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Fortune Tech: Trump threatens EU with tariffs over Google fine

Published

5 months ago

September 8, 2025

Good morning. It’s Jeremy here, filling in for Andrew who, along with many of my Fortune colleagues, is kicking off Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Deer Valley, Utah today. Check out fortune.com for coverage of the mainstage sessions.

Over the weekend, everyone was still talking about that White House dinner. Never has such an extraordinary collection of intellectual heft gathered in the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined—oh never mind.

But the amount of market power gathered in the room on Thursday night was truly extraordinary. Dave Smith has a rundown of who was there below. If nothing else, it was the dinner that launched a thousand memes. (If you haven’t checked out the deepfake parody someone created of Bill Gates’ remarks at the dinner, it’s hilarious, but NSFW, so I won’t link to it here.)

Coming to “kiss the ring” certainly seems to have paid off for at least one of the guests, Sundar Pichai. Fresh from having escaped lightly from the U.S. government’s antitrust suit against Alphabet, Pichai’s dinner performance may have helped convince Trump to go to bat for Google with the EU. (Not that Trump needed too much persuading.)

More on that, as well as all the other tech news–including Anthropic’s potentially precedent-setting settlement of an AI copyright case—below.

—Jeremy Kahn

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Trump threatens (trade) war over EU Google fine

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet and Google CEO, speaks at a White House dinner on Thursday attended by President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and a number of leading executives from technology and AI companies.

Jim Lo Scalzo—EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with additional tariffs after the bloc fined Google €2.9 billion ($3.4 billion) for violating competition laws with its search ad practices and ordered it to change its business practices.

Just hours after the EU announced the fine on Friday and a day after he met with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai at the White House, Trump took to Truth Social to call the decision “very unfair.”

“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity,” Trump wrote. He also threatened a trade investigation that could result in additional tariffs on EU goods.

The fine is one of the largest Google-parent Alphabet has ever faced. It previously hit the tech giant with a €4.2 billion fine in 2018 for anticompetitive behavior in the way it used Android. Google has 60 days to tell the EU how it will comply, with Brussels threatening to break up the company if it is not satisfied with the proposed solution.

“At this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said.

Alphabet has promised to appeal the decision, which it called “unjustified.” Trump’s threat of further tariffs comes as the EU is in the middle of tricky negotiations with Washington over a possible trade deal.

—Jeremy Kahn

Anthropic reaches landmark $1.5 billion settlement in AI copyright case

Anthropic just dodged a potentially existential legal blow to its business with a $1.5 billion settlement.

The suit was a class action brought by authors over the use of some copyrighted works used to train Anthropic’s Claude model. The case centered on how the company allegedly obtained some of the training data by bulk-downloading pirated texts from shadow libraries like LibGen, rather than whether training AI on copyrighted books counts as “fair use” (a judge said it does). It was set to go to trial in December.

The settlement, which equates to roughly $3,000 per book across 500,000 works, is being billed as the largest copyright recovery in history.

It comes just days after the company raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation. While the settlement is steep, it’s manageable for a firm the size of Anthropic and amounts to less than a third of its projected $5 billion in annual revenue. More importantly, it spares the company from trial, where damages could have reached $1 trillion.

For now, the case sets a benchmark other AI giants may need to meet. Authors are also suing Meta and OpenAI on similar grounds. Legal experts said Anthropic’s deal with authors may be a “Napster-to-iTunes” moment for AI, forcing the industry toward real licensing markets for training data.

—Beatrice Nolan

Burn baby, burn: OpenAI’s Cash Inferno

OpenAI is telling investors to brace for a much bigger burn rate than previously expected.

The company now projects spending could hit $115 billion by 2029, roughly $80 billion higher than earlier estimates, according to a report from The Information.

It wasn’t all bad news for shareholders, however, as OpenAI also reportedly raised its total revenue outlook to $200 billion by 2030, up 15% from prior forecasts. Revenue from ChatGPT alone is expected to generate nearly $90 billion by the end of the decade.

The higher burn rate could explain why the company is raising more capital than any private startup in history. Investors are buying shares at a $500 billion valuation, per the report, nearly double what they paid six months ago.

One of the key drivers behind the AI company’s soaring expenses is its cloud use. OpenAI has become one of the world’s largest renters of cloud servers. To counter some of these costs, the company is investing heavily in developing its own data center server chips and facilities (see the item in “More Tech” below).

—Beatrice Nolan

Trump and Silicon Valley break bread

President Donald Trump hosted Big Tech heavyweights at a White House dinner in the newly renovated Rose Garden late last week. The lavish display marked a sharp contrast with Trump’s first-term clashes with Big Tech.

The guest list was made up of 13 billionaires plus a roster of top VCs and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, and Bill Gates, who each took turns praising the president.

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella lauded Trump and his policies for “helping a lot,” AMD’s Lisa Su praised the “acceleration” under the administration’s watch, and Oracle’s Safra Catz credited him with “unleashing American innovation and creativity.” Sam Altman thanked Trump for being “a pro-business and pro-innovation president” and pledged to “invest a ton in the United States.”

