Nvidia has become the first chipmaker to hit a $1tn valuation, leading a surge of enthusiasm across Wall Street for companies seen to benefit from the latest developments in artificial intelligence. Its shares rose more than 4 per cent to hit $406.1 in early trading in New York on Tuesday, after its chief executive Jensen
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A group of chief executives and scientists from companies including OpenAI and Google DeepMind has warned the threat to humanity from the fast-developing technology rivals that of nuclear conflict and disease. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” said a
Consider for a moment what Donald Trump gives to his average follower. Membership in a vast nationwide communion of like-minded people. A paternal figure in a confusing world. The frisson of transgression: middle-aged whites don’t often in life get to play the rebel. Next to all this, what is the marginal benefit of seeing him
Spanish inflation has dropped to 2.9 per cent, its lowest level for almost two years, boosting hopes that price pressures will ease quickly across the eurozone. Economists said the bigger than expected fall was good news for the European Central Bank, suggesting that inflation data for the rest of the eurozone published later this week
Moscow came under attack by several drones on Tuesday morning, Russian officials said, exposing the capital’s vulnerability to retaliation over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The barrage shortly after sunrise came as Russia launched another wave of air strikes on Kyiv, killing at least one person, hospitalising others and forcing the evacuation of a
Chinese stocks in Hong Kong fell into bear market territory amid mounting doubts about the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy and rising tensions between Washington and Beijing Declines for the Hang Seng China Enterprises index during Asian trading on Tuesday pushed it 20 per cent lower from its peak in January, placing it in
Supermarket chain Asda has agreed to buy the UK and Irish operations of petrol station group EG Group in a £2.3bn deal. The acquisition has been masterminded by the billionaire Issa brothers who co-own Asda and EG Group, which also operates petrol stations in the US, Australia and parts of Europe. Zuber Issa said on
David Handler made sure he signed the documents this time. Last summer, the veteran investment banker authorised and delivered a formal request to his then employer, Centerview Partners, seeking confidential details about its financial performance. He believed Centerview’s two founding partners, Blair Effron and Robert Pruzan, had been seeking to expel him from the firm,
First there was a mysterious drone strike on the Kremlin. Next came an “invasion” whose embarrassing implications for Moscow could prompt it to divert front-line troops to border regions. Then, late last week, Ukraine launched a marine drone attack on a Russian spy ship in the Black Sea. Ahead of Kyiv’s long-expected counter-offensive, when it
In 1984, the journalist Steven Levy wrote a great article about the electronic spreadsheet, a new invention which was saving people huge amounts of time. He told the story of an accountant who got “a rush task, sat down with his micro and his spreadsheet, finished it in an hour or two, and left it
A German start-up has secured initial funding to develop a revolutionary fusion energy machine that it hopes can provide a future source of abundant, emissions-free power. Proxima Fusion, incorporated in January, aims to build a complex device known as a stellarator and is the latest company to join the emerging fusion industry’s effort to generate
Beijing has declined the Pentagon’s request for a meeting between US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and China’s defence minister Li Shangfu at a security forum in Singapore in June, the latest sign of the difficulties the countries are having trying to stabilise their turbulent relationship. The overture had been made for a meeting to take
UK shop price inflation reached its highest rate for at least 18 years in May, despite the pace of food price growth marginally easing, according to new sector data. The cost of shop items rose at an annual rate of 9 per cent last month, up from 8.8 per cent in April, marking the fastest
Labour is drawing up plans that would force landowners to sell plots for a fraction of their potential market price in an effort to cut home-building costs in England, according to party officials. Lisa Nandy, shadow levelling-up secretary, intends to reform how land is valued when acquired by councils through “compulsory purchase orders” (CPOs), if
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez, whose career has been marked by near death experiences and audacious gambles, has made his most daring bet yet by calling a snap general election the day after he was rebuked by voters. Sánchez struck a tone of chastened humility as he announced a poll five months earlier than expected
The government is locked in a stand-off with the official Covid-19 inquiry as ministers refused to hand over unredacted messages from Boris Johnson during his time as prime minister. The inquiry, chaired by Lady Heather Hallett, has given the Cabinet Office until Tuesday to hand over Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and diaries as part of its
India’s top investigative agency has filed a criminal complaint accusing Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems of engaging in corruption over historic deals to supply fighter jets to the country. The Central Bureau of Investigation alleged that the companies had between 2003 and 2012 engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to “cheat the government of India” over deals
Turkey’s lira weakened in the aftermath of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s re-election, as analysts warned that the next big test for the victorious president would be addressing the country’s shaky $900bn economy. Many economists argue that Erdogan’s policies of low interest rates and emergency measures to prop up the currency cannot continue. The lira hovered around
What makes an ideal graduate? One answer, which has become more attractive to me as I have grown older, is that the ideal graduate is someone who treats the senior people in their organisation with unquestioned deference. But a more useful answer is: the ideal graduate would earn enough to have limited housing costs and
Kyiv was hit by another barrage of missile attacks hours after Russia conducted a second day of overnight strikes on the capital and other targets including an air base in western Ukraine. “Only six hours after the night attack, the aggressor country again launched a missile attack on Kyiv,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military
The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago It’s been a rough few decades for American horseracing — and the past few weeks could mark a new low point for the sport of kings. This should be prime time for the sport: for a magical few weeks in spring and summer, three-year-olds compete in