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REUTERS/Mike Segar/File PhotoNEW YORK, June 21 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co's (JPM.N) commercial bank is entering Singapore and Israel this year as its unit catering to midsize and small companies makes a global push, the bank said. The moves will give the commercial bank a presence in 28 countries by year-end. The largest U.S. lender has been beefing up its global presence, with a goal of quadrupling the number of commercial clients as it enters new geographies. JPMorgan's commercial bank began branching outside of the U.S. and Canada in 2019, establishing bases in Europe and Asia. Revenue for the international commercial business stood at $847 million at the end of 2022, reflecting annual growth of 17%.

Persons: Morgan Chase, Mike Segar, Andrew Kresse, Doug Petno, Morgan McGrath, Nupur Anand, Lananh Nguyen, Conor Humphries Organizations: Co, New York City, REUTERS, JPMorgan Chase, U.S, JPMorgan, World Trade Organization, Revenue, Thomson Locations: New York, Singapore, Israel, U.S, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Canada, Europe, Asia

OAKLAND, California, June 13(Reuters) - Silicon Valley-based AI chip startup SiMa.ai on Tuesday said it raised an additional $13 million from investors including a key fund in Taiwan called VentureTech Alliance, which has a strong strategic partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW). This is at least the third investment in U.S. chip startups by VentureTech Alliance in the past month. British AI chip unicorn Graphcore's struggles have been widely reported. Rangasayee also pointed to one recent benchmark testing result by SiMa.ai that beat AI chip giant Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) in performance and power of chips used on devices like cameras, drones and robots. The testing data is published by MLCommons, an engineering consortium that maintains testing benchmarks widely used in the AI chip industry.

Persons: VentureTech, Ethernovia, SiMa.ai, Navin Chaddha, Mayfield, Chaddha, they're, Moshe Gavrielov, Krishna Rangasayee, MLCommons, it's, David, Goliath, Jane Lanhee Lee, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: VentureTech, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, VentureTech Alliance, Ayar Labs, Nvidia Corp, Nvidia, Thomson Locations: OAKLAND, California, Taiwan, British

NEW YORK, June 9 (Reuters) - Stephanie Cohen, the head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) fintech unit called Platform Solutions, is taking a leave of absence for family reasons, she said in a memo to staff seen by Reuters. "The past year has brought some challenges for my family," Cohen said in the memo. Philip Berlinski, the bank's treasurer, and Ericka Leslie, its chief administrative officer, will handle Cohen's responsibilities in her absence. Cohen is the only woman executive to lead one of Goldman's three main business units. Cohen joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 1999, was named managing director in 2008 and partner in 2014.

Persons: Stephanie Cohen, Cohen, Philip Berlinski, Ericka Leslie, Goldman Sachs, Goldman, John Waldron, Lananh Nguyen, Saeed Azhar, Nick Zieminski Organizations: YORK, Goldman Sachs, Reuters, Thomson Locations: New York

☆ Exclusive: Bank of America promotes Bettamio to co-head of investment banking; Ahmad to co-head capital markets
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Lananh Nguyen | Thomson Reuters | Lananh Nguyen Is The U.S. Finance Editor At Reuters In New York | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) promoted the head of its Latin America business, Alex Bettamio, to co-head of global investment banking alongside Thomas Sheehan, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Thursday. It also elevated Faiz Ahmad to jointly lead global capital markets with Sarang Gadkari. Bank of America's investment-banking revenue rose 19% to $6.2 billion in the first quarter, its second-best quarter for revenue, even as investment banking fees sank 20%. Jin Su will become the bank's sole president for the Asia Pacific region when Seguchi retires. Peter Guenthardt will lead global corporate investment banking in the region.

Persons: Alex Bettamio, Thomas Sheehan, Faiz Ahmad, Sarang Gadkari, Ahmad, Bilgi Zapparoli, Bernie Mensah, BofA's, Mark Monaco, Augusto Urmeneta, Jiro Seguchi, Jin Su, Seguchi, Peter Guenthardt, Lananh Nguyen, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: YORK, Bank of America Corp, Reuters, Sarang, Global Transaction Services, Bank of, GTS, Asia, Thomson Locations: America, U.S, Asia Pacific

BERLIN, June 7 (Reuters) - German industrial output rose less than expected in April, darkening the outlook for the euro zone's largest economy following weak new orders data earlier this week. The statistics office revised up the industrial production figure for March to a 2.1% decrease from a provisional figure of a 3.4% fall. Even with this revision, German industrial production is 1.6% below its level a year earlier. Data on Tuesday showed industrial orders fell by 0.4% in the month of April. "Without any significant pick up in activity, the German economy's recession could continue in the second quarter," ING's global head of macro Carsten Brzeski said.

