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The AI arms race turned a new page on Monday, as OpenAI and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that the two have agreed to a new partnership to create new data centers powered by AMDs chips. The deal could also see OpenAI take a roughly 10% stake in AMD. Specifically, the partnership sees OpenAI committing to buying 6 gigawatts of AMD GPU chips, with the initial gigawatt deployment scheduled for the second half of 2026. The deal will ultimately see OpenAI deploy the remaining gigawatts over multiple years and multiple hardware generations. The deal also sees AMD issuing a warrant for as many as 160 million shares of AMD stock to OpenAI. Those shares are structured to vest in the event that specific milestones are achieved, the company said. The deal was a hit on Wall Street, as AMD shares hit the stratosphereat the market open on Monday, shares briefly topped $220.44, an increase of more than 34% from pre-trading. As of roughly 11 am ET, however, shares had fallen slightly but were still up more than 27%. This partnership is a major step in building the compute capacity needed to realize AIs full potential, said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, in a company release. AMDs leadership in high-performance chips will enable us to accelerate progress and bring the benefits of advanced AI to everyone faster. AMDs leadership echoed the sentiment. We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI computers at a massive scale, said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD, in a corresponding release. This partnership brings the best of AMD and OpenAI together to create a true win-win, enabling the worlds most ambitious AI buildout and advancing the entire AI ecosystem. The partnerships announcement arrives as the AI arms race continues to heat up. AMD finds itself playing catch-up with Nvidia, which has taken a dominant role in the space, particularly as it comes to developing, manufacturing, and deploying AI chips. But there is a clear hunger in the market for more computing power. As such, Nvidia and AMD could feel pressure from other burgeoning players, such as Google and Amazon, who are working on AI chips of their own. OpenAI also partnered with Broadcom to build in-house chips starting next year. Notably, OpenAI also recently announced a deal with Nvidia, which called for Nvidia to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAIbut that deal has not yet been completed.
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Verizon just announced that its current CEO, Hans Vestberg, is stepping downand the wireless carrier is pulling another seasoned leader out of retirement to take its helm. In a press release published on October 6, Verizon announced that former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman will be leading the company, effective immediately. In the meantime, Vestberg (who has held the title since 2018) will stay on as a special adviser at the company until October 4, 2026. Schulman has served on Verizons board of directors since 2018, and was elected lead independent director in December 2024. Dan is a seasoned and decisive leader with a unique set of experiences, and a proven record of transformative leadership and operational excellence, Mark Bertolini, Verizons board chair, said in the press release. He is the right leader to chart Verizon’s next phase of increased customer focus and financial growth. The leadership change comes during a promising moment for Verizon: This July, the company raised its annual profit forecast from $0.15 billion to $2 billion thanks to a favorable U.S. tax reform. Currently, Verizons main focus is on bulking up its internet services to compete with rivals like AT&T and T-Mobile. Heres what to know about Schulman as he steps in at Verizon. His most recent job was CEO of PayPal Schulmans most recent high-profile gig was at PayPal, where he served as president and CEO from 2014 to 2023. During that time, he tripled the companys revenue from $8 billion to $30 billion, all the while advocating for Wall Street leaders to use their financial power for good. If you look at the state of our country today, its clear that capitalism needs an upgrade, Schulman told attendees at a gala in 2020, per a Fast Company profile at the time. People dont believe that the system is working for them. For democracy to flourish, you need to rise above your own self-interest. But how can you rise above your own self-interest when you are struggling to make ends meet every day? The solution, he argued, was for business leaders to stand for more than just making money on behalf of shareholders. He runs a ranch in his off-time In February 2023, Schulman announced his retirement and officially moved on from PayPal in December of that year. Since then, hes served on various companies boardsincluding Cisco, Lazard, and JUST Capitalpositions that, per his LinkedIn, hes balanced with plenty of off-time at his familys Montana ranch, which is home to more than 500 cattle. Now, it seems, hes walking back his retirement to take the lead at Verizon. He has a long history in the C-suite Before his legendary run at PayPal, Schulman spent decades rising through the executive ranks at various other companies. He held leadership positions at AT&T, Priceline.com, Virgin Mobile USA, and American Express, to name a few. He has a recognizable uniform Plenty of CEOs have a go-to outfit. Schulmans is a bit different from the black turtleneck variety: He’s most commonly seen in a pair of light-wash jeans and cowboy boots.
