Steve Ballmer passed Bill Gates on Monday to become the sixth-richest person in the world, the first time the former chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp. has been wealthier than the company’s co-founder.

The move came as Microsoft shares rose to a fresh record, bringing their total gain this year to 21%. The company, through its partnership with OpenAI, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence rally that has powered the US stock market higher.

More than 90% of Ballmer’s $157.2 billion net worth is in Microsoft shares, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates, meanwhile, has diversified his $156.7 billion fortune: About half his wealth is held through Cascade Investment, which was created with the proceeds of Microsoft stock sales and dividends. He also owns a $21 billion stake in waste-management company Republic Services Inc. through Cascade. 

Gates, 68, has been slowly reducing his fortune through philanthropy. Along with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates and his friend Warren Buffett, Gates has funneled billions of dollars of his personal money to build up the $75 billion Gates Foundation, one of the biggest charitable organizations in the world.

Since they started the foundation more than two decades ago, Gates and his former wife have given almost $60 billion from their personal fortunes. French Gates recently stepped down as co-chair of the foundation and received $12.5 billion to use for her own charitable purposes.

In 2010, Gates, French Gates and Buffett also founded the Giving Pledge, an organization that encourages the world’s richest people to give away the majority of their fortunes in their lifetimes or their wills. Ballmer, 68, who has not signed the Giving Pledge, has his own philanthropic work but nowhere on the scale of Gates.

Gates founded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen in 1975 and led it until 2000, when Ballmer – one of the company’s earliest employees – replaced him as CEO. Ballmer retired in 2014 and became Microsoft’s largest shareholder that same year. He bought the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion in 2014, an investment that is estimated to be worth $4.6 billion today.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Microsoft Corp is informing some of its customers that a Russian state-sponsored hacking group breached its internal systems and accessed their emails, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing a company spokesperson.

The technology giant is also providing previously notified clients with details of which data was taken, the report said.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request emailed by Reuters for comment and calls to spokespersons went unanswered.

The company had said in January, too, that a Russian state-sponsored group had hacked into its corporate systems and stolen some emails and documents from staff accounts.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A smartphone with a displayed NVIDIA logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken March 6, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Nvidia edged ahead of other tech companies on June 18 to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in the latest sign of the might of artificial intelligence.

The chip company, which has enjoyed a monumental ascent over the last 18 months amid enthusiasm over generative AI, jumped 3.4% near 1.25 p.m. (10.55 p.m. IST), giving it a market capitalisation of about $3.3 trillion, slightly ahead of Microsoft and Apple.

The California-based company, which is led by Jensen Huang, has seen profits soar due to torrid demand for its powerful GPU chips, which have set the industry’s pace in pushing new advances in AI.

In May, Nvidia reported a net profit of $14.9 billion, while its revenue of $26 billion was almost four times what it took in during the same fiscal quarter last year.

“We believe over the next year the race to $4 trillion market cap in tech will be front and center between Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft,” said a note earlier this week from Wedbush Securities.

“Nvidia’s GPU chips are in essence the new gold or oil in the tech sector as more enterprises and consumers quickly head down this path with the 4th Industrial Revolution well underway.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a new category of PC on Monday that features generative artificial intelligence tools built directly into Windows, the company’s world leading operating system.

The tech giant estimates that more than 50 million “AI PCs” will be sold over the next 12 months, given the appetite for devices powered by ChatGPT-style technology.

“We are introducing an entirely new class of Windows PCs engineered to unleash the power of distributed AI,” Nadella said at a launch event in Redmond, Washington.

“We call this new category ‘Copilot Plus’… The result is the fastest, most AI-ready Windows PCs ever built,” he added.

Of all the tech giants, Microsoft has pushed the most aggressively to infuse the powers of generative AI into its products, often leaving rival Google to play catch-up.

ChatGPT-style AI, which is called Copilot at Microsoft, is available across the company’s products, including Teams, Outlook and its Windows operating system.

Microsoft even tried, so far unsuccessfully, to rejuvenate Bing, its online search engine, with generative AI powers.

The pivot to AI has been celebrated by Wall Street, with Microsoft now the world’s biggest company by market capitalization, taking the spot from Apple.

