Global airlines' push to attract premium customers is making fast in-flight Wi-Fi an increasingly important perk, turning a once-patchy paid service into an emerging battleground between Elon Musk's Starlink and Jeff Bezos' Amazon Leo satellite network. Starlink, which operates around two-thirds of all satellites in space and is the major driver of revenue for SpaceX, has signed up 11 new airline...
Global airlines' push to attract premium customers is making fast in-flight Wi-Fi an increasingly important perk, turning a once-patchy paid service into an emerging battleground between Elon Musk's Starlink and Jeff Bezos' Amazon Leo satellite network. Starlink, which operates around two-thirds of all satellites in space and is the major driver of revenue for SpaceX, has signed up 11 new airline customers globally so far in 2026, after 22 in 2025 and eight in 2024, compared with three in 2022, according to Valour Consultancy, an aviation intelligence firm. Amazon, which is still building out its Leo satellite constellation, faces a potential setback after a Blue Origin rocket failure last month.
Top Philippine telecoms firm PLDT Inc. plans to raise between $300 million and $400 million from the listing of a real estate investment trust for its data center business amid a global wave of investor interest in technology and artificial intelligence assets. The company told the stock exchange on Tuesday that its board of directors approved the potential listing of a REIT for assets under its s...
Top Philippine telecoms firm PLDT Inc. plans to raise between $300 million and $400 million from the listing of a real estate investment trust for its data center business amid a global wave of investor interest in technology and artificial intelligence assets. The company told the stock exchange on Tuesday that its board of directors approved the potential listing of a REIT for assets under its subsidiary VITRO Inc., which operates the largest data center network in the Southeast Asian nation. Proceeds from the REIT listing, targeted for the fourth quarter, will be used to pare down debts, PLDT Chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan told reporters. Initial assets to be injected into the REIT are PLDT’s eight data centers with a combined capacity of about 27 megawatts, he said. The listing plan comes after talks with potential buyers for the data center business fell through, Pangilinan said. “We’re not getting the kind of values we think we ought to get for the data centers,” he added. In May 2024, PLDT was seeking a valuation “north of $1 billion” for its data center business, before its largest facility began operations two months later. Read More: Top Philippine Telco Seeks $1 Billion Valuation for Data Centers Data centers are industrial-scale facilities filled with thousands of interconnected servers, sophisticated cooling systems and massive power infrastructure fueling the AI boom. Global investors are looking forward to upcoming listings from SpaceX , OpenAI and Anthropic as firms tap into investor appetite for AI-related issuances and seek public markets’ funding for ambitious growth plans. PLDT hired UBS and BPI Capital to assist in its planned REIT listing.
The Hong Kong government has unveiled an action plan to broaden tax incentives and introduce a pre-approval mechanism aimed at attracting more companies to establish corporate treasury centres in the city, according to Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu. “This sets out our targeted actions to strengthen Hong Kong as a premier hub for multinational corporate ...
The Hong Kong government has unveiled an action plan to broaden tax incentives and introduce a pre-approval mechanism aimed at attracting more companies to establish corporate treasury centres in the city, according to Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu. “This sets out our targeted actions to strengthen Hong Kong as a premier hub for multinational corporate treasury centres and an optimal platform for ‘bringing in and going global’, leveraging the city’s...
Taiwan authorities are considering much stricter export controls on AI chip sales to China to further align with US measures, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to address semiconductor smuggling that risks drawing a rebuke from Beijing. The idea is to give authorities more legal tools to address diversion of advanced hardware, like AI servers with Nvidia Corp. chips, from Tai...
