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In this article.FKRX300Ada HealthGerman digital health firm Ada Health, which has developed a doctor-in-your-pocket style app that uses artificial intelligence to try and diagnose symptoms, has been backed by investment arms of South Korea’s Samsung and German pharmaceutical giant Bayer.Headquartered in Berlin, Ada Health announced Thursday that it has raised a $90 million funding round at an undisclosed valuation that brings total investment in the company up to around $150 million.Bayer led the round through its Leaps by Bayer investment arm, while Samsung invested through the Samsung Catalyst Fund, which is a U.S.-based venture capital fund that Samsung Electronics uses to back companies worldwide. Samsung Electronics’ former chief strategy officer and corporate president, Young Sohn, has joined the board of Ada Health.Founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs Claire Novorol, Martin Hirsch and Daniel Nathrath, Ada Health says that its app has been downloaded over 11 million times.How it works”The app basically works like a WhatsApp chat with your trusted family doctor, but 24/7″ Nathrath, CEO of Ada Health, told CNBC.The patient starts by entering their symptoms and an AI chat bot will ask a series of questions to try to determine the issue. After that, the app will present the patient with the conditions that are most likely to be the cause and offers some suggestions on what to do next to address the issue.The iOS and Android apps give generic advice such as to see a GP in the next three days. But when patients interact with Ada Health through a health system that uses the app, they can go straight into booking an appointment and sharing the outcome of their pre-assessment with a real doctor, Nathrath said.The entrepreneur added that the company has signed deals with several health systems, health insurers and life sciences companies. Axa OneHealth, Novartis, Pfizer and SutterHealth are all listed as partners on Ada Health’s website.While the app is free for patients to download, Ada Health charges partners for access to its software.The company said the new funding will be used to help it expand deeper into the U.S., which is already its biggest market with 2 million users. Elsewhere, Ada Health has roughly 4 million users across the U.K., Germany, Brazil and India, with roughly 1 million in each.The funding will also be used to improve the company’s algorithms, add to the medical knowledge base and go beyond 10 languages, Nathrath said.He also also wants to feed the Ada Health app with more information beyond symptom data provided by the patient. That could include lab data, genetic testing and sensor data, Nathrath said.”Smartwatches and other sensors have really made a big leap forward,” Nathrath said. “Nowadays you can measure your blood pressure, you can do an ECG, measure heart rate variability and blood oxygen levels.””Our ambition is really to build what we call a personal operating system for health where you wouldn’t just have a symptom check, but you would be able to integrate all relevant sources of health information in a way where ideally Ada becomes this companion that can alert you before the £100 problem becomes a £100,000 a year problem.”U-turn on telehealthCompared to other “doctor” apps like Babylon and Kry, Ada Health has received less funding.Unlike Babylon and Kry, Ada Health doesn’t allow patients to hold a video call with a GP.Ada briefly ran a service called Doctor Chat that allowed users to consult with a registered GP through an on-demand chat portal. However, it was deactivated in March 2018 after being live for around a year.”We were expecting a lot more people to actually use this than they did,” Nathrath said, adding that people prefer the automated chat experience to video calls with GPs.”When you look at telehealth, you can’t scale it as well as you can an AI solution because you still need to hire a lot of doctors in different countries,” Nathrath said.The investment in Ada Health comes just over two weeks after British health start-up Huma raised $130 million from the venture arms of Bayer, Samsung and Hitachi.Other investors in Ada Health’s latest round include Vitruvian Ventures, Inteligo Bank, F4 and Mutschler Ventures.

