|
Trade Wars
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Faces Internal Probe, Bipartisan Congressional Scrutiny Over Reported China Spy Link
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are ramping up calls for investigations into reports of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. Three House Republican committee chairs sent a letter to Huang on Wednesday requesting that he sit for a closed-door briefing with lawmakers on Nov. 18, a day after the company is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings. “Recent reports raise significant national security concerns regarding the [People’s Republic of China’s] access to sensitive U.S. technology and information,” the GOP lawmakers wrote.
When asked by the Times whether Huang would appear before lawmakers to discuss the matter, Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo declined to comment. “Our chief executive has an outstanding security team that accompanies him where needed,” Mr. Rizzo said in a statement to the Times. Rizzo said the Nvidia CEO’s interactions with Ms. Huang were consistent with meetings he has had with any of Nvidia’s customers, the Times reported.
Read more at CNBC
Apple Boosts Purchase Commitments By $33B Amid Memory Crunch
Apple contended with supply constraints and rising memory prices in iPhone, iPad and Mac manufacturing in Q4 FY2026, executives said on a Nov. 2 earnings call. The computer maker partially offset higher memory costs by using carry-in inventory from the previous quarter, saving on non-memory components and raising product prices, CEO John Ternus told investors. To improve its memory supply, Apple increased its “manufacturing purchase obligations” by $33 billion from Q3 to Q4, Ternus said. “What we’re seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented.”
Apple executives did not provide further details on the increased purchase obligations and whether they reflected a change in the company’s supplier relationships. However, Apple is likely signing long-term agreements to avoid suffering memory shortages during manufacturing, Phil Solis, a research director for IDC, said in an email to Supply Chain Dive. Shorter-term contracts were signed previously when supply was plentiful. “Every company buying memory has had to change how they buy memory if they want stable pricing and to guarantee supply,” Solis said. “Memory scarcity has given memory suppliers the upper hand for now.”
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
Moderna Q3 Earnings Beat Estimates, Raises 2026 Outlook As CEO Says Newer Vaccines Are Gaining Traction
Moderna on Friday smashed third-quarter revenue and earnings estimates and hiked its outlook for full-year sales growth, as some of its newer products gain momentum and Covid vaccine revenue outperforms. The biotech company now expects 2026 revenue growth of 15% to 25%, up from its previous guidance of up to 10%. “The new product and the diversification of geography is what has led to such a strong Q3,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in an interview ahead of the results. Moderna’s third-quarter revenue jumped 29% to $1.31 billion, boosted by higher Covid vaccine sales in international markets and helped by deliveries under long-term government partnerships. Revenue was $780 million in the U.S. and $533 million in international markets.
Bancel said the company is seeing the “full-year impact” of its next-generation mRNA Covid vaccine, which won U.S. approval in May 2025. Bancel noted that Covid is a seasonal business and vaccine contracts are typically established in the first quarter, so Moderna’s shot only had a “small launch” to start with last year. Moderna’s new stand-alone flu shot, which was approved in the U.S. in August, will similarly have a “limited launch” in the country in 2026 given the timing, he said.
Read more at CNBC
Tesla To Wind Down Cybertruck Production In Texas Next Year To Ramp Cybercab, Musk Says
Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday said the electric vehicle maker will “be winding down” production of the Cybertruck at its Texas gigafactory around the middle of next year. Musk, who hailed the Cybertruck as the future of the pickup truck segment, said in a post on X early Friday morning that the end of production at the massive facility would make room for production of its Cybercab robotaxi. The Cybertruck is exclusively produced at the company’s plant in Texas alongside the Tesla Model Y and two-seat Cybercab, which Musk has touted as a crucial product for the automaker moving forward.
Musk did not say whether the company would produce the Cybertruck at a different facility. The Cybertruck and its polarizing design gained a niche following, but it did not achieve mass-market sales, despite Musk’s pre-launch prediction that annual sales would eventually total 250,000. “Trucks have been the same for a very long time,” Musk said when the truck was unveiled in 2019. “Like 100 years. Trucks have been basically the same. We want to try something different.” While Tesla does not break out its sales by model or region, Cox Automotive estimated sales of the Cybertruck last year at 20,237 units in the U.S., down 48% from 38,965 in 2024.
Read more at CNBC
Pfizer To Build $650M Manufacturing Technology Center At Connecticut Campus
Pfizer is planning on building a $650 million, 220,000-square-foot manufacturing technology center at its Groton campus, AdvanceCT announced Thursday. The biopharmaceutical company will build the center at its research and development campus in Groton over the next five years. The facility will produce pharmaceutical ingredients and drug products that support Pfizer-sponsored clinical trials around the world, according to the Thursday press release. Construction is planned to begin in 2027, with operations targeted to begin in mid-2031. The project will consolidate employees currently working in other facilities across the Groton campus into the new center.
