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The Electric electric vehicles
The Electric: Western Auto and Battery Makers’ Big Gamble on Indonesian Nickel
By Steve LeVine · May 29, 2023 4:30 AM PDT
Mixed hydroxide precipitate, the go-to feedstock for battery nickel sulfate, on a conveyor belt at Indonesia's Harita Group, which pioneered the process. Photo: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg
For much of the last century, metals companies have made stainless steel from nickel mined in Russia or the Philippines and smelted at temperatures up to 2,900 degrees. But demand for nickel is outstripping supplies because the metal is a key component in most electric vehicle batteries. So metals producers have turned to a new supplier—Indonesia, which possesses vast reserves of a previously...
Latest Briefs
 
Chime’s Revenue Grew 27% in Q1
By Mark Matousek · May 29, 2023
TPG, Francisco Partners Scrap New Relic Buyout Talks
By Rachel Graf · May 29, 2023
Temu Takes on Heavy Losses to Win U.S. Customers
By Ann Gehan · May 28, 2023
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Microsoft's Satya Nadella, left, and Peter Lee. Photo by Bloomberg, Microsoft
Exclusive
How Microsoft Swallowed Its Pride to Make a Massive Bet on OpenAI
By Aaron Holmes
Satya Nadella didn’t want to hear it. Last December, Peter Lee, who oversees Microsoft’s sprawling research efforts, was briefing Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, and his deputies about a series of tests Microsoft had conducted of GPT-4, the then-unreleased new artificial intelligence large-language model built by OpenAI.
Art by Clark Miller
The AI Age e-commerce ai
How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses
By Chris Stokel-Walker
When Andy Wilson’s company received its first successful client referral through ChatGPT, he was shaken to his core.
Chris Britt, co-founder and CEO of Chime.
Exclusive startups Finance
Chime’s Slowdown Highlights Limits of Bank Disruptors
By Mark Matousek and Erin Woo
Chime found a way to offer zero-fee banking services without being a bank itself. But that approach is starting to show its limits.
Art by Clark Miller
The Big Read markets Finance
The Master of Destruction Rides Again
By Michelle Celarier
In the spring of 2022, the irascible Wall Street short seller Marc Cohodes was in a particularly foul mood.
Art by Mike Sullivan
startups asia
Venture Capitalists Face Pressure to Divest From China
By Kate Clark
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are coming to terms with a new reality: Their once-prized China investments may be victims of a simmering cold war.
Art by Clark Miller.
Social Studies culture
The Day TikTok Went Dark in India
By Amanda Florian
On June 29, 2020, as thunderstorms swept Mumbai and daily Covid-19 cases in India surged by almost 20,000, millions of people began experiencing a flood of network errors on their mobile devices.