Taiwan authorities are considering much stricter export controls on AI chip sales to China to further align with US measures, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to address semiconductor smuggling that risks drawing a rebuke from Beijing. The idea is to give authorities more legal tools to address diversion of advanced hardware, like AI servers with Nvidia Corp. chips, from Taiwan to China. Such sales are already banned under US regulations unless companies get Washington’s permission, per curbs the US first imposed in 2022 to prevent Beijing from using advanced Nvidia processors to gain a military edge. Taiwan, however, doesn’t consider unauthorized AI chip exports to China to be a crime. While Taiwan authorities do warn the potential sellers that they may be breaking US rules should they proceed, the only legal recourse through the island’s courts is to charge suspected smugglers with violations of other, existing local laws. This can be a harder bar to meet, narrowing the scope of cases Taiwan can currently pursue. Taiwan authorities made their first known detentions of alleged chip smugglers last month, on charges of falsifying documents. Read More: Taiwan Seeks to Detain Three in Nvidia Smuggling Crackdown But now, as part of ongoing trade talks with the US, Taipei officials are considering imposing much stronger AI chip controls that would restrict sales to all customers in China, not just specific companies on an export blacklist that includes the likes of Huawei Technologies Co. , said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. That would enable Taiwan to prosecute AI chip smuggling to China as a criminal violation for the first time. If implemented, the controls would be among the most far-reaching measures so far from President Lai Ching-te ’s administration to safeguard Taiwan’s technological and national security interests, as Taipei tests its own comfort levels with more assertive policies — and manages pressu...
Live Championship updates from 11am UK time Email Tanya | MCC apologises for Lord’s pitch The government has announced £3m of funding, to be matched by the ECB, to build five all-weather cricket domes in areas currently lacking those facilities: Birmingham, Bolton, Derby, Newcastle and Nottingham. The domes will be cricket-led, all five sites but will support a range of sports and activities to ke...
Live Championship updates from 11am UK time Email Tanya | MCC apologises for Lord’s pitch The government has announced £3m of funding, to be matched by the ECB, to build five all-weather cricket domes in areas currently lacking those facilities: Birmingham, Bolton, Derby, Newcastle and Nottingham. The domes will be cricket-led, all five sites but will support a range of sports and activities to keep people active. Continue reading...
50/50 Women on Boards™, the leading global nonprofit advancing the business case for diverse boards, today announced featured speakers for the 2026 Breakfast of Corporate Champions, including leaders from Dow, S&P Global, Costco Wholesale, AMD, Nasdaq, Mastercard, Wells Fargo, Edelman, and SoFi.
50/50 Women on Boards™, the leading global nonprofit advancing the business case for diverse boards, today announced featured speakers for the 2026 Breakfast of Corporate Champions, including leaders from Dow, S&P Global, Costco Wholesale, AMD, Nasdaq, Mastercard, Wells Fargo, Edelman, and SoFi.
Britain ’s merger watchdog has opened a probe into Paramount Skydance Corp. ’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. The Competition and Markets Authority set an initial deadline of August 7 to rule on the deal to unite two Hollywood studios behind films from Casablanca and Harry Potter to Mission: Impossible; two major news networks in CNN and CBS; the streaming powerhouse HBO and ...
Britain ’s merger watchdog has opened a probe into Paramount Skydance Corp. ’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. The Competition and Markets Authority set an initial deadline of August 7 to rule on the deal to unite two Hollywood studios behind films from Casablanca and Harry Potter to Mission: Impossible; two major news networks in CNN and CBS; the streaming powerhouse HBO and dozens of cable networks. While the move was expected, the London-based agency has come under pressure from public-interest groups, unions and film-industry groups to take a tough stance on the takeover. “The film and TV industries contribute billions to our economy, so it’s important we assess whether deals between studios may harm competition,” the CMA said. The UK’s scrutiny is one of the last hurdles Paramount Chief Executive Officer David Ellison must overcome after outmaneuvering rival suitor Netflix Inc. with multiple bids over more than five months, visits to Washington, meetings with shareholders and President Donald Trump and the personal backing of his billionaire father Larry Ellison . The deal, if approved by regulators, would give the Ellison family control of one of the most powerful media empires in the world. An initial investigation from the UK’s CMA gives the agency 40 days to decide whether a merger raises any competition concerns. After that, companies can offer remedies to allay those fears, if that’s not enough then an in-depth probe will begin lasting 24 weeks. The European Union ’s antitrust authority has already set a July 7 deadline to rule on the tie-up, and Paramount is open to selling some children’s TV assets, if necessary, to clinch approval in the 27-nation bloc, people familiar with the deal said last week. Meanwhile, Paramount has submitted suggested terms to resolve an antitrust investigation by California and other states into the transaction, Bloomberg has reported. A Paramount spokesperson said the CMA move was expected and that the co...