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Trump says he’ll allow Nvidia to sell advanced chips to ‘approved customers’ in China

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President Donald Trump said Monday that he would allow Nvidia to sell an advanced type of computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China.

There have been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips to be sold to China as it could help the country better compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities, but there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.

The chip, known as the H200, is not Nvidia’s most advanced product. Those chips, called Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin, were not part of what Trump approved.

Trump said on social media that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping about his decision and “President Xi responded positively!”

“This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers,” Trump said in his post.

Nvidia said in a statement that it applauded Trump’s decision, saying the choice would support domestic manufacturing and that by allowing the Commerce Department to vet commercial customers it would “strike a thoughtful balance” on economic and national security priorities.

Trump said the Commerce Department was “finalizing the details” for other chipmakers such as AMD and Intel to sell their technologies abroad.

The approval of the licenses to sell Nvidia H200 chips reflects the increasing power and close relationship that the company’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, enjoys with the president. But there have been concerns that China will find ways to use the chips to develop its own AI products in ways that could pose national security risks for the U.S., a primary concern of the Biden administration that sought to limit exports.

Nvidia has a market cap of $4.5 trillion and Trump’s announcement appeared to drive the stock slightly higher in after hours trading.



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Jimmy Kimmel signs ABC extension through 2027

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Kimmel’s previous, multiyear contract had been set to expire next May, so the extension will keep him on the air until at least May 2027.

Kimmel’s future looked questionable in September, when ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for remarks made following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Following a public outcry, ABC lifted the suspension, and Kimmel returned to the air with much stronger ratings than he had before.

He continued his relentless joking at the president’s expense, leading Trump to urge the network to “get the bum off the air” in a social media post last month. The post followed Kimmel’s nearly 10-minute monologue on Trump and the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Kimmel was even on Trump’s mind Sunday as the president hosted the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington.

“I’ve watched some of the people that host,” Trump said. “I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people, if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”

Kimmel has hosted the Oscars four times, but he’s never hosted the Kennedy Center show.

Just last week, Kimmel was needling Trump on the president’s approval ratings. “There are gas stations on Yelp with higher approval ratings than Trump right now,” he said.

Kimmel will be staying longer than late-night colleague Stephen Colbert at CBS. The network announced this summer it was ending Colbert’s show next May for economic reasons, even though it is the top-rated network show in late-night television.

ABC has aired Kimmel’s late-night show since 2003, during a time of upheaval in the industry. Like much of broadcast television, late-night ratings are down. Viewers increasingly turn to watching monologues online the day after they appear.

Most of Kimmel’s recent renewals have been multiyear extensions. There was no immediate word on whose choice it was to extend his current contract by one year.

Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift” and veteran chronicler of late-night TV, cautioned against reading too much into the length of the extension. Kimmel, at age 58, knows he’s getting close to the end of the line, Carter said, but when he leaves, he doesn’t want it to appear under pressure from Trump or anyone.

“He wants to make sure that it’s on his terms,” Carter said.

Kimmel has become one of the leading voices resisting Trump. “I think it’s important for him and for ABC that they are standing up for him,” Carter said.

Following Kirk’s killing, Kimmel was criticized for saying that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” The Nexstar and Sinclair television ownership groups said it would take Kimmel off the air, leading to ABC’s suspension.

When he returned to the air, Kimmel did not apologize for his remarks, but he said he did not intend to blame any specific group for Kirk’s assassination. He said “it was never my intention to make the light of the murder of a young man.”



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Google Cloud CEO lays out 3-part AI plan after identifying it as the ‘most problematic thing’

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The immense electricity needs of AI computing was flagged early on as a bottleneck, prompting Alphabet’s Google Cloud to plan for how to source energy and how to use it, according to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.

Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm AI event in San Francisco on Monday, he pointed out that the company—a key enabler in the AI infrastructure landscape—has been working on AI since well before large language models came along and took the long view.

