• Xiaomi boss Lei Jun said his company would start making its own mobile chips.
• He said his company was ready to spend billions of dollars on chip design over the next decade.
• It's an approach that its rival Apple largely popularized.

One of Apple's top rivals in China is taking a page out of its own book, again.

On Monday, Xiaomi's billionaire cofounder and CEO, Lei Jun, said that his company was implementing a 10-year plan to invest 50 billion yuan, roughly $7 billion, into chip design as it looks to make chips of its own for its smartphones. To date, it has relied on US firm Qualcomm and Taiwanese firm MediaTek for chips.

In a post to Chinese social media site Weibo, Lei said his company "made a major decision" back in 2021 to restart the process of developing its own silicon for smartphones after an initial effort in the previous decade faced setbacks.

Apple has largely popularized the so-called system-on-a-chip (SoC) approach, spending the past 15 years powering products like iPhones and Macs with its own silicon, which company executives believe gives their products an edge.

Lei also said on Weibo that the first chip from its new mobile efforts, Xring 01, would be unveiled on May 22.

"Chips are the underlying core track for Xiaomi to break through hardcore technology, and we will definitely go all out," Lei wrote, while acknowledging that his company had previously suspended its work on SoC research and development.

The move comes as Chinese companies increasingly seek to develop their own know-how and expertise in key technologies.

Lei said Xiaomi would chase "the latest process technology" as part of its ambitions for its renewed work on mobile chips. Chips for the Xring 01 will be developed using a 3-nanometer process, Lei said, an advanced way of producing some of the most powerful chips.

He said that at least a decade of fresh investment would be needed, given "the difficulty of chip manufacturing."

"Xiaomi has always had a 'chip dream' because, in order to become a great hardcore technology company, chips are a peak that must be climbed and a tough battle that cannot be avoided," he wrote.

It's not the first time Xiaomi has looked to emulate a rival like Apple.

The Chinese firm, known primarily for selling smartphones, unveiled its first electric vehicle last year, a month after Apple ditched its multi-year effort to release its own EV.

• Donald Trump is upset with Tim Cook.
• The president said he doesn't want Apple to shift its production to India.
• The iPhone maker has been diversifying its supply chain to counter steep China tariffs.

Donald Trump has a "little problem with Tim Cook."

Speaking in Qatar, the president said he recently told the Apple CEO that he doesn't want the iPhone maker to shift its manufacturing production to India.

Apple, the world's most valuable company, has long depended on a vast supply chain empire in China to manufacture, assemble, and ship iPhones and other goods to the US.

But as Trump's administration has ramped up a trade war with its biggest international rival, Apple has been forced to take measures to diversify operations away from China. The company also committed to investing $500 billion in the US over the next four years in February.

"I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday," Trump said Thursday. "I said to him, Tim, you're my friend, I've treated you very good. You're coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you're building all over India. I don't want you building in India."

The comments will come as a challenge to Apple and its investors. The company has spent recent years deepening its ties to India, where it has ramped up iPhone production.

Apple largely works with Taiwanese firm Foxconn to assemble its iPhones in India, and has partnerships with local firm Tata, too.

But in his comments, Trump made clear he didn't want Cook to put more operations in India after "we've put up with all the plants that you built in China for years."

"You can build in India if you want to take care of India," Trump added.

Trump said that Apple would be "upping their production in the United States." Analysts have previously warned that shifts away from China could trigger a huge price increase in the iPhone for consumers.

Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Donald Trump is on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.
• His mission? To come away with deals that strengthen ties between the US and oil-rich states.
• Here are all the deals that have been announced since Trump landed in the region.

Donald Trump's Middle East trip had been billed as a dealmaking opportunity — and it's been living up to that expectation.

The president's first major overseas tour of his second term has begun with the flow of billions of dollars as US companies have lined up to announce deals with Middle Eastern nations.

A flurry of announcements came out of the Saudi-US Investment Forum held in Riyadh on Tuesday, where deal after deal emerged.

In January, Trump announced that Saudi Arabia had committed to investing $600 billion in the US over the next four years, a sign that both countries were seeking to build closer ties.

Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader and crown prince, has made it a priority for his country to diversify its economy away from oil as part of his grand economic plan, Vision 2030.

It's why he has been busy courting business leaders in the US, with the likes of Elon Musk, OpenAI boss Sam Altman, and BlackRock's Larry Fink all in attendance at the investment forum on Tuesday.

Here's a look at some of the major deals that have been announced during Trump's visit so far.

An arms deal worth $142 billion

The US and Saudi Arabia struck an arms deal worth nearly $142 billion on the first day of Trump's trip to the Middle East. The White House described it as the "largest defense sales agreement in history."

The deal would see the US provide Saudi Arabia with "state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen U.S. defense firms," according to the White House.

The services will offer Saudi Arabia defense coverage that includes air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and information and communication systems upgrades, Trump's administration added.

Nvidia brings chips to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's grand plans to become a regional leader in AI depend on its access to highly advanced chips to train and run leading models. That's where Nvidia comes in.

The US chipmaker is set to bring at least 18,000 of its Blackwell GPUs to Saudi Arabia as part of an initial deployment phase involving Humain, a new AI subsidiary established by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

Humain's aim is to build so-called AI factories to fulfil its ambitions, with plans to make use of "several hundred thousand of Nvidia's most advanced GPUs" over the next five years.

A top Nvidia rival is building Saudi ties, too

AMD, one of the top rivals to Nvidia, has not let down the opportunity to build close ties with Saudi Arabia, either.

On Tuesday, the company announced it will work with Humain to invest up to $10 billion in AI compute over the next five years.

According to the company, the infrastructure built will involve "a network of AMD-based AI computing centers stretching from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States."

Amazon is building an 'AI Zone'

Amazon Web Services is getting in on the action too, with a more than $5 billion plan to build what it calls an "AI Zone" in Saudi Arabia.

According to the company, the "first-of-a-kind" area will provide a space in which a vastly complex set of infrastructure including servers loaded with chips aimed at delivering "faster AI training and inference."

It follows an announcement last year in which AWS said it would bring data centers to the country in 2026 and invest more than $5.3 billion.

Google is eyeing Saudi Arabia's AI startups

Betting on startup talent is a big priority for Saudi venture capital firm STV. It's about to get a helping hand in that process from Google, which is backing STV's $100 million AI investment fund.

The fund will invest in companies in the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA.

"Our backing of STV's AI Fund represents a strong commitment to supporting the AI ecosystem in MENA, building on our broader efforts to provide access to the opportunity behind AI for everyone," Google said in a blog post on Tuesday.

Supermicro's $20 billion data deal

California-based tech firm Supermicro might not have the same heft as the Big Tech firms surrounding it in Silicon Valley, but the company is showing it can play a strategic role in forging deep ties with Saudi Arabia.

