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By Rashika Singh and Joel Jose (Reuters) -Citigroup has raised its forecast for AI-related infrastructure spending by tech giants to surpass $2.8 trillion through 2029, from $2.3 trillion estimated earlier, citing aggressive early investments by hyperscalers and growing enterprise appetite. The AI boom ignited by ChatGPT's launch in late 2022 has continued to fuel staggering capital outlays and data center expansion despite a brief crisis of confidence sparked by China's cheaper DeepSeek model and lingering market concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies. The Wall Street brokerage sees AI capex across hyperscalers to reach $490 billion by the end of 2026, up from its earlier estimate of $420 billion. Data center operators – or hyperscalers – including Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet have already spent billions of dollars in investments to ease capacity constraints that have hampered their ability to meet surging AI demand. Citi analysts said hyperscalers were likely to reflect this incremental spend in their third-quarter earnings calls, with the guidance expected to be "building ahead of visible enterprise demand". Citi estimates global AI compute demand would need 55 gigawatt of new power capacity by 2030, translating to $2.8 trillion in incremental spend, $1.4 trillion in the U.S. alone. The brokerage said big tech firms are no longer relying only on profits to fund AI infrastructure. The costs are extremely high – about $50 billion for every 1 GW of compute capacity – and the companies are borrowing to keep up. This shift is already showing up in their financials, with spending starting to eat into free cash flows. Investors are now asking how the tech companies will fund this scale of investment, especially as traditional models fall short. "Enterprises have provided a clear external validation of value," Citi said, pointing to production deployments at companies such as Eli Lilly, Hitachi and Wolters Kluwer. (Reporting by Rashika Singh and Joel Jose in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)

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(Reuters) -The owner of the University of Phoenix is targeting a valuation of up to $1.2 billion in its U.S. initial public offering, it said on Tuesday, setting the stage for its stock market return after more than eight years. Existing stockholders of Phoenix Education Partners are seeking up to $140.3 million by offering 4.25 million shares priced between $31 and $33 apiece. Private capital firm Apollo Global is selling 3.55 million shares, while investment firm Vistria Group is offloading 0.7 million shares. The IPO pickup has lately broadened out to private equity deals, with a steady stream of sponsor-backed companies hitting the new listings market in recent months. The University of Phoenix, founded in 1976 by John Sperling, provides post-secondary education services, mainly to working adults in the U.S. The Phoenix, Arizona-based university currently offers 72 degree-granting and 33 non-degree certificate programs across disciplines. DROPPED SALE Phoenix Education's predecessor, Apollo Education Group, was taken private in 2017 in a $1.1 billion deal by a consortium including Vistria and Apollo. The university, under Apollo and Vistria's stewardship, exited non-core programs and divested some operations, including several international schools that it shared administrative resources with. In 2023, a non-profit affiliated with the University of Idaho agreed to acquire the operations of the University of Phoenix for $550 million. But the parties walked away from the deal earlier this year. Apollo will continue to control a majority of Phoenix Education's voting power after the offering. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BMO Capital Markets, and Jefferies are the lead underwriters for the offering. Phoenix Education will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PXED". (Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Shailesh Kuber)

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BEIJING (Reuters) -Artificial superintelligence may be available by 2030, but its capabilities are only likely to surpass humans in some aspects, the head of one of China's hottest AI startups said on Tuesday. The AI industry is abuzz with speculation about when the technology will overtake human intelligence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted last week that ASI could arrive by the end of the decade, while SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son speculated last year it could exist by 2035. Zhang Peng, the CEO of Zhipu AI, said on Tuesday the concept was too vague to pin down to a specific timeline. SURPASS IN PART, FALL SHORT IN MANY "People reach different conclusions when discussing this issue," he said, as the company released its latest large language model, GLM-4.6. "I think achieving or exceeding human intelligence levels by 2030 might mean surpassing humans in one or several aspects, but likely still falling far short in many areas." Founded in 2019 as a Tsinghua University spinoff, Zhipu AI has emerged as a frontrunner in China's AI race and filed documents in April indicating plans to list on mainland Chinese markets. In June, it was singled out by OpenAI as a fast-rising rival and characterised as an extension of Beijing's efforts to push Chinese-developed AI abroad. Zhang said the company was "flattered" but its overseas expansion was "normal business". Zhang said overseas revenue had begun gaining traction, but acknowledged the company would not compete directly with U.S. models in consumer subscriptions yet. However, he said Zhipu AI was competing with companies like OpenAI in serving enterprise clients. The company recently launched a coding subscription plan targeting developers as part of efforts to expand direct-to-consumer revenue streams. While many AI firms have found it difficult to convince Chinese consumers to pay for AI services, unlike in the United States, Zhang said he believed that could change in a few years, due to growing acceptance of the value of AI and falling prices. He said the GLM-4.6 model was an upgraded version of GLM-4.5 released in July and had enhanced capabilities in coding, reasoning, writing and agent applications. ($1 = 7.1206 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh. Editing by Mark Potter)

