India’s Ambassador to the U.S. Vinay Mohan Kwatra discussed with Intel’s CEO Lip Bu Tan the company’s semiconductor and AI initiatives and plans in India.

The virtual interaction on Saturday (November 8, 2025) came as New Delhi accelerates efforts to strengthen its semiconductor and AI industries under the India Semiconductor Mission and IndiaAI initiative.

“Had the pleasure to interact with Mr. Lip Bu Tan, CEO of INTEL to discuss INTEL’s initiatives and plans for India operations in coordination with the Government’s goal to develop semiconductor and AI industry in India under the aegis of India Semiconductor Mission and India AI,” Kwatra said in an X post.

The interaction comes as India prepares to host a crucial AI summit in February next year.

The India-AI Impact Summit 2026 will be held February 19-20 in New Delhi, the first global-scale AI summit hosted in the Global South.

WhatsApp on Thursday (October 30, 2025) announced it will introduce a new method for users to access their encrypted chat backups with passkey support. The passkey will allow users to encrypt their chat backups using their fingerprint, face or screen lock code instead of them having to remember a password or a 64-digit encryption key. 

The platform had initially rolled out the option for users to encrypt their chat backups to the cloud in 2021. Users can enable the encrypted passkeys under Settings tab. They will have to turn up the ‘End-to-end encrypted backup’ option in the ‘Chats’ option, which is under ‘Chat backup’. 

This update will be rolled out gradually for all users in the coming weeks. 

In April, WhatsApp introduced a new advanced privacy feature for users in both individual and group chats that lets only the sender and the recipient see the texts.

Samsung Wallet will start supporting small-ticket UPI-linked transactions by using the biometrics of users registered on their devices, and thereby eliminating the need to use a PIN for every transaction, a senior company official said.

Madhur Chaturvedi, Senior Director, Services & Apps Business, Samsung India, said the facility will be rolled out from December.

“Samsung Wallet’s authentication experience has been enhanced with the introduction of biometric verification, device fingerprint and facial recognition, eliminating the need for PIN entry for everyday use. Users will be able to access the app and make UPI payments using just their Galaxy device’s fingerprint or face recognition,” Mr. Chaturvedi said.

At present, UPI Lite users can pay without using a PIN for small transactions.

Mr. Chaturvedi said the new Samsung smartphones, to be sold from early next year onward, will come with a UPI account onboarding feature that will enable users to add their UPI account at the time of setting up their new device.

He said Samsung Wallet will soon start supporting direct online usage of stored credit and debit cards across a wide set of key merchants without the need to manually key in card details.

Apple shares rose about 2% premarket on Friday after upbeat forecasts for the lucrative holiday quarter suggested the latest iPhone 17 models were driving a sales rebound despite delays in shipping to key market China.

While the supply constraints weighed on sales in the fourth quarter, investors remained optimistic as the September launch of the new iPhone lineup helped Apple shares cross above $4 trillion in market capitalisation earlier this week, joining Nvidia and Microsoft.

The outlook has also helped allay concerns around Apple going slow on the integration of some long-awaited artificial intelligence features even as other tech majors race ahead.

“I just know that owning this stock for many decades … When you’re really big like Apple, you don’t have to move fast, sometimes you just have to get it right eventually,” said Eric Clark, chief investment officer at Accuvest.

Amazon and Apple shares are still the worst performers for the year so far among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of magacaps, though the e-commerce giant’s stock soared before the bell on Friday on stellar cloud growth in the quarter.

Apple’s stock trades at 33.4 times analysts’ profit expectations, representing a premium to Microsoft’s 31.7 and Meta Platform’s 22.3, according to LSEG data.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Friday he hoped the company’s state-of-the-art Blackwell chips can be sold in China, although the decision needed to be made by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking during his first official visit to South Korea in more than a decade, a day after Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held talks there, Huang said he was delighted by the success of the meeting between the two presidents, but was not aware of what they spoke about.

After the talks on Thursday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that semiconductors had been discussed and China was “going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips”.

