MEF BUSINESS NEWS 21 AUGUST 2025 Business conditions in the eurozone’s two biggest economies showed signs of stabilising in August. Germany’s business activity hit a five-month high, signaling a fragile recovery. The uptick came as factory output and new orders picked up, pushing the manufacturing index to 52.6. But services barely grew, and overall momentum stayed modest at 50.9. The improvement is tempered by deeper job losses, especially in industry, with employment falling for a fourteenth straight month. That raises doubts about how long the rebound can last. Optimism for the year ahead remains, but with uneven growth and shrinking payrolls, Germany’s recovery still feels more like a flicker than a flame. —————————————— France’s economy may be finding its footing after a long contraction. Fresh survey data shows private sector output almost stabilized in August, with the PMI rising to 49.8 — its best reading in a year, and just shy of growth. Both manufacturing and services still slipped slightly, but there was a surprise on jobs. Hiring rose for the first time since November, hitting a 16-month high. The rebound in employment comes even as demand remains weak and business confidence subdued. It suggests France is edging toward stability — though not yet a full recovery. —————————————— Federal Reserve officials are leaning more toward fighting inflation than protecting jobs, according to minutes from their July meeting. With tariffs pushing up prices, most of the 18 policymakers judged inflation risks to outweigh labor market concerns—though a small minority warned employment is already weakening. Rates were left unchanged at 4.25 to 4.5 percent, but the split underscores uncertainty about whether tariffs will cause only a one-time price jump or a lasting shock. Job growth has slowed to its weakest pace since the pandemic, while wholesale inflation just saw its sharpest rise in three years. Chair Jerome Powell will try to calm markets this week in Jackson Hole—but for now, the Fed’s battle lines are drawn: jobs are shaky, prices are sticky. ————————————— US tech shares looked steadier today after a two-day selloff that knocked 2% off the Nasdaq, as investors brace for the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium. The rebound comes after weeks of profit-taking on big tech, with traders waiting for Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech tomorrow for clues on interest rates. US futures edged higher, while European markets stalled just below record highs and Treasury yields ticked up to 4.31%. ————————————- India and Russia want to boost annual trade to 100 billion dollars within five years—a 50 percent jump—as ties with the United States sour. Visiting Moscow, Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar urged the removal of trade bottlenecks and non-tariff barriers, calling Russia a “dependable partner” in an uncertain global economy. The push comes as Washington slaps India with steep tariffs—25 percent now, with Donald Trump threatening to double them next week. India has leaned on discounted Russian oil to tame inflation at home, despite US criticism that the purchases help finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine. President Putin is expected to visit India later this year, while Prime Minister Modi heads to China this month to repair relations with Xi Jinping. —————————————— A major US oilfield services group is quietly expanding in Russia despite fresh American sanctions meant to choke off President Putin’s war funding. Houston-based Weatherford International boosted its Russian revenues to 7% of global sales this year, up from 5%, and has been hiring staff even after Washington banned US services for Russian oil production. Rival firms like Halliburton pulled out long ago, but Weatherford and industry leader SLB remain, exploiting loopholes by ring-fencing local operations. Critics in Congress say this props up Moscow’s war machine, with one lawmaker warning US companies “have blood on their hands.” Sanctions bite — but business drills on. —— —— MEF MOBILE NEWS 21 AUG 2025 Google has unveiled its Pixel 10 smartphone lineup, putting advanced Gemini AI at the heart of the devices. The new Tensor G5 chip, made by TSMC, powers features like Magic Cue, which delivers context-aware information across apps, and Camera Coach, guiding users on photo framing and lighting. The Pro models debut Pro Res Zoom, using generative AI to sharpen distant images up to 100x. Prices start at $799, with Pro versions bundled with a year of Google’s $19-a-month AI Pro subscription. Alongside, Google launched the Pixel Watch 4, with AI health coaching and emergency satellite SOS. Analysts say this is Google’s biggest hardware refresh yet, positioning Pixel as the leader in on-device AI and pushing the mobile ecosystem toward more agentic, app-integrated experiences. ———————————- Meta