This week, the company, which specializes in developing servers, signed a multi-year partnership worth $20 billion with DataVolt, a Saudi data center company founded in 2023.

The deal involves operations and manufacturing taking place in both Saudi Arabia and the US.

• Masayoshi Son is making a huge bet on AI.
• He'll feel confident doing so after his company, SoftBank, reported its first profit in four years.
• The bet comes with a huge amount of risk, as it's unclear whether AI can deliver on all its promises.

Gambling hasn't always worked out for SoftBank's Masayoshi Son. But as the Japanese billionaire begins to see his technology empire turn a corner, he'll be hoping he can pull off a huge bet on AI.

On Tuesday, SoftBank, which has positioned itself as one of the most important backers to Sam Altman's OpenAI, posted its first annual profit in four years. Net income of 1.15 trillion yen ($7.8 billion) for the year ended March overcame a $1.5 billion loss the previous year.

Fourth quarter gains helped overall profit. A 124% year-on-year jump in quarterly profit was spurred by its longtime holding of Alibaba shares — the Chinese tech firm's shares have risen over 55% this year — as well as profit in its telecoms unit, which includes T-Mobile.

The turn in fortune will offer relief for the CEO known as Masa, who has spent some of this past decade apologizing for losses and missteps. A disastrous bet on WeWork sparked an apology. And billions of dollars in losses in his Vision Fund arm prompted Son to say in 2022 he was "quite embarrassed and remorseful."

But with fortunes at SoftBank now improving, Son will feel he has a firmer ground to stand on as he goes all in on AI.

Son's biggest bet yet is in play

Few people have hyped AI as much as Son. The SoftBank CEO said last year that he believes AI will be 10,000 times smarter than the human brain by 2035, and eventually "evolve into super wisdom for the happiness of all humanity." His plan to get there, however, depends on his ability to pull off some pretty high-risk moves.

Most notable is SoftBank's growing ties to OpenAI. Earlier this year, the Japanese firm emerged as the main player behind a $40 billion funding round for the ChatGPT maker. It had already put $2.2 billion into the company since last year.

According to SoftBank's Tuesday filings, the company is willing to deploy this level of capital because it deems OpenAI to be "the partner closest to achieving artificial general intelligence," which is when AI can perform any intellectual task that a human can.

SoftBank is also betting on OpenAI to deliver the "massive computing power" essential for developing and training smarter AI models, which is why Son is serving as chairman of Stargate, a $500 billion project announced in January to build critical infrastructure in the US.

The bets with OpenAI are supplemented with AI plays elsewhere. SoftBank's majority holding of AI chip firm Arm is one example. SoftBank's decision in January to form a new holding company called Robo HD for its robotics-related investments appears to be another.

Each of these comes with its fair share of risk. OpenAI is locked in a legal battle with Elon Musk over its corporate structure, and it has faced issues with some of its newer models. Last month, OpenAI rolled back an update that gave its AI "sycophantic" behavior.

Questions appear to be surrounding Stargate, too. A Bloomberg report on Monday said SoftBank's plans to invest in the infrastructure project have slowed as Donald Trump's tariff plans have added uncertainty to discussions held with lenders.

There are also questions over the long-term demand for buying AI chips. Arm declined to share full-year guidance on revenue as it reported earnings last week, sending its shares spiralling by 11% after-hours.

For Son, managing these bets will be key to staying on top.

• Donald Trump is visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE this week.
• The president will likely be seeking big US investments, as he did during his 2017 visit.
• From the AI boom to falling oil prices, the dynamics are different this time around.

Donald Trump is back in the Middle East. His plan to bring the Persian Gulf states' petrodollars flowing to the US could be a bit more complicated than the last time he was in office.

On Tuesday, the president touched down in Saudi Arabia's capital to kick off the first bilateral overseas trip of his second term. Over a three-day period, he's expected to crisscross Qatar and the UAE too in the hope of securing deals — lots of deals.

Trump's dealmaking ambitions will be in particular focus in Riyadh at the Saudi-US Investment Forum. Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, pledged in January to invest $600 billion in the US over a four-year period. Trump will want to see these pledges realized, fast.

Others hoping to see promises turn to action will be America's business and tech elite, who will also attend the investment forum and rub shoulders with the kingdom's power brokers. Nvidia's Jensen Huang, BlackRock's Larry Fink, and Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman are all billed as speakers. So are Google's chief investment officer Ruth Porat and the White House's AI czar David Sacks. Reports say Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg might turn up, too.

During his 2017 visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump signed agreements totalling hundreds of billions of dollars. But if Trump expects cash to flow as freely as it did when he last courted the Middle East's oilmen, he'll want to examine the motivations and realities facing the region's elite.

Trump's balancing act in the Gulf

Nations like Saudi Arabia have had good reasons to ramp up overseas investments. Taking stakes in American companies and sectors seen as crucial to future development, such as AI, has been a key strategy for diversifying oil-dependent economies.

Much of this investment has been easy to pull off thanks to the vast sums of capital managed by the region's sovereign wealth funds. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, estimated to have assets under management of over $900 billion, has been a key source of capital for the West, including a $3.5 billion investment in Uber.

This was particularly the case after Trump made a high-profile trip to the region in 2017. The world had not yet been engulfed by a pandemic that would eventually trigger a tightening in monetary policy; war in Gaza had not yet torn the region apart, either.

But since Trump's last term in the White House, things have changed for Middle East nations that could now factor into their decision-making around investments. Take a look at Saudi Arabia.

Falling oil prices

While investment appetite remains — Saudi Arabia's investment minister, Khalid Al-Falih, indicated as much during a panel at the Milken Institute this month — the country is grappling with oil prices dropping to a four-year low this year.

This has put pressure on Saudi Arabia to invest more of its money into domestic efforts, such as the struggling giga-projects like Neom that form the basis of Crown Prince Mohammed's Vision 2030 economic agenda, rather than flooding overseas companies in the US with cash.

It's a direction Saudi Arabia already seemed to be heading in, with the PIF's governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, indicating in October last year that the sovereign wealth fund's international investments would eventually comprise 18-20% of its investments, versus 30%.

AI bets

A country like Saudi Arabia has good reason to continue seeking investment opportunities in the US as it seeks to establish itself as an AI powerhouse.

Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank, told Business Insider that since Trump's last visit, the Gulf states have "transformed their position within the global political economy as important sources of investment in new technology like AI."

That's boosted the Gulf states' "ability to attract American private equity investors as partners in global infrastructure, including in the energy sector across fossil fuels and renewable energy," Young added.

But companies presented with money from the Middle East may find some strings attached not there before. Since January 2024, a rule has been in force requiring any company wishing to do business with Saudi Arabia to set up its region headquarters there.

