AI will disrupt the labor market within five to ten years and force Americans to rely on investment returns rather than wages for income, according to Vlad Tenev, chief executive of stock trading firm Robinhood. Tenev told Fortune that "if you can't rely on labor to generate money to make a living, capital becomes more important."

The brokerage chief said private companies and government must make investing easier from an early age. He cited the proposed Invest America Act, included in congressional reconciliation legislation, which would provide every newborn with $1,000 in an investment account. Tenev said the policy represents preparation for an economy where "humans comprise less than 1% of the total intelligence" as AI systems advance beyond current capabilities.

Investment research firm Bernstein warned Thursday that India faces a "strategic tech crisis" as US technology giants deploy predatory pricing strategies to lock up the Indian AI market. Perplexity Pro launched free for one year to Airtel's 350 million subscribers while OpenAI introduced a $5 monthly India subscription compared to $20 in the United States.

Bernstein analysts described regulatory "double standards" where foreign tech companies receive favorable treatment while domestic companies face what the firm called "crushing rules and government-led 'tech stacks' that make private business unviable." Private AI investment in India totaled $11.29 billion between 2013 and 2024 compared to $471 billion in the United States and $119 billion in China. From the report: When OpenAI, which is reportedly looking to set up a data center in India, announced the plans to launch a new office, it was met with another round of excitement -- "as if Open AI will hire all Indians at hefty salaries," the firm wrote in a note to clients Thursday. Bernstein analysts pour cold water on this excitement, dismissing it as a "repeat of the 90s" and arguing that the hype misses the fundamental power imbalance.

"Anyone, we repeat anyone, can build a data center... This is the start of the dominance of US tech in Indian AI environment ensuring Indian entrepreneurs do not get a fighting chance to stay relevant. They will run on the sidelines - piggybacking on the US foundation models or maybe even the Chinese," they wrote.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon.com must face a class action on behalf of hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers over claims that the online retail giant overcharged for products sold by third-party sellers, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled. U.S. District Judge John Chun in an order (PDF) unsealed on Friday certified a nationwide class involving 288 million customers and billions of transactions, marking one of the largest-ever in the United States.

The class includes buyers in the United States who purchased five or more new goods from third-party sellers on Amazon since May 26, 2017. The consumers' 2021 lawsuit said Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on rival platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. Amazon's policies have allowed the company to impose inflated fees on sellers, causing shoppers to pay higher prices for purchases, the lawsuit said. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing. It has already appealed Chun's class certification order, which was first issued under seal on Aug. 6.

Amazon argued that the class was too large to be manageable and that the plaintiffs failed to show its alleged conduct had a widespread effect. Amazon also said that since 2019 it has not used a pricing program that the plaintiffs challenged. Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.

The U.S. government site climate.gov offered years' worth of climate-science information — until its production team was fired earlier this summer. The site "is technically still online, but has been intentionally buried by the team of political appointees who now run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration," reports the Guardian.

But now "a team of climate communication experts — including many members of the former climate.gov team — is working to resurrect its content into a new organization with an expanded mission." Their effort's new website, climate.us, would not only offer public-facing interpretations of climate science, but could also begin to directly offer climate-related services, such as assisting local governments with mapping increased flooding risk due to climate change. The effort is being led by climate.gov's former managing editor, Rebecca Lindsey, who, although now unemployed, has recruited several of her former colleagues to volunteer their time in an attempt to build climate.us into a thriving non-profit organization... "None of us were ready to let go of climate.gov and the mission...." Lindsey's new team has received a steady flow of outside support, including legal support, and a short-term grant that has helped them develop a vision for what they'd like to do next...

As multiyear veterans of the federal bureaucracy, at times they've been surprised by the possibilities that the new effort might offer. "We're allowed to use TikTok now," said Lindsey. "We're allowed to have a little bit of fun...

The climate.us team is also in the process of soft-launching a crowdsourced fundraising drive that Lindsey hopes they can leverage into more permanent support from a major foundation.... "[W]e do not yet have the sort of large operational funding that we will need if we're going to actually transition climate.gov operations to the non-profit space." In the meantime, Lindsey and her team have found themselves spending the summer knee-deep in the logistics of building a major non-profit from scratch.

