reuters) -The United States has approved several billion dollars worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. (Reporting by Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

(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) -The United States has approved several billion dollars worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. (Reporting by Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group announced on Thursday a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services. Under the agreement, Alibaba will develop applications to enhance fan experiences on the NBA app in China, while NBA China will leverage Alibaba's technologies including a proprietary AI model based on the Qwen series of foundational models, the company said in a statement. The partnership also designates Alibaba Cloud as an official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China. (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group announced on Thursday a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services. Under the agreement, Alibaba will develop applications to enhance fan experiences on the NBA app in China, while NBA China will leverage Alibaba's technologies including a proprietary AI model based on the Qwen series of foundational models, the company said in a statement. The partnership also designates Alibaba Cloud as an official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China. (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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(Reuters) -Microsoft is partnering with Harvard Medical School to enhance its Copilot AI assistant with health content, as part of a broader effort to reduce its dependence on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Copilot, following an update scheduled for release as soon as this month, is set to use Harvard Health Publishing information to respond to healthcare queries, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Microsoft will pay Harvard a licensing fee, the report added. In an interview with the Journal, Dominic King, vice president of health at Microsoft AI, said that the company's aim is for Copilot to serve answers that are more in line with the information users might get from a medical practitioner than what is currently available. Harvard did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, while Microsoft declined to comment on the report.  Copilot so far has been primarily using OpenAI's models across its suite of applications, such as Word and Outlook, and — in an effort to reduce its reliance on the startup — Microsoft has started using Anthropic's Claude and is curretly developing its own AI models. (Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Alan Barona)

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(Reuters) -Microsoft is partnering with Harvard Medical School to enhance its Copilot AI assistant with health content, as part of a broader effort to reduce its dependence on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. A major update of Copilot scheduled for release as soon as this month will be the first to reflect a new collaboration between Microsoft and Harvard Medical School, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Microsoft and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal and Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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