AFP USA

The United Nations confirmed Tuesday it had received notification from Washington of its withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement, a key campaign pledge of US President Donald Trump.On his first day back in the White House, Trump announced the United States would leave the accord, which is managed by the UN climate change body. It brings together almost all the world’s nations and aims to keep global average temperature rise below a critical threshold.”I can confirm to you that the United States has notified the secretary-general, in his capacity as a depository, of its withdrawal on January 27 of this year from the Paris agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres.”According to Article 28, paragraph two, of the Paris agreement, the withdrawal of the United States will take effect on January 27, 2026.”The move comes as global average temperatures over the past two years surpassed the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold for the first time, underscoring the urgency of climate action.  Trump previously withdrew the United States from the Paris accord during his first term. Despite this, the agreement — adopted in 2015 by 195 parties to curb greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change — appears poised to endure.Washington typically provides 22 percent of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat’s budget, with the body’s operating costs for 2024-2025 projected at $96.5 million.Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg has announced that his foundation will step in to meet the shortfall.The secretariat is tasked with supporting the global response to climate threats, and organizes international climate conferences, the next of which will be COP30 held in Brazil in November.Dujarric told a media briefing that “we reaffirm our commitment to the Paris agreement and support all effective efforts to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”Since coming back to office, Trump has also declared a “national energy emergency” to expand drilling in the world’s top oil and gas producer, said he would scrap vehicle emissions standards, and vowed to halt offshore wind farms.Critics warn the Paris withdrawal undermines global cooperation on reducing fossil fuel use and could embolden major polluters like China and India to weaken their commitments, while Argentina, under libertarian President Javier Milei, has also said it is “reevaluating” its participation.

The “doomsday clock” symbolizing how close humanity is to destruction ticked one second closer to midnight Tuesday as concerns on nuclear war, climate and public health were jolted by US President Donald Trump’s return.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set up the clock at the start of the Cold War, shifted the clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been, a week after Trump’s inauguration.The clock was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over nuclear-armed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It was originally placed at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.”At 89 seconds to midnight, the doomsday clock stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its history,” said former Colombian president and Nobel Peace laureate Juan Manuel Santos, chair of The Elders, a group of major former leaders.”The clock speaks to the existential threats that confront us and the need for unity and bold leadership to turn back its hands,” he told a news conference in Washington to present the findings from the board of experts.”This is a bleak picture. But it is not yet irreversible,” he said.Just days into his second presidency, Trump has already shattered norms on international cooperation.Santos welcomed Trump’s pledges for diplomacy with Russia and China. Trump has vowed to end the Ukraine war, which has raised fears of Russian use of nuclear weapons, by pressing both sides.But Santos said that the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and World Health Organization set back the planet on two top risks.The world just experienced another record-breaking year of high temperatures and major disasters.Other countries could soon say that if the United States, the world’s largest economy, “is not going to make an effort to limit the carbon emissions, why should I?” Santos said.And with many people’s memories fading of Covid-19, “we have to remind them what happened — and what will happen will be worse, according to all the scientists,” Santos said.- Threats, and benefits, from AI -Suzet McKinney, a public health expert on the board of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said the risks of infectious disease was confounded by advances in artificial intelligence, which increase the risks that rogue actors could unleash biological weapons.”As nation-states around the world and even our own government engage in practices that are sure to encourage rogue behavior and/or cripple our ability to curb the spread of infectious diseases, novel or otherwise, we cannot hide our heads in the sand,” she told the news conference.But Robert Socolow, a physicist who also serves on the board, said that the unveiling of Chinese intelligence firm DeepSeek — which has rattled the United States — could ultimately also pay dividends by reducing energy demand from the fast-growing field of AI.The Chinese breakthrough may mirror “the kind of progress in semiconductor chips that reduce the energy demands of ordinary computing” in the analogue era.But the experts also warned that artificial intelligence risked worsening disinformation.”All of these dangers are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier — the spread of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories that degrade the communication ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood,” said Daniel Holz, chair of the board.

