Category: Semafor

Chinese chipmaker CXMT overtook Tencent on Thursday to become the country’s most valuable company, as memory makers surf a tidal wave of AI-fueled demand. The changeover occurred after Tencent, itself a CXMT customer, reported it had doubled its quarterly AI spending, worrying investors; Tencent has invested heavily in AI but ...

China’s AI ecosystem is trying to intensify its push to meet and surpass leading US models. ByteDance is reportedly developing an AI model rivaling Anthropic’s most advanced Mythos system, and DeepSeek is touting its efforts to build a challenger to Claude Code. Meanwhile, as Beijing attempts to erect a firewall ...

A small British seaside town voted Thursday in a special election between a hard-right populist and a man who wears a trash can on his head. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage resigned to call the by-election after being accused of accepting an unlawful gift, but no major parties ran against ...

by Philip Hensher. In this historical telling of an art form that’s seen a slow decline in popularity, Hensher details the evolutionary scramble that motivated writers and publishers to do justice to the medium’s name: find something . Hensher rehashes centuries of publishing-house drama with an investigative eye, evaluating famous ...

The News A fresh cash injection from the World Bank’s private investment arm will help Africa’s largest ecommerce vendor absorb shocks spurred by ongoing geopolitical crises in the Middle East and meet profit targets over the next year, the company’s chief executive told Semafor. New York-listed Jumia raised $50 million ...

Liz’s view There’s always money in the sports team. Mark Walter controls a vast financial empire and is under federal investigation for undisclosed related-party transactions between its interlocking parts. Unwinding those transactions will require him to raise billions of dollars. Most people in that situation would look to sell their ...

The Scoop AstraZeneca’s planned $400 billion deal with Bristol Myers Squibb triggered worries at the UK government’s highest levels, prompting outreach that helped contribute to the collapse of the deal, according to people briefed on the deal. Varun Chandra, the UK’s top business envoy and an adviser to Prime Minister ...

Netflix co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings says AI could unleash a new wave of “creative destruction” as companies use rapidly improving technology not just to cut costs, but to challenge competitors and build new businesses. In this episode of , Hastings notes that AI has been getting “roughly twice ...

The Scoop Saudi Arabia’s stock market regulator is investigating the poor performance of recent initial public offerings, according to people familiar with the matter, and questioning the advice given by investment banks to companies selling stock. The investigation has been underway for several months and covers IPOs going back to ...

College students who identify as Republicans are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to trust their school to act in their best interests — even as confidence in higher education among conservatives sinks. Sixty-two percent of Republican students said their college’s leadership mostly acts in students’ best interests, compared with ...