The FCC approved allowing foreign entities to hold up to 49.5% equity in Paramount after its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, backed by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. The commission determined the foreign investors pose no national security risk since they will not own voting stock, which will remain with the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners. The merger faces an ongoing antitrust lawsuit scheduled for trial in March.
Cohere and Aleph Alpha are merging to create a sovereign AI alternative, combining Canadian and German expertise to serve enterprises and governments demanding data control and independence from single vendors. The partnership, backed by Schwarz Group's $600M investment, targets regulated sectors including finance, defense, and healthcare with secure, customizable AI solutions.
Anthropic and OpenAI proposed coordinating a slowdown in frontier AI development with antitrust exemptions, citing safety concerns. Critics including Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Hugging Face engineer Niels Rogge, and White House AI czar David Sacks argue the initiative is a cartel designed to lock out competitors and protect dominant labs' market position rather than genuine safety advocacy.
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez criticized calls from AI leaders like Anthropic's Dario Amodei to slow AI development, arguing such coordination would entrench power with Silicon Valley giants and prevent competition. Gomez proposed independent international frameworks for AI safety oversight instead, while rejecting proposals that would preserve existing market dominance under the guise of risk prevention.
Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere, argues that dominant AI companies should not unilaterally define safety rules and standards for AI technology globally. He draws historical parallels to bond rating agencies and automotive regulations to show how safety justifications have been used to entrench market monopolies, and advocates for competitive, evidence-based AI governance that includes broader participation.