French Competition Watchdog Hits Google with 250 Mln Euro Fine 

The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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French Competition Watchdog Hits Google with 250 Mln Euro Fine 

The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US January 10, 2024. (Reuters)

France's competition watchdog on Wednesday said it fined Google 250 million euros ($271.73 million) for breaches linked to EU intellectual property rules in its relationship with media publishers.

Google has pledged not to contest the facts as part of settlement proceedings, the watchdog said, adding the company also proposed a series of remedy measures to certain shortcomings.

The fine is linked to a copyright dispute in France over online content in a case triggered by complaints from some of France's biggest news organizations, including Agence France Presse (AFP).

The dispute seemed resolved in 2022 when the US tech giant dropped its appeal against an initial 500 million euro fine issued at the end of a major investigation carried out by the Autorite de la Concurrence.

In Wednesday's statement, the watchdog said Google violated the terms of four out of seven commitments agreed in the settlement agreement, including conducting negotiations with publishers in good faith and providing transparent information.

Google could not immediately be reached for comment.



AI Cloud Provider SMC Plans Global Rollout

People attend a media tour of Sustainable Metal Cloud's Sustainable AI Factory in Singapore July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Caroline Chia/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
People attend a media tour of Sustainable Metal Cloud's Sustainable AI Factory in Singapore July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Caroline Chia/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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AI Cloud Provider SMC Plans Global Rollout

People attend a media tour of Sustainable Metal Cloud's Sustainable AI Factory in Singapore July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Caroline Chia/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
People attend a media tour of Sustainable Metal Cloud's Sustainable AI Factory in Singapore July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Caroline Chia/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Singapore-headquartered AI cloud provider Sustainable Metal Cloud (SMC) is planning to expand globally as its sees fast-growing demand for its energy saving technology, its CEO said on Thursday.

"Due to client demand, we’re looking to expand in EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) and North America," CEO and co-founder Tim Rosenfield said, Reuters reported.

The startup, a partner of AI chip giant Nvidia, already operates what it calls "sustainable AI factories" in Australia and Singapore and is set to launch in India and Thailand.

Its clients in Singapore, where it operates over 1,200 of Nvidia's high-end H100 AI chips, include Facebook owner Meta who uses SMC's cloud to run its Llama 2 AI model.

While most data centres depend on air cooling technology, SMC uses immersion technology, submerging servers from Dell fitted with GPUs (graphics processing units) from Nvidia in a synthetic oil called polyalphaolefin to draw heat away faster.

The technology behind the approach reduces energy consumption by up to 50% compared to traditional air cooling, according to the CEO.

Demand for AI is expected to increase 10-fold compared with 2023, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The electricity consumption of data centres globally is expected to top 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026, roughly equivalent to Japan's total annual consumption, the IEA said in March.

SMC is currently raising $400 million in equity and $550 million in debt according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The company declined to comment. The fundraising was first reported by Bloomberg.