AI and automation-related development, modernization and maintenance services are included in the agreement, the company said in an exchange filing.

The company did not disclose the client's name.

As Microsoft-backed OpenAI's generative chatbot ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022, companies around the world have doubled down on investing in AI.

Infosys' move comes after rival Tata Consultancy Services said it planned to train 25,000 engineers to get them certified on Microsoft's Azure Open AI. Other rival Wipro has plans to invest $1 billion into artificial intelligence (AI) over the next three years.

Bengaluru-based Infosys launched a platform called Infosys Topaz for generative artificial intelligence (AI) in late May.

The company is expected to report its first quarter results on July 20.

(This story has been refiled to fix the day from Tuesday to Monday in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Navamya Ganesh Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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HONG KONG (Reuters) – China plans to appoint the CEO of state-owned telecoms giant China Unicom, Liu Liehong, as the head of its new national data bureau, four sources said, putting him in charge of efforts to make the country a digital superpower.

Liu, 54, an electronics and information technology veteran who also serves as China Unicom's chairman, will take the helm of the National Data Bureau in the coming days, the sources told Reuters.

China announced plans for the data bureau in March as part of a sweeping government reshuffle. Its responsibilities will include planning China's digital economy as well as the sharing and development of the country's data resources, promoting smart cities and the exchange of information resources across industries.

Its formation is part of efforts to achieve President Xi Jinping's vision of a “digital China”, where data is managed alongside labour and capital as a key economic driver. The country has also cracked down on data security, rolling out new curbs in areas such as information exports.

In February, China unveiled a plan for the country to lead digital development globally by 2035.

The bureau will be a vice-ministerial level regulator in a sign of its political importance, said three sources, putting it on the same level as China's National Anti-monopoly Bureau, whose status was elevated in 2021 during a heavy antitrust crackdown.

Some staff of the NDRC's Innovation and High-Tech Development Department, which is responsible for China's big data strategy, will move to the new data bureau, said the three sources.

China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), will also transfer some staff to the data bureau, said one source.

The State Council Information Office, which handles media queries on behalf of the government, did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment.

The NDRC and CAC did not immediately respond either.

The Hong Kong-listed arm of China Unicom said in a response to Reuters it would make an announcement on the city's stock exchange if there was any change in the board or management structure of the company.

“Whether Mr. Liu Liehong will take up any role in the National Data Bureau shall be subject to the decision of the PRC government,” it added.

REGULATORY STINTS

A native of Chengdu city in Sichuan province, Liu has more than three decades' experience in the electronics and IT industry. The relatively low-profile technocrat cut his teeth at a state-owned research institute as an engineer in 1990.

He later worked at state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) in 2004 and rose the ranks to become its president five years later.

In 2018, Liu was appointed as vice head of the CAC. Two years later, he became the vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, where he managed 5G projects, according to local media.

He was elevated to an elite body of the ruling Communist Party, by becoming an alternate member of the party's new Central Committee at its twice-a-decade congress last year.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Kevin Huang and Jane Xu; Editing by Brenda Goh and Sam Holmes)

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TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is expected to report a 27% fall in second-quarter net profit on Thursday, as global economic woes dent demand for semiconductors, though analysts say business performance is likely to improve in the current quarter.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major Apple and Nvidia supplier, is likely to report net profit for the April-June period of T$172.53 billion ($5.58 billion), down from T$237.0 billion a year earlier, according to the average of 21 analysts polled by Reuters.

The forecast decline in profit partly reflects a robust performance in the previous year, when the company was still riding high on pent-up post-pandemic demand.

Analysts at Taiwan's Fubon Investment said they expected the second quarter to be the bottom of the current downcycle but that while the situation should improve in the third quarter, it would be weaker than normal given continued inventory build ups that are still being worked through.

One senior Taiwan fund manger told Reuters that third quarter profit would bounce back given expectations for AI demand and launches of new iPhones ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season.

“Taiwan has not really benefited from electric vehicles, since the market is in China and most EV suppliers are in China. But artificial intelligence (AI) is a different story,” he said, requesting anonymity citing company policy. “Taiwan will benefit most from AI because the entire AI supply chain can be found here.”

The second quarter is traditionally a slow period for sales for the tech industry with demand usually picking up in the third quarter and towards the year-end shopping season.

TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company, posted a surprise rise in net profit for the quarter ended March, up 2% from a year earlier. But that was still the smallest quarterly growth since mid-2019 as global economic woes hurt demand for chips.

Last month, the company said quickly rising demand for AI applications was driving a lot of orders and that it expected a better performance in the second half than the first.

The bright outlook for AI applications has in part driven up TSMC's Taipei-listed stock by almost 30% so far this year, outperforming the broader market, which is up around 22%.

The company will provide guidance for the third quarter and update previous forecasts on its earnings call at 0600 GMT on Thursday.

TSMC's second quarter revenue came in at T$480.8 billion($15.53 billion), according to Reuters calculations, in the middle of an April forecast range of $15.2 billion to $16 billion, compared to $18.16 billion for the year-ago period.

($1 = 30.9600 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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A new certification and labeling program would raise the bar for cybersecurity across smart devices such as refrigerators, microwaves, televisions, climate control systems and fitness trackers, the White House said in a statement.

Retailers and manufacturers will apply a “U.S. Cyber Trust Mark” logo to their devices and the program will be up and running in 2024.

The initiative is designed to make sure “our networks and the use of them is more secure, because it is so important for economic and national security,” said a senior administration official, who did not wish to be named.

The Federal Communications Commission will seek public comment before rolling out the labeling program and register a national trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the White House said.

Other retailers and manufacturers participating in the program include LG Electronics U.S.A., Logitech, Cisco Systems and Samsung.

In March, the White House launched its national cyber strategy that called on software makers and companies to take far greater responsibility to ensure that their systems cannot be hacked.

It also accelerated efforts by agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department to disrupt activities of hackers and ransomware groups around the world.

Last week, Microsoft and U.S. official said Chinese state-linked hackers secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organizations, including at least two U.S. government agencies, since May.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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(Reuters) – Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold 70% of its investment in Activision Blizzard in the second quarter, appearing to miss out on some gains when a federal judge said Microsoft can complete its $68.7 billion purchase of the video game maker.

In a regulatory filing on Monday, Berkshire said it owned about 14.7 million Activision shares, or 1.9%, worth $1.24 billion on June 30, down from 49.4 million shares, or 6.3%, on March 31.

The filing did not discuss the prices of any sales, or whether Berkshire bought or sold Activision stock in July.

Berkshire did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Activision investment was a form of arbitrage, with Buffett viewing investors as too pessimistic that regulators would approve combining Microsoft's Xbox gaming console business with the publisher of the “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush” franchises.

One of Berkshire's portfolio managers invested in Activision in late 2021, with Buffett boosting the stake to nearly 10% in 2022.

The billionaire told shareholders at Berkshire's annual meeting in April 2022 he did not know whether regulators would bless the merger, which valued Activision at $95 per share, but “one thing we do know is Microsoft has the money.”

Berkshire's remaining Activision stake – 14,658,121 shares – is exactly the size it was before Buffett started buying, suggesting that he has exited the arbitrage bet.

Activision shares rose 10% to $90.99 on July 11 after U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco rejected U.S. Federal Trade Commission arguments that the merger would hurt competition in cloud gaming, consoles and subscription services.

Britain's competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, also opposed the merger, but agreed to a stay on Microsoft's appeal to allow more time to resolve their dispute.

Berkshire is based in Omaha, Nebraska. It also owns dozens of businesses such as the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer, as well as stocks such as Apple and Bank of America.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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(Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc must face a California lawsuit claiming it should have covered UberEats drivers' work-related expenses, the state's top court said on Monday, in what could be a major blow to companies in the largest U.S. state and a win for labor advocates.

The California Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling said UberEats driver Erik Adolph did not give up his right under state law to sue on behalf of a large group of workers even though he signed an agreement to bring his own work-related legal claims in private arbitration.

Adolph sued Uber in 2019, claiming the company misclassified UberEats drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, who must be reimbursed for work expenses under California law.

A unique California law called the Private Attorney General Act, or PAGA, allows workers to sue for employment law violations on behalf of the state and keep one-quarter of any money they win. The rest goes to the state to fund an agency that enforces labor laws.

