2024-03-19 19:02
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - Demand for environmentally friendly buildings is set to increase strongly over the next two years as companies with emissions reduction commitments see their leases come up for renewal and seek a greener alternative, real estate company JLL said , opens new tab. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT As more companies commit to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, most will be looking to cut those tied to their offices and factories, yet demand for low carbon buildings is set to outstrip supply. KEY QUOTES "Time is of the essence for the real estate industry," Guy Grainger, JLL's Global Head of Sustainability Services and ESG, said. "We are in a new world where inaction over decarbonisation will see investments fall into economic obsolescence in the coming years. While for real estate tenants, this growing need to show progress against carbon commitments will lead to price friction and a race for low carbon buildings." CONTEXT The number of companies committing to reach net-zero emissions across their business by 2050 has surged in recent years, with 7,600 companies worldwide signed up to the Science Based Targets Initiative. One out of every three leases tied to a carbon commitment will expire in less than 24 months. Average leases are 7-10 years, meaning many will be live at 2030, a key interim assessment point for many companies' targets. BY THE NUMBERS - For every three square meters of global demand, less than one square meter is being developed. - Only 30% of future demand for low carbon workspace is projected to be met by 2030. In London, low carbon demand is expected to exceed supply by 35% by 2030, in Paris this rises to 54%. In New York, an estimated 65% of demand will not be met. - Around 25% of existing office stock is at risk of becoming functionally obsolete in the next five years. (This story has been refiled to fix the hyperlink in paragraph 1) The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/tipping-point-low-carbon-buildings-demand-sight-report-says-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 19:02
March 19 (Reuters) - Genesis Global Capital LLC has agreed to pay a $21 million civil fine to settle charges that it illegally sold securities through its crypto lending program without registering them, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday. The deal resolves January 2023 charges the SEC filed against Genesis and Gemini Trust Company LLC over their joint crypto lending program. It was one of a spate of enforcement actions the SEC has taken against large firms in the crypto sector. Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, is part of Digital Currency Group (DCG). A spokesperson for DCG did not respond immediately to request for comment. Genesis operated a lending program that raised billions of dollars' worth of crypto assets from investors, the SEC has said. It froze customer redemptions in November 2022, following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Through the deal to settle the charges detailed on Tuesday, the SEC said it will not receive any of the penalty until other claims are settled by a bankruptcy court, including those from retail investors. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/legal/bankrupt-crypto-lender-genesis-pay-21-mln-settle-sec-charges-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 19:00
NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) , opens new tab expects to receive initial shipments of Nvidia's (NVDA.O) , opens new tab new flagship artificial intelligence chip later this year, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters. Nvidia, the dominant designer of GPU (graphics processing unit) chips needed to power most cutting-edge artificial intelligence work, announced the new B200 "Blackwell" chip at its annual developer conference on Monday. The chip maker said the B200 is 30 times speedier at tasks like serving up answers from chatbots, although it did not give specific details about how well it performs when chewing through huge amounts data to train those chatbots, which is the kind of work that has powered most of Nvidia's soaring sales. Nvidia's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress told financial analysts on Tuesday that "we think we're going to come to market later this year," but also said that shipment volume for the new GPUs would not ramp up until 2025. Social media giant Meta is one of Nvidia's biggest customers, after buying hundreds of thousands of its previous generation of chips to support pushes into amped-up content recommendations systems and generative AI products. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in January that the company planned to have about 350,000 of those earlier chips, called H100s, in its stockpile by the end of the year. In combination with other GPUs, he added, Meta would have the equivalent of about 600,000 H100s by then. In a statement on Monday, Zuckerberg said Meta planned to use Blackwell to train the company's Llama models. The company is currently training a third generation of the model on two GPU clusters it announced last week, which it said each contain around 24,000 H100 GPUs. Meta planned to continue using those clusters to train Llama 3 and would use Blackwell for future generations of the model, the Meta spokesperson said. (This story has been officially corrected after Meta said that it erroneously forecast it would not receive new Nvidia chips until at least next year) The Technology Roundup newsletter brings the latest news and trends straight to your inbox. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-does-not-expect-new-nvidia-chips-arrive-until-least-next-year-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 18:52