has hit pause on AI hiring, following a months-long talent spree that included top engineers from OpenAI, Google, and Apple. The move comes amid a reorganization of its AI division into four teams, including a “superintelligence” lab. For the mobile ecosystem, this could reshape the AI tools powering Meta’s apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, as new hires and reorganized teams set the stage for next-generation features. Investors are watching closely, questioning whether the massive spending will deliver breakthrough mobile experiences—or simply drive up costs. Meta’s reset may define the future of AI-driven social and messaging on smartphones. —————————— Meta has been accused of inflating ad performance by nearly 20% and secretly bypassing Apple’s iPhone privacy rules, according to evidence at a London tribunal — the Financial Times reports. A former product manager says Meta misled advertisers about its “Shops Ads” results, while also tracking user activity across websites without consent, despite Apple’s 2021 crackdown through App Tracking Transparency. The claims suggest Meta leaned on these ads to recover billions lost when iPhone users blocked tracking — highlighting how Apple’s privacy move reshaped mobile advertising economics. A full hearing is set for next year, keeping pressure on Meta’s credibility. ——————————— Apple will open its third India store on Sept. 2 in Bangalore’s Phoenix Mall of Asia, expanding retail presence in the world’s biggest smartphone growth market. India already accounts for 20% of iPhone production, and local sales hit $8B in FY2024, up 30% YoY. With iPhones at just 5% market share among 700M users, Apple is banking on rising premium demand, installment plans, and local manufacturing to build a deeper mobile ecosystem—where hardware, financing, and retail converge. ——————————- Singapore-based Circles has teamed up with OpenAI to build what they call the world’s first fully AI-native telecoms platform. The multi-year partnership will integrate OpenAI’s cutting-edge models into Circles’ operator technology, delivering smarter customer support, Costumer Relationship Management (CRM), and network operations. The platform launches first in Singapore through Circles.Life, before rolling out globally to operator partners. It promises personalized AI agents that bundle connectivity with shopping, travel, gaming and wellbeing services. Analysts say the move mirrors efforts by Nvidia, AWS and Rakuten Symphony as telecoms players race to inject agentic AI into their networks. But experts caution data sovereignty concerns could be a hurdle for global telcos adopting OpenAI-powered solutions. ——————————— The White House has officially joined TikTok, even as a federal law still requires the app’s sale or ban over national security concerns. President Donald Trump, who once vowed to ban TikTok back in 2020, has since softened his stance – crediting the platform with helping him win young voters in last year’s election. His personal account has over 15 million followers, compared to just a few thousand for the new White House handle. TikTok counts 170 million US users, and parent company ByteDance is still negotiating with Washington as a September deadline looms to find a non-Chinese buyer. Analysts say the White House’s move signals the app’s growing role as a must-have channel in US politics and mobile engagement, despite its unresolved future. —— —— MEF TECH NEWS 21 AUG 2025 Beijing has quietly moved to limit sales of Nvidia’s China-specific H20 artificial intelligence chip, after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Washington only allows “third-rate” processors into the country — the Financial Times reports citing two people with knowledge of the latest regulatory decision-making. The remarks angered senior Chinese officials, prompting regulators to pressure local tech giants such as Alibaba and ByteDance to scale back or halt new orders. The H20 is already banned in US military or government use, but had been a key option for Chinese firms developing AI. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang visited Beijing last month to reassure customers, and chip demand had been strong enough for production lines to restart. But regulators now want companies to shift toward homegrown alternatives from Huawei and others, even as domestic supply remains limited. The dispute underscores how advanced chips are at the heart of US-China trade friction, just as Donald Trump pushes for broader tariffs on Chinese goods. —————————— OpenAI may soon move beyond chatbots and into AI infrastructure-as-a-service. CFO Sarah Friar told Bloomberg that the company is considering renting out its massive future data centers, much like Amazon did with cloud computing. That could offset OpenAI’s own staggering costs, with CEO Sam Altman warning the firm may