But Trump added: “We’re not talking about the Blackwell.”

“We’re always hoping to return to China, and I think that Nvidia in China is very good. It’s in the best interest of United States. It’s in the best interest of China,” Huang said.

“So I’m hopeful that both governments will arrive at a conclusion someday where Nvidia’s technology could be exported to China.”

The extent of China’s access to Nvidia’s chips has been a key point of friction with the United States as the two wrestle for dominance in high-end computing power and artificial intelligence.

Washington has put export controls on sales of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China, seeking to limit its tech progress, particularly in applications that could help its military.

Huang has tried to persuade the Trump administration to loosen the controls, saying Chinese AI’s dependence on U.S. hardware was good for America.

Nvidia has been working on a new chip for China based on its latest Blackwell architecture that will be less capable than the model sold outside the country but more powerful than the most advanced model it is currently allowed to sell there, the H20, sources have previously said.

But while private Chinese companies are believed to be very interested in purchasing such a chip, the Chinese government has turned cool towards Nvidia, discouraging purchases of the H20, and is instead promoting domestic chip manufacturers such as Huawei.

Huang told reporters that Nvidia had been hoping for “non-zero market share” in China, but was now expecting zero.

U.S. national security concerns that the Chinese military could use U.S. technology did not make sense, he added, because China’s own domestically produced AI chips were good enough for their military applications.

He also said it would be “foolish” to underestimate the incredible competitive spirit of Huawei, which last month unveiled its plans to compete against Nvidia in AI chips.

“It’s deeply uninformed to think that Huawei can’t build systems,” he said. “It is foolish to underestimate the might of China and the incredible competitive spirit of Huawei. This is a company with extraordinary technology.”

Getty Images and Perplexity signed a global multi-year licensing agreement on Friday, allowing the AI startup to display the photo distributor’s editorial and creative images across its search and discovery tools.

Shares of Getty, which serves millions of customers worldwide through its brands and vast image library, soared 50% in early trading following the deal.

Under the agreement, Perplexity will integrate Getty’s API technology into its AI platform workflows, enabling users to access premium visuals while improving image attribution.

The collaboration is part of a wider trend of digital platforms signing licensing deals with AI content providers to expand content access while respecting intellectual property rights and generating revenue.

Perplexity also plans to include image credits and source links to educate users on the proper legal use of licensed content.

AI firms’ use of copyrighted content has drawn mounting scrutiny and has triggered lawsuits. Getty, which also licenses to platforms like iStock and Unsplash, has previously sued Stability AI over image scraping.

Perplexity also has faced multiple copyright lawsuits from prominent publishers, including Japan’s Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun, and has since introduced a revenue-sharing model, partnering with outlets like TIME, Der Spiegel and others.

The licensing deal follows Getty’s efforts to support AI-driven creativity, enabling users to generate visuals safely using licensed content in generative AI tools.

Bitcoin on Friday was on track for a monthly loss in October for the first time since 2018, snapping a seven-year streak of gains that had earned the month a lucky reputation among cryptocurrency traders. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is set for a nearly 5% decline this month, as the digital asset has struggled in recent weeks amid broader market jitters and muted investor risk appetite.

Cryptocurrencies “came into October, tracking gold, tracking stocks near all-time highs, and then as uncertainty hit people for the first time maybe this year, they didn’t rotate back into bitcoin en masse,” said Adam McCarthy, a senior research analyst at digital market data provider Kaiko.

October saw the largest crypto liquidation in history after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports and threatened export controls on critical software.

Bitcoin fell as low as $104,782.88 during the October 10-11 period, after setting a fresh record high just days earlier above $126,000.

“That washout on the 10th, it really reminded people that this asset class is very narrow,” said McCarthy. “It’s bitcoin and (ether), and even those can still have 10% drawdowns in 15, 20 minutes.”

