Microsoft

U.S. chip titan Intel on Tuesday struck a defiant tone in the face of strong challenges from rivals Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm, unveiling technologies it said would lead the artificial intelligence revolution.

AMD on Monday announced its new artificial intelligence chips for everything from cutting-edge data centres to advanced laptops, ramping up its challenge to the runaway market leader Nvidia.

Demand has exploded in the past two years for the specialised processors that help develop, train and run AI applications such as ChatGPT.

Amazon's cloud computing division AWS will invest 15.7 billion euros ($17 billion) to expand its data centres in Spain's Aragon region through to 2033, the US tech giant said Wednesday.

Capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere to store underground "sounds too good to be true", a climate expert told AFP, yet the technology to increase its capacity tenfold is already being tested.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognises carbon capture and storage among the solutions for eliminating CO2, without giving it a central place in its models.

The pandemic catapulted Greece into the digital era, with the rapid adoption of e-government services. And in the aftermath, the Greek RRF - Greece 2.0 - featured innovation and digitalization as a prominent pillar for the new Greek economy, with a budget in excess of 30 billion euros.

Microsoft pledged a $2.2 billion investment in artificial intelligence and cloud computing in Malaysia on Thursday to help develop the country's AI infrastructure.

The tech giant's chief executive Satya Nadella is on a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia — Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia — to announce a range of investments in data centres, AI and cloud services.

Microsoft said Wednesday it would create Thailand's first data centre region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 Thais to develop tech.

Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry.

Microsoft's chief executive officer met the president of Indonesia on Tuesday, pledging a $1.7 billion investment in artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help develop the archipelago's AI infrastructure.

The chief executives of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are among the high-profile members of a new federal board created to advise the U.S. government on the "safe and secure" development of artificial intelligence.

Traders are lookling ahead this week to the release of key U.S. inflation data and corporate earnings.

With Iran downplaying Israel's reported attack on the country, tensions between the regional rivals cooled.

While the situation remains tense, the lack of escalation over the weekend provided traders with an opportunity to pick up equities and helped push oil down.