Technology

News on tech innovations and their impact on businesses and markets.

Technology
EA to abandon Wall St battlefield for US$50bn payday
Electronic Arts is lined up to go private in what could be Wall Street's largest leveraged buyout in history from Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners finalising the takeover, which could drop as early as next week. Shares in the gaming giant rocketed 15% on Friday when news broke, and at US$50 billion, this smashes TXU Energy's previous go-private record from 2007 and values EA at a chunky premium to its current US$43 billion market cap. But why are these financial heavyweights throwing such serious coin at a video game outfit? Maybe it's because EA isn't just selling titles, it's providing a huge income-generating subscription service too. Top titles such as FIFA, Madden NFL, and The Sims are played by millions of punters that happily pay for the privilege year after year, with the company banking US$7.58 billion in FY 2025 takings at a steady 3% growth. Publishers now trade at 13.8x EBITDA multiples, while mobile developers languish at 4.7x.The buyersGlobal equity fund Silver Lake knows tech acquisitions inside out (they took Dell private) and Saudi Arabia's PIF is diversifying beyond oil at breakneck speed, having already dropped US$4.9 billion on Scopely last yea
Technology
Trump calls on Microsoft to fire global affairs head
United States President Donald Trump has called for Microsoft to fire its global affairs president Lisa Monaco, calling her a “menace to U.S. National Security” due to her work for previous Democratic administrations. Monaco joined Microsoft in May. She was formerly a deputy attorney general during the Joe Biden administration and a national security aide during the Barack Obama administration, with Trump criticising her direction of investigations into his conduct. “Monaco has been shockingly hired as the President of Global Affairs for Microsoft, in a very senior role with access to Highly Sensitive Information. Monaco’s having that kind of access is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand,” wrote Trump on Truth Social. “She is a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government,” he wrote. “It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco.” Microsoft has yet to comment. Trump has repeatedly criticised Monaco for Department of Justice probes into his conduct, saying in 2023 that she was among “the Radical Left Zealots and Thugs who have been working illegally for years to ‘take me down’”. She
Technology
Trump approves TikTok sale plan to US-led investors
More details about a possible change in TikTok’s ownership have emerged as President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a deal that would prevent the popular Chinese-owned video app being outlawed in the United States. Vice President JD Vance said the app would be valued at about US$14 billion (A$21.4 billion) in the proposed sale, below analysts’ estimates of $30 billion to $35 billion and a fraction of the $330 billion that TikTok's Chinese parent, ByteDance, values itself at. Trump said his plan for TikTok's U.S. operations to be sold to U.S. and global investors would address the national security requirements of a so-far unenforced 2024 law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its Chinese owners. He said Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Fox Corporation and News Corporation Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch and other “world-class investors" would be part of the deal with ByteDance retaining less than 20%. But the ownership details varied in other news articles, with Reuters reporting in this story that three investors, including Oracle and private-equity firm Silver Lake, would buy 50% and a CNBC article naming Abu Dhabi-based MGX as an investor. Trump sai
Technology
Xiaomi unveils new smartphone, appliance lines
Xiaomi has unveiled new lines of smartphones, wearables, and home devices at an event in Germany, as it seeks to court the international market and challenge companies like Samsung. The company’s 15T Series phones will include direct offline voice communication and three rear cameras. Xiaomi also revealed new robot vacuums, televisions, and smart watches, and said it will launch its Mijia appliances worldwide. “This launch marks a bold evolution of Xiaomi T Series from flagship photography and cutting-edge technology built for modern trendsetters to advanced mobile technology, elevated imagery and a refined design,” the company said of its 15T smartphones. “These new devices are designed to transform everyday life, spanning smart home cleaning, personal health monitoring, immersive audio, home security, and next-generation entertainment,” wrote Xiaomi. The company’s 15T phones succeed the Xiaomi 15 line, which was launched internationally earlier in 2025. A Xiaomi 17 smartphone series will be unveiled for the Chinese market later today. Redmi, Xiaomi’s entry-level device subsidiary, also unveiled a new line of tablets with a 12.1-inch display at the event. Xiaomi held a 14.4% share of the global smartphone market
Technology
Intel reportedly seeking investment from Apple
Intel has reportedly approached Apple seeking an investment, as Intel looks to revive its struggling finances. Apple and Intel have also discussed ways to collaborate more closely in early-stage talks, Bloomberg News reported. Intel announced a US$5 billion investment from Nvidia last week, and $2 billion from SoftBank in August. The United States government also agreed to purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel last month. It “will make an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, reflecting the confidence the Administration has in Intel to advance key national priorities and the critically important role the company plays in expanding the domestic semiconductor industry,” Intel wrote. Intel has struggled in recent months, reporting a $2.9 billion net loss last quarter. It has lost market share to AMD in the personal computer chips sector, and has largely been unable to capitalise on the AI boom. Apple previously included Intel’s chips in products like the MacBook, though it has largely transitioned to its own in-house chips since 2020. Apple’s processors are built by TSMC. Apple has also massively increased its investments in the U.S. this year, often being urged to do so by the U.S. government. It said last month tha