The logos of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft displayed on a mobile phone with an EU flag shown in the background.Justin Tallis | AFP via Getty ImagesLONDON — The European Union needs to be more ambitious in its control of Big Tech and smaller acquisitions that often go under the radar, Germany, France and the Netherlands said on Wednesday.The 27-member bloc is currently discussing new legislation that could ultimately force Big Tech to change how it operates. The Digital Markets Act, a proposal put forward last December, aims to level the playing field in the EU market and could be implemented as early as 2022. In this context, Berlin, Paris and the Hague are asking for a stricter stance on mergers.”We have to strengthen and speed up merger control in particular vis-à-vis certain gatekeeper platforms to tackle the strategies of platform companies consisting in systematically buying up nascent companies in order to stifle competition,” the three countries said in a common statement.It has long been a concern for European capitals that some of the biggest tech firms in the world have bought up start-ups, including in the EU, in deals that have escaped scrutiny because they did not meet a certain turnover threshold. Whereas high profile purchases, such as Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype in 2011, makes the headlines; smaller deals often go unnoticed. In 2019, Apple bought an artificial intelligence firm in the U.K. (now no longer an EU nation) for an undisclosed sum, for example.Speaking to CNBC in 2019, the EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, spoke about how there’s been “shopping spree” in Europe.In their joint statement Wednesday, France, Germany and the Netherlands said the EU should set “clear and legally certain thresholds for acquisitions by gatekeepers of targets with relatively low turnover, but high value.”In addition, the same nations have asked the EU to adapt “the substantive test to effectively address cases of potentially predatory acquisitions.”The 27 EU member states are currently discussing the Digital Markets Act proposal made by the European Commission in December along with European lawmakers.  Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday at the ReThink Digital Summit, European lawmaker, Stephanie Yon-Courtin said the plan is to have “something ready” by the end of the first half of 2022.The EU is already a leading regulator on the tech front, but the bloc feels that its rulebook needs to be updated so it can better deal with the growing power of some of the largest tech firms in the world.Tommaso Valletti, professor of economics at Imperial College Business School, has said that the EU has been ill-prepared to deal with the many mergers that have taken place over the years.”On mergers we are still a bit behind,” he told CNBC at the same conference, adding that over the past 20 years, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple have acquired a thousand firms and none of these deals have been prohibited.”This has been a global problem,” he said.

People walking at Strandvagen in Stockholm.JONATHAN NACKSTRANDLONDON — A study has found that most Europeans would like to see some of their members of parliament replaced by algorithms.Researchers at IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change asked 2,769 people from 11 countries worldwide how they would feel about reducing the number of national parliamentarians in their country and giving those seats to an AI that would have access to their data.The results, published Thursday, showed that despite AI’s clear and obvious limitations, 51% of Europeans said they were in favor of such a move.Oscar Jonsson, academic director at IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change and one of the report’s main researchers, told CNBC that there’s been a “decades long decline of belief in democracy as a form of governance.”The reasons are likely linked to increased political polarization, filter bubbles and information splintering, he said. “Everyone’s perception is that that politics is getting worse and obviously politicians are being blamed so I think it (the report) captures the general zeitgeist,” Jonsson said. He added that the results aren’t that surprising “given how many people know their MP, how many people have a relationship with their MP (and) how many people know what their MP is doing.”The study found the idea was particularly popular in Spain, where 66% of people surveyed supported it. Elsewhere, 59% of the respondents in Italy were in favor and 56% of people in Estonia.Not all countries like the idea of handing over control to machines, which can be hacked or act in ways that humans don’t want them to. In the U.K., 69% of people surveyed were against the idea, while 56% were against it in the Netherlands and 54% in Germany.Outside Europe, some 75% of people surveyed in China supported the idea of replacing parliamentarians with AI, while 60% of American respondents opposed it.Opinions also vary dramatically by generation, with younger people found to be significantly more open to the idea. Over 60% of Europeans aged 25-34 and 56% of those aged 34-44 were in support of the idea, whereas a majority of respondents above 55-years-old don’t see it as a good idea.