Trump, in turn, pressed executives on how much they plan to spend domestically, coaxing commitments in the hundreds of billions.

Former ally and “first buddy” Elon Musk was notably absent following a very public spat with Trump over his “Big Beautiful Bill.” He later insisted on social media that he was invited but couldn’t attend.

—Dave Smith

More tech

OpenAI strikes a $10 billion custom AI chip deal with Broadcom. The move could help to ease the shortage of high-powered chips.

ASML becomes Mistral AI’s top shareholder. ASML invested $1.5 billion in Mistral’s $2 billion Series C, sources told Reuters.

Cable cuts in the Red Sea briefly disrupted Microsoft’s Azure service. Microsoft said on Saturday it was no longer detecting issues.

“Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton says AI will spark a surge in unemployment and profits. But he says capitalism is to blame for this, not AI.

Palantir’s Alex Karp says AI won’t replace U.S. skilled labor. Karp argued the tech will actually enhance workers’ value.

Authors sue Apple over use of books in AI training. It’s the latest in a wave of lawsuits that claim tech companies violated copyright protections.

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Published

22 minutes ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

Nestled in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown, the Ong Ang Canal served as a vital trade artery in the 18th century. Over time, it became heavily polluted, and even earned a reputation as the city’s dirtiest canal.

Last month, as part of a broader government effort to revitalize the canal, Siam Cement Group (SCG), Thailand’s oldest cement firm, unveiled the country’s first 3D-printed pedestrian bridge across its waters.

The bridge is part of SCG’s drive to bring new construction materials to Southeast Asia, Surachai Nimlaor, who helms its operations in cement and green solutions, tells Fortune in a Jan. 20 interview.

The company first started applying 3D printing tech to construction in the early 2020s, including the 2023 construction of the world’s first 3D printed medical center in Saraburi, Thailand.

“When we use 3D printing, we can shorten construction time and create buildings with unique shapes that conventional builders may not be able to achieve,” says Nimlaor.

The process involves creating a digital model, slicing it for the 3D printer, and then allowing the printer’s robotic arms to set down concrete, layer-by-layer, to form structures. By removing the need for traditional molds or formwork, it enables freeform architecture which includes sculptural curves and undulating walls. SCG’s 3D printed medical center, for instance, has fluid facades that would be difficult to execute with conventional cast concrete.

Courtesy of Siam Cement Group

This technology could be especially valuable for Thailand, where an aging population and a workforce wary of construction jobs is shrinking the sector’s pool of available workers. Nimlaor explains that the industry has been forced to turn to foreign workers from neighboring countries like Cambodia and Myanmar. (According to 2025 data from Cambodia’s Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, there are over 1.2 million Cambodian workers in Thailand, many of whom are employed in construction.)

Still, 3D printed buildings are often only one or two storeys tall, Nimlaor admits, as taller buildings introduce “material constraints around structural loads and stability.”

Thailand’s first cement firm

SCG was founded in 1913 to build Bangkok’s first cement plant, under the orders of then-King Rama VI. In the century that followed, the company expanded to focus on three core businesses: cement and building materials, chemicals, and packaging.

Today, SCG is Thailand’s largest building materials company, with a 2024 revenue of $14.5 billion. It ranks No. 21 in Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500 list, which sorts the region’s largest companies by revenue. SCG has also expanded to other parts of Southeast Asia, including packaging businesses in Malaysia and a petrochemical plant in Vietnam.

Greening the construction industry

Beyond 3D printing, SCG is also developing low-carbon cement, tackling an industry that accounts for roughly 8% of global carbon emissions, according to the World Economic Forum.

SCG is trying to formulate cement produced using biomass, like wood. This cuts the carbon emissions from the production process by as much as 20% per ton, Nimlaor claims. SCG now exports its low-carbon cement to the U.S. and Australia, where developers now prefer materials that meet ESG standards.

“ESG has become a very strong driver in the global market,” he explains. “Many companies now have clear carbon-reduction targets and sustainability commitments.”

SCG hopes to launch the third-generation of its low-carbon cement, which would cut carbon emissions from production by up to 40%, but Nimlaor has hopes that they can eventually cut emissions by up to 90%.

Looking forward, SCG hopes to continue pushing the boundaries in creating greener construction materials. “Sustainability and business growth must go together,” he concludes.

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Business

Fortune Article | Fortune

Published

53 minutes ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

Bitcoin is one of the world’s most battle-tested pieces of software. Launched in early 2009, the network has run continuously without being hacked, and today feels more secure than ever. There is, however, a threat on the medium-term horizon that threatens not only Bitcoin but every other type of software that relies on current encryption technology. That threat is quantum computing and, on Wednesday, Coinbase announced it has created a board of outside experts to prepare for its eventual arrival.

The board includes academics from Stanford, Harvard, and the University of California with specialties in fields like computer science, cryptography and fintech. Formally known as the Coinbase Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain, it is also composed of experts in blockchain and security from the Ethereum Foundation, the DeFi platform EigenLayer and from Coinbase itself.

