Nvidia Drops on Curbs; Nio’s European Push; Meta in Court over Privacy.

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Nvidia Drops on New Chip Curbs

Washington is to tighten restrictions on chip exports to China, which will make it harder for US companies Nvidia [NVDA] and Intel [INTC] to access the huge Chinese market. Nvidia said the new rules would block sales of two high-end artificial intelligence (AI) chips it designed specifically for China. The Nvidia share price closed down nearly 5% on Tuesday after the news. Nvidia and Taiwanese iPhone-maker Foxconn [2354.TW] have announced they are to collaborate on building “AI factories”.

Nio’s European Push; BYD Profits Spike

Having launched in several European markets last year, Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio [9866.HK] is considering boosting sales growth by establishing a dealer network in the region, reported Reuters. Rival Chinese giant BYD [1211.HK] has said that its third quarter (Q3) net profit could see as much as a 102% increase year-over-year. Amazon [AMZN] announced it has acquired 10,000 electric delivery vehicles made by Rivian [RIVN]; it aims to have at least 100,000 in use by 2030.

Meta in Court over Privacy

Meta [META] lawyers were in court on Tuesday, pushing back against a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plan to tighten a 2019 privacy order; the FTC wants to step up safeguards related to minors, and ban making money off minors’ data. Elsewhere in social media, X, formerly Twitter, has said it is to trial a new, $1-per-year subscription model called ‘Not a Bot’, aimed at combatting bots and spammers.

Ernie 4.0 Fails to Wow

Investors were underwhelmed by Tuesday’s announcement that Baidu’s [9888.HK] AI bot Ernie 4.0 has caught up with OpenAI’s GPT-4; the firm’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed 1.7% lower, while its Nasdaq-listed shares dropped 4.1% overnight. At the WSJ Tech Live conference on Tuesday, Meta’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said AI chatbots will be increasingly attractive to enterprise customers: “One of the most profoundly impactful applications for the near term for AI is helping businesses be more effective.”

Microsoft/Amazon Partnership

In a deal worth more than $1bn, Microsoft [MSFT] is to add Amazon as a customer for its 365 cloud productivity tools, Reuters reported. The latter has signed up for over five years, securing one million Microsoft 365 license seats. Microsoft’s share price gained almost 1% on the news. The e-commerce behemoth will start integrating the new systems in November, according to an internal report seen by Reuters.