Securing Gulf money, then, may not be quite as straightforward as it once was, despite all the big commitments announced to herald Trump's second term. However, there have also been signals — including reports that Qatar plans to gift a luxury jet to replace Air Force One — that Gulf states are very keen to do business with Trump.

"All the Gulf leaders have shown a strong willingness to engage intensively with Trump and to align more closely on economics and national security with the United States," Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of research and advisory firm Eurasia Group, told BI.

Deals can almost certainly be expected this week. How easily they come about is another matter.

• Jony Ive was known for delivering simple designs at Apple.
• Ive said in a fireside chat that his design mantra at his new agency, LoveFrom, could be different.
• His new chapter is shaping up to be his "ornament era."

Jony Ive is embracing his "ornament era."

The former chief design officer at Apple spent the better part of 27 years designing products that were defined by simplicity and minimalism: the iPod, iPhone, MacBook, and iPad all had the British-born designer's hand in them.

But he's taking a different approach now.

In a fireside chat with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison this week, Ive, who has been busy working on an independent design agency called LoveFrom since leaving Apple in 2019, said his more recent work could be seen as "Jony's ornament era."

"I think that's a lovely observation," Ive said in response to Collison, who described his work at Apple as "so stripped down" and "reduced to the essence."

Ive's ideas and work at Apple were often inspired by Dieter Rams, the German industrial designer who had a "less but better" approach that informed his work at consumer products businesses like Braun.

In the fireside chat, Ive said that his work at LoveFrom is informed by a diverse team of industrial, graphic, and sound designers, as well as architects, typographers, and musicians, as opposed to at Apple, where his team had "clear criteria for what we were doing."

Ive has shared few details about the projects LoveFrom was working on, with his design agency's website maintaining a barebones display that has shrouded the storied designer's future work in secrecy.

But a few public projects have indicated a shift in direction in his design, with Ive notably creating an ornament logo for the coronation of King Charles III, as well as work for Airbnb.

"If you're working for the king on his coronation identity, that of course, would demand a very different approach than the one we would have taken if we were designing instructional products for how to use an iMac," Ive said.

• Google stock tumbled after Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue said Safari searches had dropped.
• A filing reveals another reason Google watchers worry about search: slowed growth in paid clicks.
• Some analysts are split over whether Google's Search empire is under threat.

Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue set alarm bells ringing on Wednesday after dropping a bombshell at Google's antitrust trial: Google searches through Safari dropped in April for the first time ever.

While his comments triggered a frenzied sell-off in Google stock, it might not be the only reason the company's watchers should be concerned about Google's ability to keep full control over the search market.

A little-noticed number in Google's latest financial disclosure may be the realest sign yet that investors have reason to worry.

After reporting blockbuster Q1 earnings last month, Google revealed in a 10-Q filing with the SEC that paid clicks for the quarter grew 2%, down from 5% growth in the same quarter a year ago. That's the slowest growth rate since the company began reporting the metric.

Paid clicks are exactly what they sound like: people click on ads across Google Search and other services such as Google Play and Gmail. Each click translates to money in Google's pocket.

Why those paid clicks are down, exactly, Google hasn't said.

"It's possible macro played a role, or searches with AI overviews delivered better results, requiring fewer 'paid clicks' to get to conversion," Bernstein analysts wrote in a note published Wednesday. "But mostly, it's a worrying KPI."

The analysts said they believe the timing of the dip, combined with Cue's comments and surging numbers of ChatGPT and Meta AI users, suggests that Google's control of the search market may be lower than previously believed.

"Combined, we estimate Google's search share is closer to 65-70% vs. the 90% we often hear," they wrote.

Google declined to comment.

Google's slice of pie

Google insists that it's seeing more searches than ever.

Since the 2000s, the company has managed to harvest vast amounts of searches by paying Apple a fee to make its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser. As recently as 2022, Google had paid Apple at least $20 billion —  a massive fee that signals how much value Google sees in having Apple users turn to its search engine for all their queries.

It maintains that this partnership continues to drive growth in searches. Cue's comments were provocative enough to prompt the search giant to issue a public statement stating that it continues to see "overall query growth" in Search, including an increase in total queries coming from Apple.

There's little doubt among industry watchers that the overall search pie is growing — though figures from research firm Statcounter suggest Google's control of the global search has fallen slightly. The big question is whether Google's slice of that pie is shrinking relative to rivals.

According to Statcounter, Google's share of global search traffic fell to 89.71% in March 2025, down from about 91% in March 2024 and about 93% in March 2023.

Meanwhile, competing search products are growing. In April, OpenAI said that around 10% of the world uses ChatGPT, which would be at least 800 million users. Meta also said that about 1 billion people use AI across its various products.

The search market expands with AI as chatbots and generative tools expand the definition of search. Google could reap the rewards here, though this also creates an opening for competitors charging as fast as possible to stay ahead of the search giant.

Bernstein analysts estimated that generative AI queries that run through chatbots such as ChatGPT are reaching volumes close to 15% of the queries processed by Google and other traditional search engines.

Analysts are split

Other analysts are divided on just how much of a threat Google's search business faces.

For instance, longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo took to X on Wednesday to explain why he felt it was a mistake to think generative AI would not affect Google's advertising business.

He said that despite the "continued growth of Google's advertising business," the company hasn't had much competition yet.

"GenAI service providers have not launched advertising businesses, so Google Ads remains the best choice for online advertisers," Kuo wrote.

Kuo likened Google's situation to the one Yahoo faced during the 2000s. The company's advertising business, launched in 1995, only started declining in 2008, despite newfound competition from Google's AdWords business arriving back in 2000.

Analysts at investment bank Jefferies have a different view. In a research note on Wednesday, the analysts had a particular word to describe the roughly $155 billion sell-off in Google's stock following Cue's comments: "overblown."

While they acknowledged that Google's AI-powered "Overviews" feature may act as a headwind right now as it is resulting in "fewer searches," they said Google will "be able to ramp monetization" of its AI summary feature over the long run.

They also don't see a scenario where Apple shifts away from Google and causes as much harm as investors might think.

"While Safari is significant, it does not represent the entirety of search activity; iOS accounts for 18% of operating systems, and Safari holds 17% of the browser market share compared to Chrome's 66%," the analysts wrote.

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• Jensen Huang thinks China's AI market could be worth $50 billion in a few years' time.
• In an interview with CNBC, he said it would be a big loss to lose access to that market.
• The Nvidia CEO raised concerns about the possibility of being shut out from China amid tougher export controls.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said it would be a "tremendous loss" for his chip company to lose access to a rapidly growing AI market in China that he estimates to soon be worth $50 billion.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, the Nvidia boss addressed concerns about the growing restrictions facing his company as the US government seeks to clamp down on the sale of its high-performing AI chips to China.

According to Huang, "China is a very large market" that will present a $50 billion addressable market within the next two to three years.