Intel amended its deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce "to remove earlier project milestones," reports Reuters, "and received about $5.7 billion in cash sooner than planned."

"The move will give Intel more flexibility over the funds." The amended agreement, which revises a November 2024 funding deal, retains some guardrails that prevent the chipmaker from using the funds for dividends and buybacks, doing certain control-changing deals and from expanding in certain countries.
The move makes the Wall Street Journal wonder what, beyond equity, the U.S. now gets in return, calling government's position "a stake without a strategy." The U.S. has historically shied away from putting money into private business. It can't really outguess the market on where the most promising returns lie. Yet there are exceptions. Sometimes a company or industry risks failing without public support, and that failure would hurt the whole country, not just its shareholders and employees. Intel meets both conditions. It isn't failing, but it is losing money, its core business is in decline, and it lacks the capital and customers needed to make the most advanced semiconductors. If Intel were to fail, it would take a sizable chunk of the semiconductor industrial base with it. At a time of existential competition with China, that is a national emergency...

[U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick] said as a shareholder, the U.S. would help Intel "to create the most advanced chips in the world." And yet the deal doesn't provide Intel with new resources to accomplish that. Rather, to get the remaining $9 billion, Intel had to give the U.S. equity. This is more like a tax than an investment: Shareholders gave up a 10th of their ownership in return for money the company was supposed to get anyway... Some of the administration's forays into private business do reflect strategic thinking, such as the Pentagon's 15% stake in MP Materials in exchange for investment and contracts that help make the company a viable alternative to China as a supplier of rare-earth magnets for products such as automobiles, wind turbines, jet fighters and missile systems. But more often, companies recoil from government ownership...

Though the U.S. stake dilutes Intel's existing shareholders, its stock has held up. There could be several reasons. It eliminates uncertainty over whether the remaining $9 billion in federal funds will be forthcoming... [B]ecause Washington has a vested interest in Intel's share price, investors believe it may prod companies such as Nvidia and Apple to buy more of its chips.
But that only goes so far, the article seems to conclude, offering this quote from an analyst Bernstein investment research. "If Intel can prove they can make these leading-edge products in high volume that meets specifications at a good cost structure, they'll have customers lined up around the block. If they can't prove they can do it, what customer will put meaningful volume to them regardless of what pressure the U.S. government brings to bear?"

CBS News also notes the U.S. government stake "is being criticized by conservatives and some economic policy experts alike, who worry such extensive government intervention undermines free enterprise."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the news.

DOD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has halted a decade-old Microsoft program that has allowed Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to work on sensitive DOD cloud systems. In a digital video address to the public posted yesterday, the secretary said DOD was made aware of the "digital escorts" program last month and that the program has exposed the Defense Department to unacceptable risk -- despite being designed to comply with government contracting rules.

"If you're thinking 'America first,' and common sense, this doesn't pass either of those tests," Hegseth said, adding that he initiated an immediate review of the program upon learning of it. "I want to report our initial findings. ... The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments? It's over," he said. Additionally, Hegseth said DOD has issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting a breach of trust, and that DOD is requiring a third-party audit of the digital escorts program to pore over the code and submissions made by Chinese nationals. The audit will be free of charge to U.S. taxpayers, he said.

A newly published Investigatory Powers Tribunal filing indicates the UK government's Technical Capability Notice to Apple went beyond the company's Advanced Data Protection encryption to include standard iCloud services used by millions [non-paywalled source]. The document states the UK Home Office order "is not limited to" ADP data and applies "globally in respect of the relevant data categories of all iCloud users."

The filing emerged days after Trump administration officials claimed the UK had agreed to drop efforts targeting American citizens' data. Apple launched its legal challenge in March after receiving the TCN, which the company cannot discuss publicly under the Investigatory Powers Act. The tribunal scheduled a hearing for early next year. Apple withdrew ADP from UK customers in February.

