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[ad_1] Procter & Gamble said Thursday it would cut 7,000 jobs or about 6% of its total workforce over the next two years, as part of a new restructuring plan to counter uneven consumer demand and higher costs due to tariff uncertainty. The world’s largest consumer goods company also plans to exit some product categories and brands in certain markets, executives said at a Deutsche Bank Consumer Conference in Paris. The company had about 108,000 employees as of June 30, 2024. It said the job cuts would account for roughly 15% of its non-manufacturing workforce. The Pampers maker’s two-year restructuring…

[ad_1] In a Bloomberg interview Wednesday night in downtown San Francisco, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pushed back against concerns that AI could eventually make half the company’s 180,000-person workforce redundant. Instead, Pichai stressed the company’s commitment to growth through at least next year. “I expect we will grow from our current engineering phase even into next year, because it allows us to do more,” Pichai said, adding that AI is making engineers more productive by eliminating tedious tasks and enabling them to focus on more impactful work. Rather than replacing workers, he referred to AI as “an accelerator” that will…

[ad_1] Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth said the social media giant’s partnership with defence technology startup Anduril marks a “return to grace” for Silicon Valley’s relationship with the military.”The Valley was founded on a three-way investment between the military, academics, and private industry. That was the founding of it,” Bosworth said during an interview at the Bloomberg Tech summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.”There would be no technology if we weren’t all tasked with the problem of keeping naval ballistic trajectories during the first two world wars. That is the heart and soul of the investment that led to what we…

[ad_1] Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is a professor emeritus at the Stern School of Business at New York University and senior economic strategist at Hudson Bay Capital The rise in long-term rates around the world is worrying finance ministries and Treasury departments. Higher rates not only make servicing the rising public and private debt burdens more costly, but also put economic growth at risk. Independent central banks are reluctant to intervene by resuming past quantitative programmes of buying long-term bonds, or even cutting benchmark policy…

[ad_1] Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldBig institutional investors are shifting away from US markets as Donald Trump’s trade wars and the country’s escalating debt fuel fears about the dominance of American assets in global portfolios. The US president’s erratic trade policy has shaken global markets in recent months, sparking a sharp sell-off in the US dollar and leaving Wall Street stocks lagging far behind European rivals this year. Trump’s landmark tax bill, which is forecast to add $2.4tn to Washington’s debt over the next…

[ad_1] Hong Kong CNN  —  The European Union has urged China to ease restrictions on rare earth materials – critical for everything from cars to washing machines – after Beijing’s export controls disrupted supplies and triggered production turmoil across industries in Europe and America. Maros Sefcovic, the European Union’s trade commissioner, said the issue was a “priority” in his Tuesday meeting with Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao on the sidelines of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development conference in Paris. “I informed my Chinese counterpart about the alarming situation in the European car industry, but I would say industry…

[ad_1] Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldUS President Donald Trump’s trade war presents an even tougher challenge for emerging market policymakers than the Covid-19 crisis five years ago, a top official at the IMF has warned.Gita Gopinath, the fund’s first deputy managing director, said the unpredictable impact of tariffs on developing economies and global markets would make it particularly difficult for central bankers to support their economies.In the early stages of the pandemic “central banks everywhere were moving in the same direction in the sense…

[ad_1] Despite what some experts have characterized as an environment increasingly hostile to AI R&D, North America continues to receive the bulk of AI venture dollars, according to data from investment tracker PitchBook. Between February and May of this year, VCs poured $69.7 billion into North America-based AI and machine learning startups across 1,528 deals. That’s compared with $6.4 billion that VC firms invested in European AI ventures across 742 deals across the same period. Asia-based startups have fared a bit worse than their European counterparts, according to PitchBook. Between February and May, VCs invested just $3 billion in Asia-based…

[ad_1] When Elon Musk said he’d step back from the White House DOGE office and spend more time on his companies, namely Tesla, investors and fans collectively rejoiced at the thought of getting their chief executive back.Tesla bull Dan Ives said the move was “music to the ears of Tesla shareholders,” while some of the company’s biggest fans on X, like Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, said Musk was activating “wartime” mode.However, with Musk’s latest crusade against President Donald Trump’s spending bill, the CEO is still getting political.On Tuesday afternoon, a mere five days after fanfare in the Oval Office to…

[ad_1] This article is part of “Build IT: Connectivity,” a series about tech powering better business.Digital Realty, a data center operator, is scaling up its infrastructure to keep up with AI’s growth. But the tricky part is to do so in an environmentally friendly way.The International Energy Agency found that in 2024, data centers accounted for 1.5% of global electricity use. By 2030, that number could nearly double, reaching levels just above Japan’s current annual energy consumption.In addition, AI infrastructure is cooled with enormous amounts of water. A report from the University of Tulsa found that a single facility can…