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TAIPEI — Nvidia chief Jensen Huang said the world was at "the tipping point of a new computer era" as he unveiled a raft of AI-related products Monday in his first public speech in four years at a Taiwan tech trade show.

The US firm, which specialises in chips coveted in the artificial intelligence boom, saw its value surge to nearly $1 trillion last week, after the company's quarterly earnings report blew past expectations.

Nvidia is known for creating graphics chips long coveted by gamers but which have become engines for the kind of complex processes involved in artificial intelligence, known as accelerated computing.

Its chips are a central ingredient to the generative AI revolution, capable of delivering the computing heft needed to churn out complex content in just seconds from data centres around the world.

In Taipei on Monday, the Taiwanese-American CEO expressed excitement to be back at the Computex forum, one of the largest trade shows for the sector.

"Our first live event in almost four years! I haven't given a public speech in four years — wish me luck!" he said.

Huang's two-hour presentation introduced a dizzying host of new products — including an AI supercomputer platform called DGX GH200, which he said is now "in full production".

"We're so excited that Google Cloud, Meta and Microsoft will be the first companies in the world to have access," he added.

"They will be doing be doing exploratory research on the pioneering front, the boundaries of artificial intelligence, with us."

The new supercomputer will — in theory — help the tech industry as it seeks to create more AI-related products, which require more complex computing tasks.

"This is really one of the first major times in history a new computing model has been developed and created," he said, referring to accelerated computing.

"We have now reached the tipping point of a new computing era."

Founded 30 years ago by Huang, Nvidia was initially a star in the video game world. The Silicon Valley-based company has since built its reputation on making graphics processing units, which ramp up image quality and vanquish response lag time for gamers.

Its shares soared more than 25 percent Wednesday after an earnings report showed the AI trend is fuelling demand for its sophisticated chips.

LONDON — US tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) is fighting to get Britain, France and other countries to make it easier to promote alternatives to cigarettes such as heated tobacco and vaping.

PMI embarked on a strategic shift six years ago to become a smoke-free company, against a backdrop of increasingly stringent regulations in many countries, costly lawsuits and falling smoking rates. 

The group has injected more than $10 billion into new products, which now account for a third of its $32 billion sales for the financial year 2022. 

It has a very limited presence in the vaping e-cigarette market.

But in the UK, the promotion of conventional or heated tobacco is forbidden, while gleaming e-cigarette stores are popping up all over the place. 

In countries where "alternatives" are not allowed, such as Turkey, Belgium or Singapore, PMI has no plans to move away from conventional cigarettes.

Stopping the sale of traditional cigarettes will "make Philip Morris look better" but not affect the one billion smokers who can "continue buying a product from somebody else", chief executive Jacek Olczak told AFP. 

Instead, he wants to "convince the governments... [to] allow the alternatives and we can start reducing the sale of cigarettes much faster".

In countries open to alternatives, he sees this deadline within 10 years. 

"Our vision is of a smoke-free future," he added.

Risks 

Heated tobacco products, or HTPs, use a high heat to decompose tobacco, via a process called pyrolysis, which does not set it on fire or burn it, therefore avoiding creating smoke.

PMI acknowledges that alternatives to conventional tobacco remain addictive because they contain nicotine and are not "risk-free".

Health organisations are split about their level of harmfulness.

"In recent years, HTPs have been promoted as reduced harm products or products that can help people quit conventional tobacco smoking," the World Health Organisation (WHO) states.

"HTPs expose users to toxic emissions, many of which cause cancer and currently there is not enough evidence to suggest that they are less harmful than conventional cigarettes."

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention also stresses that tobacco, including heated tobacco, is "harmful" and "highly addictive".

It notes that: "Additional research is needed to determine whether adult cigarette smokers who completely switch to heated tobacco products might reduce their risks of tobacco-related disease." 

Tobacco kills eight million people a year worldwide.