The California Supreme Court said nothing in that law bars workers from pursuing claims on their own behalf in arbitration while separately litigating large-scale claims in court.

The decision likely undermines the significance of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Viking River Cruises that said companies could force individual PAGA claims into arbitration, and could mean that California employers will face more large-scale lawsuits.

Theane Evangelis, a lawyer for Uber, said in a statement that Monday's ruling conflicts with the Viking River decision and violates a federal law that requires enforcing valid arbitration agreements.

“We are considering our appellate options,” she said.

Michael Rubin, who represents Adolph, said the ruling could spur companies to reconsider forcing workers' claims into arbitration if large-scale PAGA lawsuits can still proceed in court. Rubin also represented the plaintiff in the Viking River case.

More than half of private sector, nonunion U.S. workers are required to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. The agreements typically bar them from filing or participating in traditional class action lawsuits.

Critics of mandatory arbitration say it discourages workers from bringing individual claims that involve small sums of money, and that workers who do bring disputes in arbitration are more likely to lose.

Business groups maintain that arbitration is quicker and more efficient than court, allowing workers to recoup more money. Trade groups hailed last year's Viking River ruling, saying it would prevent plaintiffs in California from using PAGA as a way around arbitration.

Groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby, filed briefs in Monday's case warning the California Supreme Court that a ruling against Uber could encourage workers to file meritless lawsuits and pressure companies to settle them.

But the court said those concerns should be directed at state legislators, who have the power to change the law.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Alison Frankel in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Josie Kao)

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SINGAPORE/TOKYO/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The European Union is lobbying Asian countries to follow its lead on artificial intelligence in adopting new rules for tech firms that include disclosure of copyrighted and AI-generated content, according to senior officials from the EU and Asia.

The EU and its member states have dispatched officials for talks on governing the use of AI with at least 10 Asian countries including India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines, they said.

The bloc aims for its proposed AI Act to become a global benchmark on the booming technology the way its data protection laws have helped shape global privacy standards.

However, the effort to convince Asian governments of the need for stringent new rules is being met with a lukewarm reception, seven people close to the discussions told Reuters.

Many countries favour a “wait and see” approach or are leaning towards a more flexible regulatory regime.

The officials asked not be named as the discussions, whose extent has not been previously reported, remained confidential.

Singapore, one of Asia's leading tech centres, prefers to see how the technology evolves before adapting local regulations, an official for the city-state told Reuters. Officials from Singapore and the Philippines expressed concern that moving overly hasty regulation might stifle AI innovation.

As Reuters reported last month, Southeast Asian countries are drawing up voluntary guidelines. Japan, for its part, is leaning towards softer rules than the stringent approach championed by the EU, as it looks to the technology to boost economic growth and make it a leader in advanced chips.

Efforts in Asia are part of a global push by European nations that include talks with countries such as Canada, Turkey and Israel, Dutch digital minister Alexandra van Huffelen told Reuters in an interview.

“We're trying to figure out on how we can make the regulation from the EU copied, applicable and mirrored … as it is with the GDPR,” van Huffelen said late last month, referring to General Data Protection Regulation, the EU's data privacy regime.

The emergence of AI has been hailed as a breakthrough that will usher in an era of rapid advances in science and technology, revolutionizing all aspects of human activity, but also painted as an existential threat.

EU lawmakers in June agreed to a trailblazing set of draft rules, which would make companies such as ChatGPT operator OpenAI disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish so-called deep fake images from real ones and ensure safeguards against illegal content.

The proposed legislation, which also envisages financial fines for rule violations, faces resistance from companies, with 160 executives last month signing a letter warning it could jeopardise Europe's competitiveness, investment and innovation.

Still, officials from the EU, which has signed “digital partnerships” with Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, voice optimism they can find common ground with international partners to advance cooperation on technologies including AI.

“Our mission is again to make sure that what's happening in the EU, which is our large constituency if I may say so, is protected,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Reuters during a trip to South Korea and Japan to discuss AI and semiconductors.

“I believe that it will be probably not too far from each other because we share the same values,” Breton said of regulation of AI in the EU and countries such as Japan.

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) economies made of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, the United States and the European Union, in May called for adoption of standards to create “trustworthy” AI and to set up a ministerial forum dubbed the “Hiroshima AI process”.

