Category: Technology News

The live-action remake of the animated film “How to Train Your Dragon” and a two-part, five-hour documentary on Billy Joel are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Puerto Rican rapper and singer Myke Towers releasing the album, “ISLAND BOYZ,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty” returns for its third and final season and two arcade favorites — Donkey Kong and Pac-Man — get reinvented for gamers.

New movies to stream from July 14-20

— Movie theaters are crowded enough this summer that one recent box-office hit is already coming to homes. Universal Pictures’ “How to Train Your Dragon” hits premium video on demand on Tuesday, just 31 days after it debuted in cinemas. The live-action remake of the DreamWorks Animation dragon tale has surpassed $500 million in global ticket sales. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr raved: “Unlike so many live-action remakes of animated films, it also doesn’t feel superfluous, or, worse, like a poor imitation of its predecessor.”

— Billy Joel recently canceled his summer tour after being diagnosed with a brain disorder. But “Piano Man” fans can still get their Joel fix in “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” a two-part, five-hour documentary. The first part will arrive on HBO and HBO Max on Friday, July 18, with the second part following on July 25. Directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin cover Joel’s life and career, with interviews with Joel, his family, his ex-wives and musicians including Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney.

— Petra Costa’s “Apocalypse in the Tropics” (Netflix, Monday) documents the rise of the far right in Brazil. Costa’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated “The Edge of Democracy” digs into the role of the evangelical movement in bringing former president Jair Bolsonaro to power. Bolsonaro is currently standing trial for an alleged coup attempt in 2023, a trial that U.S. President Donald Trump has called a “witch hunt.”

— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

New music to stream from July 14-20

— Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” has been everywhere in 2025; it’s a big, inoffensive ballad with loosely religious themes, meticulously designed to the pull at heartstrings. And it succeeds, due in part to the fact that Warren sings in a faux-British accent. On Friday, July 18, he’ll release his debut full-length on Atlantic Records, “You’ll Be Alright, Kid.” Expect a lot more soul and get the tissues ready.

— Fresh off a hot new track for the summer blockbuster “F1” soundtrack, Puerto Rican rapper and singer Myke Towers will release a new album, “ISLAND BOYZ,” on Friday, July 18. It’s just what the heart wants during these hot months — feel good reggaeton, urban pop and Latin trap.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from July 14-20

— Are you Team Jellyfish or Team Bonrad? If you have no idea what that means, you probably don’t watch “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” The show returns for its third and final season on Wednesday on Prime Video. It’s about a young woman named Belly (Lola Tung) who is torn between two brothers, Jeremiah and Conrad, played by Gavin Casalegno and Christopher Briney. The series is based on a trilogy of books by Jenny Han.

— In the second season of Prime Video’s “Surf Girls” series, cameras follow five up-and-coming female surfers who travel the globe to compete in the Challenger Series. “Surf Girls: International” focuses on both new and returning surfers that were featured in Season 1. A goal is to spotlight women in a sport that has often been skewed by sexism. All five episodes drop Thursday. Reese Witherspoon is an executive producer.

— In the films “The Dry” and “Force of Nature: The Dry 2,” Eric Bana played a federal agent investigating murders in his native Australia. In the new Netflix series “Untamed,” Bana plays a U.S. law enforcement officer investigating the mysterious death of a woman at Yosemite National Park. Sam Neill, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Wilson Bethel also star. It premieres Thursday.

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from July 14-20

— For a guy who started off as a villain, Donkey Kong has proven to be one of Nintendo’s most versatile heroes, doing everything from driving to playing drums to (seriously) teaching math. Donkey Kong Bananza focuses on what he does best: punching things. Someone has stolen his bananas, so it’s up to DK to smash his way through the Underground World in pursuit of the culprits. It’s the first 3D adventure for the big lug in a long time, and Nintendo has said it comes from the same team that developed the bestselling Super Mario Odyssey. Start swinging Thursday on Switch 2.

— Another arcade favorite — Pac-Man — returns in Shadow Labyrinth, although publisher Bandai Namco has radically altered the pellet-chomper. Here, you play as Swordsman No. 8, an explorer who is accompanied by a mysterious yellow orb named Puck. As you traverse the 2D alien world, you may be reminded of a different classic: 1986’s Metroid. There are some levels that look more like Pac-Man mazes, though, and you will still hunt and be hunted by ghosts — which are now called “G-Hosts.” It’s a weird and edgy approach to the legend, and it arrives Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch and PC.

— Lou Kesten

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia on Wednesday said that an order by Prime Minister Hun Manet for government bodies to crackdown on criminal cybercrime operations being run in the country had resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 suspects so far this week.

Hun Manet issued the order authorising state action for “maintaining and protecting security, public order, and social safety.”

“The government has observed that online scams are currently causing threats and insecurity in the world and the region. In Cambodia, foreign criminal groups have also infiltrated to engage in online scams,” Hun Manet’s statement, dated Tuesday, said.

The United Nations and other agencies estimate that cyberscams, most of them originating from Southeast Asia, earn international criminal gangs billions of dollars annually.

More than 1,000 suspects were arrested in raids in at least five provinces between Monday and Wednesday, according to statements from Information Minister Neth Pheaktra and police.

Those detained included more than 200 Vietnamese, 27 Chinese, and 75 suspects from Taiwan and 85 Cambodians in the capital Phnom Penh and the southern city of Sihanoukville. Police also seized equipment, including computers and hundreds of mobile phones.

