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Photo illustration of TSMC logos.
Hard Numbers: TSMC’s boom, Gemini’s ambitions, Anduril takes Ohio, Synthesia’s ambitions, TSMC evacuates after earthquake
500 million: Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that he wants 500 million people to use the company’s Gemini AI technology by the end of 2025. It’s unclear how many users Gemini currently has, but it reportedly trails OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which boasts 300 million users.
1 billion: Anduril, which makes drones and other AI-powered military systems, plans to build a $1 billion factory in Columbus, Ohio. The company, based in California, said the Ohio facility, called Arsenal-1, will bring 4,000 new jobs to the Buckeye State.
2.1 billion: Synthesia, the British AI avatar company we wrote about in July, raised $180 million in a new funding round last week, raising its valuation to $2.1 billion. CEO Victor Riparbelli told the Financial Times that the UK is “the only country in the European region right now that has a real shot at becoming a top-three AI superpower.”
6.4: Taiwan was hit by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, causing TSMC to evacuate its facilities. The chipmaker said that all of its staff were safe. It’s unclear how production was interrupted or whether the buildings sustained damage.
Big Tech under Trump 2.0
The tech landscape has shifted dramatically since Donald Trump’s first term in office: AI is booming, Meta and Google are fighting antitrust battles, and Elon Musk turned Twitter into “X.” In anticipation of Trump 2.0, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have announced they’ll prioritize free speech over content moderation and fact-checking. So what’s in store for the tech industry in 2025? On GZERO World, Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to discuss recent shifts at Big Tech companies and the intersection of technology, media, and politics. What does the tech industry stand to gain–or lose–from another Trump presidency? Will Elon Musk have a positive impact on the future of US tech policy? And how will things like the proliferation of bots and the fragmentation of social media affect political discourse online?
“Social media platforms, in general, are shifting to the right, and they are less important than they were five years ago. They’re bifurcated, dispersed, conversations happen across platforms,” Thompson explains, “As communities split, there will be less and less one town square where people discuss issues of consequence.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Big Tech and Trump 2.0: Nicholas Thompson on AI, Media, and Policy
Listen: What will the future of tech policy look like in a second Trump administration? And how will changes in the tech world—everything from the proliferation of AI and bots to the fragmentation of social media—impact how people talk, interact, and find information online? On the GZERO World Podcast, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, joins Ian Bremmer to discuss the intersection of technology, media, and politics as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House. Trump had a contentious relationship with the tech industry in his first term, but this time around, tech leaders are optimistic Trump 2.0 will be good for business, buoyed by hopes of loosening AI regulations, a crypto boom, and a more business-friendly administration. What does Big Tech stand to gain–or lose–from a second Trump presidency? Will Elon Musk help usher US tech policy into a new era, or will he create more chaos in the White House? And how concerned should we be about the dangers of AI-generated content online? Thompson and Bremmer break down the big changes in Big Tech and where the industry goes from here.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
What does Big Tech want from Trump?
What does Big Tech want from Donald Trump? Trump had a contentious relationship with the industry in his first administration. But in 2025, Silicon Valley is recalibrating. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks at the parade of tech leaders who have visited with Trump since his election win, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and moves like Meta’s recent announcement it would scrap its fact-checking program, all to get on President-elect Trump’s good side as he prepares to return to office. So what does the industry stand to gain—or lose—from a second Trump term? Loosening AI and crypto regulation and a business-friendly White House are high on the wish list. However, blanket tariffs on China and Trump's grudge against Section 230 could mean that, despite the optimism, Trump 2.0 may not lead to the big windfall Big Tech hopes for.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
A low-angle view of a video camera.
Hard Numbers: Cash for footage, Blackstone bets on AI data, Military tech is thriving, Adobe’s AI powers
4: Social media creators are selling their unused video footage to AI companies hungry for content to train their generative AI models. OpenAI, Google, and others are reportedly paying up to $4 a minute to license this footage.
300 million: The private equity giant Blackstone invested $300 million in an AI data company called DDN, valuing the firm at $5 billion. DDN provides specialized data analytics for businesses developing and running AI models, helping them process and store large amounts of data.
32 million: The defense tech startup Overland AI raised $32 million in venture capital as the Pentagon ramps up demand for artificial intelligence. The company’s OverWatch software specializes in “ground autonomy” to help unmanned vehicles navigate off-road terrains.
10,000: Adobe’s new AI suite, called Firefly, can perform edits on 10,000 images at once. For example, it can resize tons of pictures or replace their backgrounds in one fell swoop.A neon Google logo at the then-new Google office in Toronto in 2012.
Canada sues Google over ad tech – and it’s not alone
Canada wants Google to split two of its ad tech tools and pay an administrative penalty “equal to three times the value of the benefit derived from Google’s anti-competitive practices, or if that amount cannot be reasonably determined, 3% of Google’s worldwide gross revenues.” So, potentially a decent chunk of cash.
Google is facing suits all over the place right now as countries struggle to reign in the company.
In 2021, the US launched a suit against Google alleging it was subverting competition in the online ad space. That suit, similar to the Canadian case, is ongoing. The US is also looking to break up Google, demanding it sell off its Chrome browser after a judge ruled in a separate case that the company has a monopoly on internet searches.
The European Union is also fighting Google over its ad practices, leaving the company encircled, but nowhere near defeated as cases, appeals, and deal-making will drag on for months or years.In this photo illustration, a Google Chrome logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a Google Logo in the background.
DOJ wants Google to ditch Chrome
The Justice Department play comes as the government is suing Apple (for a third time in a decade and a half), alleging it has built a monopoly around its iPhone and app ecosystem. The government is also suing Google over its domination of the online ad market. There are several other stateside tech lawsuits, too.
Canada is pursuing its own investigation into Google’s ad practices. Earlier this spring, four large school boards in the country launched a class action suit against Meta, Snap Inc. and ByteDance (which operates TikTok), alleging the companies harm students and their capacity to learn.
The suits are part of a growing anti-big tech push aimed at restraining the giants and sorting out their position in the marketplace — and both the media and democratic ecosystems. The process is slow-going, but legal precedents — such as what may come from the current Justice Department cases – could have major national and perhaps even international consequences for tech users and companies looking to break into the market.
Hard Numbers: Hey big spender, an iPhone boost, Google’s robot coders, Super Micro’s super downfall
200 billion: Capital expenditures from four of the largest US tech companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google — are set to exceed $200 billion this year, inflated by enormous spending on artificial intelligence software and hardware investments. Amazon’s spending alone surged 81% in a year, leading CEO Andy Jassy to assure investors the company’s bets will pay off. These are record sums at a time when Wall Street seems hesitant to keep rewarding excessive spending on AI.
46 billion: Apple reversed its fortunes after a bad year of iPhone sales, selling more than $46 billion of its signature smartphone between July and September — a 6% increase year over year. The company’s new iPhone 16 is part of its push into artificial intelligence — marketed as a phone capable of handling all of its Apple Intelligence features, such as a supercharged Siri, new writing tools, and call transcription — which started rolling out last week. The company hopes that AI can convince customers old and new that it’s time to pay up for a new iPhone, which starts at $799.
25: More than 25% of all new code produced by Google is written by artificial intelligence, according to CEO Sundar Pichai. AI produces the code, which is then reviewed and accepted by human engineers. A recent Stack Overflow survey found that 76% of all software developers are using or are planning to use AI to code.
45: Super Micro Computer, a key supplier of Nvidia servers, saw its stock fall 45% after its auditor, Ernst & Young, resigned because it was “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.” Once one of the hottest AI stocks, the company has now wiped out all of its 2024 gains.