A central Japanese town wants to limit smartphone use for all its 69,000 residents to two hours a day, in a move that has sparked intense debate on device addiction. From a report: The proposal, believed to be the first of its kind in Japan, is currently being debated by lawmakers after being submitted by Toyoake municipal government in Aichi earlier this week. Toyoake's mayor said the proposal -- which only applies outside of work and study -- would not be strictly enforced, but rather was meant to "encourage" residents to better manage their screen time.

There will be no penalties for breaking the rule, which will be passed in October if approved by lawmakers. "The two hour limit... is merely a guideline... to encourage citizens," Toyoake Mayor Masafumi Koki said in a statement. "This does not mean the city will limit its residents' rights or impose duties," he said.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that the Department of Commerce will begin publishing GDP statistics on the blockchain, touting it as part of President Trump's push to make America a "crypto government." CoinTelegraph reports: Lutnick made the announcement during a White House cabinet meeting on Tuesday, describing the effort as a move to expand blockchain-based data distribution across government agencies. Speaking to US President Donald Trump and other government officials, he said: "The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president, and we are going to put our GDP on the blockchain so people can use it for data and distribution." Lutnick said the initiative will begin with GDP figures and could expand across federal departments after the Commerce Department finishes "ironing out all of the details" for the implementation.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over half of the British public are worried about the impact of AI on their jobs, according to employment unions, which want the UK government to adopt a "worker first" strategy rather than simply allowing corporations to ditch employees for algorithms. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, says it found that people are concerned about the way AI is being adopted by businesses and want a say in how the technology is used at their workplace and the wider economy.

It warns that without such a "worker-first plan," use of "intelligent" algorithms could lead to even greater social inequality in the country, plus the kind of civil unrest that goes along with that. The TUC says it wants conditions attached to the tens of billions in public money being spent on AI research and development to ensure that workers are supported and retrained rather than deskilled or replaced. It also wants guardrails in place so that workers are protected from "AI harms" at work, rules to ensure workers are involved in deciding how machine learning is used, and for the government to provide support for those who euphemistically "experience job transitions" as a result of AI disruption.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opened a probe into alleged organized efforts to inject bias into Wikipedia entries and the organization's responses. Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), chair of the panel's subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology, and government innovation, on Wednesday sent an information request on the matter to Maryana Iskander, chief executive officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia. The request, the lawmakers said in the letter (PDF), is part of an investigation into "foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion."

The panel is seeking documents and communications about Wikipedia volunteer editors who violated the platform's policies, as well as the Wikimedia Foundation's efforts to "thwart intentional, organized efforts to inject bias into important and sensitive topics." "Multiple studies and reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at Western audiences," Comer and Mace wrote in the letter. They referenced a report from the Anti-Defamation League about anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia that detailed a coordinated campaign to manipulate content related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and similar issues, as well as an Atlantic Council report on pro-Russia actors using Wikipedia to push pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukrainian messaging, which can influence how artificial intelligence chatbots are trained.

"[The Wikimedia] foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform, has acknowledged taking actions responding to misconduct by volunteer editors who effectively create Wikipedia's encyclopedic articles. The Committee recognizes that virtually all web-based information platforms must contend with bad actors and their efforts to manipulate. Our inquiry seeks information to help our examination of how Wikipedia responds to such threats and how frequently it creates accountability when intentional, egregious, or highly suspicious patterns of conduct on topics of sensitive public interest are brought to attention," Comer and Mace wrote. The lawmakers requested information about "the tools and methods Wikipedia utilizes to identify and stop malicious conduct online that injects bias and undermines neutral points of view on its platform," including documents and records about possible coordination of state actors in editing, the kind of accounts that have been subject to review, and and of the panel's analysis of data manipulation or bias. "We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Committee's questions and to discuss the importance of safeguarding the integrity of information on our platform," a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson said.

The FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world warned Wednesday that a Chinese-government hacking campaign that previously penetrated nine U.S. telecommunications companies has expanded into other industries and regions, striking at least 200 American organizations and 80 countries. From a report: The joint advisory was issued with the close allies in the Five Eyes English-language intelligence-sharing arrangement and also agencies from Finland, Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic, an unusually broad array meant to demonstrate global resolve against what intelligence officials said is a pernicious campaign that exceeds accepted norms for snooping.