spend trillions on chips and facilities in the not-so-distant future. OpenAI already partners with Microsoft, Oracle, and SoftBank, but banks and private equity are now lining up to finance its build-out. The vision: not just powering ChatGPT, but becoming the backbone for AI inside every app, device, and smartphone — a new layer in the mobile ecosystem’s cloud wars. —————————- Australia’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank, has backtracked on plans to scrap 45 customer service jobs in favor of AI bots. The reversal came after union pressure and a tribunal challenge, which revealed call volumes were rising, not falling, and staff were even working overtime. The bank admitted its redundancy assessment was flawed, apologized to employees, and will let affected staff stay, move roles, or leave voluntarily. The case underscores a wider global tension: Bloomberg Intelligence warns banks may cut up to 200,000 jobs in the next five years as AI takes over routine tasks. For now, the union calls it a “massive win” — proof that in banking’s AI future, human voices still count. —————————— U.S. battery makers are increasingly going global as domestic clean-energy support wanes. Group14 is now controlling its South Korea production, giving it faster access to Asia’s massive EV and grid storage markets — the Wall Street Journal reports citing Group 14 CEO Rick Luebbe. Meanwhile, Lyten snapped up Northvolt’s former European facilities to produce advanced batteries, serving both EVs and industrial energy storage. For the mobile ecosystem, these moves hint at faster adoption of high-density, lighter batteries—key for electric scooters, drones, and mobile devices—while U.S. firms aim to stay competitive in Asia and Europe. ——————————— GM is building a small, elite AI center in Silicon Valley, hiring top talent from Google, Meta, AWS, and even Pixar. The team is focused on applying AI across the automaker’s ecosystem—from collaborative factory robots to generative coding tools, software updates for vehicles, and motorsports analytics — David Richardson, GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, told the Wall Street Journal. For the mobile ecosystem, the implications are significant: smarter production lines, faster over-the-air updates, and more efficient battery- and energy-management systems for electric vehicles, all of which feed into a more connected, AI-driven vehicle and mobile tech landscape. —— ——

MEF BUSINESS NEWS 21 AUGUST 2025 Business conditions in the eurozone’s two biggest economies showed signs of stabilising in August. Germany’s business activity hit a five-month high, signaling a fragile recovery. The uptick came as factory output and new orders picked up, pushing the manufacturing index to 52.6. But services barely grew, and overall momentum stayed modest at 50.9. The improvement is tempered by deeper job losses, especially in industry, with employment falling for a fourteenth straight month. That raises doubts about how long the rebound can last. Optimism for the year ahead remains, but with uneven growth and shrinking payrolls, Germany’s recovery still feels more like a flicker than a flame. —————————————— France’s economy may be finding its footing after a long contraction. Fresh survey data shows private sector output almost stabilized in August, with the PMI rising to 49.8 — its best reading in a year, and just shy of growth. Both manufacturing and services still slipped slightly, but there was a surprise on jobs. Hiring rose for the first time since November, hitting a 16-month high. The rebound in employment comes even as demand remains weak and business confidence subdued. It suggests France is edging toward stability — though not yet a full recovery. —————————————— Federal Reserve officials are leaning more toward fighting inflation than protecting jobs, according to minutes from their July meeting. With tariffs pushing up prices, most of the 18 policymakers judged inflation risks to outweigh labor market concerns—though a small minority warned employment is already weakening. Rates were left unchanged at 4.25 to 4.5 percent, but the split underscores uncertainty about whether tariffs will cause only a one-time price jump or a lasting shock. Job growth has slowed to its weakest pace since the pandemic, while wholesale inflation just saw its sharpest rise in three years. Chair Jerome Powell will try to calm markets this week in Jackson Hole—but for now, the Fed’s battle lines are drawn: jobs are shaky, prices are sticky. ————————————— US tech shares looked steadier today after a two-day selloff that knocked 2% off the Nasdaq, as investors brace for the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium. The rebound comes after weeks of profit-taking on big tech, with traders waiting for Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech tomorrow for clues on interest