Nadella’s announcement on AI comes on the heels of those made by Google and ChatGPT-maker Open AI last week.

The companies showcased updates to their chatbots, featuring more human-like interactions and new abilities to understand their surroundings via video, though the innovations are not yet available to users.

Google also announced it was adding AI answers to its world leading search engine, despite fears it may eat into its advertising revenues.

Microsoft is OpenAI’s main investor and has injected some $13 billion in the form of cloud computing credits that fulfill the ChatGPT-makers huge needs for computing.

‘AI revolution’

Analysts believe that the hunger for AI products is helping buoy Microsoft and Google’s cloud computing businesses, with clients ready to pay a premium to adopt ChatGPT-like capabilities.

In a note to clients, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said that AI will add $25 billion-$30 billion to Microsoft’s sales by 2025.

“The spending on AI is unprecedented across the tech world and this is just the first phase of the AI Revolution playing out,” Ives said.

Microsoft’s injection of AI into PC’s and devices comes just ahead of an Apple event next month that is widely expected to see ChatGPT’s abilities feature in a new iPhone.

Media reports also signal that Apple could announce a partnership between Apple and OpenAI.

The tech giants are racing the products out the door despite worries that generative Ai poses a threat to society.

Authorities, including in the usually low-regulated US, are drawing up ways to more closely track the developments in AI, and potentially put limits on its deployment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti recently claimed that in modern times, one cannot become a CEO in America unless they are of Indian descent. Mr Garcetti’s humorous quip came at the 2024 Indiaspora AI Summit at Stanford University recently. 

“The successes have happened, more than one in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now are Indian immigrants who studied in the US. The old joke was you could not become a CEO in the US if you were Indian, now the joke is you cannot become a CEO in America if you are not Indian, whether it is Google, Microsoft or Starbucks, people have come and made a big difference,” Mr Garcetti said. 

#WATCH | Delhi: US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti says, “The successes have happened, more than 1 in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now are Indian immigrants who studied in the US. The old joke was you could not become a CEO in the US if you are Indian, now the joke is you… pic.twitter.com/gTdvXng9mi

— ANI (@ANI) April 26, 2024

Google and its parent organisation Alphabet Inc. are overseen by Sundar Pichai while operations at Microsoft and Starbucks are led by Satya Nadella and Laxman Narasimhan, respectively. 

Speaking alongside Mr Garcetti, Indian-origin business leaders echoed similar sentiments while appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, particularly his role in positioning India as a global hub of innovation and progress. 

“India is perceived very differently in the global space. It’s a space of innovation. It’s a space of human capital. It’s a space of progress and innovation. And as we look forward, what Modi has been able to do is put India into the global map as a credible innovator, leader for all countries to invest in and grow,” said Informatica CEO Amit Walia.

Similarly, Ashutosh Kulkarni, CEO of Elastic, commended PM Modi’s government for its openness to innovation and industry, noting India’s vast potential for progress. Navin Chaddha of Mayfield Fund hailed the “amazing” era under PM Modi’s leadership.

The Indiaspora AI Summit, besides global tech tycoons, was also attended by Rajya Sabha MP Satnam Singh Sandhu.

The chief executives of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are among the high-profile members of a new federal board created to advise the U.S. government on the “safe and secure” development of artificial intelligence.

The new advisory board will help authorities combat AI-related disruptions that may “impact national or economic security, public health, or safety,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement released Friday.

President Joe Biden directed department Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to set up the 22-member board.

Mr. Mayorkas said that while AI is a transformative tool, “it presents real risks.”

“The Board will help DHS stay ahead of evolving threats posed by hostile nation-state actors and reinforce our national security,” the statement said.

AI may be used by unfriendly forces to enable larger scale, faster attacks against targets like pipelines, railways and other critical infrastructure, it said.

“Artificial Intelligence is the most transformative technology of our time, and we must ensure it is deployed safely and responsibly,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the statement.

Other high-powered members named to the board include the CEOs of Adobe, Alphabet, Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Delta Airlines and Northrop Grumman.

The board also includes academics and politicians, including the governor of Maryland.

The board is to convene for the first time in early May and provide recommendations for the safe adoption of AI “in the essential services Americans depend on every day,” it said.

