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- Investors bet on China shrinking AI technology gap with the U.S.
- China's drive for AI independence helps attract investors
- KraneShares ETFs see significant growth in Chinese tech investments
- Rayliant launches ETF targeting transformative Chinese tech stocks
HONG KONG/NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Global investors are increasing their wagers on Chinese artificial intelligence companies, betting on the next DeepSeek and seeking to diversify, with concerns growing about a speculative bubble in the sector on Wall Street.
In March, 2016, Peter Navarro introduced himself to students in Managing Geopolitical Risk in an Age of a Rising China, a new undergraduate course at the University of California, Irvine. Donald Trump was then a month away from becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. Navarro, who had tenure at the business school, was an academic oddity: he worked at a research university, but he’d done little serious research since finishing his doctorate in economics, at Harvard, thirty years earlier. And he didn’t seem to enjoy contact with students. A former friend of his, an economist, recently said, “I don’t think he liked teaching that much—he liked talking.” Navarro had secured a life of privilege and frustration. He lived in a big house in Laguna Beach with an ocean view and a pool surrounded by statuary. But he plainly yearned to be somewhere, or someone, else. Professors often develop side hustles. But Navarro had long sought to trade his academic status for a more dazzling form of power—mayor of San Diego, stock guru, Democratic congressman, television host. He’d largely failed in these ambitions, thanks in part to traits he recognized in himself: he was arrogant, abrasive, and disdainful. “The problem was my personality,” Navarro wrote, in an account of his struggles as a political candidate. Although he once compared his charisma to Barack Obama’s, he knew that many who met him regarded him as an asshole. He was always getting into spats. Shortly before Navarro’s new course began, he sent an e-mail to John Graham, another U.C. Irvine professor, asking, “Are you frigging deaf, dumb, and blind?” Navarro had first pitched his class in a mass e-mail to thirty thousand students. That spring, only seventeen had enrolled. The room could have held a hundred. “He was not a prominent professor,” one of the students who’d chosen to take the course recently recalled.
SpaceX has lost contact with one of its broadband satellites, which is now falling toward Earth due to an unspecified and seemingly mysterious anomaly. The company revealed that a Starlink satellite experienced an anomaly on Wednesday that led to a complete loss of communication. The satellite suddenly dropped around 2.5 miles in altitude (4 kilometers) and created a small field of debris, according to SpaceX. There are currently more than 9,000 active Starlinks in orbit. SpaceX is routinely launching batches of Starlink with plans to build a giant constellation of up to 42,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. These satellites are designed to stay in orbit for around five to seven years, with one to two Starlinks falling back to Earth every day.
Imagine a world where encrypted, secret files are suddenly cracked open - something known as "the quantum apocalypse". Put very simply, quantum computers work completely differently from the computers developed over the past century. In theory, they could eventually become many, many times faster than today's machines. That means that faced with an incredibly complex and time-consuming problem - like trying to decrypt data - where there are multiple permutations running into the billions, a normal computer would take many years to break those encryptions, if ever. But a future quantum computer, in theory, could do this in just seconds.
Americans are getting wise to the threats posed by the lightly regulated facilities competing with humans for resources. The major artificial intelligence companies’ prime directive to literally bulldoze AI infrastructure into states with minimal regulation has produced citizen-led, bipartisan demands for local and national moratoriums on data center siting. While the Trump administration is doing everything it can to facilitate the only capital spending with a pulse in the economy, these calls for moratoriums are growing, and connecting with local successes in blocking data center construction. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently called for a national moratorium on the construction of data centers that are “powering this unregulated sprint to develop and deploy AI.” Sanders did credit “the transformative power of AI and robotics” before calling out Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Bill Gates with a simple question: “Are these multibillionaires staying up nights worrying about what AI and robotics will do to the working families of our country and the world?” The answer would be mostly no.