A whirlwind October is set to end with spooked investors unsure of the global monetary policy path in the near term, as the U.S. Federal Reserve pushed back against market bets that it would continue to cut rates this year as the government shutdown blocks crucial economic data. Meanwhile, several influential figures have expressed concerns about high valuations in equity markets. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon earlier this month warned of a heightened risk of a significant correction in the U.S. stock market within the next six months to two years.

“Participants remain hesitant as they process what has become the largest liquidation event on record. This caution persists amid ongoing speculation about specific vulnerabilities that may still exist in the system,” said Jake Ostrovskis, head of trading firm Wintermute’s over-the-counter desk.

Despite its October decline, bitcoin is still up more than 16% so far this year. Cryptocurrencies have generally enjoyed a boost this year as Trump has embraced digital assets, which has led to the dismissal of a spate of lawsuits against prominent crypto platforms and a shift by Trump’s financial regulators to create specialised rules to accommodate digital assets.

Amazon shares surged more than 11% in early trading on Friday after strong growth at its cloud unit and a bullish sales outlook eased fears that the tech giant was falling behind rivals in the AI race.

Revenue at Amazon Web Services, the hub of the company’s recent AI investments, rose 20% in the third quarter. Although Microsoft Azure’s revenue increased by 40% and Google Cloud’s by 34%, AWS’s sheer scale magnifies its growth impact.

Its $33 billion cloud revenue is more than double that of Google’s $15.16 billion.

Wall Street cheered AWS’s comeback, with analysts noting the earnings marked a potential turning point for Amazon.

“There was definitely concern about AWS losing market share to Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud … But now AWS is aboard the train as well and they’re seeing a big revenue increase,” said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital.

Ellerbroek said investors were expecting an AWS boost in the fourth quarter or early next year. “But it’s already come this quarter,” he said.

Up until Friday’s stock surge, Amazon shares had risen just 1.6% so far this year due to market share worries and a lack of solid AI updates, making the company the worst performer in the “Magnificent Seven” group of tech giants.

Friday’s gains, however, are helping pull Amazon out of that position and overtake Tesla and Apple. The EV company has climbed about 11% this year, including the session’s moves so far, with Apple up roughly 8%.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Thursday AWS is “growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022,” on the back of strong demand for AI and core infrastructure.

In response to the growing demand, Amazon joined other Big Tech companies in projecting an increase in capital expenditures for the coming year.

“Amazon delivered one of the strongest performances of this earnings season, quieting any lingering doubts about its ability to execute at scale,” said eToro market analyst Farhan Badami.

Amazon’s forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio stands at 29.63, surpassing Alphabet’s 25.98 but trailing Microsoft’s 31.72.

The company’s retail and advertising businesses also delivered robust performances.

“Amazon’s retail results were very good. They’re growing 11% year over year. Name me another big retailer in America growing that fast – they don’t exist,” said Jed Ellerbroek of Argent Capital.

Although a smaller part of Amazon’s overall operations, its advertising segment is growing fast. Sales in the business jumped 24% to $17.7 billion in the quarter, thanks to the company’s efforts to expand ad placements across its Echo devices, grocery carts and sponsored listings.

At least 23 brokerages lifted their price target on Amazon’s stock following the results.

The European Union is determined to find a diplomatic solution with Dutch chipmaker Nexperia amid concerns about a supply squeeze, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said on Friday after a virtual meeting with the Chinese-owned company.

“An important meeting this morning with @TeamNexperia, where I reaffirmed our determination to work towards a diplomatic breakthrough. We discussed potential short- and medium-term measures to strengthen the resilience of our supply chain,” she said on X.

Virkkunen said Nexperia has been invited to the Chips Act Task Force, which is collecting information on the potential economic impacts of the supply crunch.

Nexperia, owned by Chinese company Wingtech, has been in the spotlight after the Dutch government took control of it earlier this month.

The move prompted Beijing to block Nexperia products from leaving China, sparking concerns among automakers worldwide.

Nexperia subsequently suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant, according to a letter addressed to its customers seen by Reuters.

Virkkunen said the issue underscored the importance of investing in a secure supply chain, stockpiling and diversifying supplies.