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China EV Maker Nio Suspends Production Due to Supply Chain Disruptions

Nio's new electric vehicle (EV) ET7 is unveiled during the media day for Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. (Reuters)
Nio's new electric vehicle (EV) ET7 is unveiled during the media day for Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. (Reuters)
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China EV Maker Nio Suspends Production Due to Supply Chain Disruptions

Nio's new electric vehicle (EV) ET7 is unveiled during the media day for Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. (Reuters)
Nio's new electric vehicle (EV) ET7 is unveiled during the media day for Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China April 16, 2019. (Reuters)

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio said on Saturday it has suspended production after the country's measures to contain the recent surge of COVID-19 cases disrupted operations at its suppliers.

"Since March, due to reasons to do with the epidemic, the company's supplier partners in several places including Jilin, Shanghai and Jiangsu suspended production one after the other and have yet to recover," the company said on its mobile app.

"Due to the impact of this Nio has had to halt car production."

The company will postpone deliveries of the EVs to users and will work together with the suppliers to strive for resumption while meeting the government's COVID curbs, it added.

China has been taking strict lockdown measures to contain the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant in several places including Jilin province and Shanghai where plants of major auto part makers and automakers are located.

Tesla has also suspended production at its Shanghai plant since March 28, Reuters reported, after the city started a two-staged lockdown which was later expanded citywide.

Volkswagen's joint venture plant with FAW Group in Changchun, the provincial capital of Jilin, has been shut since mid-March, while its plant in Shanghai with SAIC Motor has been closed since April 1.

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Italy Fines OpenAI over ChatGPT Privacy Rules Breach

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
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Italy Fines OpenAI over ChatGPT Privacy Rules Breach

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters

Italy's data protection agency said on Friday it fined ChatGPT maker OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.58 million) after closing an investigation into use of personal data by the generative artificial intelligence application.

The fine comes after the authority found OpenAI processed users' personal data to "train ChatGPT without having an adequate legal basis and violated the principle of transparency and the related information obligations towards users".

OpenAI said the decision was "disproportionate" and that the company will file an appeal against it.

The investigation, which started in 2023, also concluded that the US-based company did not have an adequate age verification system in place to prevent children under the age of 13 from being exposed to inappropriate AI-generated content, the authority said, Reuters reported.

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works, particularly as regards to data collection of users and non-users to train algorithms.

Italy's authority, known as Garante, is one of the European Union's most proactive regulators in assessing AI platform compliance with the bloc's data privacy regime.

Last year it briefly banned the use of ChatGPT in Italy over alleged breaches of EU privacy rules.

The service was reactivated after Microsoft-backed OpenAI addressed issues concerning, among other things, the right of users to refuse consent for the use of personal data to train the algorithms.

"They've since recognised our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly twenty times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period," OpenAI said, adding the Garante's approach "undermines Italy's AI ambitions".

The regulator said the size of its 15-million-euro fine was calculated taking into account OpenAI's "cooperative stance", suggesting the fine could have been even bigger.

Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced in 2018, any company found to have broken rules faces fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of its global turnover.