Your morning briefing. All the news you need to start your day.

On today's podcast:

(1) Nvidia’s general counsel intervened in a US government probe of suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International, questioning whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining an executive from the Singapore-based firm who’s now at the heart of a scandal threatening Jensen Huang.

(2) Though it’s not uncommon to see cultlike tech CEOs who obsess over details, Huang is in a class of his own. He has led the business since its very beginning 33 years ago, the longest such run in Silicon Valley. And even as Nvidia grew into one of the world’s most powerful companies — with a stock return of more than 700,000% — there’s still no one designated to potentially replace him.

(3) Anthropic sent out and retracted a filing that appeared to show it was aiming to raise as much as $69.3 billion ⁠through an initial public offering, Reuters said.

(4) President Donald Trump said further strikes on Iran wouldn’t be necessary but the US remains “locked and loaded,” an indication that he’s winding down the conflict after Republicans’ midterm elections loss underscored its deep unpopularity.

(5) Russian and Ukrainian envoys will discuss territorial issues and proposals for ceasefire monitoring in the United Arab Emirates this week, according to a senior US official, as a new round of negotiations to end the war gets underway.

(6) Insurers are taking steps to limit their exposure to the risk of losses tied to a wave of street protests in cities across Europe.

(7) China’s trade surplus ballooned to just over $1 trillion for the year despite the biggest surge in imports since 2021, with an increasingly lopsided relationship with the European Union accounting for nearly a third of the overall imbalance.

(8) Taiwan's people are coming to grips with the growing risk that Beijing poses to the status quo and quietly preparing for an invasion, according to interviews with two dozen individuals from different walks of life, ranging from an excavator operator to a diplomat. Paradoxically, this possibility is often coupled with the inability to imagine it might actually happen.

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