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U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. could deliver a policy win for the Trump administration in just a few months after the Food and Drug Administration enlisted GSK to help it fast-track approval of a decades-old drug to treat an autism-related disorder. The FDA’s unusual move will allow it to bypass a lengthy label update for generic versions of the drug, leucovorin, or new clinical trials, a tactic academics, lawyers and doctors questioned. A GSK spokesperson told Reuters it plans to complete the new use application for the branded version of leucovorin as quickly as possible. Once the British drugmaker does that work, the FDA would normally take about four to six months but could process the request even faster, said Giuseppe Randazzo of the Association for Accessible Medicines, a generic medicines lobby group. The accelerated process will give doctors additional justification to prescribe the drug for cerebral folate deficiency, a metabolic disorder that can lead to a range of neurological symptoms including some associated with autism, delivering on Kennedy’s promise to President Donald Trump and the Make America Healthy Again movement with which he is aligned. Without robust evidence, the label change represents at most a hollow bureaucratic victory, said Ameet Sarpatwari, a pharmaceutical policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. However, the drug, which is used to mitigate toxic effects of certain cancer treatments and sells for $34.14 for a bottle of 30 high-dose pills on Cost Plus Drugs, would more likely be covered for the condition by insurance plans with the label change. An HHS spokesperson said the evidence clearly supports leucovorin’s ability to address the causes of cerebral folate deficiency and improve patient outcomes. DEMAND RISES AFTER TRUMP PROMOTES DRUG Demand for the drug has increased, first after a February CBS story about its use in a nonverbal five-year-old boy, and more recently after Trump promoted its use. “My nurses have been saying the phone is ringing off the hook,” said Dr. Larry Gray, an expert in developmental and behavioral pediatrics, who sees patients with autism at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Because the treatment is not approved for autism, the institution’s policy has been to only offer it in clinical trials, which are rare. The drug is FDA-approved, however, so doctors can prescribe it off-label. Kennedy has declared the rising rates of autism in the U.S., now estimated at 1 in 31 children by age 8, to be an epidemic and had pledged to find some answers behind its cause as well as cures by September. At a White House event on September 22, Kennedy, Trump and other health officials backed leucovorin as an autism treatment. They also warned against the use of Tylenol by pregnant women, saying studies suggested a link to autism. Health experts and medical groups called that warning dangerous and without sound scientific basis. RELYING ON OBSCURE RULE The FDA was able to speed the process by using an obscure rule to reinstate GSK’s approval application and request a label update adding cerebral folate deficiency, based on the agency’s own analysis of 40 patient cases found in a review of literature from 2009 to 2024. GSK sold the drug as Wellcovorin until 1997. A generic version, which is also called folinic acid and is a form of folate or vitamin B9, is now made by U.K.-based Hikma. Once GSKs application is approved, U.S. law requires generic drugmakers to match the change. The more commonly used label update process for generic drugs, which requires consultation with generic drugmakers, typically takes up to a year and a half, according to Skadden lawyer Rachel Turow. It is typically used for cancer drugs after new uses are proven in clinical trials, she and several other lawyers said. Aaron Kesselheim, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, described the process being used as “very atypical,” and said that without the FDA sharing its data or trials, it is hard to know if the agency is following the normal standard of evidence. LIMITED AVAILABLE EVIDENCE Dr. Andy Shih, chief science officer at the advocacy organization Autism Speaks, said the evidence for leucovorin’s use was limited and potentially suggestive of benefit for a small subgroup of autistic children. Larger trials are needed, he said. The evidence is based on four studies, each of which involved 50 to 60 patients, with three of them done by the same author, said Dr. Karam Radwan, director of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Program at the University of Chicago, who uses the drug in his practice. “You want to replicate that with a different lab, in a different setting, to make sure we have enough support” for the change, he said. Three mid-stage trials are underway studying a new, liquid version of leucovorin as an early language impairment treatment for children with autism, according to the government clinical trials site. The earliest data is expected around December. The trials are being led by one autism researcher in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and Autism Speaks, and involve up to 80 children each. Larger, more conclusive trials would take years. The FDA’s approach does not require new trials. This change should be based on scientific evidence, and so far, studies supporting its use are not robust, Radwan said. Additional reporting by Robin Respaut Patrick Wingrove, Maggie Fick and Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
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