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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSTOCKHOLM, Sept 7 (Reuters) - UNESCO on Thursday published its first guidance on use of Generative AI (GenAI) for education, urging governmental agencies to regulate the use of the technology, including protection of data privacy and putting an age limit for users. Students have also taken a liking for GenAI, which can generate anything from essays to mathematical calculations with just a few line of prompts. Among a series of guidelines in a 64-page report, UNESCO stressed on the need for government-sanctioned AI curricula for school education, in technical and vocational education and training. While China has formulated rules on GenAI, the European Union's AI Act is likely to be approved later this year. The Paris-based agency also sought to protect the rights of teachers and researchers and the value of their practices when using GenAI.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, OpenAI, GenAI, ChatGPT, Bard, Stefania Giannini, Supantha Mukherjee, Aurora Ellis Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, UNESCO, Microsoft, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Rights STOCKHOLM, China, Paris, Stockholm

STOCKHOLM, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The EU Commission on Wednesday designated 22 services of six major tech companies as "gatekeepers" of online services providing messaging to video sharing in its latest crackdown on Big Tech. Alphabet's Google had the highest number of services, including Android operating system, Maps and Search, which would face tougher rules. "It's D-Day for #DMA!," EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on X, formerly known as Twitter. "The most impactful online companies will now have to play by our EU rules." A Microsoft spokesperson said it accepts its gatekeeper designation, while Meta, Google and Amazon spokespersons said they were reviewing the designations.

Persons: WhatsApp, Thierry Breton, TikTok, Stavroula Vryna, Clifford Chance, Supantha Mukherjee, Foo Yun Chee, Martin Coulter, Jason Neely, David Evans Organizations: EU, Big Tech, Apple, Microsoft, ByteDance, Google, Android, Facebook, Justice, Digital Services, Meta, Gmail, Edge, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Luxembourg, iMessage, Stockholm, Brussels, London

REUTERS/Michele Tantussi/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsSTOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Advocacy group Noyb on Thursday filed complaints against Google-owned Fitbit in Austria, the Netherlands and Italy accusing the fitness tracking company of violating the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy regime. Vienna-based Noyb (None Of Your Business), the digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, has already filed hundreds of complaints against big tech companies ranging from Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google to Meta over privacy violations, some leading to big fines. Fitbit forces its users to consent to data transfers outside the EU and does not provide the possibility to withdraw their consent, violating GDPR's requirements, Noyb said. Fines for violating GDPR rules can reach up to 4% of a firm's global annual revenue. While GDPR allows every person to withdraw their consent, Fitbit's privacy policy states that the only way to withdraw consent is to delete an account, which means losing their previously tracked workouts and health data, Noyb said.

Persons: Michele Tantussi, Max Schrems, Noyb, Fitbit, doesn't, Bernardo Armentano, Supantha Mukherjee, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: IFA, REUTERS, Rights, Google, European, Data Protection, Thomson Locations: Berlin, Germany, Rights STOCKHOLM, Austria, Netherlands, Italy, Vienna, Stockholm

The January-June operating loss at the privately held (BNPL) fintech, which last made a full-year profit in 2018, was 2.01 billion crowns ($185 million) against a year-earlier loss of 6.17 billion. "We feel very confident that we'll be posting a profitable quarter very soon and then eventually also a full profitable year." Klarna Bank is a unit of Klarna Holdings, which has attracted investment from the likes of Sequoia, Permira and Silver Lake. Siemiatkowski said Klarna, whose biggest market by revenue is the U.S., now has more than 30 million users. In the second quarter, gross merchandise volume (GMV) - the value of goods purchased through Klarna - was up 14%, and revenue growth was 17%.

Persons: Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Siemiatkowski, Klarna, Supantha Mukherjee, Anna Ringstrom, Terje Solsvik, Sharon Singleton Organizations: Klarna Bank, Reuters, Klarna, Klarna Holdings, Sequoia, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Ukraine, Silver, U.S, Klarna

Leading the round alongside BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, were Canada Pension Plan, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and, as previously reported, pension investor Investment Management Corporation of Ontario. The fresh funds will help the firm expand its factory footprint, Hartman said. Separately, Northvolt has assembled its first energy storage system products in Poland and expects to start customer deliveries from later this year. "We have a business plan... we always want to make sure we have access to the markets," Hartman said. Reuters has previously reported, citing sources, that Northvolt was preparing for an initial public offering that could value the company at more than $20 billion.