“We also knew that the the most problematic thing that was going to happen was going to be energy, because energy and data centers were going to become a bottleneck alongside chips,” Kurian told Fortune’sAndrew Nusca. “So we designed our machines to be super efficient.”

The International Energy Agency has estimated that some AI-focused data centers consume as much electricity as 100,000 homes, and some of the largest facilities under construction could even use 20 times that amount.

At the same time, worldwide data center capacity will increase by 46% over the next two years, equivalent to a jump of almost 21,000 megawatts, according to real estate consultancy Knight Frank.  

At the Brainstorm event, Kurian laid out Google Cloud’s three-pronged approach to ensuring that there will be enough energy to meet all that demand.

First, the company seeks to be as diversified as possible in the kinds of energy that power AI computation. While many people say any form of energy can be used, that’s actually not true, he said.

“If you’re running a cluster for training and you bring it up and you start running a training job, the spike that you have with that computation draws so much energy that you can’t handle that from some forms of energy production,” Kurian explained.

The second part of Google Cloud’s strategy is being as efficient as possible, including how it reuses energy within data centers, he added.

In fact, the company uses AI in its control systems to monitor thermodynamic exchanges necessary in harnessing the energy that has already been brought into data centers.

And third, Google Cloud is working on “some new fundamental technologies to actually create energy in new forms,” Kurian said without elaborating further.

Earlier on Monday, utility company NextEra Energy and Google Cloud said they are expanding their partnership and will develop new U.S. data center campuses that will include with new power plants as well.

Tech leaders have warned that energy supply is critical to AI development alongside innovations in chips and improved language models.

The ability to build data centers is another potential chokepoint as well. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently pointed out China’s advantage on that front compared to the U.S.

“If you want to build a data center here in the United States, from breaking ground to standing up an AI supercomputer is probably about three years,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in late November. “They can build a hospital in a weekend.”



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Pepsi to cut product offering nearly 20% in deal with $4 billion activist Elliott

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PepsiCo plans to cut prices and eliminate some of its products under a deal with an activist investor announced Monday.

The Purchase, New York-based company, which makes Cheetos, Tostitos and other Frito-Lay products as well as beverages, said it will cut nearly 20% of its product offerings by early next year. PepsiCo said it will use the savings to invest in marketing and improved value for consumers. It didn’t disclose which products or how much it would cut prices.

PepsiCo said it also plans to accelerate the introduction of new offerings with simpler and more functional ingredients, including Doritos Protein and Simply NKD Cheetos and Doritos, which contain no artificial flavors or colors. The company also recently introduced a prebiotic version of its signature cola.

PepsiCo is making the changes after prodding from Elliott Investment Management, which took a $4 billion stake in the company in September. In a letter to PepsiCo’s board, Elliott said the company is being hurt by a lack of strategic clarity, decelerating growth and eroding profitability in its North American food and beverage businesses.

In a joint statement with PepsiCo Monday, Elliott Partner Marc Steinberg said the firm is confident that PepsiCo can create value for shareholders as it executes on its new plan.

“We appreciate our collaborative engagement with PepsiCo’s management team and the urgency they have demonstrated,” Steinberg said. “We believe the plan announced today to invest in affordability, accelerate innovation and aggressively reduce costs will drive greater revenue and profit growth.”

Elliott said it plans to continue working closely with the company.

PepsiCo shares were flat in after-hours trading Monday.

PepsiCo said it expects organic revenue to grow between 2% and 4% in 2026. The company’s organic revenue rose 1.5%. the first nine months of this year.

PepsiCo also said it plans to review its supply chain and continue to make changes to its board, with a focus on global leaders who can help it reach its growth and profitability goals.

“We feel encouraged about the actions and initiatives we are implementing with urgency to improve both marketplace and financial performance,” PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta said in a statement.

PepsiCo said in February that years of double-digit price increases and changing customer preferences have weakened demand for its drinks and snacks. In July, the company said it was trying to combat perceptions that its products are too expensive by expanding distribution of value brands like Chester’s and Santitas.



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