Dozens of Colombian illegal migrants arrived home from the United States Tuesday, grateful for an end to a grueling deportation ordeal at the heart of a bitter row between the countries.Bogota sent two air force planes to fetch some 200 of its nationals, including children, from California and Texas after initially turning back two US military planes carrying the same.Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused the first planes after taking umbrage at the treatment meted out to expelled Brazilian migrants flown home from the United States last week, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles.Petro posted photographs on social media Tuesday of his compatriots disembarking in Bogota without cuffs, and wrote: “They are Colombians, free and dignified, and in their homeland where they are loved.”He added: “The migrant is not a criminal but a human being who wants to work and progress, live life.”Carlos Gomez, one of the deportees, said he had left with his 17-year-old son for the United States two weeks ago seeking “a better future.”What he found was not that.”It is not an American dream, it is an American nightmare,” Gomez told journalists on his return to Bogota.At the migrant detention center where they were held, Gomez claimed the food was “horrible,” the guards abusive, and the conditions “worse than (those of) a prisoner.”Then came the attempted initial deportation from San Diego, with Gomez claiming he and his teenage son were handcuffed and shackled.”He cried to me: ‘Daddy it hurts’,” he recounted.- ‘America is respected again’ -Petro, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, on Sunday stepped back from the brink of a full-blown trade war with the United States after Trump threatened sanctions and tariffs on exports despite a free-trade agreement between the two countries.The US embassy in Bogota suspended visa applications.Petro insisted he would only accept migrants who were not treated “like criminals.”Another deportee, who identified himself only as Daniel, told reporters at Bogota’s El Dorado airport that he and other migrants were roughly treated by deportation officials: their few belongings seized before they were cuffed and chained for one of the rejected US flights “as if we were… wanted criminals.”Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Murillo insisted Tuesday that none of the deportees, including 21 children and two pregnant women, were wanted for a crime in either country.Petro, a former guerrilla, was the first Latin American leader to defy Trump over his mass deportation plans.He threatened retaliatory steps, but his resistance fizzled in the face of Trump’s threats and an outcry at home over what many saw as a hot-headed handling of the dispute.”On both sides, they made mistakes. They insulted each other, and they took decisions that should not have been taken,” Colombian ex-president Juan Manuel Santos told AFP Tuesday at an event in Washington.”Fortunately, they ended up doing the right thing, which they should have done from the beginning — sit down and talk.”Trump claimed victory Monday, telling a lawmakers’ retreat in Miami that “America is respected again.” He insisted that “we’ve made it clear to every country that they will be taking back (their) people, that we’re sending out the criminals… the illegal aliens coming from their countries.”Brazil on Monday summoned the top US envoy to the country to explain the “degrading treatment” meted out to its own nationals.The Republican’s plans for mass migrant deportations has put him on a potential collision course with governments in Latin America — the original home of most of the United States’ estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.Since he took office a week ago, thousands of people have been sent back to countries including Guatemala and Mexico.While previous US administrations also routinely expelled illegal migrants, Trump has vowed the biggest deportation wave in history.Honduras has called an urgent meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Thursday to discuss migration issues.