In this articleNVDAIn February, as cryptocurrency prices spiked, Nvidia released new processors specifically for mining crypto. They can’t power a computer monitor, but they can generate valuable ether coins.On Wednesday, the company provided an update on how its cryptocurrency, or CMP, cards are faring in the market. It booked $155 million in revenue from CMP cards in its fiscal first quarter, which ended May 2, and expected sales of $400 million in the current quarter — impressive numbers for a brand new product line.But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talks about the new product line not as an exciting frontier for the company, but as a bone thrown to cryptocurrency obsessives to protect gamers. As it turns out, gaming processors — Nvidia’s original and core business — are still its most important, generating $2.76 billion in revenue, an increase of 106% from last year.The reason Nvidia is now dabbling in crypto chips is to save the supply of graphics processing units, or GPUs, for gamers, Huang explained. While GPUs can be used for mining, the CMP chips can’t be used for gaming, and it’s easier for Nvidia to manufacture the CMP chips.The CEO says its core gaming market is the largest it’s ever been, and it can’t risk missing out because crypto miners keep buying cards meant for gamers.”What we hope is that the CMPs will satisfy the miners and will stay in the professional mines” and the product “protects” graphics cards supply for gamers, Huang said on a call with analysts.”The gaming industry is really large, and what’s really exciting on top of that is that gaming is no longer just gaming. It’s infused into sports, e-sports. It’s infused into art. It’s infused into social. And so gaming has such a large cultural impact now. It’s the largest form of entertainment, and I think the experience we’re going through is going to last a while,” Jensen said.Hard to findIt is not easy to find one of Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards.The cards retail for as little as $399 and range up to $1,499, depending on configuration, but consumers rarely find one online at those prices.Short supply and high demand means they fly off shelves when they’re in stock, and when they’re not, buyers pay a hefty premium — sometimes more than double list price — at a reseller.Huge demand for GeForce graphics cards was the primary reason Nvidia sales soared in the first quarter, rising 84% to $5.66 billion, beating both Wall Street’s and the company’s own expectations.Who is buying these cards?It’s possible that there’s simply massive demand for PC gaming, partially accelerated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a worldwide shortage of microchip manufacturing capacity.But it’s also possible these cards are being bought by cryptocurrency miners, who can turn the problem-solving capacity of a graphics card into significant amounts of ether, a cryptocurrency which has hit several all-time highs this year.Nvidia isn’t sure. CFO Colette Kress said it is “hard to determine to what extent” cryptocurrency miners contributed to its gaming division.But it wants to untangle the question. Nvidia is starting to add software to its gaming cards to make mining more difficult.Over the past five years, Nvidia’s stock has increased over 1,200%, bolstered by the company’s expertise in graphics processors, which were originally intended for gaming but now lie at the heart of some of the most exciting fields in technology.Because Nvidia first commercialized the GPU, investors flocked to the stock hoping that it would see Nvidia selling those chips to self-driving car companies, cloud computing providers (particularly for artificial intelligence applications), and most recently, cryptocurrency miners.None of these businesses has truly blown up. Nvidia still has an automotive business, but it was down 1% and generated only $154 million — less than the revenue from CMP cards in the first quarter alone. Its data center business sales grew 79%, but a lot of that came from an acquisition last year.Meanwhile, Nvidia insists that it still sees huge demand from gamers that won’t end soon. A glance at social media threads about sales for new graphics cards reveals scores of gamers frustrated they can’t get one. Nvidia’s 30-series cards are a bigger upgrade than most years, with new technologies like ray tracing, and Nvidia is at the beginning of its cycle.