rates. US futures edged higher, while European markets stalled just below record highs and Treasury yields ticked up to 4.31%. ————————————- India and Russia want to boost annual trade to 100 billion dollars within five years—a 50 percent jump—as ties with the United States sour. Visiting Moscow, Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar urged the removal of trade bottlenecks and non-tariff barriers, calling Russia a “dependable partner” in an uncertain global economy. The push comes as Washington slaps India with steep tariffs—25 percent now, with Donald Trump threatening to double them next week. India has leaned on discounted Russian oil to tame inflation at home, despite US criticism that the purchases help finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine. President Putin is expected to visit India later this year, while Prime Minister Modi heads to China this month to repair relations with Xi Jinping. —————————————— A major US oilfield services group is quietly expanding in Russia despite fresh American sanctions meant to choke off President Putin’s war funding. Houston-based Weatherford International boosted its Russian revenues to 7% of global sales this year, up from 5%, and has been hiring staff even after Washington banned US services for Russian oil production. Rival firms like Halliburton pulled out long ago, but Weatherford and industry leader SLB remain, exploiting loopholes by ring-fencing local operations. Critics in Congress say this props up Moscow’s war machine, with one lawmaker warning US companies “have blood on their hands.” Sanctions bite — but business drills on. —— —— MEF MOBILE NEWS 21 AUG 2025 Google has unveiled its Pixel 10 smartphone lineup, putting advanced Gemini AI at the heart of the devices. The new Tensor G5 chip, made by TSMC, powers features like Magic Cue, which delivers context-aware information across apps, and Camera Coach, guiding users on photo framing and lighting. The Pro models debut Pro Res Zoom, using generative AI to sharpen distant images up to 100x. Prices start at $799, with Pro versions bundled with a year of Google’s $19-a-month AI Pro subscription. Alongside, Google launched the Pixel Watch 4, with AI health coaching and emergency satellite SOS. Analysts say this is Google’s biggest hardware refresh yet, positioning Pixel as the leader in on-device AI and pushing the mobile ecosystem toward more agentic, app-integrated experiences. ———————————- Meta has hit pause on AI hiring, following a months-long talent spree that included top engineers from OpenAI, Google, and Apple. The move comes amid a reorganization of its AI division into four teams, including a “superintelligence” lab. For the mobile ecosystem, this could reshape the AI tools powering Meta’s apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, as new hires and reorganized teams set the stage for next-generation features. Investors are watching closely, questioning whether the massive spending will deliver breakthrough mobile experiences—or simply drive up costs. Meta’s reset may define the future of AI-driven social and messaging on smartphones. —————————— Meta has been accused of inflating ad performance by nearly 20% and secretly bypassing Apple’s iPhone privacy rules, according to evidence at a London tribunal — the Financial Times reports. A former product manager says Meta misled advertisers about its “Shops Ads” results, while also tracking user activity across websites without consent, despite Apple’s 2021 crackdown through App Tracking Transparency. The claims suggest Meta leaned on these ads to recover billions lost when iPhone users blocked tracking — highlighting how Apple’s privacy move reshaped mobile advertising economics. A full hearing is set for next year, keeping pressure on Meta’s credibility. ——————————— Apple will open its third India store on Sept. 2 in Bangalore’s Phoenix Mall of Asia, expanding retail presence in the world’s biggest smartphone growth market. India already accounts for 20% of iPhone production, and local sales hit $8B in FY2024, up 30% YoY. With iPhones at just 5% market share among 700M users, Apple is banking on rising premium demand, installment plans, and local manufacturing to build a deeper mobile ecosystem—where hardware, financing, and retail converge. ——————————- Singapore-based Circles has teamed up with OpenAI to build what they call the world’s first fully AI-native telecoms platform. The multi-year partnership will integrate OpenAI’s cutting-edge models into Circles’ operator technology, delivering smarter customer support, Costumer Relationship Management (CRM), and network operations. The platform launches first in Singapore through Circles.Life, before rolling out globally to operator partners. It promises personalized AI agents that bundle connectivity with shopping, travel, gaming and wellbeing services. Analysts