विज्ञान

By Greg Bensinger, Shubham Kalia and Deborah Mary Sophia SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon.com cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company said, after an internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web's most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Still, Amazon said some AWS services had a backlog of messages that would take a few hours to process. AWS hosts applications and computer processes for companies around the world, and the disruption knocked workers from London to Tokyo offline and halted others from conducting normal everyday tasks like paying hairdressers or changing their airline tickets. Users on Monday afternoon had complained of lingering difficulties using services such as digital wallet Venmo and video calling site Zoom. It was the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown. Amazon did not address a request for more clarity about why that particular data center keeps being impacted. The problems stemmed from what is known as the Domain Name System, or DNS, which prevented applications from finding the correct address for AWS's DynamoDB API, a cloud database relied upon to store user information and other critical data. ROOT CAUSE IS NETWORK HEALTH MONITOR Earlier, AWS said the root cause of the outage was an underlying subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers used to distribute traffic across several servers. The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network", Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS.  Shortly after 3 p.m. PT (2200 GMT), Amazon said, "all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours." Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said software developers need to build better fault tolerance. He said AWS provides tools developers can use to protect themselves in the event of a problem at one of any of its sprawling network of data centers, and developers can also create backups with other cloud providers.  "When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later," Birman told Reuters. ISSUE ORIGINATED FROM AWS SITE KNOWN FOR PREVIOUS OUTAGES AWS provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals and is the world's largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google Cloud. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms – ranging from food delivery apps to gaming platforms and airline systems – that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS said on its status page that Monday's outage originated at its US-EAST-1 location, its oldest and largest for web services. The site suffered outages in 2021 and 2020. According to documentation on the AWS website, the US-EAST-1 site is often the default region for many AWS services.  "FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURES" The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and their reliance on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch wreaking havoc on business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures," said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at European cybersecurity firm ESET. In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were all hit, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. Ookla, which owns Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. "For major businesses, hours of cloud downtime translate to millions in lost productivity and revenue," said Ryan Griffin, U.S. cyber practice leader at insurance broker McGill and Partners. Wall Street was largely unfazed, sending Amazon shares 1.6% higher to $216.48. FROM SNAPCHAT TO VENMO: OUTAGE TAKES DOWN APPS Ookla said at least a thousand companies were affected by the outage. Apps like Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat and Duolingo had all been affected. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jaspreet Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Joe Bavier, Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

(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 Greg Bensinger, Shubham Kalia and Deborah Mary Sophia SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon.com cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company said, after an internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web's most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Still, Amazon said some AWS services had a backlog of messages that would take a few hours to process. AWS hosts applications and computer processes for companies around the world, and the disruption knocked workers from London to Tokyo offline and halted others from conducting normal everyday tasks like paying hairdressers or changing their airline tickets. Users on Monday afternoon had complained of lingering difficulties using services such as digital wallet Venmo and video calling site Zoom. It was the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown. Amazon did not address a request for more clarity about why that particular data center keeps being impacted. The problems stemmed from what is known as the Domain Name System, or DNS, which prevented applications from finding the correct address for AWS's DynamoDB API, a cloud database relied upon to store user information and other critical data. ROOT CAUSE IS NETWORK HEALTH MONITOR Earlier, AWS said the root cause of the outage was an underlying subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers used to distribute traffic across several servers. The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network", Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS.  Shortly after 3 p.m. PT (2200 GMT), Amazon said, "all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours." Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said software developers need to build better fault tolerance. He said AWS provides tools developers can use to protect themselves in the event of a problem at one of any of its sprawling network of data centers, and developers can also create backups with other cloud providers.  "When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later," Birman told Reuters. ISSUE ORIGINATED FROM AWS SITE KNOWN FOR PREVIOUS OUTAGES AWS provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals and is the world's largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google Cloud. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms – ranging from food delivery apps to gaming platforms and airline systems – that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS said on its status page that Monday's outage originated at its US-EAST-1 location, its oldest and largest for web services. The site suffered outages in 2021 and 2020. According to documentation on the AWS website, the US-EAST-1 site is often the default region for many AWS services.  "FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURES" The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and their reliance on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch wreaking havoc on business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures," said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at European cybersecurity firm ESET. In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were all hit, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. Ookla, which owns Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. "For major businesses, hours of cloud downtime translate to millions in lost productivity and revenue," said Ryan Griffin, U.S. cyber practice leader at insurance broker McGill and Partners. Wall Street was largely unfazed, sending Amazon shares 1.6% higher to $216.48. FROM SNAPCHAT TO VENMO: OUTAGE TAKES DOWN APPS Ookla said at least a thousand companies were affected by the outage. Apps like Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat and Duolingo had all been affected. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jaspreet Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Joe Bavier, Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

(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) -Telkom Indonesia agreed on Tuesday to partially spin off its wholesale fibre connectivity business to its subsidiary Telkom Infrastruktur Indonesia in a deal valued at 35.787 trillion rupiah ($2.16 billion). The transaction is a material and affiliated party transaction under domestic rules and will have no significant impact on the financial conditions of the company, Telkom Indonesia said in a statement. The spin-off will help improve business focus and optimize the utilization of fibre optic network assets. ($1 = 16,570 rupiah) (Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Sneha Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

(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) -Apple shares surged to an all-time high on Monday, with the iPhone maker close to becoming the third company to hit a $4 trillion market valuation as data showed strong momentum for the latest iPhone. Data from research firm Counterpoint showed the iPhone 17 series outperformed its predecessor in early sales in China and the United States, with the newer models out-selling the iPhone 16 series by 14% during their first 10 days of availability in the two countries. Apple shares jumped 4.2% to $262.9, giving it a market capitalization of about $3.9 trillion and making it the second most valuable company in the world after AI-chip giant Nvidia. Over the weekend, Evercore ISI added the stock to its Tactical Outperform List as the brokerage expects Apple to beat market expectations for the current three-month period and issue upbeat forecasts for the December quarter. "The recent launch of online orders in China may be a positive tailwind for the Dec-qtr, as initial delivery time data reflects stronger initial demand relative to other regions at launch," Evercore ISI analysts wrote in a note. Apple unveiled in September an upgraded line of new iPhones, including a slimmer iPhone Air, and held prices steady amid U.S. tariff concerns. "They rolled out the latest version of their iPhone and it's doing much better than anticipated … the demand trends for the company's iPhones are now on the front foot," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth. Apple shares had struggled earlier this year on concerns over tough competition in China and uncertainties around how the company would navigate high U.S. tariffs on Asian economies such as China and India, its major manufacturing hubs.  However, the stock has risen modestly since early August after the company pledged $100 billion in additional U.S. investment, a move that could help it sidestep potential tariffs. The stock is set for its biggest one-day jump in four weeks if gains hold and will be up more than 5% for the year. Apple will report quarterly earnings after the bell on October 30. (Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Arun Koyyur)

(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 Greg Bensinger, Shubham Kalia and Deborah Mary Sophia SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon.com cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company said, after an internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web's most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Still, Amazon said some AWS services had a backlog of messages that would take a few hours to process. AWS hosts applications and computer processes for companies around the world, and the disruption knocked workers from London to Tokyo offline and halted others from conducting normal everyday tasks like paying hairdressers or changing their airline tickets. Users on Monday afternoon had complained of lingering difficulties using services such as digital wallet Venmo and video calling site Zoom. It was the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown. Amazon did not address a request for more clarity about why that particular data center keeps being impacted. The problems stemmed from what is known as the Domain Name System, or DNS, which prevented applications from finding the correct address for AWS's DynamoDB API, a cloud database relied upon to store user information and other critical data. ROOT CAUSE IS NETWORK HEALTH MONITOR Earlier, AWS said the root cause of the outage was an underlying subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers used to distribute traffic across several servers. The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network", Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS.  