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(Reuters) -The owner of the University of Phoenix is targeting a valuation of up to $1.2 billion in its U.S. initial public offering, it said on Tuesday, setting the stage for its stock market return after more than eight years. Existing stockholders of Phoenix Education Partners are seeking up to $140.3 million by offering 4.25 million shares priced between $31 and $33 apiece. Private capital firm Apollo Global is selling 3.55 million shares, while investment firm Vistria Group is offloading 0.7 million shares. The IPO pickup has lately broadened out to private equity deals, with a steady stream of sponsor-backed companies hitting the new listings market in recent months. The University of Phoenix, founded in 1976 by John Sperling, provides post-secondary education services, mainly to working adults in the U.S. The Phoenix, Arizona-based university currently offers 72 degree-granting and 33 non-degree certificate programs across disciplines. DROPPED SALE Phoenix Education's predecessor, Apollo Education Group, was taken private in 2017 in a $1.1 billion deal by a consortium including Vistria and Apollo. The university, under Apollo and Vistria's stewardship, exited non-core programs and divested some operations, including several international schools that it shared administrative resources with. In 2023, a non-profit affiliated with the University of Idaho agreed to acquire the operations of the University of Phoenix for $550 million. But the parties walked away from the deal earlier this year. Apollo will continue to control a majority of Phoenix Education's voting power after the offering. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BMO Capital Markets, and Jefferies are the lead underwriters for the offering. Phoenix Education will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PXED". (Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Shailesh Kuber)