say the move mirrors efforts by Nvidia, AWS and Rakuten Symphony as telecoms players race to inject agentic AI into their networks. But experts caution data sovereignty concerns could be a hurdle for global telcos adopting OpenAI-powered solutions. ——————————— The White House has officially joined TikTok, even as a federal law still requires the app’s sale or ban over national security concerns. President Donald Trump, who once vowed to ban TikTok back in 2020, has since softened his stance – crediting the platform with helping him win young voters in last year’s election. His personal account has over 15 million followers, compared to just a few thousand for the new White House handle. TikTok counts 170 million US users, and parent company ByteDance is still negotiating with Washington as a September deadline looms to find a non-Chinese buyer. Analysts say the White House’s move signals the app’s growing role as a must-have channel in US politics and mobile engagement, despite its unresolved future. —— —— MEF TECH NEWS 21 AUG 2025 Beijing has quietly moved to limit sales of Nvidia’s China-specific H20 artificial intelligence chip, after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Washington only allows “third-rate” processors into the country — the Financial Times reports citing two people with knowledge of the latest regulatory decision-making. The remarks angered senior Chinese officials, prompting regulators to pressure local tech giants such as Alibaba and ByteDance to scale back or halt new orders. The H20 is already banned in US military or government use, but had been a key option for Chinese firms developing AI. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang visited Beijing last month to reassure customers, and chip demand had been strong enough for production lines to restart. But regulators now want companies to shift toward homegrown alternatives from Huawei and others, even as domestic supply remains limited. The dispute underscores how advanced chips are at the heart of US-China trade friction, just as Donald Trump pushes for broader tariffs on Chinese goods. —————————— OpenAI may soon move beyond chatbots and into AI infrastructure-as-a-service. CFO Sarah Friar told Bloomberg that the company is considering renting out its massive future data centers, much like Amazon did with cloud computing. That could offset OpenAI’s own staggering costs, with CEO Sam Altman warning the firm may spend trillions on chips and facilities in the not-so-distant future. OpenAI already partners with Microsoft, Oracle, and SoftBank, but banks and private equity are now lining up to finance its build-out. The vision: not just powering ChatGPT, but becoming the backbone for AI inside every app, device, and smartphone — a new layer in the mobile ecosystem’s cloud wars. —————————- Australia’s largest lender, Commonwealth Bank, has backtracked on plans to scrap 45 customer service jobs in favor of AI bots. The reversal came after union pressure and a tribunal challenge, which revealed call volumes were rising, not falling, and staff were even working overtime. The bank admitted its redundancy assessment was flawed, apologized to employees, and will let affected staff stay, move roles, or leave voluntarily. The case underscores a wider global tension: Bloomberg Intelligence warns banks may cut up to 200,000 jobs in the next five years as AI takes over routine tasks. For now, the union calls it a “massive win” — proof that in banking’s AI future, human voices still count. —————————— U.S. battery makers are increasingly going global as domestic clean-energy support wanes. Group14 is now controlling its South Korea production, giving it faster access to Asia’s massive EV and grid storage markets — the Wall Street Journal reports citing Group 14 CEO Rick Luebbe. Meanwhile, Lyten snapped up Northvolt’s former European facilities to produce advanced batteries, serving both EVs and industrial energy storage. For the mobile ecosystem, these moves hint at faster adoption of high-density, lighter batteries—key for electric scooters, drones, and mobile devices—while U.S. firms aim to stay competitive in Asia and Europe. ——————————— GM is building a small, elite AI center in Silicon Valley, hiring top talent from Google, Meta, AWS, and even Pixar. The team is focused on applying AI across the automaker’s ecosystem—from collaborative factory robots to generative coding tools, software updates for vehicles, and motorsports analytics — David Richardson, GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, told the Wall Street Journal. For the mobile ecosystem, the implications are significant: smarter production lines, faster over-the-air updates, and more efficient battery- and energy-management systems for electric vehicles, all of which feed into a more connected, AI-driven vehicle and mobile tech landscape. —— ——