Shortly after 3 p.m. PT (2200 GMT), Amazon said, "all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours." Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said software developers need to build better fault tolerance. He said AWS provides tools developers can use to protect themselves in the event of a problem at one of any of its sprawling network of data centers, and developers can also create backups with other cloud providers.  "When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later," Birman told Reuters. ISSUE ORIGINATED FROM AWS SITE KNOWN FOR PREVIOUS OUTAGES AWS provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals and is the world's largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google Cloud. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms – ranging from food delivery apps to gaming platforms and airline systems – that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS said on its status page that Monday's outage originated at its US-EAST-1 location, its oldest and largest for web services. The site suffered outages in 2021 and 2020. According to documentation on the AWS website, the US-EAST-1 site is often the default region for many AWS services.  "FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURES" The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and their reliance on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch wreaking havoc on business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures," said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at European cybersecurity firm ESET. In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were all hit, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. Ookla, which owns Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. "For major businesses, hours of cloud downtime translate to millions in lost productivity and revenue," said Ryan Griffin, U.S. cyber practice leader at insurance broker McGill and Partners. Wall Street was largely unfazed, sending Amazon shares 1.6% higher to $216.48. FROM SNAPCHAT TO VENMO: OUTAGE TAKES DOWN APPS Ookla said at least a thousand companies were affected by the outage. Apps like Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat and Duolingo had all been affected. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jaspreet Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Joe Bavier, Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

(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 Joey Roulette WASHINGTON (Reuters) -NASA said on Monday it was opening the marquee U.S. moon landing contract to other bidders because Elon Musk's SpaceX has experienced mounting delays with its Starship lunar lander. The move paves the way for rivals such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to snatch a high-profile mission to land the first astronauts on the moon in half a century. "I'm in the process of opening that contract up. I think we'll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others," the U.S. space agency's acting chief Sean Duffy, who also serves as U.S. Transportation Secretary, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. Duffy's comments follow months of mounting pressure within NASA to speed up its Artemis lunar program and push SpaceX to make greater progress on its Starship lunar lander, while China progresses toward its own goal of sending humans to the moon by 2030. They also present a major shift in NASA's lunar strategy, starting a new competitive juncture in the program for a human-rated moon lander just two years before the scheduled landing date. Blue Origin is widely expected to compete for the mission, while Lockheed Martin has indicated it would convene an industry team to heed NASA's call. Starship, picked by NASA in 2021 under a contract now worth $4.4 billion, faces a 2027 moon landing deadline that agency advisers estimate could slip years behind schedule, citing competing priorities. Musk sees Starship as crucial to launching larger batches of Starlink satellites to space and eventually ferrying humans to Mars, among other missions. "They do remarkable things, but they're behind schedule," Duffy said of SpaceX's lunar lander work, adding President Donald Trump wants to see the mission take place before his White House term ends in January 2029. Musk appeared to brush off the specter of more competition. "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry," the SpaceX CEO wrote on X, replying to a user on Monday. "Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." The mission involving SpaceX, Artemis 3, would be the first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972. Bezos' space company Blue Origin, with its Blue Moon lander in development, has a similar lunar landing contract awarded by NASA in 2023 but for later Artemis moon missions. The company had protested NASA's initial decision to only pick SpaceX in 2021 and fought for years to convince the agency and lawmakers to select another proposal as a redundancy. Duffy's reference to Blue Origin on Monday suggests Bezos' space company could contend for Artemis 3. NASA has not returned requests for comment and specifics on Duffy's remarks. Blue Origin has been developing its Blue Moon lander in Florida with relatively little public attention under a contract worth roughly $3 billion. SpaceX has been developing Starship in Texas in a whirlwind campaign of test-to-failure demonstration missions, but NASA has grown uneasy with a lack of progress on lunar lander-specific development milestones. In a statement to Reuters, Bob Behnken, vice president of Exploration and Technology Strategy at Lockheed Martin's space unit, said the company this year has been conducting "significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers." "We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy's request to meet our country’s lunar objectives," said Behnken, a retired NASA astronaut. NASA's multibillion-dollar Artemis program is a series of missions involving multiple contractors aimed at returning humans to the moon for a long-term presence there. Artemis 3 has been planned for 2027 with SpaceX's Starship. Artemis 2, a 10-day flight around the moon and back involving systems built by Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, is on track for April and could get moved up to February, he added. Bezos and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp reportedly spoke with Trump over the summer when the Republican president was feuding with Musk, a supporter in the 2024 election who was tapped to lead efforts to cut the federal government known as DOGE. Representatives for SpaceX and Blue Origin could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Deborah Sophia and Jaspreet Singh; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)

(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 Joey Roulette WASHINGTON (Reuters) -NASA said on Monday it was opening the marquee U.S. moon landing contract to other bidders because Elon Musk's SpaceX has experienced mounting delays with its Starship lunar lander. The move paves the way for rivals such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to snatch a high-profile mission to land the first astronauts on the moon in half a century. "I'm in the process of opening that contract up. I think we'll see companies like Blue get involved, and maybe others," the U.S. space agency's acting chief Sean Duffy, who also serves as U.S. Transportation Secretary, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. Duffy's comments follow months of mounting pressure within NASA to speed up its Artemis lunar program and push SpaceX to make greater progress on its Starship lunar lander, while China progresses toward its own goal of sending humans to the moon by 2030. It represents a major shift in NASA's lunar strategy, starting a new competitive juncture in the program for a crewed moon lander just two years before the scheduled landing date. Blue Origin is widely expected to compete for the mission, while Lockheed Martin has indicated it would convene an industry team to heed NASA's call. Starship, picked by NASA in 2021 under a contract now worth $4.4 billion, faces a 2027 moon landing deadline that agency advisers estimate could slip years behind schedule, citing competing priorities. Musk sees Starship as crucial to launching larger batches of Starlink satellites to space and eventually ferrying humans to Mars, among other missions. "They do remarkable things, but they're behind schedule," Duffy said of SpaceX's lunar lander work, adding President Donald Trump wants to see the mission take place before his White House term ends in January 2029. The move is a significant change under the agency's acting leadership, and as the White House and Duffy begin to reopen the nomination process for a permanent administrator. Billionaire entrepreneur and SpaceX customer-astronaut Jared Isaacman, an ally of Musk's, is in talks to reclaim his nomination that had been yanked by Trump over the summer. Musk shrugged off the specter of more competition in a social media post. "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry," the SpaceX CEO wrote on X, replying to a user on Monday. "Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." The mission involving SpaceX, Artemis 3, would be the first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972. Bezos' space company Blue Origin, with its Blue Moon lander in development, has a similar lunar landing contract awarded by NASA in 2023 but for later Artemis moon missions. The company had protested NASA's initial decision to only pick SpaceX in 2021 and fought for years to convince the agency and lawmakers to select another proposal as a redundancy. Duffy's reference to Blue Origin on Monday suggests Bezos' space company could contend for Artemis 3. Blue Origin has been developing its Blue Moon lander in Florida with relatively little public attention under a contract worth roughly $3 billion. SpaceX has been developing Starship in Texas in a whirlwind campaign of test-to-failure demonstration missions, but NASA has grown uneasy with a lack of progress on lunar lander-specific development milestones. Pressed for details on Duffy's remarks, a NASA spokesperson said the agency has told SpaceX and Blue Origin to present accelerated moon landing plans by Oct. 29. "NASA is also going to request plans from the entire commercial space industry… for how NASA can increase the cadence of our mission to the moon," the spokesperson said. In a statement to Reuters, Bob Behnken, vice president of Exploration and Technology Strategy at Lockheed Martin's space unit, said the company this year has been conducting "significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers."  "We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy's request to meet our country’s lunar objectives," said Behnken, a retired NASA astronaut. NASA's multibillion-dollar Artemis program is a series of missions involving multiple contractors aimed at returning humans to the moon for a long-term presence there. Artemis 3 has been planned for 2027 with SpaceX's Starship. Artemis 2, a 10-day flight around the moon and back involving systems built by Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, is on track for April and could get moved up to February, he added. Bezos and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp reportedly spoke with Trump over the summer when the Republican president was feuding with Musk, a supporter in the 2024 election who was tapped to lead efforts to cut the federal government known as DOGE. Representatives for SpaceX and Blue Origin could not immediately be reached for comment. (Reporting by Susan Heavey and Joey Roulette in Washington; additional reporting by Deborah Sophia and Jaspreet Singh; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)

