The Global Economic News

KEY POINTS Genetics testing companies, like Veritas Genetics, Ancestry and 23andMe, are providing consumers with an unprecedented level of access to their personal genome. Privacy risks are not well understood by consumers. Law enforcement and the federal government can pressure these companies to share your DNA.

KEY POINTS OpenAI is allowing employees to sell about $1.5 billion worth of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank, CNBC has learned. SoftBank’s latest investment adds to OpenAI’s recent $6.6 billion funding round at a $157 billion valuation. The deal was spurred by SoftBank billionaire founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, who was persistent in asking for a larger stake in the company, a person familiar with the matter said. OpenAI is allowing employees to sell about $1.5 billion worth of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank, CNBC has learned.   The new financing will allow the Japanese tech conglomerate to get an even larger slice of the AI startup and allow current and former OpenAI employees to cash out their shares, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.   Employees will have until Dec. 24 to decide if they want to participate in the new tender offer, which has not previously been reported, one of the people said. The deal was spurred by SoftBank billionair...

  London CNN  The chief executive of the company behind Ikea furniture stores says tariffs make it more difficult to keep its prices low, joining a growing chorus of business leaders in warning of a potential hit to people’s wallets from Donald Trump’s planned import levies. “In general, we don’t believe tariffs will support international companies and international trade. At the end of the day, that risks ending up on the bills of customers,” Jesper Brodin, Ingka Group CEO, told CNN Wednesday when asked about Trump’s tariffs. He was speaking ahead of the opening of Ikea’s pop-up store on London’s Oxford Street Thursday. “Tariffs make it more difficult for us to maintain the low prices and be affordable for many people, which in the end is our goal,” he added. “We have never experienced a period of benefit when we had high tariffs,” he said, referring both to Ikea and the global economy. “But it’s beyond our control. We will need to understand and adapt.” On Mo...

  The UN climate change conference ended on 24 November with a pledge from developed nations to contribute at least $300 billion annually to support adaptation.  After two weeks of intense negotiations, delegates at COP29, formally the 29th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed to provide this funding annually, with an overall climate financing target to reach “at least $1.3 trillion by 2035”. This summit had been dubbed the ‘climate finance COP’, and representatives from all countries were seeking to establish a new, higher climate finance goal.  The target, or new collective quantified goal (NCQG), will replace the existing $100 billion goal that is due to expire in 2025. Reacting to the outcome, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that while an agreement at COP29 was absolutely essential to keep the 1.5-degree limit alive, “I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome – on b...

  The German government has said that it would be investing billions into the country’s domestic semiconductor sector, in an attempt to strengthen Germany’s global competitiveness, and reduce dependence on countries such as China and the US. Germany has revealed that it is planning to invest approximately €2bn in the country’s semiconductor sector, in the form of subsidies, according to Bloomberg. However, further details have not been revealed. This is expected to go a long way in helping semiconductor companies significantly upgrade their current production facilities.  Earlier this month, Germany’s economic ministry asked semiconductor firms to put forward their subsidy applications. However, the exact amount available as subsidies is still to be determined. This will likely be decided following the country’s next election, which is expected to take place in February 2025. 

  Carrefour SA's chief executive officer (CEO), Alexandre Bompard, has said that he will be issuing a public apology to Brazil's government to smooth over a controversy sparked by the supermarket after it said that it would not be supplying South American beef to its French customers. Alexandre Bompard, Carrefour SA's CEO, has agreed to issue a public apology to Brazil's government, hoping to wrap up the controversy created by the supermarket chain committing to not sell South American beef in France, according to Bloomberg. French ambassador Emmanuel Lenain is reportedly trying to arrange a meeting with Carlos Favaro, the Brazilian Agriculture Minister, to issue this apology. The former is also expected to reemphasise the quality of Brazilian meat during this meeting. Following this, Carrefour is also expected to issue a statement in both Brazil and France, with the justification that it has always only sold French meat in France. This follows Carrefour’s suppo...

    Once online in 2030, it will make modern speeds feel like dial-up   Japan is officially starting work on the world’s first ‘zeta-class’ supercomputer. When completed, the machine should run at least a full 1,000 times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer. The computer is expected to go online in 2030 and will cost the Japanese government an estimated $775 million.   Supercomputers  have unequivocally changed our world. They’ve solved complex math problems, simulated massive physical systems, enabled breakthroughs in biology and medicine—name a scientific field, and it’s probably been impacted by supercomputing. And these massive bastions of computing power have only gotten better over time. The faster a supercomputer can work through  calculations  and analyses, the more uniquely helpful it can be to the people using it as a research tool. The speeds of computers are measured in floating-point ope...