7 stories shaping the week: New York wins fight for low-cost broadband access

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case concerning broadband providers attempting to challenge a New York law mandating affordable broadband prices for low-income consumers.

A review in New York State Telecommunications Association v. James was denied in the final batch of orders released by the Supreme Court for 2024.

The case concerns a 2021 rule that would cap monthly broadband prices for eligible subscribers at $15 a month for 25 Mbps services. The service would only be available to low-income households receiving some kind of public assistance.

ISPs challenged the new rule, arguing it was harmful to providers and could impact investment in broadband infrastructure.

A legal dispute found its way up to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which ruled against the ISPs.

Upon appeal to the US Supreme Court, trade groups on behalf of ISPs managed to strike a deal with New York state’s Attorney General Letitia James not to enforce the rule until the Supreme Court decided to take on the case.

Having been rejected by the highest court in the US, New York state is now free to impose price caps on broadband services for low-income users.

Microsoft has reportedly snapped up twice as many Nvidia Hopper GPUs as any other rival tech firm as it looks to solidify its position in the AI market.

The FT reports cited figures from research firm Omdia that Microsoft outpaced rivals to secure a whopping 485,000 Hopper GPUs, compared to Meta’s 224,000 and xAI’s 200,000.

Microsoft’s scramble to snap up Nvidia’s high-end hardware, including the H100 and H200 GPUs, comes as it’s looking to build out its Copilot assistant service for Windows 11 PCs, as well as rent access through its Azure Cloud service.

The tech giant’s purchase of almost half a million chips adds to its inclusion on the list of companies forced to patiently wait for Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell GPU, as shipments were pushed back into 2025 after uncovering a now-fixed design fault.

Notably, Amazon and Google ranked bottom of Omdia’s chip buying list, purchasing just 196,000 and 169,000 Hopper GPUs, respectively.

The pair’s low ranking is largely in part because they use both Nvidia hardware and their own custom silicon — Google with its TPUs and Axions, while Amazon has its Trainium line, including the new Trainium2 and recently teased Trainium3.

Oman’s sovereign wealth fund has reportedly acquired a stake in Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival xAI.

The Oman News Agency reports that OIA, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, took a stake in the AI startup developing the Grok line of foundation models as part of its efforts to “diversify its international portfolio and support growth across various sectors”.

xAI was founded by Musk in March 2023 to take on OpenAI, which he left in 2018 over disputes about the then nonprofit’s direction — an issue at the centre of his ongoing legal battle with the ChatGPT maker.

The local news site said Oman’s investment in xAI will “further strengthen the company’s market position and boost the returns on OIA's investment”.

OIA is already a shareholder in Musk’s SpaceX, with Musk describing the partnership with xAI as “an excellent idea”.

“These investments will bear fruit as we work together to build a superintelligent AI capable of solving numerous problems,” the Oman New Agency reports Musk saying. “We are nearing the completion of training the Grok 3 model, which we believe will be the smartest AI model in the world.”

The Biden administration has finalised GlobalWafers' award of $406 million in federal subsidies to support scaling its production in Texas and Missouri.

Provisionally agreed back in July, GlobalWafers plans to use its CHIPs Act funding to construct new wafer manufacturing facilities in Texas and Missouri, with the chipmaker expected to spend around $4 billion on the projects.

The Texas facility will be the first advanced high-volume 300mm silicon wafer facility in the US to create components for edge and memory devices. The Missouri site, meanwhile, will supply 300mm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.

“The semiconductor wafers that will be produced here in the US because of this investment in GlobalWafers are the foundation of the advanced chips that will help us out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world,” said US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “As a result of this investment, CHIPS for America is working to strengthen our supply chains, protect our national and economic security, and create an estimated over 2,000 jobs across Texas and Missouri.”

The Biden administration is rushing to sign off CHIPs Act subsidies after President-Elect Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to replace the programme with a wave of tariffs instead.

The GlobalWafers adds to finalised deals with Corning and Powerex, while Intel's $8.5 billion agreement has reportedly been reduced with the Biden administration concerned about its ability to meet its investment commitments.

The US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded over $276 million to 44 tribal groups to expand high-speed internet access and adoption.

The funding is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase internet access across the US, marking funds to support infrastructure deployment and adoption projects on Tribal lands.

"Access to affordable, reliable Internet is not a luxury – it's a necessity," said US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “These awards will ensure that residents of Tribal lands have the Internet connections they need to take advantage of digital opportunities for work, education, health care, and other essential services.”

The grants are the second round of allocating nearly $1 billion in funding to support internet expansion for tribal communities, with projects related to telehealth and distance learning.

SK Telecom has backed Penguin Solutions, which designs powerful hardware and software solutions for high-end computing.

Headquartered in Milpitas, California, Penguin provides services aimed at advanced computing and integrated memory, developing both servers and software solutions to support high-intensity computing workloads, such as AI.

Through its Astra AI Infra special purpose vehicle, SKY has acquired 200,000 convertible preferred shares, par value $0.03 per share, of Penguin Solutions at a purchase price of $1,000 per share. The convertible preferred shares can be converted into ordinary shares, par value of $0.03 per share of Penguin Solutions at a conversion price of $32.80784 per preferred share.

Penguin Solutions intends to use the net proceeds from the deal to enhance its capabilities and expand the scope and scale of its end-to-end AI factory offerings.

Min Yong Ha, chief development officer at SKT has joined Penguin’s Board of Directors as part of the deal.

Lumen Technologies has been selected by Prometheus Hyperscale to support its data centres.

Having tapped Lumen to provide networking solutions for its Aspen, Wyoming site some years back, the pair are set to partner on new data centre projects, including Prometheus’ ambitious Evanston, Wyoming project.

Prometheus will use Lumen’s Private Connectivity Fabric to expand its network so the operator can meet demands from customer AI training and inference workloads.

Lumen’s networking technology will provide Prometheus with low-latency, high-performance infrastructure across its flagship facility in Wyoming as well as four of its future data centres in the western US.

Prometheus' Evanston site is expected to come online in 2026, with future plans to launch facilities in Pueblo, Colorado; Fort Morgan, Colorado; Phoenix, Arizona; and Tucson, Arizona.

“AI is reshaping industries, but it must be done responsibly,” said Trevor Neilson, president of Prometheus Hyperscale. “By joining forces with Lumen, we're able to offer our customers best-in-class connectivity to AI workloads while staying true to our mission of building the most sustainable data centres on the planet. Lumen's network expertise is the perfect complement to our vision.”

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