Persons: Andrew Kenningham, Kenningham, April's, Commerzbank's, Ralph Solveen, Solveen, Carsten Brzeski, Anastasiia Kozlova, Maria Martinez, Miranda Murray, Christina Fincher Organizations: Companies, Thomson Locations: BERLIN, Europe, China, United States

"Germans are cautious by nature," said Stephan Fetsch, Germany's head of consumer goods at KPMG. Economists polled by Reuters are split on its second quarter fortunes: views ranged from a 0.3% GDP fall to a 0.5% gain, with a median forecast of 0.2% growth. However, German consumer sentiment remains below its pandemic low in the spring of 2020 and the consumer barometer from the German Retail Association (HDE) shows a similar picture. German consumers were hit particularly hard by high energy prices, being more dependent on Russia gas. "The German consumer has reasons to be scared and the result of all the economic uncertainty is usually an increase in precautionary savings," said Michael Burda, economics professor at Humboldt University Berlin.

Persons: Wolfgang Rattay, Germany's, Stephan Fetsch, Holger Schmieding, Carsten Brzeski, KPMG's Fetsch, Joerg Kraemer, Michael Burda, Brzeski, Maria Martinez, Prerana Bhat, Indradip Ghosh, Mark John, Toby Chopra Organizations: REUTERS, KPMG, Reuters, German Retail Association, Berenberg, ING, European Central Bank, Humboldt University Berlin, Thomson Locations: Cologne, Germany, BERLIN, Europe, France, Italy, Russia, Berlin, China, Bengaluru

NEW YORK, June 2 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co's (JPM.N) President and Chief Operating Officer Daniel Pinto said loan demand is declining at a time when regional and small banks are also tightening credit. JPMorgan's revenue for investment banking and trading are expected to decline 15% in the second quarter, Pinto said last month at the bank's annual investor day. Uncertainty and increased market volatility as central banks approach the end of their monetary tightening cycles have dented investment banking demand. Rival Goldman Sachs (GS.N) has said its dealmaking and trading revenue may slide by 25% in the second quarter, leading to job cuts. Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) expects investment banking fees and trading revenue to be broadly flat this quarter.

Persons: Daniel Pinto, Pinto, Goldman Sachs, Andy Saperstein, Morgan Stanley, Nupur Anand, Lananh Nguyen, David Gregorio Our Organizations: YORK, JPMorgan Chase, Federal Reserve, JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp, Thomson Locations: New York

London generated $2 billion in venture capital funding in the first quarter of 2023, compared to Berlin's $800 million, a DEEP Ecosystems analysis of Dealroom data showed. Reuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsTOUGHER TIMESIn 2022, 501 startups were founded in Berlin, a fifth of Germany's total. About a fifth of openings at startups were vacant and more than half were struggling to fill posts, German Startups Association said. In Germany, it has been accompanied by the sharpest contraction in venture capital funding in Europe in the past 12 months, down 42%. The funding crunch is hitting Germany's push to encourage the growth of new renewables businesses, given manufacturing startups are particularly capital intensive.

Persons: Avitosh Sawhney, Christian, headwinds, Katharina Beck, Lindner, Maximilian Tayenthal, Christoph Stresing, Tobias Lechtenfeld, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's, Maria Martinez, Riham Alkousaa, Matthias Williams, Mark John, Edmund Blair Organizations: Wall, Greens, Reuters, Startup Heatmap, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Manpower, Association, European Central Bank, Tech, Zero Alliance, Free Democratic Party, Thomson Locations: Berlin, London, BERLIN, Paris, Germany, Europe

BERLIN, May 31 (Reuters) - Inflation eased in five economically important German states in the month of May, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, suggesting that national price rises are set to slow to their lowest in more than a year. The inflation rate in North-Rhine Westphalia fell to 5.7%, while in Bavaria it slowed to 6.1%, in Brandenburg to 6.3%, in Hesse to 5.9% and in Baden-Wuerttemberg to 6.6%. In April, inflation rates for those five states, out of 16 in Germany, had been between 6.8% and 7.6%. National inflation data will be published at 1200 GMT, with economists surveyed by Reuters forecasting a 6.5% year-on-year rise. Furthermore, the base effects from high energy and food prices in May 2022 will disappear from the year-on-year comparison.

Persons: Luis de Guindos, Maria Martinez, Balazs Koranyi, Matthias Williams, Andrew Cawthorne Organizations: Reuters, European Central Bank, ECB, Thomson Locations: BERLIN, Rhine Westphalia, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Baden, Wuerttemberg, Germany, Dutch

OAKLAND, California, May 31 (Reuters) - Lightmatter, a Boston-based startup using light for AI computing, said on Wednesday it raised $154 million and tripled its valuation as customers in need of faster, more energy efficient computing for AI work are buying its systems. "We use light to link computer chips together and we also use light to do calculations for deep learning," Lightmatter co-founder and CEO Nick Harris said. "The reason that we're getting these customers and data center scale deployments with our interconnect is that the generative AI boom is driving high-end chips like crazy." Light has been used for decades in the telecommunications industry to move data across the world with fiber optic cables. Harris said Envise will be able to run large AI models but will not train them.