HOUSTON, March 19 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) , opens new tab will bring its Permian basin output up to 2 million barrels per day by 2027, while it also ramps up production in Guyana, Vice President of Global Exploration John Ardill said on Tuesday at a conference in Houston. Exxon has grown its position in the Permian significantly since 2017, when it acquired some 250,000 acres from the Bass family that held an estimated 3.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Last year, it said it would buy shale producer Pioneer Natural Resources, further growing its footprint in the Permian. The company is also planning to bring Guyana oil output to 1.2 billion barrels per day by 2027. (This story has been corrected to say that Exxon Mobil eyes 2 million bpd output in the Permian basin, not the Delaware basin alone, in the headline and paragraph 1) Get a look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets with the Morning Bid U.S. newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/exxon-mobil-eyes-2-million-bpd-output-delaware-by-2027-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 18:36
SAN JOSE, California, March 19 (Reuters) - Nvidia's (NVDA.O) , opens new tab stock climbed on Tuesday after the heavyweight chipmaker said its new flagship AI processor is expected to ship later this year and CEO Jensen Huang said he is chasing a data center market potentially greater than $250 billion. Nvidia's stock rose nearly 2% to $901 after Huang and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress answered questions from investors at the company's annual developer conference in San Jose, California. The shares had dipped nearly 4% earlier in the day. "We think we're going to come to market later this year," Kress said, referring to the company's new AI chip, which the company debuted on Monday. Huang estimated that companies operating data centers will spend more than $250 billion a year to upgrade them with accelerated computing components that Nvidia specializes in developing. He said that market was growing by as much as 25% a year. Nvidia is shifting from selling single chips to selling total systems, potentially winning a larger chunk of spending within data centers. "Nvidia doesn't build chips, it builds data centers," Huang said. Called Blackwell, Nvidia's new processor combines two squares of silicon the size of the company's previous offering. Nvidia also detailed a new set of software tools to help developers sell artificial-intelligence models more easily to firms that use its technology. Nvidia is working with contract chip manufacturer TSMC (2330.TW) , opens new tab to avoid bottlenecks in packaging chips that slowed shipments of its previous flagship AI processor, Huang said. "The volume ramp in demand happened fairly sharply last time, but this time, we've had plenty of visibility" into demand for Blackwell chips, Huang said. Some analysts said Wall Street has already factored in the debut of the B200 Blackwell chip, which the company claims is 30 times faster at some tasks than its predecessor. The Blackwell chip will be priced between $30,000 and $40,000, Huang told CNBC. Huang later clarified that comment, saying Nvidia will include its new chip in larger computing systems and that prices will vary based on how much value they provide. "The Blackwell technology shows a significant performance uplift compared to Hopper (the current flagship chip) but it's always hard to live up to the hype," said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. At the center of Wall Street's AI euphoria, Nvidia's stock has more than tripled over the past 12 months, making it the U.S. stock market's third-most valuable company, behind only Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab and Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab. Even after that meteoric rally, Nvidia is trading at about 35 times its expected earnings, cheap compared with its PE of 58 a year ago, according to LSEG data. That decline in Nvidia's PE valuation is the result of analysts massively increasing their estimates of the chipmaker's future earnings, and if those forecasts turn out to be too optimistic, Nvidia's stock risks plummeting back to earth. Nvidia expects major customers including Amazon.com (AMZN.O) , opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab Google, Meta Platforms (META.O) , opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab, OpenAI and Tesla (TSLA.O) , opens new tab to use its new chip. Its hardware products will likely remain "best-of-breed" in the AI industry, Mornigstar analysts said, lifting their estimates for Nvidia data-center revenue for 2026 and 2028. "We remain impressed with Nvidia's ability to elbow into additional hardware, software, and networking products and platforms," they said. The software push shows how Nvidia, whose chips are mostly used to train large-language models like Google's Gemini, is trying to make its hardware easier to adapt for companies rushing to integrate generative AI into their businesses. Many analysts expect Nvidia's market share to drop several percentage points this year, as competitors launch new products and the company's largest customers make their own chips, although its dominance is expected to remain unchallenged. The Technology Roundup newsletter brings the latest news and trends straight to your inbox. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/red-hot-nvidia-dips-after-it-unveils-new-ai-chip-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 18:26