Europeans scrolling their phones and computers this week will get new choices for default browsers and search engines, where to download iPhone apps and how their personal online data is used.

They’re a part of changes required under the Digital Markets Act, a set of European Union regulations that six tech companies classed as “gatekeepers” — Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance — will have to start following by midnight Wednesday.

The DMA is the latest in a series of regulations that Europe has passed as a global leader in reining in the dominance of large tech firms. Tech giants have responded by changing some of their long-held ways of doing business — such as Apple allowing people to install smartphone apps outside of its App Store.

The rules have broad but vague goals of making digital markets “fairer” and “more contestable.” They are kicking in as efforts around the world to crack down on the tech industry are picking up pace.

Here’s a look at how the Act will work:

Some 22 services, from operating systems to messenger apps and social media platforms, will be in the DMA’s crosshairs.

They include Google services like Maps, YouTube, the Chrome browser and Android operating system, plus Amazon’s Marketplace and Apple’s Safari Browser and iOS. Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are included as well as Microsoft’s Windows and LinkedIn.

Threat of fines

The companies face the threat of hefty fines worth up to 20% of their annual global revenue for repeated violations — which could amount to billions of dollars — or even a breakup of their businesses for “systematic infringements.”

The DMA is a fresh milestone for the 27-nation European Union in its longstanding role as a worldwide trendsetter in clamping down on the tech industry. The bloc has previously hit Google with whopping fines in antitrust cases, rolled out tough rules to clean up social media and is bringing in world-first artificial intelligence regulations.

Now, places like Japan, Britain, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, Brazil and India are drawing up their own versions of DMA-like rules aimed at preventing tech companies from dominating digital markets.

“We’re seeing copycats around the world already,” said Bill Echikson, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think tank. The DMA “will become the defacto standard” for digital regulation in the democratic world.”

Officials will be looking to Brussels for guidance, said Zach Meyers, Assistant director at the Center for European Reform, a think tank in London.

“If it works, many Western countries will probably try to follow the DMA to avoid fragmentation and the risk of taking a different approach that fails.”

In one of the biggest changes, Apple said it will let European iPhone users download apps outside its App Store, which comes installed on its mobile devices. The firm long resisted such a move, with a big chunk of its revenue coming from the 30% fee it charges for payments — such as for Disney+ subscriptions — made via iOS apps. Apple warned “sideloading” apps will come with added security risks.

Apple cutting fee

Now, Apple is cutting those fees it collects from app developers in Europe that opt to stay within the company’s payment-processing system. But it’s adding a 50-euro cent fee for each iOS app installed through third-party app stores, which critics say will deter the many existing free apps — whose developers currently don’t pay any fee — from jumping ship.

“Why would they possibly opt into a world where they have to pay a 50 cent per-user fee?” said Avery Gardiner, Spotify’s Global Director of competition policy. “So those alternative app stores will never get traction, because they’ll be missing this huge chunk of apps that would need to be there in order for customers to find the store attractive.”

“That is utterly at odds with the very purpose of the DMA,” Ms. Gardiner added. Brussels will be closely scrutinising whether tech firms are complying.

EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said after 10 years in the job, “I have seen quite a number of antitrust cases and quite a lot of creativity built into how to work around the rules that we have.”

Consumers won’t be forced into default choices for key services. Android users can pick which search engine to use by default, while iPhone users will get to choose which browser will be their go-to. Europeans will see choice screens on their devices. Microsoft, meanwhile, will stop forcing people to use its Edge browser.

The idea is to stop people from being nudged into using Apple’s Safari browser or Google’s Search app. But smaller players still worry that they might end up worse off than before.

Users might just stick with what they recognise because they don’t know anything about the other options, said Christian Kroll, CEO of Berlin-based search engine Ecosia.

Ecosia has been pushing for Apple and Google to include more information about rival services in the choice screens. “If people don’t know what the alternatives are, it’s unlikely many of them will select an alternative,” Mr. Kroll said.

The UK competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy ‘Call of Duty’ developer Activision Blizzard. According to the BBC, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that Microsoft – the maker of the Xbox gaming console – could go ahead with the takeover after agreeing to buy Activision without cloud gaming rights. Now, this deal marks the culmination of a near-two-year fight to secure the biggest deal in gaming history.