"The expectation of privacy here was violated, not just in the U.S., but globally," FBI Assistant Director Brett Leatherman, who heads the bureau's cyber division, told The Washington Post in an interview. Chinese hackers won deep access to major communication carriers in the U.S. and elsewhere, then extracted call records and some law enforcement directives, which allowed them to build out a map of who was calling whom and whom the U.S. suspected of spying, Leatherman said. Prominent politicians in both major U.S. parties were among the ultimate victims.

The Document Foundation, which operates the popular open source productivity suite LibreOffice, is positioning the suite's newest release, v25.8, as a strategic asset for digital sovereignty, targeting governments and enterprises seeking independence from foreign software vendors and cloud infrastructure.

The Document Foundation released the update last week with zero telemetry architecture, full offline capability, and OpenPGP encryption for documents, directly addressing national security concerns about extraterritorial surveillance and software backdoors. The suite requires no internet access for any features and maintains complete transparency through open source code that governments can audit. Government bodies in Germany, Denmark, and France, alongside national ministries in Italy and Brazil, have deployed LibreOffice to meet GDPR compliance, national procurement laws, and IT localization mandates while eliminating unpredictable licensing costs from proprietary vendors.

"It's time to own your documents, own your infrastructure, and own your future," the foundation wrote in a blog post.

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Australian video platform Kick over the death of a content creator during a live stream. From a report: Raphael Graven -- also known as Jean Pormanove -- was found dead in a residence near the city of Nice last week. He was known for videos in which he endured apparent violence and humiliation. The Paris prosecutor said the investigation would look into whether Kick knowingly broadcast "videos of deliberate attacks on personal integrity."

The BBC has approached Kick for comment. A spokesperson for the platform previously said the company was "urgently reviewing" the circumstances around Mr Graven's death. The prosecutor's investigation will also seek to determine whether Kick complied with the European Union's Digital Services Act, and the obligation on platforms to notify the authorities if the life or safety of individuals is in question. In a separate announcement, France's minister for digital affairs, Clara Chappaz, said the government would sue the platform for "negligence" over its failure to block "dangerous content", according to the AFP news agency.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Greenhouse gas reduction is no longer a priority for the US government, but if you're looking for a new vehicle and want to buy something with the lowest life cycle carbon emissions, you're best off looking for a compact with a small battery. That's one of the findings from a group at the University of Michigan of a comprehensive study that calculates the overall cradle-to-grave carbon impact for different types of vehicles, including factors like powertrain options, location (within the country), and use patterns. Even better, they built a tool you can use yourself. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, compares internal combustion engine powertrains with hybrid, 35- and 50-mile range plug-in hybrids, and 200-mile, 300-mile, and 400-mile battery electric powertrains across compact and midsize sedans, small and midsize SUVs, and pickup trucks, using a life cycle assessment model developed by Argonne National Laboratory and data of model year 2025 vehicles from the Environmental Protection Agency. If you expected that a gas-powered pickup truck would have the biggest carbon footprint, you'd be right. With a driving profile of 43 percent city driving and the rest highways (no cargo), a pickup will emit about 486 g CO2e per mile. Compared to that, a compact electric sedan with a 200-mile battery has just 17 percent of the life cycle emissions and is responsible for just 81 g CO2e per mile.

A short-range electric pickup -- maybe that Slate that so many are salivating over -- is nearly as good, with a footprint that's only 25 percent the size of the gas pickup truck. On the other hand, hybrid powertrains (the kind that don't plug in) only reduce life cycle carbon compared to internal combustion alone by a modest amount -- between 11 and 13 percent, depending on the vehicle class. Plug-in hybrids with 35 miles of range can reduce emissions compared to plain combustion by 53-56 percent; with 50-mile batteries the reduction is 56-60 percent, assuming the PHEVs were driven in electric mode for 58 percent and 69 percent of the time, respectively. When it comes to BEVs, the smallest battery pack always has the least environmental impact. BEV powertrains with 400 miles of range have lifecycle emissions that are 67-69 percent lower than an ICE powertrain in the same vehicle. For 300-mile BEVs, this is an 81-83 percent reduction. A 200-mile BEV can be expected to contribute just 25-26 percent as much CO2e as an equivalent gas-burning vehicle would.