Seoul will continue discussing AI regulation with the EU but is more interested in what the G7 is doing, a South Korean official said following a meeting with Breton.

The EU is planning to use the upcoming G20 meetings to further push for global collaboration on AI, notably with 2023 president India, van Huffelen told Reuters.

(Reporting by Fanny Potkin, Sam Nussey and Supantha Mukherjee; Additional reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -Microsoft Corp is in talks about an extension of its acquisition contract with video game maker Activision Blizzard, which is set to expire on Tuesday, so the parties can overcome the remaining regulatory hurdles to their $69 billion deal, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The expiration of the contract would not automatically lead to the collapse of the deal, as it simply affords either company the right to walk away from the transaction.

Nonetheless, Microsoft, which makes the Xbox gaming console, has been seeking the contract extension to ensure that Activision is not wooed by another potential acquirer or has a change of heart, the source said.

The terms of the extension under negotiation and whether it would come with more financially advantageous terms for Activision could not immediately be learned.

The companies will continue to negotiate the extension if they do not have an agreement by the end of Tuesday, according to the source, who requested anonymity because the matter is confidential.

Microsoft and Activision did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An extension would give the companies more time to find a regulatory solution in Britain, the only major jurisdiction that stands in the way of them completing what would be the largest acquisition in the gaming sector.

Microsoft and Activision are negotiating potential remedies with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which they hope will appease its antitrust concerns.

The country's antitrust regulator has argued that Microsoft's commitment to offer access to Activision's multi-billion dollar “Call of Duty” franchise to rival cloud gaming platforms would not effectively protect competition in the market. The CMA has agreed to extend its probe to Aug. 29 to allow for more negotiations with the companies.

Last week, Microsoft signed a pact to keep “Call of Duty” on Sony Group Corp's PlayStation console. Sony had been one of the deal's toughest critics, arguing that it could stifle consumer choice.

On Friday, a U.S. appeals court rejected the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's request to pause Microsoft's acquisition of “Call of Duty” maker Activision. The decision removed one of the last obstacles to the acquisition closing.

Activision's shares closed at $93.2 on Monday, a small discount to the $95-per-share deal price, indicating that most investors now viewed the completion of the deal as likely.

(Reporting by Anirban Sen in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Stephen Coates)

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The meeting comes as Coinbase and Binance – two of the world's largest crypto exchanges – are grappling with lawsuits brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly failing to register their operations with the agency.

At the meeting, Armstrong will also touch upon related issues, such as tax, national security, privacy, and climate, a New Democrat Coalition spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.

If the SEC lawsuits are successful, they could transform the crypto market by successfully asserting the SEC's jurisdiction over the industry which for years has argued that tokens do not constitute securities and should not be regulated by the commission.

Both Coinbase and Binance deny the SEC's allegations and have pledged to vigorously defend themselves in court.

Armstrong is an outspoken SEC critic who has called SEC Chair Gary Gensler an “outlier” among Washington policymakers.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey and Shubhendu Deshmukh in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Edwina Gibbs)

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(Reuters) – Tesla sued Australian company Cap-XX in Texas federal court on Friday, claiming its supercapacitors used for storing energy in electric-vehicle batteries infringe two U.S. patents owned by a Tesla subsidiary.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk pledged in 2014 not to “initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” The company says the legal action comes in response to a lawsuit that Cap-XX originally filed against Tesla subsidiary Maxwell Technologies in 2019 for patent infringement.

“Maxwell has a history of innovation that has resulted in its own patents, now assigned to Tesla, and thus Tesla brings this suit against Cap-XX to protect its intellectual property rights,” the lawsuit said.

Representatives for Tesla and Cap-XX did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Tesla acquired Maxwell in 2019. Like Cap-XX, Maxwell makes capacitors for electric vehicles that increase their energy-storage capabilities. The patents that Cap-XX allegedly infringed relate to electrodes used in supercapacitors, which Tesla called the “primary source of the device's power capabilities.”

Tesla said the electrodes used in Cap-XX's supercapacitors work in the same way as Maxwell's patented technology. It asked the court for an unspecified amount of money damages.

Cap-XX's ongoing lawsuit in Delaware federal court accuses Maxwell of infringing its own supercapacitor patents.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

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