In an interview with Fortune, Coinbase Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Lunglhofer explained how the arrival of quantum computing could defeat current encryption mechanisms, including the ones employed to protect the wallets and private keys held by Bitcoin owners.

“In simple terms, modern cryptography relies on hard math problems that would take thousands of years for a modern computer to solve,” he said. “But when we have a million times the horsepower [with quantum computing], that will provide the computation power to solve them.”

While the security threat of quantum computing is real, it is unlikely to be an urgent issue for at least a decade, according to Lunglhofer. His view is consistent with other experts who note that, while companies like Google and IBM have been building quantum computers for years, the current generation of these machines can only operate at a small scale and are not close to being able to crack the algorithms that protect Bitcoin and other networks.

The purpose of the new Advisory Board, says Lunglhofer, is to explore the coming impact of quantum computing in a “non-hype based way.” This will include promoting efforts by the blockchain industry, which are already underway, to update Bitcoin and other networks so that they are resistant to quantum-based attacks.

Currently, the Bitcoin network secures wallets by means of private keys, which are long strings of random numbers and letters that are visible to their owners, but that can only be guessed by means of an impossibly long series of trial-and-error attempts. When the quantum computing era arrives, it will be possible to guess a private key using trial-and-error. In response, Lunglhofer says, blockchain experts anticipate that Bitcoin and other networks will respond by creating larger keys and, at the same time, introducing “noise” to make the location of the key harder to detect in the first place.

All of this will require blockchain networks to introduce and deploy these defensive upgrades, a process that is likely to take years. In the interim, the new Advisory Board will begin publishing research papers and issuing position statements to help the crypto industry prepare for the arrival of quantum computing. The group plans to publish its first paper, which will focus on quantum’s impact on the consensus and transaction layers of blockchain, in the next month or two.

“Quantum computing is both a technological opportunity and a security challenge. By bringing together the foremost experts in the world, Coinbase is ensuring that the blockchain ecosystem is prepared, not just reactive,” said Yehuda Lindell, Head of Cryptography at Coinbase, in a statement.

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Business

The Walmart C-suite reshuffle shows how the retailer sees itself now: as a tech company

Published

1 hour ago

January 21, 2026

Jace Porter

When Walmart last week announced that David Guggina, its U.S. e-commerce chief executive, would become CEO of its nearly $500 billion U.S. division, one thing stood out in his résumé: Unlike his predecessors, Guggina has no experience running stores and has never held a merchandising role, at Walmart or elsewhere. These are two classic job requirements in retail. Incoming Walmart CEO John Furner, for example, who has run U.S. operations since 2019, began his Walmart career as an hourly associate in 1993, and held roles in merchandising, operations, and sourcing.

But there’s another realm of experience that Guggina does have in spades: e-commerce, automation, and supply chain. And by putting him atop the division that generates 69% of company revenue, Walmart is signaling that it now sees itself as a tech company, as well as a retailer. Guggina has spent eight years at Walmart, after nine years at arch-rival Amazon.com. In its announcement, Walmart touted Guggina’s work in building delivery capabilities to serve 95% of U.S. households in under three hours, and said his appointment “positions him to continue to drive our goal of being America’s favorite place to shop.”

In the last decade, after years of fits and starts, Walmart has emerged as a formidable e-commerce player, with U.S. digital sales of almost $100 billion a year—still far behind Amazon, but well ahead of any other U.S. retailer. In its most recent quarter, Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce rose 27%. That has been the result of billions in investments to integrate Walmart’s 4,600 stores with its e-commerce operations. This work has helped ensure faster shipping while also integrating technology more effectively into things like inventory management, supply chain, and in-store customer service. Guggina was instrumental in those achievements, working under Furner, who will become Walmart Inc’s new CEO next week.

“This is a unique moment in retail,” Guggina said in a LinkedIn post about his appointment. “AI is changing how people shop, and customer expectations are higher than ever. But no one is more prepared to usher in the next era of retail.”

The timing of Guggina’s promotion was fitting: It came soon after Walmart moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq exchange, where tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft list their shares. In December, Walmart said the move underscores its “technology-forward approach.”

Guggina isn’t the only techy whose star is rising at Walmart. The company also appointed Seth Dallaire chief growth officer for Walmart U.S., charging him with pushing Walmart U.S. further beyond traditional retail into tech-heavy lines of business—including its booming advertising, media, and online marketplace ventures. Dallaire is a veteran of Instacart and Amazon.

Walmart is considered by analysts to be well ahead of other retailers in AI-assisted shopping. In October, it announced a partnership with OpenAI to allow shoppers to browse and buy Walmart products directly inside ChatGPT, using a built-in instant checkout feature. Last week, Walmart and Google announced their own shopping tool. Also last week, Walmart’s executive vice president for AI acceleration, product and design, Daniel Danker, suggested at a conference that the company was developing auto-ordering for the replenishment of staples.

Bolstering Walmart’s tech and AI aura has had the additional benefit of lifting the company’s stock: In the last year, Walmart shares have risen 27%, double the S&P 500’s growth and trouncing Amazon’s 1% increase.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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