However, the WHO, the UK's National Health Service and even anti-smoking groups agree with Olczak that alternatives to conventional tobacco can help some people to quit. 

"People smoke for the nicotine, they die from the tar," said Deborah Arnott, head of British NGO Action on Smoking and Health. 

"We support nicotine containing e-cigarettes as they help adult smokers quit, as does licensed medicinal nicotine replacement therapy which is recognised by the WHO as an essential medicine."

However, Arnott takes issue with PMI being allowed to promote heavily its new products, "when they are a tobacco product". 

She argued that PMI's sole objective is "to protect its future earnings streams". 

Habits 

For Olczak, the many restrictive policies — age verification, hidden packets at retailers, unmarked packs with health warnings — have had only a "minimal" impact.

He instead attributes the fall in smoking in Sweden and Japan to the marketing of so-called alternatives. 

Smoking in Japan has fallen from 84 per cent of men in the 1960s to around 30 per cent in 2018, with Japan Tobacco International attributing the decline to a growing public awareness of health issues, tougher regulations, price rises and an ageing population. 

Arnott notes that PMI's heated tobacco "has been most successful in Japan, where it can be actively promoted and electronic cigarettes are banned". 

In Sweden, the public health agency notes that the use of alternatives such as snus (a form of snuff popular in Nordic countries) or e-cigarettes increases the risk of switching to conventional cigarettes among new users — a particular concern for younger people.

On its website, the agency says it does not have enough data to say that the use of alternative products leads to a change in tobacco consumption. 

PARIS — The boss of OpenAI, the firm behind the massively popular ChatGPT bot, said on Friday that his firm's technology would not destroy the job market as he sought to calm fears about the march of artificial intelligence (AI).

Sam Altman, on a global tour to charm national leaders and powerbrokers, said in Paris that AI would not — as some have warned — wipe out whole sectors of the workforce through automation.

"This idea that AI is going to progress to a point where humans don't have any work to do or don't have any purpose has never resonated with me," he said.

Asked about the media industry, where several outlets already use AI to generate stories, Altman said ChatGPT should instead be like giving a journalist 100 assistants to help them research and come up with ideas.

ChatGPT burst into the spotlight late last year, demonstrating an ability to generate essays, poems and conversations from the briefest of prompts.

Microsoft later laid out billions of dollars to support OpenAI and now uses the firm's technology in several of its products — sparking a race with Google, which has made a slew of similar announcements. 

Altman, a 38-year-old emerging star of Silicon Valley, has received rapturous welcomes from leaders everywhere from Lagos to London. 

Though earlier this week, he seemed to annoy the European Union by hinting that his firm could leave the bloc if they regulate too severely.

He insisted to a group of journalists on the sidelines of the Paris event that the headlines were not fair and he had no intention of leaving the bloc — rather, OpenAI was likely to open an office in Europe in the future.

'Exhausting' 

The success of ChatGPT — which has been used by politicians to write speeches and proved itself capable of passing tough exams — has thrust Altman into a global spotlight.

"Years from now, reflecting on this will feel very special... but it is also quite exhausting and I hope life calms down," he said.

OpenAI was formed in 2015 with investors including Altman and billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk, who left the firm in 2018 and has repeatedly bashed it in recent months.

Musk, who has his own AI ambitions, said he came up with the name OpenAI, invested $100 million in it, was betrayed when the company turned itself from non-profit to profit-making in 2018, and has said Microsoft now effectively runs the company.

"I disagree with almost all of that, but I will try to avoid a food fight here," said Altman. "There's got to be more important things than whatever he's going on about." 

Instead, he wanted to focus on the mission of OpenAI, which he said was to "maximise the benefits" to society of AI and particularly Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — the much-vaunted future where machines will master all sorts of tasks, not just one.

He conceded that definitions of AGI were "fuzzy" and there was no agreement, but said his definition was when machines could make major scientific breakthroughs.