In this articleSNOWView through Montana ranch entrance to rangeland with a view of central Montana’s snow covered Crazy Mountains in the background, The Crazy Mountains rise to over 11,000 feet and are located north of Interstate-90 between Billings and Bozeman Montana; they can be seen for many miles along this stretch of Interstate. (Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Education Images | Universal Images Group | Getty ImagesSnowflake, the cloud data analytics vendor that held the biggest U.S. software IPO ever last year, has become the latest tech company to jettison California.In its earnings press release on Wednesday, Snowflake’s dateline showed up as “No-Headquarters/BOZEMAN, Mont.” As recently as May 3, when the company announced the date of its first-quarter earnings report, that same line said “SAN MATEO, Calif.”Snowflake’s SEC filing on Wednesday showed an address in Bozeman for its executive office. The company explained why in a footnote:”We are a Delaware corporation with a globally distributed workforce and no corporate headquarters. Under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules, we are required to designate a ‘principal executive office.’ For purposes of this report, we have designated our office in Bozeman, Montana as our principal executive office, as that is where our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer are based.”Snowflake will still have a large operation in Silicon Valley, and even went through a recent massive redesign of its San Mateo office to prepare for the eventual return of employees.”While San Mateo continues to remain an important location for us, we do not have a single office that is at the center of Snowflake’s operations,” a spokesperson said in an e-mail.The company’s move to withdraw its corporate headquarters from California follows a trend that started in the midst of the pandemic last year.Palantir moved to Colorado. Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise left for Texa. Numerous companies consolidated offices and pulled out of Bay Area leases, giving their employees the option to work from wherever they want. Companies have decamped for a combination of reasons, including California’s inflated cost of living, high taxes and an environment that’s increasingly seen as unfriendly to businesses.Snowflake, which has about 2,500 employees, has been moving in the direction of remote work for months. CEO Frank Slootman told CNBC in January that after the Covid-19 outbreak forced people to work from home, it became clear that the old way of working wasn’t going to return.The pandemic has proven to be “almost like a wake-up call that is just opening our eyes to the opportunity,” Slootman said at the time. “It’s really going to reduce the real estate footprint that companies have.”The address Snowflake lists as its office in Bozeman, a city with fewer than 50,000 residents, is located downtown, near a post office branch, a bowling alley and a coffee shop, according to Google Maps.Slootman has spent a lot of time and money in Montana in recent years.While CEO of ServiceNow prior to joining Snowflake, Slootman contributed the maximum sum allowed to Republican Greg Gianforte, who was Montana’s representative to the U.S. House until this year, Federal Election Commission records show. Gianforte is now the state’s governor.In late 2020, Slootman applied for an aviation ground lease for a 20-year term at Montana’s Twin Bridges Airport starting last October, according to meeting minutes for the Madison County Airport Board.— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this reportWATCH: Snowflake CEO on his 2021 cloud outlook

In this articleAMZNAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge at the National Press Club on September 19, 2019, in Washington.Paul Morigi | Getty Images | AmazonJeff Bezos on Wednesday stewarded his last shareholder meeting as CEO of Amazon, highlighting the company’s successes in the previous year, while acknowledging it has many challenges ahead.Bezos announced he’ll formally step down from his role as CEO on July 5, which is the date Amazon was incorporated 27 years ago. He’ll move into the role of executive chairman and hand the reins over to cloud-computing boss Andy Jassy, who Bezos assured investors is well-equipped for the task.”He has the highest of high standards and I guarantee Andy will never let the universe make us typical,” Bezos said during the meeting, which was held virtually for the second year in a row, due to the coronavirus pandemic. “He has the energy needed to keep alive in us what has made us special.”Bezos was asked whether Amazon will have any trouble innovating now that it has grown so large and diversified. He acknowledged that Amazon under its new leader Jassy will have to manage newer bets that have no guarantee of being successful, including its Amazon Care telehealth service and Project Kuiper satellite internet network.”Let me assure you, I can guarantee you that none of these ideas are guaranteed to work,” Bezos said. “All of them are gigantic investments and they’re all risks…The only way to get above-average returns is to take risks and many won’t pay off. Our whole history as a company is about taking risks, many of which have failed