Aramco on the Hunt for AI

Aramco on the Hunt for AI

Wa’ed Ventures, the $500m venture arm of Saudi Aramco [2222:SR], has invested some $15m in South Korean chip start-up Rebellions, which is currently working with Samsung Electronics [SSNLF] on a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) chip; the firm has said it is weighing an IPO in South Korea. Elsewhere in the world of chips, AMD [AMD] President Victor Peng is to retire at the end of August, while the NXP Semiconductors [NXPI] share price dropped after Q3 guidance fell short of expectations.

Ether ETFs are Here

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved spot ether ETFs. The new products, provided by BlackRock [BLK.N] and VanEck, among others, began trading on Tuesday morning on three different exchanges. Coin Telegraph reported that Grayscale transferred $1bn of ether to Coinbase [COIN] on July 22, suggesting that it was pre-seeding funds to prepare for the ETF launch. Coinbase will be the custodian for eight of the nine new ether ETFs, as it is for eight out of the 10 active bitcoin ETFs.

Wiz: No to Google, Yes to IPO

“Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice,” Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport said in a memo to employees seen by Bloomberg, referring to the cybersecurity start-up’s decision to reject a $23bn takeover offer from Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google and instead go ahead with an IPO. Elsewhere, Google has said it will no longer cancel and replace third-party cookies on Chrome.

SentinelOne Rises on CrowdStrike Reputational Hit

Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne [S] has been a beneficiary of last week’s global outage caused by a CrowdStrike [CRWD] update: its share price climbed as much as 8% Monday. This comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the US Department of Homeland Security, is to adopt SentinelOne’s AI-empowered Singularity platform and Singularity Data Lake.

Can SunPower Recover?

The US solar power firm [SPWR] climbed 7.4% Monday, but this is a drop in the ocean of the 72% it lost over the preceding two sessions, after it reportedly said it would pause new shipments and leases. The steep fall prompted Mizuho Securities to cut its price target from $4 to $0.50, Seeking Alpha reported, while Susquehanna suspended its coverage of the stock altogether.