The appointment of a U.S. special envoy to Greenland has sparked a significant backlash in Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump has renewed his efforts to impose U.S. control over Greenland, appointing Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as a ‘special envoy’ to Greenland – an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark:
When police finally located the suspect in the shooting at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, it was partly thanks to a surveillance technology that has been drawing backlash from local governments. Flock Safety, a company backed by the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, sells cameras to thousands of cities and towns across the country. Those cameras are connected to an AI-enabled system that can track cars based on their license plates and descriptions. The idea of public cameras feeding information into a privately held AI system has drawn rebukes from digital privacy groups that worry about mass, invasive surveillance. More than a dozen cities have stopped using Flock’s systems, particularly after reports that local police have been sharing data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Curiously, police have also placed Flock’s cameras right outside Mar-a-Lago.) Cambridge, Mass., home to MIT, moved to end its contract with Flock earlier in December. But the systems clearly can have an immediate public benefit — it was Flock’s AI technology that helped police figure out where the suspect in the recent shootings rented his car. A tipster provided a description of the car, which Flock’s system was able to use to sift through its footage. What’s the right balance between public safety and individual privacy, and who should decide?
SECURING THE SPECTRUM AMERICA NEEDS: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum to ensure America’s leadership in 6G development. WINNING THE 6G RACE: President Trump is taking decisive action to win the global race for 6G. - 6G networks will provide the foundation to operate cutting-edge technologies of the next decade, including AI, robotics, implantable technologies and many other advancements. It will also deliver dramatically faster connection speeds, ultra-low latency, and higher data capacity.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in the East Coast due to unspecified national security risks identified by the Pentagon. The suspension, effective immediately, is the latest step by the administration to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful. The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects. The statement did not detail the national security risks. It called the move a pause, but did not specify an end date. The action comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down Trump's executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of wind farms on federal lands and waters was "arbitrary and capricious."
Fixed wireless access made another big dent in the broadband industry in 2025.
Three Democratic US senators announced on Tuesday that they are investigating whether big tech companies are passing the soaring utility costs of “energy-guzzling” data centers on to ordinary Americans. The trio sent letters to the heads of Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta as well as the data center operators CoreWeave, Digital Realty and Equinix asking for greater transparency, cost-sharing and accountability. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote that they were alarmed by reports that these data centers caused residential electricity bills to “skyrocket”.
The future of AI is dividing the Democratic Party, as potential 2028 presidential candidates and key stakeholders stake out clashing positions in what's already shaping up as a major policy battle in the primary. Why it matters: If Democrats win back the White House in 2028, where they land on AI will shape how the country approaches the new technology — with big consequences for the economy and workers. The big picture: Two main arguments are now playing out within the Democratic Party:
Following the announcement that Netflix would buy the film and streaming businesses of Warner Bros for $72 billion, it has been difficult to find anyone who views this development as positive, with even Netflix investors displaying concern. Yet rampant speculation over what this might mean for consumers or even the art of cinema itself has risked overshadowing ominous portents for the workers who stand to lose the most — and what they might do in response. The entertainment industry may be brutal toward those it depends on, but it is particularly vulnerable to their power when they act together. Predictably, much attention has been consumed by the hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets, launched by Paramount Skydance after its own attempt to acquire WBD was beaten out. Despite Paramount chief executive David Ellison arguing that his company would be more likely to gain the approval of federal competition regulators (and Ellison reportedly promising the White House to clownify CNN à la CBS under the Bari Weiss regime), a formal response from the WBD board this week advised shareholders to reject the offer, though Paramount may still return with a higher bid. Regardless, a victory for either Netflix or Paramount would produce an industry-warping megacorporation that makes the word “monopoly” unavoidable. Whoever wins, we lose.
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Summary - AI data center electricity demand revives peaker power plants
- Peakers emit more pollution when they run than typical power plants
- The power plants are often located in low-income, minority communities
CHICAGO, Dec. 23 - In Chicago’s working-class Pilsen neighborhood, a 60s-era oil-fired power plant rises up from an industrial lot behind Dvorak Park, which in warmer weather is packed with children climbing on its colorful playground and zooming down slides. The rarely-used eight-unit Fisk power plant owned by Houston-based NRG Energy was scheduled to retire next year. But then came electricity demands from artificial intelligence.
