Tech
Close Up Of A Line Of High School Students Using Mobile Phones
Close Up Of A Line Of High School Students Using Mobile Phones
BANNED IRL

Australia passes world’s first social-media ban for under-16s

Australia’s landmark ban is light on details, but could pave the way for other governments to take similar action.

Hyunsoo Rim

Australia has taken an unprecedented step in taking on Big Tech: within a year, children under 16 will be banned from using social media, following Thursday’s Senate approval on the world’s first law of its kind.

The bill comes amid mounting concerns about the negative impact of social media — a “scourge,” as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described it — on teens’ mental health.  

The list of tech companies targeted, though yet to be specified explicitly in the legislation, includes TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, X, and potentially Reddit — each of which could be fined up to 49.5 million AUD (32.2 million USD) if found to be in violation of the new law. These apps rank among the most popular apps for Australian kids aged 10-15, based on an August study by software firm Qustodio.

Some platforms, however, are exempt from the ban: messaging apps (like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger Kids), online gaming platforms, and YouTube, thanks to its “educational” purpose. An exemption for YouTube would be a big deal — it’s the most-used app for 7- to 9-year-olds in Australia and the second most-used for 10- to 15-year-olds, per Qustodio.

The obvious question with such a ban is: how do you enforce it? Many social apps technically already have age limits in their terms of use, which, candidly, aren’t hard to ignore for a determined teen or preteen. Indeed, the specifics of enforcement remain unclear; instead companies will be required to come up with “reasonable alternatives” to ensure users are over 16. The Australian government is also testing its own “age assurance technologies,” such as facial scans to estimate and verify a users age.

The move has sparked mixed reactions. A November YouGov poll found that 77% of Australians support the ban, with 87% favoring tougher penalties for platforms that fail to comply with Australian laws. However, tech giants like Meta, TikTok, and X have slammed the bill as rushed, raising concerns about its effectiveness. In October, over 100 academics signed an open letter calling the law “too blunt an instrument” to address the risks of social media.

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$600B

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees at an all-hands meeting on Tuesday that he sees AI growing AWS sales to $600 billion a year by 2036 — double his prior estimate and more than four times last year’s revenue, Reuters reports.

Shares of Amazon, which were already up for the day, moved modestly higher on the heels of the report.

tech

OpenAI snags Amazon AWS deal for classified government work with Anthropic pushed aside

Following Anthropic being deemed a “supply chain risk” to national security, the field is clear for OpenAI. The Information is reporting that OpenAI just landed a deal with Amazon AWS to sell its AI services to government employees for both classified and unclassified work.

Previously, OpenAI was contractually obliged to use Microsoft Azure cloud hosting for the government contracts it handled as part of its $13 billion deal with the software giant, but since it restructured as a for-profit public benefit corporation and renegotiated the terms of the deal, OpenAI is free to use AWS, which is more commonly used in government work.

According to the report, contracts that sell AI services through another company like Amazon can be much larger then direct contracts with the government, which is crucial for OpenAI as it chases the success that Anthropic has had with enterprise customers.

Previously, OpenAI was contractually obliged to use Microsoft Azure cloud hosting for the government contracts it handled as part of its $13 billion deal with the software giant, but since it restructured as a for-profit public benefit corporation and renegotiated the terms of the deal, OpenAI is free to use AWS, which is more commonly used in government work.

According to the report, contracts that sell AI services through another company like Amazon can be much larger then direct contracts with the government, which is crucial for OpenAI as it chases the success that Anthropic has had with enterprise customers.

tech

Morgan Stanley thinks Tesla’s Terafab could cost an additional $35 billion to $45 billion in capex

Tesla’s Terafab project, which CEO Elon Musk said could launch this week, is poised to be one of the company’s most expensive bets yet. The facility is intended to manufacture the chips needed for Tesla’s autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, and to avoid supply bottlenecks.

If the company reaches its long-term goal of producing 100 million humanoid robots annually, it could require more than 200 million chips a year — over 50x its current demand, Morgan Stanley said.

The firm estimates total capital expenditure for the facility could reach $35 billion to $45 billion, including construction costs and roughly $20 billion to $25 billion for wafer fabrication equipment alone. That spending is not included in Tesla’s already sizable $20 billion capex budget for this year. Morgan Stanley’s semiconductor analysts described the effort as a “Herculean task,” noting the difficulty of building leading-edge chip capabilities from scratch.

While Tesla would likely spread the investment out over several years — even on an aggressive timeline, initial output would likely not arrive until the latter part of the decade — the effort would still weigh heavily on free cash flow and mark a shift toward a more capital-intensive business model.

Tesla’s most expensive factory to date, its Nevada battery plant that it began building in 2014, is estimated to have cost about $10 billion over time — a fraction of the expected Terafab cost.

tech

Lyft and Uber jump after announcing expanded robotaxi partnerships with Nvidia

Uber and Lyft both announced expanded AI and autonomous vehicle partnerships with Nvidia at the company’s GTC event, sending both ride-hailing stocks up after-hours on Monday and into Tuesday’s premarket session.

Uber is currently up more than 2%, while Lyft has risen around 1.3%.

Uber said Nvidia-powered Level 4 robotaxis will launch on its platform in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2027, with plans to scale to 28 cities globally by 2028. Meanwhile, Lyft said it will use Nvidia’s AI infrastructure to improve ride-matching, mapping, and efficiency, while also using Nvidia’s DRIVE Hyperion platform as a foundation for future autonomous fleets.

Separately, Nvidia announced expanded autonomous driving partnerships with Kia and Hyundai.

The announcements highlight Nvidia’s growing push to provide the AI hardware and software powering next-generation robotaxi networks — packaging the technology needed for self-driving cars into a platform that other companies can use to compete with Tesla.

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