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El Salvador announces more bitcoin purchases

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El Salvador announced on Wednesday the purchase of a bitcoin, which takes the total in the country’s strategic reserve to above 6,102 coins, the National Bitcoin Office posted on social media.

The bitcoin purchase announcement comes days after the International Monetary Fund board approved a 40-month program with El Salvador for $1.4 billion that implied a downgrade of the cryptocurrency’s status in the Central American country. Bitcoin cannot be used to pay taxes and its acceptance by the public is voluntary, which is not what was expected when it was given a legal tender status back in 2021.

Importantly, the government has committed to the IMF not to accumulate further bitcoins “at the level of the overall public sector” according to the IMF.

“We consulted with the (Salvadoran) authorities, and they have assured us that the recent increase in Bitcoin holdings in the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Fund is consistent with agreed program conditionality,” a fund spokesperson said.

The IMF did not respond to further questions on how purchases by the national office do not add to the government’s exposure to the cryptocurrency.

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The Salvadoran Presidential House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Salvadoran government dollar bonds were mostly down in price on Wednesday, with the 2050 and 2041 maturities down 0.75 cents on the dollar.

El Salvador has bought 12 bitcoins since the IMF announced last week the board approval of the agreement reached in December. It currently holds near $550 million in bitcoin, according to the government.

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Google tests an AI-only version of its search engine

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Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O)Google launched an experimental version of its search engine on Wednesday that completely eliminates its classic 10 blue links in favor of an AI-generated summary.

The new feature, available to subscribers of Google One AI Premium, can be accessed via the results page for any search query by clicking on a tab labeled “AI Mode” to the side of existing options like Images and Maps.

“We’ve heard from power users that they want AI responses for even more of their searches,” Robby Stein, a vice president of product, said in a blog post.

Google One AI Premium is a $19.99 per month plan that provides extra cloud storage and special access to some AI features.

Google currently displays AI Overviews, summaries that are increasingly appearing atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages, for users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.

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With AI Mode, users see a more comprehensive AI summary with hyperlinks to cited webpages. The 10 blue links have been replaced by a search bar for asking follow-up questions.

Google said AI Mode is being powered by a custom version of its Gemini 2.0 model with reasoning capabilities that make it better equipped to handle complex queries.

Alphabet’s $350 billion in 2024 revenue was primarily driven by search-related advertising. But it is facing the biggest challenge to its core business in years from AI challengers led by Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI, which added search functions to ChatGPT last October.

Google has made integrating AI into search its biggest bet, investment chief Ruth Porat said at the Reuters NEXT conference in December.

In February, edtech company Chegg (CHGG.N) sued Google, accusing the previews of eroding demand for original content and undermining publishers’ ability to compete.

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Intel defeats shareholder lawsuit over foundry losses, 32bn dollars plunge

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Intel (INTC.O) won the dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit accusing the chipmaker of fraudulently concealing problems in its foundry business, leading to job cuts and a dividend suspension that wiped out more than $32 billion of market value in one day.

In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco rejected claims that Intel took too long to reveal a $7 billion fiscal 2023 operating loss linked to its business of making chips for outside customers.

Intel did not disclose the loss until last April, when it made changes to how it reported financial results.

But the judge said shareholders incorrectly attributed the $7 billion loss to the Intel Foundry Services business unit, and were not misled into believing the unit’s reported results “included results for the entire Internal Foundry Model.”

Thompson also said statements last March by former Chief Executive Patrick Gelsinger that Intel was enjoying “significant traction” and “growing demand for our foundry offering” were not misleading because they concerned specific customers rather than overall revenue, which was falling.

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Lawyers for the shareholders did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment. Intel declined to comment. Thompson said the plaintiffs may file an amended complaint.

The lawsuit accused Intel of inflating its stock price from January 25 to August 1, 2024, when Intel posted a $1.61 billion quarterly loss and said it would lay off more than 15,000 people and suspend its dividend to help save $10 billion in 2025.

Intel’s share price fell 26% the next day, resulting in the $32 billion loss of market value.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has struggled to fend off competition from rival chipmakers and benefit from growth in artificial intelligence.

Its rivals include Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Taiwan’s TSMC (2330.TW). Intel ousted Gelsinger in December.

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Judge rejects Musk’s bid to block OpenAI’s for-profit transition

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A US court on Tuesday denied billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk a preliminary injunction he was seeking against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s efforts to convert into a for-profit firm.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California said Musk has not met “the high burden required for a preliminary injunction” to block the conversion of OpenAI to a for-profit status.

However, Rogers said that she is prepared to expedite a trial on the issue to later this year.

OpenAI, Musk and Microsoft (MSFT.O), which backs OpenAI, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

OpenAI has been trying to transition from a nonprofit into a for-profit entity, which it says it needs to do to secure the capital required to develop the best artificial intelligence models.

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Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman last year, saying OpenAI’s founders originally approached him to fund a nonprofit focused on developing AI to benefit humanity, but that it is now focused on making money.

He later expanded the lawsuit to add federal antitrust and other claims, and in December asked the judge presiding over the case to stop OpenAI’s transition into a for-profit.

Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015, but left before the company took off and subsequently founded competing AI startup xAI in 2023.

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