She’s the face of a Trump-supporting Gen Z movement and the youngest White House press secretary in history. Now Karoline Leavitt is stepping up to the podium for the first time.The 27-year-old is already a polished presence, with her social media profile mixing shots of life as a young working mother with clips of her on Fox News going after the “fake news” media.But it has taken more than a week into Donald Trump’s second term for Leavitt to make her debut before the press in the James S. Brady briefing room at the White House.It reflects the difficulties that Trump’s spokespeople face to emerge out of the shadow of their limelight-loving boss, with the president already having had several long interactions with the media since returning to power.”See you at the podium!” Leavitt said on X ahead of the briefing.Trump said when he appointed her shortly after his election win in November that Leavitt was “smart, tough” and would “excel at the podium.”- ‘Wonder woman’ -Leavitt is nothing if not a Trump loyalist. Raised in New Hampshire, where her family ran an ice cream shop, she sent a letter to her university newspaper in 2017 to protest against the fact that a professor had criticized Trump in class.Eight years later she has had a meteoric rise through the ranks of Trumpworld, thanks partly to her aggressive defense of her 78-year-old boss on the airwaves.A veteran of the press office in his first term, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat in Congress in New Hampshire in 2022 on a pro-Trump, pro-gun ownership platform. An Instagram post at the time showed her firing a machinegun on a range with the caption: “@joebiden come and take it.”Then her steely appearances on television as Trump’s 2024 campaign spokeswoman earned her the job as press secretary.In one notable exchange, a CNN interviewer cut Leavitt off after she criticized the network’s moderators chosen to oversee a debate between Trump and then-president Joe Biden.Her loyalty was such that she returned to work four days after the birth of her first child when Trump survived an assassination attempt at a political rally last June.”I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work,” Leavitt told The Conservateur magazine in an article titled “Wonder Woman.” – Sparring -The White House briefing room will be a different experience, with its rough-and-tumble sparring with journalists.Since Trump returned to power, she has so far only had a brief encounter with reporters on the driveway outside the West Wing, followed by a single “gaggle” on Air Force One as Trump traveled to California.Her television appearances have almost exclusively been reserved for Fox News and the conservative Newsmax channel.But she has still caused a stir, with conservative commentator Mary Rooke posting a picture of her driveway appearance with two similarly coiffed aides and saying: “We are finally entering our Blonde Supremacy era.”As she steps up to the podium on Tuesday, Leavitt will be seeking to avoid the fate of Trump’s previous spokespeople.His first, Sean Spicer, was widely ridiculed after falsely insisting during his first briefing that the crowd for Trump’s 2017 inauguration was the largest history. Three other spokespeople followed during the first term with one of them, Stephanie Grisham, failing to make a single appearance at the podium.

President Donald Trump ordered a freeze starting Tuesday on potentially trillions of dollars in federal funding to Americans, impacting everything from education grants to small businesses loans — and sparking accusations that he is violating the constitution.The order was issued by the White House budget office in a memo a week into Trump’s second term.It was not clear in the memo, signed by acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Matthew Vaeth, how such a pause on disbursements of funding will work or for how long.The extraordinary measure follows a similar announcement that US foreign aid is frozen.Trump won the presidency in part on promises to dismantle large sections of the US government and to slash spending.However, the aggressive shake-up is also aimed at making sure that federal spending programs — and government employees — support his right-wing political goals.A senior Trump administration official told reporters that the funding stoppage was a tool to enforce compliance. Programs that did not conflict with Trump would see their funding continue.The order instantly sowed fear and confusion among federal grant recipients.It also sparked accusations from Democrats that the Republican president is violating the constitution by usurping Congress’s power to control the US budget.- ‘Political vandalism?’ -Federal spending included more than $3 trillion in financial assistance like grants and loans in fiscal year 2024 — all of which was approved by Congress.The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the pause was being enacted in a way that was in line with the law.However, Democratic Senator Patty Murray called the White House order “a brazen & illegal move.””The law is the law — Trump must immediately reverse course, follow the requirements of the law, & ensure the nation’s spending laws are implemented as Congress intended,” she posted on X.Another senator, Richard Blumenthal, said the “illegal” order will create “havoc” in medical and research facilities, which receive major government funding.”This is political vandalism. Taking a wrecking ball to federal agencies does nothing to make government more efficient but it is already doing grave damage to people and programs throughout the country,” Senator Chris Van Hollen said on X.The OMB memo stated that “federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance and other relevant agency activities.”It excluded Social Security and Medicare benefits — used by retirees — from this pause.Areas that might be impacted, it said, include “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” — references to racial equality and climate change programs that Trump has vowed to eradicate.Vaeth said that financial aid should be “dedicated to advancing Administration priorities,” issues like easing the burden of inflation, unleashing US energy and manufacturing, and “ending ‘wokeness.'”The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, said the freeze could jeopardize funding for everything from disaster relief to home heating subsidies, safe drinking water programs, and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.”In issuing a sweeping halt to federal funding, grants and loans, Donald Trump has… immediately and significantly put Americans in danger,” Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous.