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By Leticia Fucuchima SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Crypto mining companies are actively negotiating contracts with Brazilian electricity providers, such as Renova Energia, that would benefit from the South American country's surplus renewable power without burdening the grid during peak times. Following crypto heavyweight Tether, which announced in July an investment in the South American country, there are at least six negotiations for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as one for a larger project of up to 400 megawatts (MW), people from six different companies told Reuters.  Mining machines that solve complex mathematical problems to back crypto transactions have overloaded grids in multiple countries. However, in Brazil, where crypto mining hardly exists today, they could help address a chronic clean electricity oversupply problem, which has cost energy companies almost $1 billion in the last two years, according to wind and solar industry groups ABEEolica and Absolar. Tether, the world's largest digital assets company, said it is leveraging its recent acquisition of Adecoagro to tap its renewable energy, such as the electricity coming from sugarcane mills, to power a bitcoin mining operation in Brazil. Renewable energy supplier Renova told Reuters it is making one of the first major investments in the crypto sector, a $200 million mining project for an undisclosed client in the state of Bahia in the northeast of Brazil. The 100-MW venture consists of six data centers that will draw power from a wind farm. "We aim to expand the company and enter new markets," Renova CEO Sergio Brasil said. "We realized that by providing all the infrastructure (for crypto mining), we were one step ahead of our competitors." Crypto miners can rapidly scale operations up or down based on energy availability, providing a flexible consumer base for excess energy without straining the grid during peak demand periods.   Brazil’s energy oversupply stems from years of government incentives that spurred a boom in wind and solar investments. But the pace of development has outstripped the expansion of transmission infrastructure, and some plants now waste as much as 70% of the power they generate.  “There's tons of potential,” John Blount, one of the founders of Enegix, a crypto miner based in Kazakhstan, told Reuters. “We will try somehow to elaborate mobile data centers,” he added, that would be plugged directly into power plants.  Enegix is looking into deals in Brazil's northeast, the region suffering from the biggest energy surplus, including tapping into solar and wind power in the state of Piaui.  Penguin, which is based in Paraguay, one of the world's biggest crypto hubs, said it is negotiating projects too, but declined to share any details. And China's Bitmain, one of the largest manufacturers of mining equipment, is also exploring opportunities, according to an executive who asked not to be named. MINERS SEEN AS 'DIAMONDS'  Energy providers have also expressed an interest in crypto projects. Casa dos Ventos, which partners with France's TotalEnergies on wind power, and U.S.-based investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners' (GIP) Atlas Renewable Energy confirmed their intentions to Reuters. French utility Engie's subsidiary in Brazil and Auren Energia, the joint venture between Votorantim Energia and CPP Investments, Canada Pension Plan's global investment arm, are also looking into projects to monetize their unused energy, three sources told Reuters. The companies declined to comment. Providers look “at consumers like this as if they were diamonds,” said Raphael Gomes, a lawyer who has been working on several crypto projects. Companies are assessing different models, including buying equipment to mine on their own. In Bahia, electricity provider Eletrobras , the biggest in the country, is installing ASIC mining machines, along with a microgrid fed by a wind turbine, solar panels and batteries, for a pilot project.  "We want to understand how this industry works," said Juliano Dantas, Eletrobras' vice president for innovation.  The work could help energy providers prepare to enter the data center industry, which the Brazilian government is trying to attract as a strategy to grow the clean energy economy.   There are concerns about the industry's water use, as some of the regions with the biggest amount of unused energy also suffer from droughts. Brazil also has infrastructure problems and lacks regulations for cryptocurrency mining. "We went after 400 MW — it was like a Sisyphean journey, a bit difficult," said Bruno Vaccotti, an executive at Penguin. "We're still exploring Brazil, but it's not that easy."  (Reporting by Letícia Fucuchina in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris and Samuel Chen in Shanghai; writing by Manuela AndreoniEditing by Marguerita Choy)

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(Reuters) -The owner of the University of Phoenix is targeting a valuation of up to $1.2 billion in its U.S. initial public offering, it said on Tuesday, setting the stage for its stock market return after over eight years. Some existing stockholders of Phoenix Education Partners are seeking up to $140.3 million by offering 4.25 million shares priced between $31 and $33 apiece. The IPO pickup has broadened out to private equity deals, with a steady stream of sponsor-backed companies hitting the new listings market in recent months. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BMO Capital Markets, and Jefferies are the lead underwriters for the offering. Phoenix Education will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PXED". (Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Shailesh Kuber)

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(Reuters) -Phoenix Education Partners said on Tuesday some of its existing shareholders are targeting to raise up to $140.3 million in an initial public offering of the online learning provider in the United States. (Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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By Christine Chen and Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) -Optus's CEO will need more time to get its house in order, the boss of parent Singapore Telecommunications said on Tuesday, after back-to-back emergency call outages in Australia intensified scrutiny of the Australian telecom carrier's governance. The two outages that occurred less than a fortnight apart affected thousands of Australian customers and the first outage has been linked to four deaths because customers were unable to get timely aid. The incidents deepen Optus's reputational crisis following a nationwide outage in 2023, a 2022 cyberattack that compromised data of millions of customers, and an A$100 million ($65.8 million) penalty imposed this year for sales misconduct. Singtel boss Yuen Kuan Moon met with Australian authorities on Tuesday, amid calls from some analysts and lawmakers for Optus CEO Stephen Rue to resign and Optus to be stripped of its operating licence. Asked by journalists whether Rue still had his support, Yuen said it would take time to fix the problems at the No. 2 Australian telecoms firm. "We brought in Stephen 11 months ago to transform Optus, to really address the issues that we had since 2022-23," Yuen told reporters in Sydney after talks with Communications Minister Anika Wells. "It is very early days. It takes time to transform a company." Shares in Singtel, majority owned by Temasek Holdings, fell as much as 2% in early trade before recovering and were up 0.2% on Tuesday afternoon. The latest disruption to Optus' services interrupted emergency triple zero ("000") calls and affected around 4,500 people over a few hours early on Sunday. Optus said in a statement late on Tuesday that equipment made by Sweden's Ericsson used in a cell tower south of Sydney "did not appear to operate as it should" on Sunday by failing to detect that 4G services were offline. The statement added that both firms were working to understand the outage's root cause, and a review of all Ericsson equipment used by Optus found "what has occurred on this cell site is an anomaly". Sunday's outage came just 10 days after a botched firewall upgrade triggered an outage lasting 13 hours that disrupted emergency calls in two states and the Northern Territory and was linked to four deaths. Optus Chairman John Arthur said the failure was not caused by a lack of investment from owner Singtel. Yuen said the deadly outage was due to a "people issue". "The 18 September incident is due to a people issue and it takes time to transform and change the people," Yuen said. 'VERY SERIOUS' Wells, the communications minister, said there was a "very serious lack of confidence" in Optus to deliver triple zero calls. "The CEO of Optus now needs to work with their parent company Singtel on the systems and holistic change required within their own company to give that confidence back to Australians," she said. She called for an external party to review its systems "so Australians can take advice not just from Optus themselves". In a statement, Optus said consulting firm Kearney had been appointed to immediately begin providing external oversight, quality assurance and verification of its mobile network. Former Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was ousted over the nationwide outage of Optus services in 2023. Rue took the reins in November 2024 and was tasked with improving service standards for customers. ($1 = 1.5191 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Christine Chen and Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Stephen Coates and Susan Fenton)