That's not because EVs with big batteries are inefficient -- far from it -- but because making a battery for an EV is a very energy-intensive process. Most emissions from internal combustion engine (92 percent) and hybrid (89 percent) vehicles come from their use on the roads. But this changes once you start adding significant kWh-worth of battery. For PHEVs, the use phase is more like 73-80 percent, and for BEVs, it's just 48-60 percent, depending on the size of the batteries. The researchers also modeled different driving behaviors, including the use cases of someone who uses their vehicle just to commute and run errands; the "occasional road-tripper," most of whose needs are met by a small battery; and a contractor or someone else who has to drive a lot for work, with varying amounts of cargo onboard. As we've known for some time, where you get your energy from affects how clean your EV will be, and switching from gasoline to an EV has more of an impact in Seattle (which relies on hydropower) versus Cincinnati (where the electricity comes from burning coal), for both PHEVs and BEVs.

The Federal Trade Commission is warning major U.S. tech companies against yielding to foreign government demands that weaken data security, compromise encryption, or impose censorship on their platforms. From a report: FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson signed the letter sent to large American companies like Akamai, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Discord, GoDaddy, Meta, Microsoft, Signal, Snap, Slack, and X (Twitter). Ferguson stresses that weakening data security at the request of foreign governments, especially if they don't alert users about it, would constitute a violation of the FTC Act and expose companies to legal consequences.

Ferguson's letter specifically cites foreign laws such as the EU's Digital Services Act and the UK's Online Safety and Investigatory Powers Acts. Earlier this year, Apple was forced to remove support for iCloud end-to-end encryption in the United Kingdom rather than give in to demands to add a backdoor for the government to access encrypted accounts. The UK's demand would have weakened Apple's encryption globally, but it was retracted last week following U.S. diplomatic pressure.

Intel said Monday that converting $8.87 billion in federal chip subsidies into a 10% equity stake creates unprecedented complications and potential "adverse reactions" for a company deriving 76% of revenue internationally. The arrangement transforms Biden-era CHIPS Act grants into share purchases at $20.74 -- a discount to Friday's $24.80 close -- with the Department of Commerce receiving up to 433 million shares by Tuesday's expected closing.

Foreign governments may impose additional regulations on Intel due to US government ownership, the company warned in securities filings, while the precedent could discourage other nations from offering grants if they expect similar equity conversions. China alone represents 29% of Intel's revenue. The deal also restricts Intel's strategic flexibility, requiring government votes align with board recommendations except on matters affecting federal interests.

The Hill reports: Russian state-sponsored hackers have targeted thousands of networking devices associated with U.S. critical infrastructure sectors over the past year, the FBI warned Wednesday. The cyber actors are associated with the Russian Federal Security Service's (FSB) Center 16 and have taken aim at a vulnerability in certain Cisco devices, according to an agency public service announcement.

In some cases, hackers have been able to modify configuration files to enable unauthorized access, which they have used to conduct reconnaissance on networks. This has "revealed their interest in protocols and applications commonly associated with industrial control systems," the FBI said.

Cisco's threat intelligence research arm, Talos, explained in a separate advisory that a subcluster of this group, which it has named "Static Tundra," is targeting a seven-year-old vulnerability in the company's Smart Install feature. The firm has offered a patch for the vulnerability, but it remains a problem in unpatched and end-of-life network devices, it warned.
"Once they establish initial access to a network device, Static Tundra will pivot further into the target environment, compromising additional network devices and establishing channels for long-term persistence and information gathering," warns the Talos blog. "This is demonstrated by the group's ability to maintain access in target environments for multiple years without being detected."

In a statement emailed to The Register, a Cisco spokesperson "said the company is aware of ongoing exploitation targeting this flaw." "We strongly urge customers to immediately upgrade to fixed software versions as outlined in the security advisory and follow our published security best practices," the spokesperson said, directing customers to the FBI's announcement and Cisco Talos blog for additional details.