The new center will modernize Pfizer’s workforce and infrastructure in Groton and bring related operations together in a new facility. Pfizer’s Groton facility was established in 1959 and spans 175 acres with 2.17 million-square-feet of lab and office space. Nearly every Pfizer medicine is developed, in part, at this site, according to Pfizer’s website.
Read more at WTNH
Zipline Reaches $21.5 Billion Valuation as Drone Delivery Gains Traction
Zipline notched $1.5 billion in fresh funding, more than doubling the drone startup’s valuation from earlier this year to $21.5 billion. Chief Executive Keller Cliffton, who co-founded Zipline in 2014, said the company’s skyrocketing valuation is a sign that autonomous delivery has finally gained wider acceptance among both investors and commercial partners.
Zipline got its start delivering blood and medical supplies in Africa, a part of the business that the company says helps save more than 14,000 lives a year, and which is now growing faster than ever, according to Cliffton. A newer piece of Zipline’s business, its commercial operations in the U.S., has also taken off. Up until just a few months ago, the company was targeting an eventual increase to one million drone deliveries a day, but now it’s seeing interest from three or four customers who each want to buy that kind of volume, Cliffton said.
Read more at WSJ
Toyota Centralizes Robotics in a New Corporate Strategy
Toyota Motor Corp. is introducing a new corporate structure to accommodate its ongoing developments in robotics technologies, putting these various initiatives together in a single unit called Toyota Robotics. At the same time, the organizational changes announced by Toyota establish an intensive, corporate focus on people and their work activities. The change is one of several organizational and executive changes the automaker plans to make effective January 1, 2027.
Like various automaking competitors, Toyota has been researching robotics technologies for several years. Until now much of that work has been centered in the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), and in various partnerships. Some of its developments have involved Large Behavior Models (LBM) and generative AI for robots; last year, TRI announced a joint research collaboration with Boston Dynamics (a Hyundai holding) to advance general-purpose humanoid robots. Toyota’s decision to structure a corporate unit with robotics as its central purpose is explained as a response to changing global demographics, to a broader determination to modernize its manufacturing operations, and a strategy to transition from automotive to "mobility” technologies.
Read more at American Machinist
Bombardier talks with Boeing over future of Belfast plant, raises free cash guidance
Canadian jet maker Bombardier said on Thursday it was talking with Boeing about the future of a Belfast aerostructures plant, and separately raised its 2026 free cash flow forecast, buoyed by sustained demand for private flying. Boeing supplies parts for Bombardier jets from the Belfast plant, where the US planemaker divides production with European rival Airbus following Boeing's 2025 acquisition of aerostructures giant Spirit AeroSystems. Asked whether Bombardier would consider vertically integrating work from the Belfast Shorts plant, CEO Eric Martel told reporters there's probably "further discussion" to have with the US planemaker on the future of the site, after the plant reported a net loss of $1.16 billion in 2025.
Demand for charter flights and shared ownership programs, boosted by cash-rich technology investors, have helped underpin demand for private jets, despite economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and soaring jet fuel prices. Bombardier, which produces a special-mission version of its large-cabin Global jets with Sweden's Saab, has also benefited from rising defense spending in Canada and Europe. Bombardier raised its 2026 free cash flow forecast to more than $1.3 billion, from more than $1 billion, and reiterated plans to deliver more than 157 aircraft this year. Free cash flow, a closely watched measure of financial health, rose 20% from a year earlier to $183 million in the third quarter, topping analysts' estimate of $159.5 million, according to LSEG data.
Read more at Reuters
AI Is Driving America’s Nuclear Power Boom, but There’s a Hidden Fuel Problem
As technology companies race to secure reliable electricity for their data centers, nuclear power is increasingly becoming part of the solution. But there’s a less obvious challenge behind that shift: producing the enriched uranium that nuclear reactors need also requires electricity. That means the AI boom could put pressure on both the supply of nuclear power and the cost of producing its fuel. But nuclear power’s potential extends well beyond data centers. It can provide reliable, around-the-clock electricity with very low operational carbon emissions.
Depending on reactor design, it could also support remote communities, military installations, and industrial facilities where access to dependable power is limited.
James Walker, a nuclear physicist and CEO of NANO Nuclear Energy, shared that the nuclear industry’s fuel supply chain is one of the biggest constraints facing the sector. Before uranium can power most commercial nuclear reactors, it must be enriched. The process increases the concentration of uranium-235, the isotope needed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction and enrichment requires electricity. According to a Congressional Research Service report, modern gas centrifuge technology uses approximately 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity per separative work unit (SWU), the standard measure of enrichment output. Although this technology is about 95 percent more energy-efficient than older gaseous diffusion methods, electricity remains an operating cost.
Read more at Inc.
|