Persons: Helena Soderpalm, IMCO, Northvolt, Alexander Hartman, Goldman Sachs, Baillie Gifford, Swedbank, Singapore's, Chow, Hartman, Supantha Mukherjee, Simon Jessop, Mark Potter Organizations: REUTERS, BlackRock, Reuters, Management Corporation of Ontario, Volkswagen, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, BMW, Volvo, Thomson Locations: Vasteras, Sweden, BlackRock, Canada, STOCKHOLM, LONDON, Swedish, Europe, North America, Ontario, Hong Kong, Germany, United States, Scania, Poland, Stockholm, London

KYIV/STOCKHOLM, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in Sweden on Saturday to meet with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, the royal family and other officials as Kyiv's counteroffensive against Russian forces grinds into its third month. The visit will start at Harpsund, the country retreat of Swedish prime ministers, about 120 kilometres from Sweden's capital Stockholm. As Zelenskiy reached Sweden, he said people had been killed and wounded in a Russian missile strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. Zelenskiy said he would thank Sweden for supporting Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Zelenskiy and Prime Minister Kristersson will hold a joint press conference at Harpsund in the afternoon.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ulf Kristersson, grinds, Zelenskiy, Pal Jonson, Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Olena Zelenska, Kristersson, Dan Peleschuk, Supantha Mukherjee, Simon Johnson, Frances Kerry, Toby Chopra, David Holmes Organizations: Russian, Swedish, Harpsund, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Harpsund, Swedish, Sweden's, Stockholm, Zelenskiy, Russian, Ukrainian, Chernihiv, Ukraine, Stenhammar

The number of monthly active users rose to 551 million in the second quarter, beating Spotify's guidance and analysts' forecast of 526.8 million. Premium subscribers, who account for most of the company's revenue, rose 17% to 220 million, topping estimates of 216.6 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. However, quarterly revenue was 3.18 billion euros ($3.51 billion), below analysts' estimate of 3.21 billion euros. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo"If we have user growth, the revenue growth eventually comes - that's the lesson been learned at Spotify and we have seen it over and over," Ek said. Spotify expects premium subscribers to reach 224 million this quarter and revenue of 3.3 billion euros.

Persons: Daniel Ek, Brendan McDermid, Ek, Paul Vogel, Supantha Mukherjee, Louise Heavens, Mark Potter Organizations: Spotify, New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, New York, U.S, Stockholm

Let's do this," tweeted Yaccarino, who also posted a picture of the logo projected onto the company's offices in San Francisco. loadingloadingBoth Yaccarino's and Musk's Twitter handles feature the X logo, although the Twitter blue bird is still visible across the platform. He also referred to the "interim X logo," and tweeted that "soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds". In response to a tweet asking what will tweets be called under X, Musk replied "x's". loadingThe original Twitter logo was designed in 2012 by a team of three.

Persons: Carlos Barria STOCKHOLM, Elon Musk, Linda Yaccarino, Yaccarino, Musk, adieu, Martin Grasser, Matt Rhodes, Drew Benvie, Battenhall, Supantha Mukherjee, Martin Coulter, Aiden Nulty, Bharat Govind Gautam, Barbara Lewis Organizations: REUTERS, Twitter, PayPal, NBCUniversal, SpaceX, Thomson Locations: San Francisco , California, U.S, San Francisco, Elon Musk's, Stockholm, London, Bengaluru

Nokia and rival Ericsson (ERICb.ST) have been hit by slowing orders from customers, mostly in their high-margin North American markets. The results come after Nokia last week cut its annual sales and profit margin outlook and Ericsson reported a big fall in quarterly profit. Comparable operating profit in the second quarter fell to 626 million euros ($702.37 million) from 714 million euros last year, but beat market estimates. The decline in North American markets was somewhat offset by India but with a lower margin. Nokia made gains with Indian operators, particularly with the likes of Reliance Jio Infocomm, which was dominated by Samsung for 4G, he said.

Persons: Pekka Lundmark, Lundmark, Supantha Mukherjee, Niklas Pollard, Josephine Mason Organizations: Nokia, Ericsson, Apple, Samsung, 4G, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Finnish, India, North America, Stockholm

[1/2] A response by ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, is seen on its website in this illustration picture taken February 9, 2023. The EU and its member states have dispatched officials for talks on governing the use of AI with at least 10 Asian countries including India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines, they said. Officials from Singapore and the Philippines expressed concern that moving overly hasty regulation might stifle AI innovation. Seoul will continue discussing AI regulation with the EU but is more interested in what the G7 is doing, a South Korean official said following a meeting with Breton. The EU is planning to use the upcoming G20 meetings to further push for global collaboration on AI, notably with 2023 president India, van Huffelen told Reuters.