It’s become a tradition for dictionaries and other publications to each select their “word of the year” between November and January. Like Time’s Person of the Year, Spotify Wrapped or the various assortment of top ten lists, the idea is to show how the fast-moving English language distills what’s happened in the last 12 months. Many of this year’s selections curiously coalesced around a similar theme: A wariness of digital content. Maybe even a little tech exhaustion. “Slop” was word of the year for both Merriam-Webster and The Economist. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary went with “AI slop” — all referring to low-quality AI content. Oxford chose “rage bait,” typically defined as online content that’s designed to rile people up. Cambridge Dictionary decided on “parasocial,” the almost pitiful one-sided relationships that fans have with influencers.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, wireless vendors are busy working towards the introduction of 6G starting around 2030. The industry has introduced a new generation of cellular technology every ten years since the first 1G network was introduced in 1981. I’ve been reading a lot of industry press on the upcoming 6G generation of cellular. I have to admit that some of the claims gave me a good laugh, because the vendors in the industry are touting a lot of potential applications for 6G that seem to be a stretch, just like happened during the lead-up to 5G.
The primary care provider shortage is a national problem, and it’s particularly acute in Massachusetts. Some medical groups, including the state’s largest hospital network, Mass General Brigham, are turning to AI for help. A program called Care Connect pairs AI with virtual-only physicians.
The American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025 (H.R. 2289) has just been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. If this bill clears Congress, it will give wireless carriers and the federal government full authority to flood our towns and cities with small-cell 5G infrastructure—with no way out. The legislation can be likened to the first version of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which attempted to nullify state and local government ability to stop federal AI projects. Now, this deregulatory trend moves on to federal wireless projects. Under this new act, state and local governments no longer have the final say for wireless infrastructure, such as 5G small cell sites.
Amid ongoing fiber and FWA competition, cable broadband won't grow subs this decade, predicts New Street Research. It's clear that US cable operators are struggling to return to broadband subscriber growth amid slow housing formation, a sluggish moving market and competition from fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA). That's not going to change soon, according to new research. Amid ongoing network upgrades, tier 1 operators such as Comcast and Charter Communications have been trying to staunch subscriber losses with service bundles featuring mobile and multi-year price locks while expanding their footprints with new fiber network builds. But they've acknowledged that turning the tide will take time. While they believe they'll return to broadband subscriber growth eventually, they aren't predicting when that might happen. A new broadband trends study from New Street Research indicates that US cable isn't likely to be in the broadband black during this decade.
Bari Weiss blocked a critical story about the Trump administration — as CBS’s billionaire backers seek Trump’s help.
Denmark and Greenland leaders stand firm against Trump's plans to take control, emphasizing sovereignty and territorial integrity. Trump's appointment of envoy to Greenland sparks outrage. Will the US respect international law and the rights of Greenlanders? The leaders of Denmark and Greenland have rejected President Donald Trump’s plans to take control of the latter country “very clearly before,” said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Monday, but they were forced to make their resolve even more explicit after the US leader appointed a new special envoy to the autonomous Arctic island territory. “National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law,” said Frederiksen and Nielsen in a joint statement Monday. “You cannot annex other countries... Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the US should not take over Greenland. We expect respect for our common territorial integrity.”
PALM BEACH, Florida/COPENHAGEN, Dec 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump reasserted on Monday that the United States needs Greenland for its national security and said a special envoy he appointed to the Arctic island would "lead the charge." Trump named Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry on Sunday as his special envoy to Greenland, drawing renewed criticism from Denmark and Greenland over Washington's interest in the mineral-rich Arctic island.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr recently told Congress that he doesn’t believe that the FCC is an independent agency. The FCC went so far as to remove the term independent from its website. The bottom line of Chairman Carr’s opinion is that he believes the FCC should take direction from the White House. It’s an interesting an position that contradicts the long-standing intentions that the FCC, and many other federal agencies are independent, meaning that they don’t take directions directly from the Administration, but are required to follow whatever enabling laws and rules established by Congress. There are a number of independent agencies other than the FCC, including the EPA, SEC, Federal Reserve, NASA, CIA, FTC, SSA, and NTSB.
School districts from Utah to Ohio to Alabama are spending thousands of dollars on these tools, despite research showing the technology is far from reliable.
Former antitrust enforcer Roger Alford blasted the ABA Antitrust Section before Congress. Plus, Gavin Newsom raises electricity prices in California, the FTC sues Uber, and TikTok gets fake sold.
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