"It would be a tremendous loss not to be able to address it as an American company," Huang said.

"It's going to bring back revenues, it's going to bring back taxes, it's going to create lots of jobs here in the United States," he added.

Nvidia has added trillions of dollars in value since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, as AI companies in the US, China, and elsewhere have sought its chips, known as GPUs, to train and host increasingly smarter AI models.

However, Nvidia's boom in the generative AI era has taken a hit in recent months, with the company's share price down almost 18% year-to-date.

One of the biggest concerns facing Nvidia investors has been the potential long-term impact of President Donald Trump's tariff regime and export controls on advanced technologies to China.

In its last earnings, Nvidia reported $17.1 billion in revenue from China for its last fiscal year, marking a 66% increase from the $10.3 billion it generated the year before.

However, last month, the company disclosed a $5.5 billion hit to earnings due to restrictions on sales of its H20 chips to China.

In the interview with CNBC, Huang acknowledged the earnings hit disclosed last month, while stating that his company would "stay agile and keep moving on" and do "whatever's in the best interest of our country."

Nvidia declined to comment.

• Apple investors have had a lot to worry about this year.
• Investors wanted clarity on tariffs, AI, and diversification away from its China supply chain.
• During Thursday's earnings call, Tim Cook gave more details on some topics than others.

Tim Cook had a tough challenge during Apple's earnings call: predicting the unpredictable.

The Apple CEO faced questions about tariffs, China, and AI during the company's second-quarter earnings call on Thursday, and how they would shape the rest of the tech giant's year.

He was able to provide more detail to some questions than others.

On the impact of tariffs, the biggest question facing Apple, Cook said it's "very difficult to predict beyond June."

He gave some details about the potential cost to Apple, but it came with caveats.

Cook told analysts and investors that Apple expected a potential $900 million hit for the June quarter "assuming the current global tariff rates, policies, and applications do not change."

Though many American companies have been left to grapple with the levies, understanding the full extent of the impact on Apple has been a hugely important question for the market, given the company's vast supply chain empire in China.

"As far as tariffs go, the uncertainty will persist as rules keep getting made and unmade, often overnight," Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at Forrester, a research firm, told Business Insider.

China sales and diversification

Apple has tried to diversify its supply chain away from China — something Cook addressed directly on the earnings call. He said the company expects "the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin" in the June quarter.

Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, a research firm, said exposure to China remains a huge issue.

"Previous investments in India are paying dividends, but it is impossible to divert huge volumes away from China in the short term, given how entrenched its manufacturing and supply networks are," Wood said.

One of the other major worries facing Apple investors — Apple's ability to reverse declining iPhone sales in China — got less clarity.

Sales in the Greater China region were down 2% for the quarter as Apple has been battling fierce competition from local players. Companies like Huawei now have 5G-enabled smartphones as capable as iPhones to entice Chinese consumers.

Cook said that a program in China meant to help subsidize smartphone purchases for the company "played a favorable impact on the results," but he said "it's difficult to estimate with precision as to exactly how much."

Apple's AI bet

Apple Intelligence, the company's late push into the generative AI arena that rivals like Google and Meta got a headstart in, has had a very slow start since its reveal at Apple's WWDC almost a year ago in June 2024.

Cook didn't provide a clear timeline for when Siri, a key part of Apple Intelligence, would be released after being delayed earlier this year. Cook said that "it's just taking a bit longer than we thought" to bring Siri up to Apple's "high-quality bar."

"The hiccups with that rollout have likely solidified the company's belief that it is better to do it right rather than move fast and break things," said Dipanjan.

According to Cook, though, there's evidence that Apple Intelligence is turning out to be the revenue driver analysts had hoped for. "During the March quarter, we saw that in markets where we had rolled out Apple Intelligence, that the year-over-year performance on the iPhone 16 family was stronger than those where Apple Intelligence was not available," Cook said in response to an analyst question.

The unknowns on tariffs and AI weighed on Apple's earnings beat and 5% year-on-year revenue bump, with shares down almost 4% on Friday.

Wood said that while Apple had delivered another strong performance, there was no escaping the fact that macroeconomic weaknesses and tariff uncertainty "continue to cast a shadow over performance for the rest of the year."

• Microsoft and Meta just showed investors they have no plans to slow down their AI investments.
• Going into earnings, multiple analyst reports had suggested some Big Tech data center leases were being rethought.
• There are a few caveats to Microsoft and Meta's AI growth story, however.

Is there a let-up in the AI mania? Big Tech doesn't seem to think so.

Microsoft and Meta this week took turns explaining why they see no sign of weakening interest in the AI they've bet their futures on, reporting earnings that appeared to shrug off concerns over recent analyst notes suggesting wobbles in demand.

Meta said it was updating its guidance on capital expenditure for the year to $64-72 billion, up from $60-65 billion.

Meanwhile, Microsoft said its capital expenditure was up from $14 billion in the same quarter last year to $21.4 billion in the most recent quarter.

These are both signs that the two companies are willing to spend more and more on the critical infrastructure needed to host the AI services in high demand from customers.

Microsoft posted cloud unit revenue of $42.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, beating analyst expectations. Revenue in the unit accounting for the AI data center services it provides to customers jumped 20% year over year.

A Jefferies analyst note, published Thursday, said that "AI demand is trending higher than expected" for Microsoft, pointing to the soaring number of AI tokens the company processed in its third financial quarter.

The updates appeared to have done enough to convince investors that the AI boom is staying strong — Microsoft shares opened up more than 9% on Thursday, while Meta was up about 5% — despite recent reports suggesting a slowdown in demand for Big Tech data centers.

Last week, analysts at Wells Fargo published a report claiming that AI data center giant Amazon had paused some of its data center leasing discussions. In response, an Amazon Web Services executive said there was still "strong demand" to provide the technology underpinning the AI boom.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed anxieties about data center pauses in a call with investors on Wednesday, as his company had also been the subject of a report earlier this year claiming that it was canceling lease commitments.

During the call, he said he felt "very, very good" about the pace at which his company's data center expansion was taking place.

Microsoft's chief financial officer, Amy Hood, said the company had a "customer contracted backlog of $315 billion" for server technology like graphics processing units, or GPUs.

Google got the ball rolling

Google helped set the stage for both Microsoft and Meta when it reported earnings last week, showing a 28% year-on-year jump in first-quarter revenue in its AI-focused cloud computing unit to $12.3 billion. Capital expenditure also rose from $12 billion year-on-year to $17.2 billion.

All these suggestions that the AI hype train shows no sign of slowing come with a few asterisks, however.

Meta's increase in full-year guidance on AI infrastructure spending? Some of that is down to rising costs against a backdrop of tariffs, according to Meta's chief financial officer, Susan Li, who offered a tone of caution to investors on Wednesday.