and many of which will fail, but we’ll continue to take big risks.”Shareholders voted down all 11 proposals submitted by outsiders, which spanned a range of topics from worker safety and Amazon’s hiring practices to its use of facial recognition technology and climate change.Vote totals weren’t immediately available at the meeting, but Amazon typically releases detailed results in a regulatory filing.Healthy competitionDuring a question-and-answer session at the end of the meeting, Bezos was asked to address the criticism that Amazon has grown too big and too powerful. Bezos pushed back on that assertion by arguing that Amazon faces intense competition in every industry it does business in, including its core retail business, where the market is “thriving.””Consumers can shop at dozens of large national retailers, hundreds of regional retailers, hundreds of thousands of small retailers both online and in store,” Bezos said. “It’s a very healthy industry and far from a winner-take-all situation and we are still a small fraction of retail.”The IT industry, another market Amazon competes in via its cloud-computing services, also continues to have healthy competition, Bezos argued. “We face competition from well-established companies like Google, Oracle and Microsoft, and from new, incredibly successful upstarts doing a great job and growing incredibly quickly, like Snowflake and Twilio,” he said.Just one day earlier, Amazon was sued by the attorney general for Washington, D.C., for allegedly engaging in anticompetitive practices that have unfairly raised prices for consumers and suppressed innovation. The company also faces ongoing probes by multiple federal agencies, state attorneys general and Europe’s antitrust watchdog.Where regulators have seized on an alleged lack of competition in the retail industry, Bezos suggested consumers have far less choice in other markets.”Think about mobile phone operating systems,” Bezos said. “Can you think of any successful, small, fast growing mobile phone operating systems? Where are they? Name one. They do not exist.”Prime acquisitionBezos was also asked to comment on Amazon’s $8.45 billion deal for MGM Studios, which was announced hours before the shareholder meeting kicked off on Wednesday.For Amazon, acquiring the historic Hollywood studio behind the James Bond films will give the company greater tools to keep its 200 million-plus Prime members satisfied, while hooking in new subscribers to the loyalty program (who typically spend more on the site.)It also supercharges Amazon’s ability to produce original films and TV shows. Amazon’s film and TV division, Amazon Studios, has produced a few hits, including “Manchester By the Sea” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” but it has to keep up with well-established players like Netflix and Disney.In addition to “James Bond,” MGM also has other library favorites like “Thelma and Louise,” “Raging Bull,” “Robocop” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” that made “the acquisition thesis here really very simple,” Bezos said.”MGM has a vast deep catalog of much beloved intellectual property,” Bezos said. “And with the talented people at MGM and Amazon studios, we can reimagine and develop that IP for the 21st century.It’s going to be a lot of fun work and people who love stories are going to be the big beneficiaries.”Shareholder activismAmazon’s annual shareholder meetings have transformed into a popular venue for employees, investors and activist groups to speak up about a range of hot-button topics.This year was no different, with a range of shareholder resolutions proposing that the company take action on issues including climate change, labor conditions, use of facial recognition technology and racial and gender disparities in the workforce.Two workers from the site of a failed unionization vote at one of Amazon’s Alabama warehouses presented shareholder proposals, both of which were voted down. Darryl Richardson backed a proposed audit of the company’s impact on racial equity, while Jennifer Bates spoke in favor of a proposal to elect a warehouse worker to Amazon’s board of directors.Bates argued that hourly workers could add a valuable perspective to Amazon’s board, while advocating for issues that are critical for its workforce.”I know from my own experience, working at Amazon, that it does not listen to us workers,” Bates said during the meeting. “I have tried on many occasions to raise concerns about workplace safety, scheduling and discipline. But managers are unavailable, don’t listen or simply dismiss me. I’m not alone.”The topic of working conditions also came up at Amazon’s shareholder meeting last year. It’s an issue that has taken on a heightened focus both inside and outside of the company as Amazon’s front-line warehouse and delivery workers expressed safety concerns throughout the coronavirus pandemic.Alicia Boler Davis, Amazon’s vice president of global customer fulfillment, defended the company’s treatment of its workers.”While it may be easy for critics to paint in broad brush strokes an image of a cold-hearted employer and negative working conditions, the reality is very different,” said Boler Davis, adding that Amazon is committed “to doing the right thing by its employees.”