Microsoft announced the biggest gaming deal in early 2022, but the $69 billion acquisition was blocked in April by Britain’s competition regulator, the BBC reported. The CMA was concerned that the US computing giant would gain too much control of the new cloud gaming market. However, changes in the deal have since been made. 

Last month the UK watchdog said a revised deal that included selling cloud gaming rights outside Europe to Activision Blizzard’s French rival Ubisoft had addressed its concern, indicating the tie-up would be approved. 

Also Read | Bruce Willis Is Not “Totally Verbal” Amid Dementia Battle, Says Friend

Now, the new deal, according to The Independent, will stop Microsoft from having a “stronghold” over the UK cloud gaming market, the CMA said. It added that it would preserve competitive prices for gamers and make sure consumers get more choices. 

However, the CMA also criticised Microsoft for “dragging out” proceedings during its investigation into the merger. CMA chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said, “Businesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA.”

“Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work. Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money,” Ms Cardell added. 

The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith said that the group is “grateful” for the decision to approve the acquisition which he believes will “benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide”. 

Microsoft Corp. was willing to hide its search engine’s “Bing” brand on Apple Inc. devices in order to secure an agreement with the iPhone maker and unseat Google, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella testified Monday.

Taking the stand at Google’s antitrust trial, Microsoft’s Nadella described the lengths his company was willing to go to become Apple’s default search engine, a position that Google currently enjoys. That included offering “strategic flexibility” on how to brand the search engine and encouraging Apple to look at its technology independently of the Bing brand.

The testimony was part of a Department of Justice trial against Google, which the government says has used its search dominance to quash competition and hurt consumers. The company’s agreement with Apple is central to that case. Google pays billions of dollars a year to be the default option for Apple devices, and Microsoft has tried – and failed – to offer a more attractive deal.

Getting that default spot from Apple would be “game changing,” Nadella said. “Whomever they choose, they king-make.”

Nadella did make inroads with Apple between 2013 and 2017, when the iPhone maker opted to replace Google as the search engine powering Siri and the Spotlight feature on its devices. Apple, however, never dropped Google as the default in its Safari web browser and reverted back to Google in the other areas after only four years.

The discussion about dropping the Bing brand happened during negotiations in 2018. The arrangement would have meant Safari search results were powered by Bing, but under an alternative brand.

Nadella said he has tried to replace Google as Apple’s default search engine every year since he became CEO in 2014. In earlier testimony Monday, he said Apple used Microsoft to “bid up the price” it gets paid by Google.

“Do you think Google would continue to pay Apple if there was no search competition? Why would they do that?” he said.

Apple services chief Eddy Cue has said he works with Google because the Mountain View, California-based company provides the best search results. The iPhone maker gets roughly $8 billion annually from the Google deal, which is structured as a revenue-share agreement.

Microsoft had even offered to sell Bing to Apple around 2020, Bloomberg News reported last week. Cue declined that overture.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In the colosseum of corporate accomplishments, Apple, through its viral ‘Mother Nature’ campaign, has bestowed upon itself the mantle of an environmental steward – a green titan etched into the public consciousness. Such audacious reinventions are hardly novel for Apple, a company that, for more than three decades, has sculpted its identity as a trailblazer. Apple’s creations, marketing wizardry, and operational acumen have consistently bedazzled its audience: from devoted customers to astute shareholders and discerning critics.

Apple began its environmental efforts earlier and more earnestly than the other four of the Big Five technology companies: Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. Like most companies, the Big Five excused their inaction stating that it was not mandated by policies of the relevant local government policy. Only increasing consumer and shareholder pressure forced companies towards better compliance. Consumers of their goods in the West no longer want to buy products made under toxic or tortured conditions. But as a result, Apple did more and better than its rivals in this regard.

The ‘Mother Nature’ campaign has also set social media abuzz with high praise. But while Apple’s reinvention is commendable, its campaign will fall short if the company’s mitigation efforts take only its present and future carbon footprint into account, and ignore its past environmental transgressions.

Has Apple always been ‘green’?

