The US Department of Commerce on Friday announced its awards for Samsung, Texas Instruments and Amkor Technology under the CHIPS Incentives Program, which come to more than $6.75 billion altogether. The program is meant to help expand domestic semiconductor production. Samsung was awarded up to $4.745 billion in direct funding — a smaller amount than the preliminary award of up to $6.4 billion that was announced earlier this year — while Texas Instruments was granted up to $1.61 billion and Amkor up to $407 million.

Samsung plans to invest $37 billion over the next few years to ramp up chip development and production in the US, the DOC said. The company will expand its operations in Texas to include two new production facilities and a site for research and development. It also plans to expand an existing facility in Austin. Texas Instruments is working to build three new facilities — two in Texas and one in Utah — which it’s said it will invest over $18 billion in through 2029. Amkor is planning a $2 billion investment to create an advanced packaging and test facility in Peoria, Arizona. According to Reuters, it’ll be the country’s largest facility of its kind.

The Commerce Department says the awards will be doled out as the companies complete certain project milestones. It expects the funding to support the creation of thousands of jobs per project.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/doc-finalizes-semiconductor-awards-totaling-nearly-7-billion-for-samsung-texas-instruments-and-amkor-235749200.html?src=rss

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© Texas Instruments

They (regulators) said it couldn't be done (originally) but Three is finally approved for a merger. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has given the go ahead for a merger between Three and Vodafone, first proposed by the companies in June 2023. The decision follows an independent inquiry group's investigation into the move's impact. 

CMA is allowing the deal to proceed as long as "both companies sign binding commitments to invest billions to roll out a combined 5G network across the UK," a release states. "The network commitment would be supported by shorter term customer protections which would require the merged company to cap certain mobile tariffs and offer preset contractual terms to mobile virtual network operators, for a period of three years." CMA and UK communication services regulator Ofcom will both oversee these commitments and the merged company must produce an annual implementation report.

Chair of the independent inquiry group, Stuart McIntosh, explained, "We believe the merger is likely to boost competition in the UK mobile sector and should be allowed to proceed — but only if Vodafone and Three agree to implement our proposed measures."

Three tried to merge with O2 in 2015, but the European Commission (yes, this was pre-Brexit) blocked it a year later. Then European Commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager, stated that the concessions Three offered wouldn't offset the deal's potential to limit competition and bring higher prices. CMA concurred but, in 2021, allowed O2 to merge with Virgin Media, determining that it would not have a "substantial" impact on competition due to the nature of their combined offerings.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/three-and-vodafone-will-merge-in-the-uk-120007936.html?src=rss

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Vizio is now a member of the Walmart corporate empire. The retail company announced the completion of its $2.3 billion acquisition of the TV manufacturer on Tuesday.

Walmart didn’t just buy a TV brand. It now owns a new advertising platform. Vizio’s SmartCast OS collects huge amounts of data from its 19 million active accounts, and the company makes the majority of its money from the platform. Walmart’s new partnership with Vizio and its other smart TV brand Onn is sure to stir up the lucrative competition for advertising revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Walmart officially announced its plans to buy Vizio in February following early reports about its deal. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/walmart-completes-its-23-billion-purchase-of-vizio-222449239.html?src=rss

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Pat Gelsinger is retiring after over 40 years at the company, and close to four years at the chip manufacturer's helm. Effective as of December 1, Gelsinger has left both his post and his position on the board of directors. The board has now created a search committee to "diligently and expeditiously" find a new CEO. In the meantime, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the next CEO of Intel Products, and David Zinsner, executive vice president and CFO, will serve as interim Co-CEOs of the entire company. 

While Gelsinger held previous positions at Intel, he had most recently spent a decade-plus in senior positions at EMC and VMWare. In 2021, he returned to Intel to replace Bob Swan, who held the title of CEO for for a bit over two years. "As a leader, Pat helped launch and revitalize process manufacturing by investing in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing, while working tirelessly to drive innovation throughout the company," said Frank Yeary, who will become interim executive chair during the transition. "While we have made significant progress in regaining manufacturing competitiveness and building the capabilities to be a world-class foundry, we know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence."

Gelsinger oversaw Intel during a tumultuous time for the company. In late 2022, for example, Intel laid off about 20 percent of its staff in some divisions. This year alone, Intel has failed quality tests and announced it would lay off another 15,000 people — or 15 percent of their workforce — amid a $10 billion cost-reduction plan. Reporting by Bloomberg indicates the company's board lost confidence in Gelsinger's leadership due to these setbacks, and he was given the option to either retire or be forced out, which explains his very sudden departure.

Update, December 2 2024, 11:26AM ET: This story now includes additional reporting from Bloomberg.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/intels-ceo-pat-gelsinger-has-suddenly-retired-151410215.html?src=rss

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The UK’s competition regulator has cleared Google's $2 billion investment in Anthropic, according to reporting by Bloomberg and others. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially concluded that the company hasn’t acquired “material influence” over the AI startup Anthropic as a result of the investment.

The continuing investigation into the partnership has also been squashed, with the UK antitrust watchdog saying that the investment doesn’t qualify for a full probe under merger rules. This is after phase one of a formal investigation was announced back in October.

“Anthropic is an independent company and our strategic partnerships and investor relationships do not diminish our corporate governance independence or our freedom to partner with others,” a company spokesperson said after the CMA announced its findings.

Google’s investment into Anthropic gives the company non-voting shares and consultation rights on significant business issues. Anthropic is best known for creating the Claude AI assistant, which is in direct competition with Google Gemini. Earlier this year, the CMA expressed concern regarding the “interconnected web” of partnerships and investments in the rapidly advancing world of AI.

The CMA also allowed a similar investment to go through in which Amazon forked over a whopping $4 billion to Anthropic. It didn’t even investigate that one, on the grounds that Anthropic’s UK turnover didn’t exceed £70 million and the two parties didn’t combine to account for 25 percent or more of the region’s supply of AI LLMs and chatbots.

Microsoft’s investment into OpenAI, however, is still under scrutiny by the CMA. The watchdog group did clear Microsoft’s investments with the AI startups Mistral and Inflection.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-uk-approves-googles-2-billion-investment-in-anthropic-162226536.html?src=rss

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