Airbus ends talks over buying Atos' BDS unit Latest setback sends Atos shares tumbling 19% France pledges 'national solution' for strategic assets PARIS, March 19 (Reuters) - France said on Tuesday it would protect the strategic assets of Atos after planemaker Airbus pulled the plug on a deal to buy the ailing French IT conglomerate's cybersecurity assets. The latest setback for Atos, which came just weeks after the collapse of a deal to raise urgently-needed cash through the sale of another part of the business, sent its shares down 19.16% to a record-low closing price of 1.7380 euros. "All of France's interests will be protected. (Finance Minister) Bruno Le Maire will use all the means at his disposal to guarantee the protection of strategic activities", the French finance ministry said in a statement. Atos (ATOS.PA) , opens new tab secures communications for the French military and secret services and manufactures servers to make supercomputers able to process troves of data for research or to develop the nascent artificial intelligence industry. "With regard to Atos' sensitive activities, in particular Big Data & Security, the French government will come up in the coming weeks with a national solution for the protection of strategic activities", the finance ministry added. It is the second time in a year that Airbus (AIR.PA) , opens new tab has axed proposals to buy assets of debt-laden Atos after it declined to make an offer for a minority stake in a broader business a year ago following a backlash from its own investors. The failure adds to mounting pressure on Atos, which specializes in spy-to-AI assets deemed strategic by the French government, after profit warnings, a revolving-door of CEOs and the collapse of another potential asset sale. "The failure of this sale process poses both a liquidity problem ... and a problem regarding debt restructuring," said Oddo BHF analyst Nicolas David. The two companies announced the collapse of talks for Airbus to buy BDS, including big data activities, in brief statements. Atos said it was "evaluating strategic alternatives that will take into consideration the sovereign imperatives of the French state". Airbus said it had taken the decision "after careful consideration of all aspects of a potential acquisition" but gave no further details. A person familiar with the matter said it had concerns over complexity and broader turmoil surrounding Atos, while others said the move came as a shock to the IT firm. 'POLITICAL DEAL' Airbus investors appeared relieved after the European aerospace group - no stranger to political machinations among its founding nations including France - sidestepped what some had feared would be a politically-inspired rescue. Shares in Airbus rose about 1.8%. Without the deal, which had been valued at 1.8 to 2.0 billion euros, Airbus has more scope to return cash to shareholders as it rides high against Boeing in the jet market. "We had seen the deal as a negative for Airbus, given concerns that this might be a political deal, and its negative impact on buyback potential," Jefferies analyst Chloe Lemarie wrote. Atos, formed partly by acquisitions under former CEO Thierry Breton, the EU industry chief and a former French finance minister, has deep links to France's security world in which the state has the ultimate say over tie-ups. Founded from pan-European mergers, Airbus is headquartered in France but its defence arm is mainly weighted towards Germany despite close ties to Paris over nuclear weapons and ballistics. There was no comment from Atos' leading shareholder, Onepoint. Some industry sources suggested the spotlight would now fall on Thales (TCFP.PA) , opens new tab as a potential buyer, even though the French defence electronics group has repeatedly rebuffed the idea. A spokesperson said on Tuesday it was "not interested" in BDS and was fully focused on its recent Imperva acquisition. Thales has said it has no intention to diversify beyond its core areas of aerospace, defence and digital identity systems. Atos has seen its shares plummet over the last two years after missteps including a badly received takeover plan for U.S. rival DXC in 2021. In February, talks with Daniel Kretinsky over the sale of Atos' legacy operations collapsed, although some reports suggest the Czech billionaire is considering a fresh bid. Get U.S. personal finance tips and insight straight to your inbox with the Reuters On the Money newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/atos-says-airbus-ends-discussions-over-bds-cybersecurity-unit-sale-2024-03-19/