"The higher cost we expect to incur for infrastructure hardware this year really comes from suppliers who source from countries around the world, and there's just a lot of uncertainty around this given the ongoing trade discussions," she said.

Both Google and Microsoft, meanwhile, have shown that while revenue in their cloud units has hit higher and higher targets, there has been a slight decrease in the revenue growth rates at their cloud units over the past two quarters.

Some of this may result from cyclical trends; data centre revenue can sometimes fluctuate throughout the year as companies manage waves of demand.

The other caveat is that the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Nvidia could shift the AI narrative when they report earnings this month.

For now, Big Tech is clear. Demand is still coming for AI, and so too is Big Tech's spending.

• Big Tech companies report earnings this week in a very different climate from last quarter.
• Tariffs and uncertainty are setting the mood for Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.
• Tech CEOs, many of whom supported Trump, must convince investors they can sustain their growth.

Big Tech CEOs had seemed ready for good vibes with President Donald Trump. Instead, they're heading into their latest earnings season with a difficult task: addressing a Trump-led vibe shift that's been anything but kind to them.

This week, several tech firms, including Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, report their latest earnings against a backdrop of uncertainty that sent their stocks plummeting and added pressure on them to deliver results on big bets like AI.

Investors and CEOs started the year with very different expectations. They had hoped for a Trump bump from deregulation, the return of dealmaking, and an overall pro-growth agenda.

"We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad," Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, said in an earnings call in January.

Despite a market sell-off in January stemming from the release of a new AI model from China's DeepSeek, there appeared to be optimism among the Big Tech CEOs who had donated to Trump's presidential campaign, lined up behind him at his inauguration, and shared investment commitments collectively worth over $1 trillion to the US.

Instead, they got tariffs and uncertainty.

Big Tech stocks have taken a beating

The pain for Big Tech has been most evident in the aftermath of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff proposals in April, which raised fears about the long-term value of tech firms with supply chains and large customer bases in regions heavily targeted by tariffs, such as China.

Apple's share price, for instance, has fallen by almost 14% this year as its reliance on a supply chain empire in China has been called into question. Amazon is down by nearly 15%, Microsoft by more than 6%, and Meta by more than 8%.

The S&P 500 — the four Big Tech companies reporting earnings this week constitute roughly one-fifth of the benchmark index — is down by over 6% since Trump's inauguration. Trillions of dollars have gone up in smoke.

Hamish Low, an analyst at the research firm Enders Analysis, told Business Insider that the "macro uncertainty" triggered by Trump's administration would weigh on tech companies.

He said it would make investors more serious about the "questions that were already growing" about Big Tech's major bets and their potential for returns.

Artificial intelligence has been a huge talking point for tech CEOs, but none have yet been able to clearly indicate when returns might come on their massive capital expenditures.

"Impressive capabilities at the frontier of research aren't translating into either people's experiences of AI products or the kinds of returns that match the investments going in," Low told BI.

What may help offset some of the pain for these companies is that analysts have been lowering their expectations.

In a poll of analysts, the research firm FactSet found that the profits of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech firms were expected to rise 16% this year, down from about a 37% increase in 2024, according to figures first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In that case, CEOs might be able to breathe a sigh of relief as reality readjusts around them. But if the fallout from tech earnings already shared this season is any indication, they may want to think twice about getting too relaxed.

Speaking as Tesla reported disappointing earnings last week, Elon Musk, who emerged as a key figure in the early days of Trump's administration as the face of the White House DOGE office, said he would, starting next month, be "allocating far more of my time to Tesla."

He added that the "tariff decision is entirely up to the president of the United States."

Tesla, which has a significant manufacturing presence in China, has seen its share price drop by almost 25% since the start of the year, even with a bounce after Musk said he'd step back from DOGE.

Google, which reported earnings last week, also showed signs that Trump's policies had given it a headache. Addressing an investor question on tariffs, Google's chief business officer, Philipp Schindler_, said: "We're obviously not immune to the macro environment." Google's share price is down nearly 15% since the start of the year.

Clearly, tech CEOs are far from the position they thought they'd be in when they lined up behind Trump in January. Investors will want to know how they plan to navigate the uncertainty — and any future Trump vibe shift.

• The future of AI depends on building more powerful supercomputers.
• New research suggests how gargantuan these supercomputers could be by the end of the decade.
• Epoch AI projects that a top supercomputer in 2030 could need as much power needed for up to 9 million homes.

Silicon Valley needs bigger and better supercomputers to get bigger and better AI. We just got an idea of what they might look like by the end of the decade.

A new study published this week by researchers at the San Francisco-based institute Epoch AI said supercomputers — massive systems stacked with chips to train and run AI models — could need the equivalent of nine nuclear reactors by 2030 to keep them chugging along.

Epoch AI estimates that if supercomputer power requirements continue to roughly double each year, as they have done since 2019, the top machines would need about 9GW of power.

That's about the amount needed to keep the lights on in a city of roughly 7 to 9 million homes. Today's most powerful supercomputer needs around 300MW of power, which is "equivalent to about 250,000 households."

This makes the potential power needs of future supercomputers look extraordinary. There are a few reasons the next generation of computing seems so demanding.

One explanation is that they will simply be bigger. According to Epoch AI's paper, the leading AI supercomputer in 2030 could require 2 million AI chips and cost $200 billion to build — again, assuming that current growth trends continue.

For context, today's largest supercomputer — the Colossus system, built to full scale within 214 days by Elon Musk's xAI — is estimated to have cost $7 billion to make, and, per the company's website, is stacked with 200,000 chips.

Companies have been looking to secure more chips to provide the computing power needed for increasingly powerful models as they race toward developing AI that surpasses human intelligence.

OpenAI, for instance, started the year with a huge supercomputer announcement as it unveiled Stargate, a project worth over $500 billion in investment over four years aimed at building critical AI infrastructure that includes a "computing system."

Epoch AI explains this growth by stating that where once supercomputers were used just as research tools, they're now being used as "industrial machines delivering economic value."

Having AI and supercomputers deliver economic value isn't just a priority for CEOs trying to justify exorbitant capital expenditures, either.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to celebrate a $500 billion investment from Nvidia to build AI supercomputers in the US. It's "big and exciting news," he said, branding the announcement a commitment to "the Golden Age of America."

However, as Epoch AI's research suggests — research based on a dataset that covers "about 10% of all relevant AI chips produced in 2023 and 2024 and about 15% of the chip stocks of the largest companies at the start of 2025" — this would all come with greater power demands.

Epoch AI did note that "AI supercomputers are improving in energy efficiency, but the shift is not quickly enough to offset overall power growth." It also explains why companies like Microsoft, Google, and others have been looking to nuclear power as an alternative to their energy needs.

If the AI trend continues to grow, expect supercomputers to keep growing with it.