Their country’s war rarely tops global news bulletins, and Sudan has never had a film at Sundance before.So the makers of documentary “Khartoum” carried their national flag with pride and a sense of deep responsibility to their premiere at the influential US movie festival on Monday.”The film is acting as an ambassador,” said Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, co-director of the movie, which portrays five ordinary people from Sudan’s capital, all forced to flee the violence.”On a national level, everyone’s looking up at us now and telling us, ‘You guys should push forward to let the world know what’s happening in Sudan,'” he told AFP before the premiere.”Not begging, or in a pathetic way, but in a way that says ‘Hey, hey, world, we’re here.'”For nearly two years, Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal war between its army chief and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).The conflict has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and pushed many Sudanese to the brink of famine.The film project kicked off in late 2022, originally intended to be a “cinematic poem” of everyday life in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, filmed on location with donated iPhones.Although a brief period of civilian rule had just been swiftly thwarted by military leaders, the filmmakers initially recorded their subjects in relative calm, following a civil servant, a tea vendor, a pro-democracy “resistance volunteer” and two young boys.Civil servant Majdi tended to his racing pigeons. Mischievous young best friends Lokain and Wilson sifted through trash to raise money to buy beautiful shirts from the market.”We were just this close to finishing the film — the last 20 percent — but then war broke out,” recalled Ahmad.Amid the chaos, “at some point we lost contact with the characters,” but the filmmakers were able to locate their subjects and help them flee abroad.Once safely outside the country, the entire film team met up for a workshop to decide whether — and how — to continue.They settled on an experimental format, in which the five subjects narrated their experiences of the onset of war in front of a green screen, which would later be filled with images matching their accounts.”Animation, interviews, dreamscape sequences, reenactments — all of that into one big mix, which is ‘Khartoum,'” said Ahmad.- ‘Dead end’ -Various countries including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Russia have been accused of supporting, or in some cases arming, sides in the conflict.The United States has leveled sanctions on the warring Sudanese parties, but is accused by observers of failing to pressure governments supporting the war from the outside, including ally UAE.Ahmad and his co-directors hope that by bringing international attention to the war, they can indirectly reach or influence those deciding on policies.”Look at this room. There’s at least 200 people. Now everyone knows the word Khartoum,” Ahmad told AFP at a Sundance event.”Let’s say only one or two percent of them will look up, ‘what’s Khartoum, what’s Sudan, what’s happening?’ They will spark a conversation.”Perhaps the film’s most poignant moments come from young Lokain and Wilson, who laugh about how they think the warring adults are “stupid,” and busy themselves with daydreams of riding a magical lion around Khartoum.During one interview, the smiles suddenly disappear, as they describe the arrival of an RSF assault.”There was one guy who had no head. Another, whose face was burned. Another, his body in pieces,” they recall.Ahmad, who has a background in journalism, said he hopes the film can prove more effective than his previous news work, which had come to feel “like it’s a dead end” in reaching global audiences.If it can prompt “just a simple discussion with your friend about Sudan, what’s happening — it’s more than enough,” he said.

