The case against Google, Nvidia's chip win, and Mark Zuckerberg's AI friends: Tech news roundup

Plus, Facebook stole our reporter's book to train its AI. The insult wasn’t the money

ByQuartz Staff Quartz Intelligence Newsroom

2 / 11

It started with an email from my literary agent.

“You might’ve heard about LibGen and books being used to train AI,” she wrote. “A search of the database shows that Poe for Your Problems is on the list.”

3 / 11

Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said AI has revived a dying San Francisco that many thought wouldn’t recover from the pandemic.

“It’s because of AI that San Francisco is back,” Huang said while speaking to Jacob Helberg, Trump’s undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, at The Hill & Valley Forum.

4 / 11

The U.S. government plans to withdraw a rule introduced under the Biden administration that had aimed to restrict exports of advanced AI chips — a policy that had posed challenges for major semiconductor companies like Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD).

5 / 11

The government is finally moving to break up Google’s search monopoly — just as the real battle has shifted to artificial intelligence.

6 / 11

The Department of Justice wants Google (GOOGL) to clear more than just its cache. In a pair of antitrust lawsuits happening right now, the federal government is looking to spin off key pillars of the tech giant’s empire — namely its ad tech business and Chrome browser.

7 / 11

Meta’s (META) Mark Zuckerberg built his career on the idea that you have friends. Now he’s concerned that you don’t have enough, so he’d like to invent some for you.

8 / 11

Amazon’s robotaxi company Zoox (AMZN) issued a voluntary software recall following a crash in Las Vegas.

Zoox said in a post on Tuesday that it made the decision after an incident where one of its unoccupied robotaxis hit a passenger vehicle in Las Vegas, Nevada. “No injuries were reported, and only minor damage occurred to both vehicles,” the company said.

9 / 11

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is exploring how to incorporate AI-powered search engines on its devices — and it’s sending Google’s (GOOGL) share price tumbling.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, revealed that the company is “actively looking at” how to fold AI into its existing Safari browser, Bloomberg reports. The comments were made during Cue’s testimony in the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Alphabet Inc. on Wednesday.

10 / 11

The founder of cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday.

Alex Mashinsky, the company’s former CEO, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and commodities fraud in December.

Federal prosecutors said Mashinsky artificially boosted the value of Celsius’ Cel token and profited more than $48 million as a result. Prosecutors led by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton also said Mashinsky misled customers about Celsius’ safety.

11 / 11

Cisco Systems (CSCO) became the latest tech company to announce a new quantum computing chip, following similar announcements in recent months from Google, IBM, and Microsoft. With each new development, the timeline for the technology to scale up and see use in real-world situations gets shorter and shorter.