Technology
Micron delivers massive Q4 revenue beat amid AI wave
Memory maker Micron Technology just smashed through Wall Street's quarterly earnings expectations, delivering Q4 sales of US$11.32 billion and $3.03 per share - a significant beat over analysts' $11.1 billion and $2.86 forecasts. The beat was largely driven by record sales through its data centre business. “Micron closed out a record-breaking fiscal year with exceptional Q4 performance, underscoring our leadership in technology, products, and operational execution,” Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. “In fiscal 2025, we achieved all-time highs across our data centre business and are entering fiscal 2026 with strong momentum and our most competitive portfolio to date," Mehrotra said. The storage giant has doubled down - earmarking forward guidance of $12.5 billion for the next quarter.Storage gold rushData centre takings more than doubled across the board this year for storage businesses. Every query, every AI model training session, every autonomous vehicle decision needs silicon - mountains of it. High-bandwidth storage has become the new digital gold, with Micron riding shotgun alongside Korean competitors Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, in what's shaping up to be the mother of all semicon
Technology
DroneShield hits R&D and sales growth records
DroneShield (ASX: DRO) is one of the top performing ASX stocks right now, posting record sales and a more than doubling of its United States workforce in a massive R&D push that has sent shares up almost 8% to $3.55 during trade today. The Australian counter-drone specialist is adding a second Virginia facility in the U.S. and dedicating >30% of new roles to software development and AI capabilities. With global military spending surging past US$900 billion and drone threats making headlines from Ukraine to the South China Sea, DroneShield's timing is spot on. "Expanding our U.S. technology team strengthens our ability to support critical programs and deliver advanced solutions with greater speed and precision," said DroneShield CTO Angus Bean.Orders in…The drone tech leader just surpassed the 4,000 systems sold worldwide milestone with a fresh US$7.9 million order from the Department of Defense. Q3 2025 sales are already sitting at a whopping US$77 million - more than the firm's previous record quarters combined. The stock has rocketed 212% over the past year, earning DroneShield a spot in the S&P/ASX 200 index earlier this month and a market cap pushing over $1.5 billion. With shares trading at over 18 times
Technology
NVIDIA chips in US$100bn for OpenAI expansion
NVIDIA cemented its position as the world’s valuable company, hitting a record high after announcing it would invest up to US$100 billion (A$151 billion) in OpenAI and supply it with computer chips for a major data centre expansion. The technology giants announced a letter of intent for a strategic partnership to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems for OpenAI to train and run its next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) models, marking the latest development in the global AI boom. This is equal to between four million and five million graphics processing units (GPUs), the same volume as NVIDIA will ship this year and twice as much as last year, Founder and CEO Jensen Huang was quoted in a CNBC article as saying in an interview. NVIDIA is understood to be paying current market prices for its stake in OpenAI, the privately-owned developer of the ChatGPT program that simulates a conversation with a person. “To support this deployment including data centre and power capacity, NVIDIA intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as the new NVIDIA systems are deployed,” the companies said in a press release. The first phase is targeted to come online in the second half of 2026 with the details to be fin
Technology
Apple supplying new chips for its iPhone lineup
Apple’s newly-released iPhone Air includes new custom chips designed in-house for greater artificial intelligence capabilities, giving the company full control of its core chip architecture. Previous iPhone chips were made by Broadcom. Apple has been supplying chips for its products like the Apple Watch for nearly 10 years, and for the MacBook for almost five years. “With the most Apple-designed chips in an iPhone — the powerhouse A19 Pro, N1, and C1X — iPhone Air is the most power-efficient iPhone ever made,” Apple wrote. Apple’s A19 Pro chip features neural accelerators in each graphics processing unit core to give the device greater compute power for AI applications. The company’s AI system, known as Apple Intelligence, was introduced last year. “We are building the best on-device AI capability that anyone else has,” said Apple’s vice president of platform architecture Tim Millet. “Right now we are focused on making sure that these phones that we’re shipping today, or shipping soon, will be capable of all the important on-device AI workloads that are coming.” Apple is prioritising on-device AI through these new chips to ensure users’ privacy, according to Millet. Its N1 wireless chip will be included across