Brad Smith News

Microsoft will invest an additional 5.4 billion rand ($296.81 million) by the end of 2027 to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in South Africa to meet the growing demand for the company's Azure services in the region. Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said at an event in Johannesburg on Thursday that the world's biggest software maker would pay for technical certification exams for 50,000 individuals in high-demand digital skills. The certification will be for cloud architecture, AI and cybersecurity, he added.

Microsoft president Brad Smith on Friday said the company is on track to pump about $80 billion into artificial intelligence (AI) this fiscal year.

election law, and legal experts are divided about whether the billionaire supporter of Donald Trump could be running afoul of prohibitions on paying people to register to vote. The Tesla CEO is promising to give $1 million each day to a randomly selected person who signs his online petition pledging to support the First and Second amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect the rights to free speech and gun ownership. The petition is only open to signatories who are registered voters in seven swing states likely to decide the presidential election. «There is certainly an argument that this falls within the scope of a federal prohibition on paying a person to vote or register to vote,» said Daniel Weiner of the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. «This is part of a pattern of him skating up to the edge of election laws that we've seen in the past several weeks.» Musk's representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Microsoft plans to invest 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) over the next two years to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in northern Italy, it said on Wednesday. Microsoft said in a statement the investment would be the U.S. company's largest in Italy to date. It will make the cloud region ItalyNorth one of the biggest Microsoft data centres in Europe, working as a data hub also for the Mediterranean and north Africa. Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Wednesday, the PM's office said in a note, adding the government welcomed an investment that would strengthen Italy's digital role in the Mediterranean.

tech firms like Google, Adobe, Microsoft and Meta Platforms will testify next week at a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election threats. Google parent Alphabet's global affairs president Kent Walker, Meta's global affairs president Nick Clegg, Microsoft President Brad Smith and a representative from Adobe will testify at the Sept. 18 hearing, a spokesperson from the office of Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the panel, confirmed. U.S. officials have been attempting to crack down on efforts to spread disinformation and misinformation online surrounding the Nov. 5 election in which Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump will face off. Polls show a tight contest.

The father of the 14-year-old suspect accused of killing four people on Wednesday during a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., has been arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

Georgia state officials arrested the father of the 14-year-old suspected school shooter Colt Gray on Thursday in connection with Wednesday's shooting at Apalachee High School that killed four people and wounded nine. «In coordination with District Attorney Brad Smith, the GBI has arrested Colin Gray, age 54, in connection to the shooting at Apalachee High School. Colin is Colt Gray's father,» the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said on X. Both Grays had been questioned by local officials in neighboring Jackson County last year in connection with an online threat to commit a school shooting, but there was no probable cause for their arrest, the FBI said on Wednesday.

Georgia state officials arrested Colin Gray, the father of 14-year-old Colt Gray, who is suspected of carrying out Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School. Colt Gray allegedly used an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle in the attack, which left four people dead and nine others wounded. Authorities are investigating how the teenager obtained the weapon that was reportedly purchased by his father months after the family had been questioned about potential school threats. Investigators revealed that Colt Gray's rifle was used to kill two teachers and two students at the high school. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) confirmed Colin Gray's arrest on Thursday. «In coordination with District Attorney Brad Smith, the GBI has arrested Colin Gray, age 54, in connection to the shooting at Apalachee High School. Colin is Colt Gray's father,» the GBI posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Last year, both father and son were questioned by local authorities after threats appeared on a Discord account hinting at violence at a school. However, at that time, there was no concrete evidence linking them to the threats. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum explained, «This case was worked, and at the time the boy was 13, and it wasn't enough to substantiate. If we get a judge's order or we charge somebody, we take firearms for safekeeping.»

BRUSSELS : The European Union charged Microsoft with antitrust violations related to the company’s bundling of its Teams collaboration tool with Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust enforcer, said Tuesday it has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the company broke antitrust rules by tying Teams to popular productivity offerings that include Microsoft Word and Excel.

New York Times report.The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized the deal over the past week, with completion expected in the coming days. According to two sources familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the discussions, the Justice Department will lead the investigation into Nvidia, the top maker of AI chips.

abusive content such as deepfakes. While acknowledging the growing use of AI-generated deepfakes in elections globally, including in countries like India, the United States, Pakistan, and Indonesia, Smith reassured that Microsoft has not detected significant attempts to exploit AI in the European Parliamentary elections.Highlighting instances of deepfake videos surfacing during India's general election, where Bollywood actors criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Smith underscored the potential threat posed by AI-generated disinformation.

Microsoft has announced its most substantial commitment yet to France

President Joe Biden has laced into Donald Trump over a failed project that was supposed to bring thousands of new jobs into southeastern Wisconsin

Microsoft invested $1.5 billion into G42, an artificial intelligence (AI) company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This was disclosed on April 16 as part of the Microsoft AI investment plans to expand and strengthen its position in the AI industry.

Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in a technology firm based in the United Arab Emirates and overseen by the country’s powerful national security adviser

Microsoft Corp. will invest $1.5 billion in a technology company backed by the United Arab Emirates, a deal that includes an intergovernmental pact to ensure artificial intelligence security as the U.S. and China increasingly compete for influence in the Gulf.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has begun his much-anticipated visit to Washington

By Foo Yun Chee

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has welcomed an announcement by Microsoft that it would invest almost 3.3 billion euros, or about $3.5 billion, in Germany over the next two years to massively expand its data center capacities for applications in the field of ar...

alliance. “GPAI is dominated by (developed) OECD countries, but how do you bring more of the global south into this? How do you convert AI and use it for the benefit of larger populations? This will be an important objective of what we’d try to do at the summit," he said.

Microsoft has announced that Copilot (formerly Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise) is now generally available and no longer in preview. The company launched the Copilot in preview in February.