TNB Tech Minute: EU Plans to Impose Interim Measures in WhatsApp AI Probe

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Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Monday, February 9th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. The EU has sent a statement of objections to Meta today as part of its investigation into its treatment of rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp.

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The EU plans to impose interim measures requiring Meta to grant competing chatbots access to WhatsApp's business communication tool. Meta implemented a policy in January that prevented other chatbots from tapping into the tool, which the EU argued may abuse Meta's dominant position.

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A Meta spokesperson said the EU wrongly assumes WhatsApp's business programming interface is a key distribution channel for chatbots. Meta can formally respond to EU's objections and injunction proposal and can request a hearing. Eli Lilly is acquiring genetic medicine biotech Orna Therapeutics for up to $2.4 billion.

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Orna engineers immune cells in vivo, developing a new class of therapeutics using circular RNA and lipid nanoparticles. This allows the patient's body to generate cell therapies for disease treatment. Lilly sees the acquisition as a platform for long-term innovation in genetic medicine and in vivo cell engineering.

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And STMicroelectronics secured a multi-year, multi-billion dollar deal with Amazon's cloud computing arm to supply semiconductor technologies and products for its data centers. The agreement allows Amazon Web Services to acquire up to a 2.7% stake in STMicroelectronics, with shares vesting over seven years.

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The deal helps STMicroelectronics diversify and marks the company's entry into the AI infrastructure market. It has traditionally relied on legacy semiconductor fields like auto for most of its sales. And that's your TMB Tech Minute. We'll be back this afternoon with more.