(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 Hyunjoo Jin, Heekyong Yang and Wen-Yee Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -The global rush by chipmakers to produce AI chips is tightening supply of less glamorous chips used in smartphones, computers and servers, spurring panic buying by some customers and a surge in their prices, industry executives and analysts said. The unexpected ripple effect of the AI boom is giving a much-needed boost to memory chipmakers, including Samsung Electronics, which has lagged rivals in offering advanced AI chips and a rally in their share prices. Supply of the more mundane semiconductors has become so tight that the global memory chip industry is poised to head into what some analysts call a "super cycle", as device makers frantically stock up on memory chips, executives said. "Within the last month or two, there's been a huge demand surge," Tobey Gonnerman, president of semiconductor distributor Fusion Worldwide, said. "It does seem like things have happened in a fast and furious way." "There is definitely scrambling going on and more soon. And there is double/triple ordering going on, like we’ve seen in many past shortages." PRODUCTION SHIFT SPURS SUPPLY SHORTAGE Memory chip makers started allocating more of their production capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, used to build Nvidia's powerful AI chipsets, after ChatGPT kicked off the generative AI craze following its release in November 2022 and a global rush to build AI data centres. Rising competition from lower-end chips from Chinese rivals like CXMT also prompted South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix, which control around 70% of the global DRAM chip market, to accelerate moves to higher-end chips. "There's just so much money floating around, driving demand," said Dan Hutcheson, San Jose-based vice chair of research firm TechInsights, referring to a flurry of recent technology deals on chips and data centres. Major tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave are expected to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to Morgan Stanley. That boom has coincided with a replacement cycle for traditional data centres and personal computers and better-than-expected phone sales, which is what is exacerbating tight supply of non-HBM memory chips and driving up their prices, analysts said. Traditional data centre operators are starting to upgrade or replace servers they had bought during the previous boom of 2017-2018. "They all were swimming in DDR5 server memory six or eight months ago. But now the average selling price on DDR5 server modules is going through the roof. And obviously that is music to the ears of Micron, Hynix and Samsung," Gonnerman said, referring to the mainstay server chips. Similarly, spot prices of DRAM, used in various applications, nearly tripled in September from a year earlier, after growing a meager 4% in April, according to data from TechInsights provided to Reuters. The average inventory of DRAM chips fell to just eight weeks in the current quarter, from 10 weeks a year earlier and 31 weeks in early 2023. Jeff Kim, head of research at KB Securities, expects non-HBM memory chips will surpass HBMs in terms of profitability next year should the current price increases continue. In the July to September period, Samsung generated an operating margin of about 40% for commodity DRAMs, and 60% for HBMs, Kim estimated. Micron forecast last month healthy margins in both HBM and non-HBM in 2026. On the flip side, surging chip prices threaten to add margin pressure on makers of consumer electronics and servers already grappling with increasing costs due to higher U.S. tariffs and potential supply chain disruptions stemming from China's broadening curbs on rare earth exports. "Recently, with the DRAM shortage this severe, we’re becoming more concerned," said Miller Chang, president of the Embedded Sector at Advantech, a Taiwan-based industrial PC provider. Some are passing the cost pressure onto consumers. British personal computer maker Raspberry Pi, for example, announced price increases earlier this month, citing memory costs roughly 120% more than a year ago. "We’ve now reached the point where we have to pass some of this cost on," its CEO Eben Upton said. CAUTION ON "SUPER CYCLE" The improving profitability of non-HBM chips has helped fuel memory chipmakers' share price rally this year, with Samsung's stock up more than 80%, while SK Hynix and Micron shares have soared 170% and 140% respectively. Taiwan memory makers and memory module companies' stock jumped over the past month due to the shortage of DDR4. Investors are on guard for signs of an AI bubble. Hutcheson said the term "supercycle" is overdone, saying the industry is going through a classic shortage that usually lasts a year or two, and TechInsights is forecasting a chip industry downturn in 2027. Samsung is well-placed to benefit from the boom, given its heavier exposure to non-HBM chips. But investors remain cautious on how quickly it may be able to narrow a big gap with SK Hynix in HBM chips and TSMC in contract semiconductor manufacturing. "The extreme pessimism turned into extreme optimism for Samsung. We have to wait and see," Albert Yong, a managing partner at Petra Capital Management, a Seoul-based Samsung investor, said. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Miyoung Kim 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 Hyunjoo Jin, Heekyong Yang and Wen-Yee Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -The global rush by chipmakers to produce AI chips is tightening supply of less glamorous chips used in smartphones, computers and servers, spurring panic buying by some customers and a surge in their prices, industry executives and analysts said. The unexpected ripple effect of the AI boom is giving a much-needed boost to memory chipmakers, including Samsung Electronics, which has lagged rivals in offering advanced AI chips and a rally in their share prices. Supply of the more mundane semiconductors has become so tight that the global memory chip industry is poised to head into what some analysts call a "super cycle", as device makers frantically stock up on memory chips, executives said. "Within the last month or two, there's been a huge demand surge," Tobey Gonnerman, president of semiconductor distributor Fusion Worldwide, said. "It does seem like things have happened in a fast and furious way." "There is definitely scrambling going on and more soon. And there is double/triple ordering going on, like we’ve seen in many past shortages." PRODUCTION SHIFT SPURS SUPPLY SHORTAGE Memory chip makers started allocating more of their production capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, used to build Nvidia's powerful AI chipsets, after ChatGPT kicked off the generative AI craze following its release in November 2022 and a global rush to build AI data centres. Rising competition from lower-end chips from Chinese rivals like CXMT also prompted South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix, which control around 70% of the global DRAM chip market, to accelerate moves to higher-end chips. "There's just so much money floating around, driving demand," said Dan Hutcheson, San Jose-based vice chair of research firm TechInsights, referring to a flurry of recent technology deals on chips and data centres. Major tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave are expected to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to Morgan Stanley. That boom has coincided with a replacement cycle for traditional data centres and personal computers and better-than-expected phone sales, which is what is exacerbating tight supply of non-HBM memory chips and driving up their prices, analysts said. Traditional data centre operators are starting to upgrade or replace servers they had bought during the previous boom of 2017-2018. "They all were swimming in DDR5 server memory six or eight months ago. But now the average selling price on DDR5 server modules is going through the roof. And obviously that is music to the ears of Micron, Hynix and Samsung," Gonnerman said, referring to the mainstay server chips. Similarly, spot prices of DRAM, used in various applications, nearly tripled in September from a year earlier, after growing a meager 4% in April, according to data from TechInsights provided to Reuters. The average inventory of DRAM chips fell to just eight weeks in the current quarter, from 10 weeks a year earlier and 31 weeks in early 2023. Jeff Kim, head of research at KB Securities, expects non-HBM memory chips will surpass HBMs in terms of profitability next year should the current price increases continue. In the July to September period, Samsung generated an operating margin of about 40% for commodity DRAMs, and 60% for HBMs, Kim estimated. Micron forecast last month healthy margins in both HBM and non-HBM in 2026. On the flip side, surging chip prices threaten to add margin pressure on makers of consumer electronics and servers already grappling with increasing costs due to higher U.S. tariffs and potential supply chain disruptions stemming from China's broadening curbs on rare earth exports. "Recently, with the DRAM shortage this severe, we’re becoming more concerned," said Miller Chang, president of the Embedded Sector at Advantech, a Taiwan-based industrial PC provider. Some are passing the cost pressure onto consumers. British personal computer maker Raspberry Pi, for example, announced price increases earlier this month, citing memory costs roughly 120% more than a year ago. "We’ve now reached the point where we have to pass some of this cost on," its CEO Eben Upton said. CAUTION ON "SUPER CYCLE" The improving profitability of non-HBM chips has helped fuel memory chipmakers' share price rally this year, with Samsung's stock up more than 80%, while SK Hynix and Micron shares have soared 170% and 140% respectively. Taiwan memory makers and memory module companies' stock jumped over the past month due to the shortage of DDR4. Investors are on guard for signs of an AI bubble. Hutcheson said the term "supercycle" is overdone, saying the industry is going through a classic shortage that usually lasts a year or two, and TechInsights is forecasting a chip industry downturn in 2027. Samsung is well-placed to benefit from the boom, given its heavier exposure to non-HBM chips. But investors remain cautious on how quickly it may be able to narrow a big gap with SK Hynix in HBM chips and TSMC in contract semiconductor manufacturing. "The extreme pessimism turned into extreme optimism for Samsung. We have to wait and see," Albert Yong, a managing partner at Petra Capital Management, a Seoul-based Samsung investor, said. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Miyoung Kim 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.)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services on Monday recommended investors vote down plans for AI company CoreWeave to buy infrastructure company Core Scientific in what was billed as a $9 billion deal. Investors will vote on October 30. ISS wrote that Core Scientific has achieved considerable success as a standalone company and could continue going it alone. CoreWeave, which offers cloud infrastructure for artificial-intelligence capabilities, proposed to acquire Core Scientific, which offers computing power, in an all-stock deal with an implied value of $20.40 when it was announced in early July. Soon after, investor Two Seas Capital said it would vote against the deal, citing concerns with the sale process, deal structure, and valuation. It said the fixed exchange ratio left Core Scientific shareholders vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of CoreWeave shares. CoreWeave's shares have fallen since July, thereby reducing the deal's value. On Monday, Core Scientific's stock price jumped over 5% in post-hours trading after having closed trading at $18.81, signaling investors may prefer to have the company stay independent. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; 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.)