China — The growth of Alibaba’s cloud business outpaced Amazon and Microsoft in the quarter ending in September, and the Chinese tech giant reiterated its commitment to making the unit profitable by next March. Alibaba reported cloud computing brought in revenue of 14.89 billion yuan ($2.24 billion) in the three months ending Sept. 30. That’s a 60% year-on-year rise […] Read more
Ireland’s foreign investment rules are being updated as Dublin seeks to protect the country’s prized assets and align itself with regulations from Brussels. Ireland’s industrial policy relies heavily on outside investment with several tech and pharmaceutical giants having headquarters in the country, attracted by the country’s 12.5% corporate tax rate and other factors. In September, […] Read more
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged Tuesday to tap United Kingdom’s offshore wind energy to power every home in the country by 2030, to be a part of the world’s shift away from fossil fuels. “As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the U.K. is to wind—a place of almost limitless resource, but in case of […] Read more
China — China’s technology giants — like their U.S. counterparts — have seen business thrive during the coronavirus pandemic. But the tech industry is at a crossroads, facing an uncertain economic and geopolitical environment. China’s gradual though uneven economic recovery, Beijing’s focus on domestic consumption, and the digital trends that have been accelerated by Covid-19 are […] Read more
Google said it will pay publishers around $1 billion for news over the next three years. The pledge was announced by Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai in a blog post on Thursday. “I have always valued quality journalism and believed that a vibrant news industry is critical to a functioning democratic society,” Pichai said. News publishers including […] Read more
The haggling over TikTok is the latest signal of a change in U.S.-China deal-making: rather than buying each other, companies may soon be looking to sell their cross-border holdings. Amid the shock of the coronavirus pandemic and escalating U.S.-China tensions in the first half of this year, the total value of foreign direct investment and venture capital […] Read more
The World Trade Organization ruled that additional tariffs imposed in 2018 by the United States on Chinese goods violated international trading rules, a blow to the Trump administration’s trade war against the world’s second-largest economy. A three-person panel of WTO trade experts said Washington broke with global regulations in 2018 when it slapped more than […] Read more
Oracle’s stock surged Monday after reports that China-based ByteDance has chosen it to be TikTok’s U.S. technology partner. A person familiar with the discussionsthat ByteDance picked the Oracle to be the U.S. partner of the popular social video app. Oracle also will take a significant stake in the business, the person said. Earlier Sunday, Microsoft said ByteDance had […] Read more
The U.K. and Japan on Friday agreed in principle to a trade deal, in a move that sees the U.K. strike its first major agreement post-Brexit. The announcement, which the U.K. hailed as a “historic moment,” comes as Britain struggles to secure an agreement with its closest trading partners in the European Union. Britain’s trade department […] Read more
China’s foreign ministry said on Monday it was still “processing” visa extension applications for several foreign correspondents affiliated with American media amid reports that more foreign journalists in China have been caught in the ongoing spat between Beijing and Washington. Hua Chunying, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ press department, tweeted in the afternoon […] Read more