Persons: Lightmatter, Nick Harris, Harris, Envise, Jane Lanhee Lee, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: GV, Google Ventures, Inc, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Thomson Locations: OAKLAND, California, Boston

May 29 (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) owned chip designer Arm on Monday rolled out new technology for mobile devices and Taiwan smartphone chip maker MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) said it will be using it for its next-generation product. In Arm's blog announcing the new products, MediaTek said the new chips will help improve the performance of its next-generation smartphones. "Investors have become extremely sensitive to any news about AI or chip technology and jumped on this Arm news," said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management. Last month the Financial Times reported that Arm was developing its own chip to showcase the capabilities of its designs. Arm said the Cortex-X4 was taped out on TSMC's N3E process and said it was an industry first.

May 29 (Reuters) - Arm Ltd on Monday rolled out new chip technology for mobile devices and Taiwan smartphone chip maker MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) said it will be using it for its next-generation product. In Arm's blog announcing the new products, MediaTek said the new chips will help improve the performance of its next-generation smartphones. "Arm is not in the business of selling chips. Last month the Financial Times reported that Arm was developing its own chip to showcase the capabilities of its designs. Arm said the Cortex-X4 was taped out on TSMC's N3E process and said it was an industry first.

SANTA CLARA, California May 22 (Reuters) - U.S. semiconductor toolmaker Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) on Monday said it plans to spend up to $4 billion on a research center in the heart of Silicon Valley to speed up advances in semiconductor manufacturing. Applied Materials said the new facility, called the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center, will be the size of more than three American football fields. The scale of how fast we invest is going to be tied to the government incentives," Gary Dickerson, CEO of Applied Materials, told Reuters. Taking ideas from research universities and turning them into tools used in factories can take many years, said Applied executives. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend an Applied Materials' event in Silicon Valley announcing the center, along with top executives from major chip companies.

NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) is beefing up its commercial banking business that caters to tech startups and other early-stage companies, the company said on Monday. The largest U.S. lender plans to add staff after it hired more than a hundred bankers this year to serve companies in the so-called innovation economy in sectors such as technology, e-commerce and life sciences. Two other regional lenders were subsequently seized by banking regulators, including First Republic Bank, which JPMorgan bought earlier this month. JPMorgan's broader commercial bank has more than 18,000 clients, including mid-sized businesses and corporations, government entities and non-profits and more than 33,000 real estate investors or owners. It also aims to expand overseas to serve early-stage companies in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

Under his leadership, Morgan Stanley became a wealth management powerhouse that aims to manage $10 trillion in assets. Morgan Stanley bought money manager Eaton Vance, online broker E*Trade, and stock-plan manager Solium Capital under Gorman's leadership. He was also the key architect behind Morgan Stanley's purchase of Smith Barney, a brokerage and investment adviser, in 2009. The acquisitions have made Morgan Stanley's U.S. wealth business an "asset gathering monster," and a "killer machine," he said on an earnings conference call last month. "This structure will ensure the continued stability of Morgan Stanley, while at the same time positioning it for a decade of exciting growth under new leadership."

A court in Ecuador sentenced Correa to eight years in prison in 2020 over accusations he broke campaign finance laws. His party, Citizen Revolution, was the biggest party in the assembly with 47 seats before Lasso dissolved it. The former lawmakers from Citizen Revolution will run in the snap election, Correa said, adding that he hopes the party wins at least 50 seats. Lasso - who has said he will not run in the upcoming elections - will rule by decree until the snap election, with laws subject to approval by the Constitutional Court. Any laws issued by decree - including an earlier move by Lasso to loosen gun controls - will be targeted following the election by Citizen Revolution politicians in government or the legislature, Correa said.

But the materials are expensive and still face supply bottlenecks compared with the cheaper standard silicon used in most chips. The company has previously raised funding from semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT.O). iDEAL has partnered with Bloomington, Minnesota-based chip manufacturer Polar Semiconductor to make its first chips and is planning to roll them out later this year. Granahan said silicon carbide chips can still beat iDEAL's for certain applications including the extremely high voltage chips needed for applications such as electric semi trucks. But he said iDEAL's chips could be competitive for about 90% of the overall market for power chips.