Persons: Florence, Alexandra van Huffelen, van Huffelen, Thierry Breton, Breton, Fanny Potkin, Sam Nussey, Supantha Mukherjee, Joyce Lee, Tomasz Janowski Organizations: REUTERS, European, EU, Reuters, Officials, General Data, European Union, South Korean, Thomson Locations: Florence Lo, SINGAPORE, TOKYO, STOCKHOLM, Asia, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Philippines, Canada, Turkey, Israel, EU, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, United States, Hiroshima, Seoul

[1/2] A response by ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, is seen on its website in this illustration picture taken February 9, 2023. The EU and its member states have dispatched officials for talks on governing the use of AI with at least 10 Asian countries including India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines, they said. The officials asked not be named as the discussions, whose extent has not been previously reported, remained confidential. Officials from Singapore and the Philippines expressed concern that moving overly hasty regulation might stifle AI innovation. Seoul will continue discussing AI regulation with the EU but is more interested in what the G7 is doing, a South Korean official said following a meeting with Breton.

STOCKHOLM, June 30 (Reuters) - The proposed EU Artificial Intelligence legislation would jeopardise Europe's competitiveness and technological sovereignty, according to an open letter signed by more than 160 executives at companies ranging from Renault (RENA.PA) to Meta (META.O). EU lawmakers agreed to a set of draft rules this month where systems like ChatGPT would have to disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish so-called deep-fake images from real ones and ensure safeguards against illegal content. Since ChatGPT became popular, several open letters have been issued calling for regulation of AI and raising the "risk of extinction from AI." The third, Yann LeCun, who works at Meta, signed Friday's letter challenging the EU regulations. The letter warned that under the proposed EU rules technologies like generative AI would become heavily regulated and companies developing such systems would face high compliance costs and disproportionate liability risks.

Persons: ChatGPT, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua, Yann LeCun, OpenAI's Altman, Supantha Mukherjee, Jamie Freed Organizations: EU Artificial Intelligence, Renault, EU, Meta, Spanish, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, French, Europe, Stockholm

In the face of an unprecedented semiconductor shortage, Europe is offering billions of euros in subsidies to reduce its dependence on Asia. In return, Intel is committing big sums and with Germany already bagging a 30 billion euro investment, Poland decided to crash the party. Poland initially impressed Intel executives with the speed in which it responded to queries and addressed concerns, Intel said. "When we began the process, we hadn't considered Poland," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told Reuters. But when Intel announced its European investments in March 2022, Germany was awarded a major factory in Magdeburg while Intel told Poland it would only expand its existing facility in Gdansk.

Persons: chipmaker, hadn't, Pat Gelsinger, Gelsinger, Marcin Fabianowicz, Fabianowicz, Sroda Slaska Adam Ruciński, TSMC, Jakub Mazur, Karol Badohal, Supantha Mukherjee, Matt Scuffham, Elaine Hardcastle Organizations: Wroclaw, Intel, Reuters, Polish Investment and Trade Agency, Industrial Development Agency, PepsiCo, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, Thomson Locations: WROCLAW, Poland, STOCKHOLM, Europe, Asia, Germany, U.S, Wroclaw, Polish, Magdeburg, Gdansk, Sroda Slaska, Wrocław, Taiwan, Stockholm

Northvolt, which counts BMW (BMWG.DE) and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) among its investors, last year delivered its first battery cells from its gigafactory in Skelleftea in Sweden. In its largest deal in Europe yet, IMCO has invested $400 million in Northvolt through convertible notes, it told Reuters. "Whether it (Northvolt) goes public or stays private, we've done our homework and we are happy with the investment." Matthew Mendes, IMCO's head of infrastructure, said the Northvolt investment was examined jointly by his team and IMCO's public equities managers. IMCO has an investment team of 110 staff, which it plans to grow as it looks for more investments overseas.