A radical White House freeze on potentially trillions of dollars in US government spending including on grants and loans was due to take effect Tuesday, sparking accusations that President Donald Trump is violating the constitution.The order from the White House budget office, issued a week after Trump began his second term, threatens to disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for everything from local governments to education and small business loans.It was not clear in the memo, issued Monday by acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Matthew Vaeth, how such a pause on disbursements of funding will work or for how long.The extraordinary measure follows a similar announcement that US foreign aid is also frozen.Trump won the presidency in part on promises to dismantle large sections of the US government and to slash spending. He has made clear he intends to review all federal programs — and many of the employees — to check that they meet his political goals.The budget office memo said “this temporary pause will provide the Administration time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities.”However, it remained unclear whether the president has authority to halt spending approved by Congress, which under the constitution holds power over the US budget.Democrats immediately accused Trump of a power grab and of putting swaths of the country, which is reliant on federal funds, at risk.- ‘Political vandalism?’ -Senator Patty Murray called the order “a brazen & illegal move.””The law is the law — Trump must immediately reverse course, follow the requirements of the law, & ensure the nation’s spending laws are implemented as Congress intended,” she posted on X.Another senator, Richard Blumenthal, said the “illegal” order will create “havoc” in medical and research facilities, which receive major government funding.”This is political vandalism. Taking a wrecking ball to federal agencies does nothing to make government more efficient but it is already doing grave damage to people and programs throughout the country,” Senator Chris Van Hollen said on X.The OMB memo stated that “federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance and other relevant agency activities.”It excluded Social Security and Medicare benefits — used by retirees — from this pause.Areas that might be impacted, it said, include “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” — references to racial equality and climate change programs.”Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities,” Vaeth said.He added that financial aid should be “dedicated to advancing Administration priorities,” issues like easing the burden of inflation, unleashing US energy and manufacturing, and “ending ‘wokeness.'”Federal spending included more than $3 trillion in financial assistance like grants and loans in fiscal year 2024.

Two military planes sent from Colombia to fetch dozens of its nationals expelled from the United States arrived in Bogota on Tuesday after a blazing row with Donald Trump over migrant deportations.Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted photographs on social media of migrants disembarking without handcuffs, and wrote: “They are Colombians, free and dignified, and in their homeland where they are loved.””The migrant is not a criminal but a human being who wants to work and progress, live life,” he added.Petro, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, on Sunday stepped back from the brink of a full-blown trade war with the United States after Trump threatened the country with sanctions and massive tariffs for turning back two US military planes carrying deported migrants.The planes were refused after Petro took umbrage at the treatment meted out to Brazilians expelled from the United States and flown home in handcuffs and shackled at the ankles.In a break with his predecessors, Trump, inaugurated as US president last week, has also begun using military aircraft.Petro insisted he would only accept migrants who were not treated “like criminals.”Bogota sent two Colombian air force planes Monday with medical staff on board to fetch its nationals in the cities of San Diego and Houston.”We arrived well, thank God,” one of the deportees told Caracol Radio at Bogota’s El Dorado airport after the planes landed at an air base nearby.”We’re not criminals,” added the woman, who recounted her journey via Mexico to reach the United States, only to be arrested for not having immigration papers.- ‘America is respected again’ -Petro, a former guerrilla, was the first Latin American leader to defy Trump over his mass deportation plans.But his resistance fizzled in the face of Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Colombian imports — despite the two countries having a free-trade agreement — and the suspension of US visa applications.Petro threatened retaliatory steps before backing down following an outcry at home over what many saw as a hot-headed handling of the dispute.Trump called off his threatened tariff hikes but said the visa measures would stay in place until the first planeload of deportees returned home.The Republican leader claimed victory Monday, telling a congressional lawmakers’ retreat in Miami that “America is respected again.” Trump insisted that “as you saw yesterday, we’ve made it clear to every country that they will be taking back our people, that we’re sending out the criminals… the illegal aliens coming from their countries.”If nations don’t accept their nationals back “fast,” added Trump, “they’ll pay a very high economic price.”Trump’s plan for mass migrant deportations has put him on a potential collision course with governments in Latin America — the original home of most of the United States’ estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.Since he took office a week ago, thousands of people have been sent back to countries including Guatemala and Mexico — but in most cases the deportations stemmed from agreements predating his return to power.While previous US administrations also routinely expelled illegal migrants, Trump has vowed the biggest deportation wave in history.Honduras has called for an urgent meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Thursday to discuss migration issues.

Two Colombian military planes with some 200 nationals expelled from the United States arrived in Bogota on Tuesday after a blazing row with Donald Trump over migrant deportations, the South American country’s president said.On social media, Gustavo Petro posted photographs of the migrants disembarking without handcuffs, and wrote: “They are Colombians, free and dignified, and in their homeland where they are loved.””The migrant is not a criminal but a human being who wants to work and progress, live life.”Petro on Sunday stepped back from the brink of a full-blown trade war with the United States after Trump threatened Colombia with sanctions and massive tariffs for turning back two US military planes carrying deported migrants.The planes were refused after Petro took umbrage at the treatment meted out to Brazilians expelled from the United States and flown home in handcuffs last week.Petro said he would only accept migrants who were not treated “like criminals.”Bogota sent two military planes Monday with medical staff on board to fetch its nationals in the cities of San Diego and Houston.