BOGOTA, May 16 (Reuters) - Deforestation in Colombia during 2022 is forecast to have fallen by up to 10% versus the previous year, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said on Tuesday, citing significant decreases in the country's Amazon. Deforestation in Colombia in 2021 rose 1.5% versus the previous year to 1,741 square kilometers (430,218 acres), representing an area twice the size of New York City. A 10% decrease in deforestation would take the total area of forest destroyed during 2022 in Colombia to below the 1,589 square kilometers registered in 2019, the first full year of the administration of former President Ivan Duque. Between 2001 and 2021, more than 31,000 square kilometers of forest were destroyed in Colombia, of which some 18,600 square kilometers were deforested in the country's Amazon. Colombia's government will publish full deforestation figures for 2022 in June, Muhamad said.

OAKLAND, California May 15 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley automotive ethernet chip startup Ethernovia Inc said on Monday it had raised $64 million in a Series A funding round including Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PSHG_p.DE), Qualcomm Ventures, VentureTech Alliance and others. Instead, they are building a central computer to control everything from camera and radar sensors to the windows and the entertainment dashboard. Ramin Shirani, Ethernovia's co-founder and CEO, said he started the company in 2018 to build a single ethernet network in the car that would be the backbone for these new vehicles. But anything that connects the brains to the sensors, that's where we are," Shirani told Reuters. Ethernovia has created a family of ethernet chips and software that help simplify the electronics architecture of the car, he said.

OAKLAND, California, May 9 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) on Tuesday launched watsonx, a new artificial intelligence and data platform to help companies integrate AI in their business. The new AI platform launch comes over a decade after IBM's software called Watson got attention for winning the game show Jeopardy. Fast forward a decade, chatbot ChatGPT's overnight success is making AI adoption at companies a focus, and IBM is looking to grab new business. This time, the lower cost of implementing the large language AI models means the chances of success are high, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Reuters ahead of the company's annual Think conference. IBM said companies can use the watsonx platform to train and deploy AI models, automatically generate code using natural language and use various large language models built for different purposes such as chemical creation or climate change modeling.

BERLIN, May 8 (Reuters) - German industrial production fell more than expected in March, partly due to a weak performance by the automotive sector, spurring again recession fears in Europe's largest economy. Production decreased by 3.4% on the previous month following a slightly revised increase of 2.1% in February, the federal statistical office said on Monday. "After a buoyant performance by industrial production at the beginning of the year, there was an unexpectedly sharp decline in March," the economics ministry said. In the first quarter, production was 2.5% higher than in the last quarter of 2022, according to the statistics office. GDP was unchanged quarter on quarter in adjusted terms in the first quarter, following a 0.5% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2022.

This is an important moment not to cede leadership in any emerging technologies," Panchanathan said. The NSF is a federal agency that funds a big portion of science and engineering, including research at universities. TIP is the agency's first new directorate in more than 30 years and would help identify research, a lot of it already funded by the NSF, that can become technology products, he said. The directorate would help build up an ecosystem of academics, corporates, venture capitalists, and others to help researchers and startups get off the ground. Panchanathan and Khanna met nearly two dozen venture capitalists, startup CEOs, and some big tech firm executives in Santa Clara, California to discuss the CHIPS and Science Act.

OAKLAND, California, May 4 (Reuters) - Impact Nano, a Massachusetts-based startup that makes specialty chemicals for the semiconductor industry and others, said on Thursday it raised $32 million in funding from investors including Intel Capital and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. And they are made in regions of political instability," said Matthew Stephens, CEO and co-founder of Impact Nano. Stephens said Impact Nano is inventing new ways to produce chemicals that chip makers use. Stephens also said Impact Nano is looking to apply for some of the CHIPS Act funding that will support the suppliers for semiconductor manufacturing. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is part of Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Intel Capital is the investment arm of U.S. chip giant Intel Corp (INTC.O).

May 1 (Reuters) - Longtime Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh is leaving the Silicon Valley venture capital establishment to start a fund with backing from the firm and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), sources told Reuters. Hsieh is in advanced talks to raise $200 million from limited partners including Kleiner Perkins and TSMC for the new fund called Matter Ventures. A Kleiner Perkins spokesperson confirmed Hsieh's departure and the firm's participation in the fund. Hsieh, with two PhDs from the California Institute of Technology, has worked at Kleiner Perkins for 17 years, leading investments in Chinese drone maker DJI and 3D printing company Desktop Medal (DM.N). He will remain on the boards of companies he invested in at Kleiner Perkins, including orthodontic brackets maker LightForce.

"The German economy remained stuck in the mud at the start of 2023, only barely avoiding recession," Pantheon Macroeconomics' chief eurozone economist Claus Vistesen said. The German economy shrank by a revised 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared with the previous three months, reviving fears of a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction. "A gradual recovery is underway, despite a persistently difficult environment," German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in the presentation of the forecasts. "The recent renaissance in industrial production could very well carry the economy through the second quarter," ING's global head of macro Carsten Brzeski said. "However, we are afraid that looking into the second half of the year, the German economy will continue its flirtation with recession."

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