Category: Semafor

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the opposition of “colluding” with foreign forces ahead of weekend elections that polls indicate he will likely lose. The longtime leader — whom critics accuse of undermining democracy and whose government has been reported to have worked closely with Moscow to undermine European sanctions ...

Slightly more American Gen Zers are using AI, but they’re also growing more uneasy about it, new data showed. According to a Gallup report, the percentage of respondents feeling hopeful or excited about AI has declined steeply over the past year, even as more than half of Gen Z now ...

The UK’s top diplomat on Thursday rejected Iran’s toll plan for the Strait of Hormuz, characterizing the effort as a “hijacking” of the crucial transit route. Iran is reportedly planning to charge firms in cryptocurrency to pass through the strait — $1 per barrel of oil — a move that ...

OpenAI is pausing its UK data center project, citing high energy costs and regulatory conditions. The multibillion-dollar Stargate project is part of the ChatGPT maker’s expanding AI infrastructure buildout, but the pullback marks a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s efforts to make the UK a global AI hub. One ...

China’s microdrama industry is booming thanks to AI. The short-form videos — essentially “soap operas rebuilt for smartphone attention spans” — started taking off in China in recent years, but AI has allowed the industry to launch about 470 new titles daily in January alone, the Hello China Tech newsletter ...

US tech giants are doubling down on massive AI spending despite lingering concerns of a bubble and energy shocks stemming from the Middle East conflict. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy dismissed concerns about the company’s projected $200 billion in capital expenditure this year — mostly on AI buildout — telling investors ...

The Scoop SpaceX’s IPO is primed to be the biggest in history. Its bankers are worried about what comes next. At a $2 trillion valuation, the listing could raise as much as $75 billion for Elon Musk’s rocket company. The problem is what happens months later, when early investors start ...

A 2,000-year-old papyrus fragment revealed previously unknown writing by a pre-Socratic philosopher. Empedocles lived in the fifth century BC, and was repeatedly cited by later thinkers — Aristotle called him the “father of rhetoric.” But his writing only survives in brief quotes or summaries. The 30 verses found in a ...

Oil prices are still hovering just below $100 per barrel as a shaky ceasefire in Iran goes into effect, but there’s a long road ahead even if the war concludes. Some market players are bullish: Israel reopened a major offshore gas facility, an oil executive in Iraq said oil production ...

Meta unveiled the first new AI model designed by a high-profile team of engineers it hired at huge expense in order to catch up with other Silicon Valley giants in the tech race. The firm’s shares rose 7% on the rollout of Muse Spark, though analysts questioned whether the company ...