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(Reuters) -Opera on Tuesday launched Neon, an artificial intelligence-powered browser that can execute tasks and run code inside web pages, adding to the intensifying competition among technology firms to make web browsing more agentic. The move underscores the race to transform the browser into a productivity hub that acts on behalf of users rather than just delivering search results. Perplexity AI released its Comet browser earlier this year, while The Browser Company, the maker of Arc, launched Dia. OpenAI is poised to roll out a Chromium-based AI web browser potentially integrating its "Operator" agent to let users browse and transact without leaving a native chat interface, Reuters reported earlier this year. Opera said Neon can fill out forms, compare data across sites or draft code directly inside the browser. Its "Neon Do" feature allows the software to navigate pages on a user's behalf without routing information to external cloud services. The Norwegian company is pitching Neon as a subscription product aimed at power users. Early access begins Tuesday, with broader availability expected in the coming months. Other features include "Tasks", which create self-contained workspaces for AI to analyze multiple sources, and "Cards", reusable prompt templates that automate repetitive workflows. Opera said all actions occur locally, giving users control over when the AI model acts or pauses. The company's U.S.-listed shares have surged in the past three years on the back of consistent earnings beat and investor optimism around its push into AI-powered products. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Oslo, Opera has more than 300 million active users across its desktop and mobile browsers. The company emphasized Neon's privacy-first design, arguing that on-device operation could appeal to European users as regulators tighten scrutiny over data use. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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(Reuters) -Opera on Tuesday launched Neon, an artificial intelligence-powered browser that can execute tasks and run code inside web pages, adding to the intensifying competition among technology firms to make web browsing more agentic. The move underscores the race to transform the browser into a productivity hub that acts on behalf of users rather than just delivering search results. Perplexity AI released its Comet browser earlier this year, while The Browser Company, the maker of Arc, launched Dia. OpenAI is poised to roll out a Chromium-based AI web browser potentially integrating its "Operator" agent to let users browse and transact without leaving a native chat interface, Reuters reported earlier this year. Opera said Neon can fill out forms, compare data across sites or draft code directly inside the browser. Its "Neon Do" feature allows the software to navigate pages on a user's behalf without routing information to external cloud services. The Norwegian company is pitching Neon as a subscription product aimed at power users. Early access begins Tuesday, with broader availability expected in the coming months. Other features include "Tasks", which create self-contained workspaces for AI to analyze multiple sources, and "Cards", reusable prompt templates that automate repetitive workflows. Opera said all actions occur locally, giving users control over when the AI model acts or pauses. The company's U.S.-listed shares have surged in the past three years on the back of consistent earnings beat and investor optimism around its push into AI-powered products. Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Oslo, Opera has more than 300 million active users across its desktop and mobile browsers. The company emphasized Neon's privacy-first design, arguing that on-device operation could appeal to European users as regulators tighten scrutiny over data use. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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