The first two decades of Apple were not so responsible. The company faced recurrent allegations from eco-groups for its environmental transgressions. Chiefly, Apple’s supply chain practices were linked to pollution from small Chinese component manufacturing facilities. To its credit, each time such incidents got reported, Apple was quick to mitigate the problem. This is additionally commendable because others rarely acknowledged it, let alone take concrete measures to address it.

Since 1994, Apple has operated a ‘green’ gadget-recycling programme. In 2005, the programme offered a discount on new iPods when customers swapped an old one at an Apple retail store. It incentivised Apple customers to send their products to them rather than sell them to third-party retailers. The motive may not have been completely altruistic: after all, selling it in an open market would create a grey economy and would hurt its business.

According to a study by IDC, the global market for used computers was worth $26 billion in 2022 (or $32 billion by 2025); by offering a trade-in programme, Apple tapped into it. The buyback policy helps reprocess material (gold, silver, copper, tin, cobalt, etc.) from components.

While this hedges its production costs from price volatility, gives Apple greater control over its inventory, and creates a closed loop of production and recycling, it also cuts Apple’s environmental costs. This places Apple head and shoulders above its competitors.

Does financial truancy affect green goals?

But Apple has also made some bad choices. In October 2018, Italy’s competition authority fined Apple €10 million for allegedly engaging in “planned obsolescence” with its smartphones. The software updates had a detrimental effect on the devices’ performance, forcing millions of users to exchange or buy new phones. This obviously affected the environment, apart from causing inconvenience and costs to customers.

In 2015, Apple was accused of setting up two bogus companies with no employees in Ireland to avoid bigger tax bills in the U.S. According to the Financial Times, about 90% of Apple’s foreign profits were reported by the Irish subsidiaries. These were highly profitable but paid little tax because they were not tax-resident anywhere. It is estimated that Apple paid only 0.005% tax on its European profits in 2014.

Capital flight affects the environment. Parking money elsewhere diverts public funds that could be used for social good, such as reducing water or electricity bills. It also makes undeserving tax havens and consumers of resources from other countries richer, creating a global imbalance between private wealth and public money.

Corporations legitimise such truancy by simply paying fines, whereas chasing evaders diverts resources from public offices, which costs public money. Apple’s outsourcing also avoided meeting its environmental obligations in California, allowing it to evade U.S. standards for its products and not pay for the cost of compliance in the U.S.

What are the gaps in Apple’s campaign?

This is not to take away from Apple’s achievement. It is commendable that Apple has met its water, energy, and material targets sooner than it had planned. But as a company that loves to innovate and overcome intractable challenges, if it wants to heal the wounds of ‘Mother Nature’, it will have to address its historical emissions, environmental ills, and financial truancy. As a trillion-dollar company, it needs to do this honestly and transparently.

It needs to go back to mines from where the minerals were extracted, where its components were produced, and where toxic and hazardous wastes were disposed. It needs to go back to the communities and villages from where the minerals came or where the waste was recycled. Toxins released during manufacturing or recycling elsewhere can’t be mitigated by planting trees in South America or using renewable energy to run its offices in California.

Environmental justice demands corporate and public policy based on mutual respect for all peoples, species, and landscapes. Apple must affirm the transgenerational fundamental rights and self-determination of peoples and species and natural processes. It demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, and making past and current producers accountable to communities, and responsible for detoxification and containment beyond the point of production.

What more can Apple do?

Apple should, therefore, honestly assess not only its present but its past sourcing of materials and energy. How much of these were from conflict zones, through forced labour, or made by companies with unethical practices? It needs to calculate how much energy and water it extracted, how its operations affected air, soil, water, and life-forms, and how far the emissions travelled.

Mitigating for environmental damage is not only for what you do now, but also for what was done in the past. Past processes to extract minerals were more energy-intensive, wasteful, and toxic than they are today. Manufacturing has become somewhat more efficient now but the toxic scars from past processes and products haven’t been erased.

Just as there are conversations developing around issues like the rights of Black, Indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people, around the repatriation of stolen artefacts from museums, and the toppling of statues of slave-traders, environmental justice demands a conversation and an acknowledgement of historical damage. Apple’s campaign speaks of the beginning of its environment mitigation journey, but the destination is a long way away.

Pranay Lal is a biochemist, a public health specialist, a natural history writer, and currently a senior advisor, Health Systems Transformation Platform, New Delhi.