"For me, if you can go figure out the fundamental theory of physics and answer it all, I'll call you AGI," he said.

A major criticism of his products is that the firm does not publish the sources it uses to train its models.

As well as copyright issues, critics argue that users should know who is responsible for answering their questions, and if those replies used material from offensive or racist webpages.

But Altman argued the bottom line was that critics wanted to know whether the models themselves were racist.

"How it does on a racial bias test is what matters there," he said, deflecting the idea that he should publish the sources. 

He said the latest model, GPT-4, was "surprisingly non-biased".

SAN FRANCISCO — Shares in US chip company Nvidia soared more than 25 per cent Wednesday after an earnings report showed the artificial intelligence trend is fueling demand for its sophisticated chips.

Net income for the fiscal quarter that closed at the end of April was $2.04 billion, up 26 per cent from $1.68 billion in the same period a year earlier, Nvidia reported.

More than half of Nvidia's revenue, some $4.28 billion, came from its data center business setting a new record high, according to the chip maker.

"The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI," Nvidia founder and chief Jensen Huang said in an earnings release.

"Our entire data centre family of products is in production; we are significantly increasing our supply to meet surging demand for them."

Nvidia specialises in graphics chips that have long been coveted by gamers but have become engines for the kind of complex computing processes involved in artificial intelligence.

"A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process," Huang said.

Gaming-related revenue was down at Nvidia compared to the same quarter a year ago, with the company faulting the overall macroeconomic slowdown.

Nvidia revenue in the recently ended fiscal quarter tallied $7.19 billion, down from the same period last year but up from the prior quarter, the Silicon Valley company reported.

Nvidia said it expected revenue of about $11 billion in the current quarter, which seemed to drive investor enthusiasm for its shares.

Nvidia stock price soared to $387 a share in after-market trading that followed release of the earnings figures.

Release of ChatGPT generative AI by startup OpenAI has triggered a race between Microsoft, Google and others to develop the technology that promises to transform society.

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple on Tuesday announced a multibillion-dollar collaboration with US tech firm Broadcom to make "cutting edge" components for wirelessly connecting to high-speed 5G telecom networks.

The iPhone maker did not specify exactly how many billions of dollars it would put into the Broadcom alliance, but said it is part of a commitment to invest in the US economy.

"We're thrilled to make commitments that harness the ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit of American manufacturing," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.

"All of Apple's products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we'll continue to deepen our investments in the US economy because we have an unshakable belief in America's future."

The alliance will include designing and manufacturing sophisticated radio frequency components and other "cutting-edge wireless connectivity" parts in the United States, according to Apple.

"5G technology is shaping the future of next-generation consumer electronics — and Apple is spending tens of billions of dollars to develop this field in the United States," the company said.

Apple is on pace to meet a commitment it made in 2021 to invest $430 billion in the US economy over the course of five years, according to the Silicon Valley technology titan.

It said those investments include money put into data centers, capital projects and suppliers.

DOHA — Qatar's energy minister warned on Tuesday the "worst is yet to come" for Europe's oil and gas shortages, saying a warm winter had prevented greater difficulties in recent months.

Saad Al Kaabi and his Saudi counterpart Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman said a lack of investment in oil and gas, as the world tries to transition to cleaner fuels to prevent global warming, risked causing an energy crunch.

"The only thing that saved humanity and Europe this year was a warm winter, and the slowdown in the economy," Qatari Energy Minister Saad Al Kaabi told the Qatar Economic Forum.

"If the economy starts churning back up in [2024] and you have just a regular winter, I think the worst is yet to come."

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy supply crisis, Europe dodged serious problems this past winter largely because of milder-than-expected temperatures.

But Kaabi and Prince Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, both told the conference further problems were looming.

"If [European leaders have] a proper plan and sit down with producers, and oil and gas companies are not demonised, reality will kick in and we'll have a sensible solution," Kaabi said.