• An Amazon VP says the company is still seeing strong demand for data centers.
• A Wells Fargo report suggested AWS was pausing some data center leasing discussions.
• Another February analyst note said Microsoft was stepping back from some data center lease negotiations.

An Amazon executive has hit back at an analyst note suggesting the company is pausing its data center expansion plans.

Kevin Miller, a vice president of global data centers at Amazon Web Services, said in a Monday LinkedIn post that there is still "strong demand" for the company to deliver access to infrastructure at the heart of the AI boom.

Earlier on Monday, Wells Fargo published a research note that said its analysts had "heard from several industry sources" that AWS had paused some of its data center leasing discussions.

The analysts said those discussions had been on the "colocation side," a strategy in which a hyperscaler like AWS rents space in a third-party data center.

The note, titled "Data Centers: AWS Goes on Pause," said that "it's not clear yet whether AWS slowing some leases is an area of concern."

The analysts explained that there can sometimes be a "digestion" period lasting six to 12 months in which leasing activity slows before picking up again.

Miller said in his LinkedIn post that AWS has learned to "consider multiple options in parallel" following almost two decades of delivering data center capacity.

"Some options might end up costing too much, while others might not deliver when we need the capacity," Miller said. "Other times, we find that we need more capacity in one location and less in another."

While Miller referred to this as "routine capacity management," the report is likely to have sparked concern among investors who have looked at data center demand as a signal of how much momentum there is for AI services.

Data centers have become an increasingly important asset in the generative AI boom, as companies like AWS have used them to host servers loaded with chips that can train and host the models that lead the industry today.

Earlier this year, Big Tech companies showed they were all in on the AI boom by collectively lining up over $300 billion in AI infrastructure spend.

But in February, Microsoft's shares fell 1.3% after a report from an analyst at TD Cowen said the company was stepping back from negotiations on leases for data centers in multiple markets.

An Amazon spokesperson referred BI to Miller's LinkedIn post.

• Google just upgraded its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5.
• Flash is an AI model that allows you to give it a "thinking budget."
• Developers can now calibrate how much thinking Google's Gemini model does for any task.

Google just rolled out an upgraded version of its latest AI model, with a new feature letting you "turn thinking on or off."

On Thursday, the tech giant rolled out an early version of Gemini 2.5 Flash, an updated version of the 2.5 model it released in March.

That model — a so-called "thinking" model — was dubbed Google's most intelligent one to date, given its ability to reason through ideas before responding.

However, Google is now ready to let you choose how much this new model thinks. And if you really want to, you can tell it to stop thinking completely.

In a blog post, Google Gemini's director of product management, Tulsee Doshi, said that developers can "set thinking budgets to find the right tradeoff between quality, cost, and latency."

The new feature aims to address the intense processing and computing requirements of a new wave of "reasoning" models that have spurred interest across the AI industry, including OpenAI's o3, released on Wednesday.

Google's new model aims to ensure that its reasoning model uses only as much processing power as necessary and applies it only when needed.

Doshi noted that not all tasks require the same reasoning. For example, the reasoning needed to answer "How many provinces does Canada have?" is different from asking AI to calculate the maximum bending stress on a cantilever beam of particular dimensions, she said.

To allocate different levels of reasoning abilities to user queries, Google will allow developers to set a "thinking budget" that Doshi said will offer "fine-grained control" over the number of tokens — units of data — a model generates while operating.

The move to introduce a "thinking budget" also follows a wider shift in the industry to become more "efficient" in the use of computing power.

This followed the release of a reasoning model in January from Chinese startup DeepSeek that claimed to use less computing power.

• There are a lot of AI models, and it can be tricky to know which are best.
• Tech companies often use "benchmarks" to measure how an AI model performs.
• But industry observers are becoming increasingly wary of benchmark reliability.

It's hard to pick the best AI to help you in work and life. What about GPT-4o, 4.5, 4.1, o1, o1-pro, o3-mini, or o3-mini-high? If not OpenAI, you can go for one of the many models put out by Meta, Google, or Anthropic.

This year has already seen at least a dozen model releases from major AI companies, and it can be confusing to decipher which really have a competitive edge. Developers of most of those releases claimed their AI had superior "benchmark" results in some way.

But that way of comparing them has faced concerns that they might not be rigorous or reliable.

Earlier this month, Meta released two new models in its Llama family that it said delivered "better results" than comparably sized models from Google and Mistral. However, Meta then faced accusations that it had gamed a benchmark.

LMArena, an AI benchmark that crowdsources user votes on model performance, said that Meta "should have made it clearer" that it had submitted a version of Llama 4 Maverick that had been "customized" to perform better for its testing format.

"Meta's interpretation of our policy did not match what we expect from model providers," LMArena said in an X post.

A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that "'Llama-4-Maverick-03-26-Experimental' is a chat-optimized version we experimented with that also performs well on LMArena."

They added: "We have now released our open source version and will see how developers customize Llama 4 for their own use cases."

The benchmark problem

The saga speaks to wider issues the AI industry has increasingly had with benchmarks.

Companies spending billions of dollars developing AI have a lot riding on releasing models that are more powerful than the last, which cognitive scientist and AI researcher Gary Marcus says can be problematic.

"Nowadays, with a lot of money resting on performance on benchmarks, it becomes very tempting for Big Tech companies to create training data that 'teaches to the test,' and then the benchmarks tend to lose even more validity," Marcus, who has criticized areas of the AI industry he sees as overhyped, told BI.

There's also the question of whether benchmarks are measuring the right things.

In a February paper titled "Can we trust AI Benchmarks? An interdisciplinary review of current issues in AI evaluation," researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Center concluded that major issues exist in today's approach.

The researchers said there are "systemic flaws in current benchmarking practices," which are "fundamentally shaped by cultural, commercial and competitive dynamics that often prioritize state-of-the-art performance at the expense of broader societal concerns."

Similarly, Dean Valentine, cofounder and CEO of AI security startup ZeroPath, said a March blog post that "Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit."

In his post, Valentine said that he and his team had been evaluating the performance of different models claiming to have "some sort of improvement" since the release of Anthropic's 3.5 Sonnet in June 2024.

None of the new models his team tried had made a "significant difference" in his company's internal benchmarks or in developers' abilities to find new bugs, he said. They might have been "more fun to talk to," he added, but they were "not reflective of economic usefulness or generality."

As he put it, "If the industry can't figure out how to measure even the intellectual ability of models now, while they are mostly confined to chatrooms," it's hard to see how more complex AI could be accurately measured in the future.

Benchmarks can be a 'good compass'

Nathan Habib, a machine learning engineer at Hugging Face, told BI that the problem with many arena-style benchmarks is that they skew towards human preference through crowdsourced votes, which means "you can optimize your model for likability rather than capability."

