Business

The Prompt: The Race For The CHIPS Act

November 13, 2024

Welcome back to The Prompt.

TSMC is one of the companies awaiting CHIPS Act subsidies.

AFP via Getty Images

As Donald Trump gets set to return to the White House, several big chip companies are racing to finalize deals under the 2022 CHIPS Act, which was aimed at strengthening semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. with $39 billion in grants. President-elect Trump was critical of the act during the campaign and Republicans are brainstorming reforms to it. As a consequence, the Biden Administration is rushing to complete subsidy contracts with giants like Intel and Samsung, Bloomberg reports.

There are still more than 20 companies still in the process of shoring up deals, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and GlobalFoundries, which have reportedly wrapped up negotiations and are awaiting final announcements. The deals will have to be completed in the next two months before the Trump administration takes over.

Now let’s get into the headlines.

BIG PLAY

Waymo, the driverless car company owned by Google parent Alphabet, is now open for business to anyone in Los Angeles, getting rid of a wait list previously required to download the app, Forbes reports. This enables anyone in the second-largest U.S. city to book rides, with one caveat: the service is only available within an 80-square-mile portion running from downtown L.A. to Santa Monica.

WIth the expanded launch, L.A. joins San Francisco and Phoenix as markets where the service is widely available. Austin will launch this year and Atlanta in early 2025.

TALENT RESHUFFLE

After a three-month leave, OpenAI President Greg Brockman has returned to the company, Bloomberg reports. Brockman, a cofounder and key member of company leadership, is reportedly working with CEO Sam Altman on creating a new role for him to focus on “significant technical challenges.”

His return marks a win for OpenAI, who has seen several executive departures in the last year, including CTO Mira Murati, who left the company abruptly in September.

AI DEAL OF THE WEEK

Writer, an enterprise AI startup, has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.9 billion, Forbes reported. The Series C — co-led by AI-focused venture capital firm Radical Ventures, Iconiq Capital and Premji Invest, a private equity firm owned by billionaire Azim Premji — brings the company’s total funding to $320 million.

The new influx of cash will help Writer to expand its scope beyond helping companies to swiftly create blogs, summaries and product descriptions. Now, the company’s AI will work across departments for a broad spectrum of tasks like building applications, analyzing documents and ensuring companies stay compliant.

DEEP DIVE

Getty Images

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, artificial intelligence executives and investors in Silicon Valley are expecting the new administration to make it easier to build — and lucratively sell — AI startup companies.

In public posts on social media and in private conversations, AI leaders said they were preparing for loosened regulatory mandates and more expansive export controls on chips — as well as the return of full acquisitions of AI startups by tech giants, which has been largely curtailed due to fears of antitrust scrutiny.

Cofounders from OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the leading AI research labs behind popular models GPT-4 and Claude 3, took to X, the social media site owned by billionaire and Trump whisperer Elon Musk, to acknowledge the election win, alongside the CEOs of corporations with significant AI divisions such as Google and Meta.

“It is critically important that the U.S. maintains its lead in developing AI with democratic values,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted. “Anthropic will work with the Trump Administration and Congress to advance U.S. leadership in AI, and discuss the benefits, capabilities and potential safety issues of frontier systems,” posted Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark.

One of the frameworks Trump will inherit — and has vowed to immediately undo — is President Biden’s landmark executive order on AI. “We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” Trump stated in his campaign platform. “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

Read the full story on Forbes.

AI INDEX

33%

The percentage of U.S. workers who said they are using AI at work, according to a new study commissioned by Slack. The figure represents a flattening of adoption, up only one percentage point from the company’s previous survey. The study, reported by Axios, also found that nearly half of workers, 48%, were uncomfortable telling their managers they were using AI. They said the top reason was a fear they’d look like they were lazy, incompetent or cheaters.

QUIZ

This is the percentage of women in the AI workforce.

Check if you got it right.

MODEL BEHAVIOR

An AI chatbot named “FungiFriend” may not really be your friend. The bot was added by Meta to a popular Facebook group for identifying mushrooms, when it immediately began suggesting tips for cooking dangerous mushrooms, 404 reports. Rick Claypool, research director for consumer safety group Public Citizen’s president’s office, who alerted 404 about FungiFriend, said it is “really risky and reckless” for Meta to add AI chatbots to these kinds of groups.