Qatar has announced a series of major gas supply deals and is engaged in developing North Field, which contains the world's biggest natural gas deposits, raising its production to 126 million tonnes per year by 2027.

Demand is so great that all the expanded production for the North Field East and North Field South could be tied up in long-term deals by the end of the year, Kaabi said.

"There is a potential that we will run out of all the gas from the NFE and NFS by the end of the year, as far as long-term contracts," he said. "That's obviously a very big demand."

Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdulaziz also said Europe was "rescued by a gift of God" last winter, and said global energy security was at risk from "kicking the can policies".

"Energy security is being shackled. We're running out of capacity, because countries are not investing both in oil and gas," he said, mocking the push for cleaner fuels including green hydrogen, which is produced using renewable energy.

"People go around talking about blue, green, purple, pink hydrogen, but in the final analysis, who is going to be the offtaker?" he said, referring to the proposed buyer.

"What would be the price of hydrogen? We're not talking oil, we're not talking gas. We're talking about the so-called cleanest, greenest fuel of the future. And yet, you don't have the offtakers."

LONDON — Irish no-frills airline Ryanair rebounded back into bumper annual net profits, boosted by a "strong" post-COVID recovery despite spiking costs, it said Monday.

Ryanair became the latest European aviation giant to log a return to the black as travellers return to the skies after the pandemic and shrug off high inflation, mirroring British Airways owner IAG, Franco-Dutch group Air France-KLM and Germany's Lufthansa.

Profit after taxation soared to 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in the 12 months to the end of March, after a net loss of 355 million euros in its previous financial year, Dublin-based Ryanair said in a results statement.

It had narrowed losses in the prior 2021/2022 fiscal year, boosted by the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns.

"Over the last year we have seen a very strong post-COVID traffic recovery," said chief executive Michael O'Leary in video remarks published alongside the results.

"People have been locked up for two years and wanted to go back to travelling."

Revenues more than doubled to 10.8 billion euros on rising fares, as the group reported "strong market share gains" in Italy, Poland, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

Passenger traffic leapt 74 per cent to 168.6 million travellers, with fares 10 per cent above pre-COVID levels.

"Traffic is now running at 13-14 per cent ahead of our pre-COVID volumes, but profitability is still running slightly behind where we were pre-COVID," added O'Leary.

Higher costs

Ryanair said profits were also lifted by "advantageous" fuel hedges. Airlines bet against volatile oil prices by hedging, or taking a defensive position on futures markets.

Total operating costs, however, spiked 75 per cent to 9.2 billion euros, while the group also faced a net loss in the fourth quarter of 154 million euros.

Monday's results come two weeks after Ryanair ordered 300 Boeing 737 MAX jets worth over $40 billion for delivery from 2027, alongside a major recruitment drive which it hopes will drive massive expansion.

The company is targeting an 80 per cent jump in annual passenger traffic to 300 million travellers by 2034, compared with 2023.

It plans to recruit more than 10,000 new cabin-crew members, engineers and pilots, to help meet the goal.

Ryanair's key British rival EasyJet had reported last week that it slashed net losses in the first half of its financial year, or six months to March.

EasyJet, which logged three annual losses in a row due to the pandemic, has predicted a rebound to annual profit as holidaymakers shrug off Britain's cost-of-living crisis.

'Robust' summer demand 

"Demand for European summer leisure travel looks robust," said Olly Anibaba, analyst at research group Third Bridge. 

"Despite inflation weighing on consumer spending, European consumers are still opting for leisure travel over other forms of entertainment."

The sector is flying high after a tumultuous period sparked by the COVID pandemic, which erupted in early 2020 to ground flights, sparking massive job cuts and huge losses.

Anibaba cautioned that ultra-low air ticket prices may not return to the aviation industry, as it grapples with rising jet fuel prices and fallout from sky-high inflation.

"Ryanair and other airlines have signalled that the era of ultra-low fares might be coming to an end. They are preparing customers for potential price increases."