"For benchmarks to truly serve the community, we need several safeguards: up-to-date data, reproducible results, neutral third-party evaluations, and protection against answer contamination," Habib said, pointing to the GAIA benchmark as an example of a tool that does this.

He added that even if benchmarks aren't perfect, "they are still good compasses of where we should go."

According to Marcus, there's no immediate fix. "Making really good tests is hard, and keeping people from gaming those tests can be even harder," he told BI.

He said that many tests try to measure "language understanding," but "it turns out that you can fake out many of these tests by memorizing a lot of stuff, without having a deep understanding of language at all."

Marcus added, "The direct risk is that customers are told that the new systems are better and spend a bunch of money on that premise."

So, how should someone go about navigating the sprawling world of AI models? How can you know what's better out of DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3, Claude 3.5 Haiku, or Claude 3.7 Sonnet?

"When it comes to selecting the right model among countless 'state-of-the-art' claims, remember that the best model isn't the one that wins every benchmark; it's the one that solves your specific problem elegantly," Clémentine Fourrier, an AI research scientist at Hugging Face, told BI.

"Don't chase the model with the highest score; chase the model that scores highest on what matters to you," she said

• Apple wants to improve its AI tools, such as email summaries, while protecting user privacy.
• It says it's figured out a way to do just that.
• A blog from the company said it's using techniques to train its AI without collecting user data.

Apple says it has found a way to improve its AI without sacrificing one of its core values: user privacy.

As rivals like Meta and xAI have advanced their AI by training them on user data, Apple's own AI has faltered as the iPhone maker stuck to its creed that privacy is a "fundamental human right."

Now, Apple is having a careful rethink about its approach to the user data it aggressively protects as it looks to play catch-up in Silicon Valley's hottest field.

In a blog post published on Monday, the company said it was "developing new techniques" that would allow it to train its AI — called Apple Intelligence — without collecting "actual emails or text from devices."

Apple's plan is to use more synthetic data — a form of data generated by AI itself — and enhance it by comparing it to real-world data from users opted into the company's Device Analytics program.

"When creating synthetic data, our goal is to produce synthetic sentences or emails that are similar enough in topic or style to the real thing to help improve our models for summarization, but without Apple collecting emails from the device," Apple said in its blog post.

The company shared one example of what this looks like in practice.

First, it can create "a large set of synthetic messages on a variety of topics," such as "Would you like to play tennis tomorrow at 11:30 am?" It said this is done "without any knowledge of individual user emails."

The Apple device of an opted-in user then compares the synthetic emails to "a small sample" of recent real-world emails, checking for similarities. The synthetic emails with the greatest similarities to the real-world samples are the ones Apple then uses to train its AI.

Apple said it would soon start using this approach with opted-in users to improve email summaries.

Apple has already been using a technique called "differential privacy" to gain insight into how a product is used without tracking identifiable information for Genmoji, its custom emojis generated with its AI. It now plans to improve Apple Intelligence features such as Image Playground, Image Wand, and more using that technique.

AI needs quality data

It's hard to understate the importance of data in making AI models.

AI labs at the forefront of development have relied on user data to train large language models capable of understanding a broad scope of human interests. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman describes data as one of three core resources needed to improve model intelligence.

But for Apple — a company that markets itself on strong privacy— putting data to use has been more complex than it might be for others.

In its blog post, Apple said its principles have, to date, ensured that it doesn't use its "users' private personal data or user interactions" when training its foundational models.

Building powerful AI with principles like these in place can be challenging, as AI models have the chance to be smarter when they have more detailed insights to work with.

Under these constraints, Apple has faced criticism over its AI rollout. In March, Apple delayed its overhaul of its AI assistant Siri — a rare move for a company known for its polished product roadmaps.

In January, Apple temporarily disabled AI summaries of news notifications following criticism from media outlets over concerns that AI generates factual errors.

Apple will hope that its new strategy will provide a much-needed boost to catch up to rivals who might pay less heed to data privacy.

• Apple looked like it was off the hook for some tariffs.
• Then Donald Trump said there wasn't a tariff "exception" for tech products.
• The iPhone maker still doesn't know if it'll be free of tariffs that could impose high costs on China imports.

It was good while it lasted, but Apple's reprieve was short-lived.

On Friday, the iPhone maker appeared to be largely off the hook from Donald Trump's China tariffs after the US Customs and Border Protection announced an exemption for smartphones, laptops, and other tech gadgets.

That would have come as a relief to Apple CEO Tim Cook after the company had been hit by 145% tariffs on the goods it manufactures and assembles from its supply chain hub in China.

But on Sunday, there came a switch-up from Trump: he said the US tech industry wouldn't be free from additional tariffs after all.

Instead, tech products would be shifted to a different category of tariffs in the future, Trump said in a post to his social media plaform Truth Social.

"There was no Tariff 'exception' announced on Friday," Trump wrote. "These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff 'bucket.'"

He added, "We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick backed this position in an ABC News interview on Sunday and confirmed that tariffs affecting iPhones may return in the next month or so.

The Trump administration has said its tariff strategy aims to bring more tech manufacturing to the US.

But where does this rapidly evolving situation leave Apple?

In the short term, it seems better than last week.

Apple was coming off its worst three-day stock decline since 2001, while analysts had predicted doom scenarios in which iPhones could cost consumers over $2,000 if it passed on costs to consumers.

The Friday exemptions were backdated to April 5. That's not insignificant for Apple, which Counterpoint Research estimates makes as much as 80% of its iPhones intended for the US in China.

So far, the market has reacted positively. Apple shares were up more than 3% on Monday morning. But any moves this week that put Trump's words on Truth Social into action could sour sentiment again.

This all subjects Apple to a constant whiplashing as it finds itself caught up in Trump's tariff strategy, and means it can't catch a break at all at a time when it's facing challenges elsewhere.

It's not just tariffs

On one front, Apple has been facing a steady decline in its sales in its most important international market: China.

There, domestic competitors like Huawei and Xiaomi have been putting out smartphones that rival the iPhone at aggressive prices. Apple's share of the smartphone market in the final quarter of 2024 totaled 17% — down from the 21% it held a year prior.

The company is also facing challenges turning big new bets unveiled last year into hits. Its AI push with Apple Intelligence has suffered — an AI feature for Siri has been delayed — and the Vision Pro headset is struggling to capture the interest of consumers and developers.

However, there are positives for Apple. Figures published on Monday by Counterpoint show that Apple is in the top spot of the smartphone market in the first quarter for the first time ever — a feat helped by the release of its cheaper iPhone 16e. Despite the recent sell-off, it remains one of the world's most valuable companies with hugely popular products, such as its smartwatches.

There is also the possibility that Cook may be able to secure an exemption as he did during Trump's first term. The Apple CEO can hope that his years of effort building a tight relationship with Trump will pay off. For now, though, Apple can't catch a break.