Persons: IMCO, we've, Northvolt, Stoyanova, Carlyle, Matthew Mendes, IMCO's, Mendes, Simon Jessop, Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Marguerita Choy Organizations: Energy, Canada's Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, BMW, Volkswagen, Reuters, Blackstone, Thomson Locations: Europe, Swedish, Skelleftea, Sweden, Germany, Britain, North America, Ontario, Brookfield

Berlin has agreed subsidies worth nearly 10 billion euros with the U.S. chipmaker, a person familiar with the matter said, more than the 6.8 billion euros it had initially offered Intel to build two leading-edge facilities in the eastern city. "Today's agreement is an important step for Germany as a high-tech production location – and for our resilience," Scholz said after Monday's signing. Globally, semiconductor manufacturing is expected to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2030, expanding from $600 billion in 2021, according to McKinsey. Initially, Intel wanted to invest 17 billion euros in the Magdeburg plant, an amount that has nearly doubled to more than 30 billion. About 7,000 construction jobs will be created in the first expansion, plus around 3,000 high-tech jobs at Intel and tens of thousands of jobs across industry, the U.S. chipmaker said.

Persons: Olaf Scholz, Pat Gelsinger, Scholz, Israel, Dado Ruvic, Robert Hermann, Taiwan's TSMC, Tesla, Robert Habeck, chipmaker, Gelsinger, Maria Martinez, Riham, Christoph Steitz, Rachel More, Jason Neely, Sharon Singleton, Catherine Evans Organizations: Intel, Intel Intel, Germany's, U.S, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Union, McKinsey, REUTERS, Germany Trade, Invest, Reuters, Germany, Thomson Locations: Germany, Frankfurt BERLIN, STOCKHOLM, Magdeburg, Europe, Berlin, Saxony, Anhalt, EU, chipmaking, Poland, United States, South Korea, Taiwan, Frankfurt, U.S, Ireland, France, Asia

The deal in Germany would be Intel's third big investment in four days, following a $4.6 billion chip plant in Poland and a $25 billion factory in Israel. Intel plans to invest around 30 billion euros in the Magdeburg plant, the person said. Scholz said on Monday that his government was working on investment projects that would make Germany one of the world's leading locations for semiconductor production. Frankfurt-listed Intel shares were 0.7% lower at 1137 GMT. ($1 = 0.9150 euros)Writing by Christoph Steitz; editing by Rachel More, Jason Neely and Sharon SingletonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Pat Gelsinger, Olaf Scholz, Scholz, Taiwan's TSMC, Tesla, Gelsinger, Christoph Steitz, Rachel More, Jason Neely, Sharon Singleton Organizations: Intel, U.S, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, EU, Reuters, Germany, Thomson Locations: Germany, Frankfurt BERLIN, STOCKHOLM, Magdeburg, chipmaking, Poland, Israel, United States, Europe, Berlin, South Korea, Taiwan, Frankfurt, Ireland, France, Asia

The facility in Poland will employ 2,000 workers and create several thousand additional jobs during the construction phase and hiring by suppliers, the company said in a statement. "Poland was just a little bit hungrier to win this site," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a news conference. Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Thursday that the German government and Intel were close to an agreement for 9.9 billion euros ($10.83 billion) in subsidies, up from a previously agreed 6.8 billion. The level of any subsidy offered to Intel by Poland was not made public during Friday's announcement. Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland, called Intel's factory "the largest greenfield investment in the history of Poland".

Persons: chipmaker, Pat Gelsinger, Gelsinger, Olaf Scholz, Mateusz Morawiecki, Karol Badohal, Supantha Mukherjee, Jason Neely, Conor Humphries Organizations: Intel, Labour, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Thomson Locations: Poland, WROCLAW, STOCKHOLM, Wrocław, Europe, U.S, Germany, Ireland, France, Berlin, Wroclaw, Stockholm

BRUSSELS/STOCKHOLM, June 14 (Reuters) - EU lawmakers on Wednesday voted for tougher landmark draft artificial intelligence rules that include a ban on the use of the technology in biometric surveillance and for generative AI systems like ChatGPT to disclose AI-generated content. The lawmakers agreed the amendments to the draft legislation proposed by the European Commission which is seeking to set a global standard for the technology used in everything from automated factories to bots and self-driving cars. Microsoft, which has called for AI rules, welcomed the lawmakers' agreement. However, the Computer and Communications Industry Association said the amendments on high-risk AIs were likely to overburden European AI developers with "excessively prescriptive rules" and slow down innovation. The lawmakers will now have to thrash out details with European Union countries before the draft rules become legislation.