The ongoing campaign targets telecommunications, higher education, and manufacturing organizations across North America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, "with victims selected based on their strategic interest to the Russian government," according to Talos researchers Sara McBroom and Brandon White. "We assess that the purpose of this campaign is to compromise and extract device configuration information en masse, which can later be leveraged as needed based on then-current strategic goals and interests of the Russian government," McBroom and White wrote.

And while both security alerts focus on the FSB's latest round of network intrusions, "many other state-sponsored actors also covet the access these devices afford," the Talos team warned. "Organizations should be aware that other advanced persistent threats (APTs) are likely prioritizing carrying out similar operations as well."
Some context from Hot Hardware: Cisco indicated in its advisory that "Only Smart Install client switches are affected by the vulnerability". The list of affected devices is in Table A-1 here. For a successful attack, hackers exploit a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2018-0171. This was a vulnerability that was patched way back in 2018.

The U.S. government's 10% stake in Intel "is a mistake," writes the Washington Post's editorial board, calling Intel "an aging also-ran in critical markets" that "has spent recent years stumbling on execution and missing one strategic opportunity after another."

But TechCrunch points out that the U.S. government "does not appear to be committing new funds. Instead, it's simply making good on what Intel described as 'grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel.'" Specifically, the $8.9 billion is supposed to come from $5.7 billion awarded-but-not-paid to Intel under the Biden administration's CHIPS Act, as well as $3.2 billion also awarded by the Biden administration through the Secure Enclave program. In a post on his social network Truth Social, Trump wrote, "The United States paid nothing for these shares..." Trump has been critical of the CHIPS Act, calling it a "horrible, horrible thing" and calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to "get rid" of it...

According to The New York Times, some bankers and lawyers believe the CHIPS Act may not allow the government to convert its grants to equity, opening this deal to potential legal challenges.
Reuters writes that the money "will not be enough for its contract-chipmaking business to flourish, analysts said. Intel still needs external customers for its cutting-edge 14A manufacturing process to go to production, says Summit Insights analyst Kinngai Chan, "to make its foundry arm economically viable." "We don't think any government investment will change the fate of its foundry arm if they cannot secure enough customers..."

Reuters has reported that Intel's current 18A process — less advanced than 14A — is facing problems with yield, the measure of how many chips printed are good enough to make available to customers. Large chip factories including TSMC swallow the cost of poor yields during the first iterations of the process when working with customers like Apple. For Intel, which reported net losses for six straight quarters, that's hard to do and still turn a profit. "If the yield is bad then new customers won't use Intel Foundry, so it really won't fix the technical aspect of the company," said Ryuta Makino, analyst at Gabelli Funds, which holds Intel stock.

Makino, who believes that Intel can ultimately produce chips at optimal yields, views the deal as a net negative for Intel compared with just receiving the funding under the CHIPS Act as originally promised under the Biden Administration. "This isn't free money," he said. The federal government will not take a seat on Intel's board and has agreed to vote with the company's board on matters that need shareholder approval, Intel said. But this voting agreement comes with "limited exceptions" and the government is getting Intel's shares at a 17.5% discount to their closing price on Friday. The stake will make the U.S. government Intel's biggest shareholder, though neither Trump nor Intel disclosed when the transaction would happen...

Some analysts say Intel could benefit from the government's support, including in building out factories. Intel has said it is investing more than $100 billion to expand its U.S. factories and expects to begin high-volume chip production later this year at its Arizona plant. "To have access to capital and a new partial owner that wants to see you succeed are both important," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel.

Europe's share of global economic output has fallen from 33% to 23% since 2005 while its space launch capacity has nearly collapsed, launching just four rockets this year compared to over 100 for the United States and 40 for China. The continent's economic stagnation spans 15 years -- likely the longest streak since the Industrial Revolution according to Deutsche Bank calculations -- with Germany's economy growing just 1% since late 2017 versus 19% US growth.

Per capita GDP gaps have widened dramatically: $86,000 annually in the US versus $56,000 in Germany and $53,000 in the UK. Industrial electricity costs have become prohibitive, running three times higher in Germany and four times higher in the UK than American rates. "America innovates, China imitates, Europe regulates," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni observed. The continent's largest company by market value, SAP, now ranks just 28th globally.

Further reading: The Technology Revolution is Leaving Europe Behind.