• Deepak Singh leads AWS' Q Developer team and thinks vibe coding can be a game changer for developers.
• Singh told BI that conversations with customers haven't been about replacing human developers with AI.
• "The reason vibe coding is such a vibe" is because developers enjoy using it, Singh said.

Vibe coding is shaking up software development, and an Amazon executive in charge of developing the company's AI agents thinks it's here to stay.

Deepak Singh, vice president of Amazon Web Services' developer agents and experiences division, told Business Insider that software developers are using increasingly powerful AI agents to improve their productivity.

"The way I like to state it is your AI software has gone from 'help me type faster' — a coding companion — to being a true pair programmer that helps you build your software by working with you," Singh said.

Vibe coding is a term coined in February by OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy to describe giving AI prompts to write code. As he puts it, developers can "fully give in to the vibes" and "forget the code even exists."

While some fear vibe coding may mean fewer software developer roles, Singh said conversations with customers haven't revolved around finding ways of replacing human workers with AI agents.

Others, like Singh, see vibe coding as a way for developers to free up their time to focus on more important aspects of their jobs — such as problem-solving.

"A really good engineer is one that can take a problem, shine a light upon it, and clarify," Singh said, pointing to tenets Amazon lays out for its legions of software developers and engineers. "It's not just about writing the most complex code. It's about simplifying a complex problem."

Developers have long been interested in how AI can help them. When ChatGPT first arrived in late 2022, developers were quick to adopt the generative AI tool to help them code — even if the chatbot was prone to generating errors.

Back then, developers could find value by getting generative AI to help speed up the line-by-line process of writing code. They could "add a command and have the command write the code for them," as Singh put it.

This year, tech companies have been launching a growing number of AI models with the ability to reason and spend longer on problems — a key reason vibe coding is having its moment. Amazon made Q Developer, its own AI assistant for software developers, generally available in April 2024. This week, the company unveiled a feature for developers to interact with Q in different languages, such as Spanish, Korean, or Hindi.

For Singh, the best developers are those who are "very clear in the guidance they're giving the AI." They're the ones who are able to "move very quickly," he said.

Some AWS customers appear to be successfully vibe coding. Singh gave the example of the National Australia Bank, claiming that half the code that goes into production is from Q Developer, not handwritten by a human at the bank, he said.

"The reason vibe coding is such a vibe, no pun intended, is because developers enjoy it and they're able to make progress," Singh said.

• Apple has overcome a request from the UK government to keep its legal battle over iPhone data secret.
• The UK government wants to be able to access data stored on the iPhone's Advanced Data Protection system.
• Apple rolled back ADP from iPhones in the UK in February in response.

Apple has won its bid to stop a high-stakes legal battle with the UK government over its privacy-enhancing iPhone feature from being held in total secret.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal rejected a request on Monday from the UK government to keep all the details of Apple's legal challenge private.

The iPhone maker has been battling demands from the UK's Home Office to create a back door to its cloud systems that hold private user data.

The ruling from the independent judicial body strikes a blow to the UK government, which first issued Apple with a "technical capability notice" in January. It cited the Investigatory Powers Act introduced in 2016 to justify access to encrypted user data.

The UK government fought to keep the battle with Apple behind closed doors, citing concerns that "it would be damaging to national security" if details around Apple's case were published, the ruling published on Monday by tribunal judges said.

The judges, however, rejected a request from the UK's Home Office for the case's "bare details" to be kept secret, citing "open justice" as a fundamental principle after several media organizations called for transparency.

"We do not accept the revelation of the bare details of the case would be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security," the court said.

The ruling raises the stakes in a tense standoff between the world's most valuable company and the UK government.

Apple said in February it could no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) — its most sophisticated security system — to customers in the UK after receiving the request.

Apple's website says it has "never created a backdoor or master key" to any of its products or services, and that "it has never allowed any government direct access to Apple servers."

"We do not comment on legal proceedings," a Home Office spokesperson told Business Insider. "Nor do we comment on operational matters, including confirming or denying the existence of individual notices."

Apple said it had no comment on the tribunal's decision and instead pointed BI to its February statement.

The case has drawn sharp scrutiny in the US, with President Donald Trump likening the UK government's encryption laws to those seen in China.

It has also led US congressmen to demand US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to intervene over fears that the UK government's request could result in Apple user data around the world being at risk.

Rebecca Vincent, the interim director of Big Brother Watch, a British civil liberties and privacy campaigning organization, welcomed the tribunal's decision.

"The Home Office's order to break encryption represents a massive attack on the privacy rights of millions of British Apple users, which is a matter of significant public interest and must not be considered behind closed doors," Vincent said.

Big Brother Watch made a submission to the court alongside Open Rights Group and Index on Censorship to argue against proceedings being held in secret.

• Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs sparked a major sell-off in the iPhone maker on Thursday.
• Investors are spooked after Trump slapped heavy tariffs on its key supply chain hubs, such as China.
• It was Apple's biggest one-day drop in five years.

Apple has suffered its biggest one-day drop in five years after Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs sparked a roughly $300 billion sell-off among investors panicking over their potential impact on the world's most valuable company.

The iPhone maker suffered a roughly 9% drop at market close on Thursday as investors digested the impact of the president's tariff plans, which included a 54% effective tariff rate on China, the central hub for Apple's vast supply chain operations.

Trump slapped China with a 34% tariff in addition to an existing 20% tariff — a move that threatens to raise the cost of imports from Apple's most important manufacturing and assembly base.

Apple's yearslong efforts to diversify its supply chain away from China were also squashed by Trump's plans. Fast-growing hubs in Apple's supply chain, including India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, were hit with tariffs well above Trump's 10% global baseline rate.

Though Apple secured an exemption from the tariffs Trump imposed in his first term, there are no signs yet that Apple will be able to secure a similar exemption this time. Apple's market capitalization fell to $3 trillion, wiping almost nine months of gains.

Trump's tariffs add further woes to Apple, which has faced a difficult few months as investor concerns over iPhone sales and future bets such as Apple Intelligence and the Vision Pro have weighed on its stock. Shares are down more than 16% year-to-date.

The tariff plans have raised concerns among analysts about the potential hit to consumer demand for iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and other Apple products if the company decides to raise prices to counter the spiraling costs it would face from tariffs.

Srini Pajjuri, an analyst at investment bank Raymond James, wrote in a research note published Thursday that Apple would "need to raise US hardware prices by about 30%, all else equal," to fully offset the tariff impact on earnings per share.

If the company chooses not to raise prices, analysts forecast a significant hit to its profit margins, which have long been prized by investors.

Apple was not the only tech company whose shares took a hit on Thursday, with Nvidia down about 7.8% and Tesla down about 5.5%.

The Dow Jones Index closed down nearly 4%, while the S&P was down over 4.8%.

Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.