Persons: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Brando Benifei, Thierry Breton, Foo Yun Chee, Bart Meijers, Supantha Mukherjee, Emelia Sithole Organizations: European, Microsoft, Elon, Big Tech, Union, Computer and Communications Industry Association, AIs, The Commission, Thomson Locations: BRUSSELS, STOCKHOLM, Europe, United States, China, Brussels, Stockholm

"This would be the nail in the coffin for Huawei in Europe," said Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight. China has asked for Huawei to be one of the main points on the agenda, one of the sources familiar with the matter said. Germany's China hawks expressed outrage in March when a Reuters story revealed that German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn was using Huawei gear to digitalise its operations. Berlin in 2021 passed a law setting high hurdles for makers of telecommunications equipment for the "critical components" of 5G networks. It is estimated it would cost billions of euros to rip out and replace Huawei equipment in European countries, potentially burdening telecom companies already sitting on huge debts.

Persons: Paolo Pescatore, Andrew Small, Mikko Huotari, Sweden's, Sarah Marsh, Andreas Rinke, Supantha Mukherjee, Foo Yun Chee, Sergio Goncalves, Mark Potter Organizations: European, Huawei, Deutsche Telekom, Foresight, Deutsche Bahn, Mercator Institute for China Studies, Telecom, Nokia, Sweden's Ericsson, Thomson Locations: BERLIN, STOCKHOLM, Germany, Brussels, Berlin, Beijing, Europe, China, China's, Denmark, Portugal, West, U.S, Stockholm, Lisbon

STOCKHOLM, June 6 (Reuters) - Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has no plans to go public any time soon, Chief Executive Sam Altman said at a conference in Abu Dhabi. OpenAI has so far raised $10 billion from Microsoft (MSFT.O) at a valuation of almost $30 billion as it invests more on building computing capacity. "We did not threaten to leave the EU," Altman said on Tuesday. There's still more clarity we are waiting for on the EU AI Act, but we are very excited to operate in Europe." Many experts have cited a potential threat to jobs being replaced by AI including in sectors such as transport and logistics, office support and administration, production, services and retail.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, OpenAI, Thierry Breton, Margrethe Vestager, Supantha Mukherjee, David Goodman, Emelia Organizations: Microsoft, United Arab Emirates, EU, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, India, South Korea, EU, Europe, Stockholm

STOCKHOLM, June 6 (Reuters) - Swedish startup evroc, which is backed by EQT Ventures and Norrsken VC, plans to raise and invest 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) over the next couple of years to start operating two "hyperscale" data centres. Led by serial entrepreneur Mattias Åström, evroc plans to keep the data within Europe. It has raised a seed round, and plans to build eight hyperscale data centres by 2028, three software development hubs and employ over 3,000 people. It will use a technique called "eco load balancer" which will move data processing between evroc's data centres based on where renewable energy is most readily available and affordable. "When there is sunshine in Spain, we move data processing to Spain; when there's wind in the Netherlands, we move data processing there," Åström said.

Persons: Mattias Åström, Åström, Supantha Mukherjee, Hugh Lawson Organizations: EQT Ventures, Norrsken, Reuters, Thomson Locations: STOCKHOLM, Europe, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Northvolt, Stockholm

"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war," more than 350 signatories wrote in a letter published by the nonprofit Center for AI Safety (CAIS). As well as Altman, they included the CEOs of AI firms DeepMind and Anthropic, and executives from Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google (GOOGL.O). Elon Musk and a group of AI experts and industry executives were the first ones to cite potential risks to society in April. AI pioneer Hinton earlier told Reuters that AI could pose a "more urgent" threat to humanity than climate change. Last week OpenAI CEO Sam Altman referred to EU AI - the first efforts to create a regulation for AI - as over-regulation and threatened to leave Europe.

SummarySummary Companies OpenAI CEO reverses earlier threat to leave EuropeSays had productive week of conversations about regulating AIEU lawmakers were critical about OpenAI's threat regionMay 26 (Reuters) - OpenAI has no plans to leave Europe, CEO Sam Altman said on Friday, reversing a threat made earlier this week to leave the region if it becomes too hard to comply with upcoming laws on artificial intelligence. "We are excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave," Altman said in a tweet on Friday. His threat of quitting Europe had drawn criticism from EU industry chief Thierry Breton and a host of other lawmakers. He called his tour a "very productive week of conversations in Europe about how to best regulate AI!" OpenAI first clashed with regulators in March, when Italian data regulator Garante shut the app down domestically, accusing OpenAI of flouting European privacy rules.

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