Fears of upheaval in the AI gold rush rocked Wall Street on Monday following the emergence of a popular ChatGPT-like model from China, with US President Donald Trump saying it was a “wake-up call” for Silicon Valley.Last week’s release of the latest DeepSeek model initially received limited attention, overshadowed by the inauguration of Trump on the same day.However, over the weekend, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup’s chatbot surged to become the most downloaded free app on Apple’s US App Store, displacing OpenAI’s ChatGPT.What truly rattled the industry was DeepSeek’s claim that it developed its latest model, the R1, at a fraction of the cost that major companies are investing in AI development, primarily on expensive Nvidia chips and software.The development is significant given the AI boom, ignited by ChatGPT’s release in late 2022, has propelled Nvidia to become one of the world’s most valuable companies.The news sent shockwaves through the US tech sector, exposing a critical concern: should tech giants continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into AI investment when a Chinese company can apparently produce a comparable model so economically?DeepSeek’s apparent advances were a poke in the eye to Washington and its priority of thwarting China by maintaining US technological dominance.Trump reacted quickly on Monday, saying the DeepSeek release “should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.”He argued it could be a “positive” for US tech giants, adding: “instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with hopefully the same solution.”OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said in a post on X that it was “legit invigorating to have a new competitor.”He called DeepSeek’s R1 “an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price,” and pledged to speed up some OpenAI releases.The development comes against the background of a US government push to ban Chinese-owned TikTok in the United States or force its sale.David Sacks, Trump’s AI advisor and prominent tech investor, said DeepSeek’s success justified the White House’s decision to reverse executive orders, issued under Joe Biden, that established safety standards for AI development.The regulations “would have hamstrung American AI companies without any guarantee that China would follow suit,” Sacks wrote on X.Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the tech industry trade group Chamber of Progress, echoed the sentiment: “Now the top AI concern has to be ensuring (the United States) wins.”Tech investor and Trump ally Marc Andreessen declared “Deepseek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment,” referencing the 1957 launch of Earth’s first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union that stunned the Western world.”If China is catching up quickly to the US in the AI race, then the economics of AI will be turned on its head,” warned Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, in a note to clients.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took to social media hours before markets opened to argue less expensive AI was good for everyone.But last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Nadella warned: “We should take the developments out of China very, very seriously.”Australia’s Science Minister Ed Husic raised privacy concerns, urging users to think carefully before downloading the chatbot.”There are a lot of questions that will need to be answered in time on quality, consumer preferences, data and privacy management,” Husic told national broadcaster ABC.”I would be very careful about that. These type of issues need to be weighed up carefully.” Microsoft, an eager adopter of generative AI, plans to invest $80 billion in AI this year, while Meta announced at least $60 billion in investments on Friday.- ‘Outplayed’ -Much of that investment goes into the coffers of Nvidia, whose shares plunged a staggering 17 percent on Monday.The situation is particularly remarkable since DeepSeek, as a Chinese company, lacks easy access to Nvidia’s state-of-the-art chips after the US government placed export restrictions on them.The export controls are “driving startups like DeepSeek to innovate in ways that prioritize efficiency, resource-pooling, and collaboration,” wrote the MIT Technology Review.Elon Musk, who has invested heavily in Nvidia chips for his company xAI, suspects DeepSeek of secretly accessing banned H100 chips — an accusation also made by the CEO of ScaleAI, a prominent Silicon Valley startup backed by Amazon and Meta.But such accusations “sound like a rich kids team got outplayed by a poor kids team,” wrote Hong Kong-based investor Jen Zhu Scott on X.In a statement, Nvidia said DeepSeek’s technology was “fully export control compliant.”