At least 270 Indonesians, including 45 women, were arrested Wednesday in Poipet, a town on the border with Thailand notorious for cyberscam and gambling operations, the minister said. Elsewhere, police in the northeastern province of Kratie arrested 312 people, including nationals of Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam, while 27 people from Vietnam, China and Myanmar were arrested in the western province of Pursat.

Amnesty International last month published the findings of an 18-month investigation into cybercrime in Cambodia, which the human rights group said “point towards state complicity in abuses carried out by Chinese criminal gangs.”

“The Cambodian government is deliberately ignoring a litany of human rights abuses including slavery, human trafficking, child labor and torture being carried out by criminal gangs on a vast scale in more than 50 scamming compounds located across the country,” it said.

Human trafficking is closely associated with cyberscam operations, as workers are often recruited under false pretences and then held captive.

“Deceived, trafficked and enslaved, the survivors of these scamming compounds describe being trapped in a living nightmare – enlisted in criminal enterprises that are operating with the apparent consent of the Cambodian government,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said.

Cambodia’s latest crackdown comes in the midst of a bitter feud with neighboring Thailand, which began with a brief armed skirmish in late May over border territory claimed by both nations and has now led to border closures and nearly daily exchanges of nationalistic insults. Friendly former leaders of both countries have become estranged and there have been hot debates over which nation’s cultural heritage has influenced the other.

Measures initiated by the Thai side, including cutting off cross-border electricity supplies and closing crossing points, have particularly heightened tensions, with Cambodia claiming they were churlish actions of spite to retaliate for its intention to pursue its territorial claims. Thailand said its original intention was to combat long-existing cyberscam operations in Poipet.

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Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A coordinated international operation has hit the infrastructure of a pro-Russian cybercrime network linked to a string of denial of service attacks targeting Ukraine and its allies, the European Union’s police agency Europol announced Wednesday.

Codenamed Eastwood, the operation targeted the so-called NoName057(16) group, which was identified last month by Dutch authorities as being behind a series of denial-of-service attacks on several municipalities and organizations linked to a NATO summit in the Netherlands.

Europol said that the cybercrime network was also involved in attacks in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

The police agency said the international operation “led to the disruption of an attack-infrastructure consisting of over one hundred computer systems worldwide, while a major part of the group’s central server infrastructure was taken offline.”

Law enforcement and judicial authorities from France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the United States took simultaneous actions against offenders and infrastructure belonging to the pro-Russian cybercrime network, it said.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks, sabotage attempts and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine, including cyberattacks. The Associated Press is tracking them in a detailed map that shows the breadth of efforts to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine.

As part of the latest operation, judicial authorities in Germany issued six arrest warrants for suspects in Russia, two of them accused of being the main leaders of the group, Europol said. Five of them were identified on Europol’s Europe’s Most Wanted website.

One suspect was placed under preliminary arrest in France and another detained in Spain, Europol said. The Paris prosecutor’s office said one person is in custody in France and communications equipment has been seized. No charges have yet been filed. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in the operation.

The attorney general’s office in Switzerland, which is not an EU member country, said in a statement Wednesday that joint investigations between Europol and Swiss federal police helped identify three leading members of the group, which is alleged to have targeted more than 200 Swiss websites.

Swiss prosecutors opened a criminal case over the incidents in June 2023, and since then identified several other denial-of-service attacks attributed to the activist group. The attacks included a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Swiss parliament and the popular Eurovision Song Contest, held in in Basel earlier this year.

Europol said members of the cybercrime group initially targeted Ukrainian institutions, “but have shifted their focus to attacking countries that support Ukraine in the ongoing defence against the Russian war of aggression, many of which are members of NATO.”

Law enforcement authorities in countries involved in the operation contacted hundreds of people believed to support the group to inform them of the crackdown and their alleged liability for its actions.

“Individuals acting for NoName057(16) are mainly Russian-speaking sympathisers who use automated tools to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Operating without formal leadership or sophisticated technical skills, they are motivated by ideology and rewards,” Europol said.

It added that people recruited by the group were paid in cryptocurrency and motivated using online-gaming dynamics like leader boards and badges.

“This gamified manipulation, often targeted at younger offenders, was emotionally reinforced by a narrative of defending Russia or avenging political events,” Europol said.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A coordinated international operation has hit the infrastructure of a pro-Russian cybercrime network linked to a string of denial of service attacks targeting Ukraine and its allies, the European Union’s police agency Europol announced Wednesday.

Codenamed Eastwood, the operation targeted the so-called NoName057(16) group, which was identified last month by Dutch authorities as being behind a series of denial-of-service attacks on several municipalities and organizations linked to a NATO summit in the Netherlands.

Europol said that the cybercrime network also was involved in attacks in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

The police agency said the international operation “led to the disruption of an attack-infrastructure consisting of over one hundred computer systems worldwide, while a major part of the group’s central server infrastructure was taken offline.”

Judicial authorities in Germany issued six arrest warrants for suspects in Russia, two of them accused of being the main leaders of the group, Europol said. Five of them were identified on Europol’s Europe’s Most Wanted website.

One suspect was placed under preliminary arrest in France and another detained in Spain, Europol said. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in the operation.

Europol said members of the cybercrime group initially targeted Ukrainian institution, “but have shifted their focus to attacking countries that support Ukraine in the ongoing defence against the Russian war of aggression, many of which are members of NATO.”

Law enforcement authorities in countries involved in the operation contacted hundreds of people believed to support the group to inform them of the crackdown and their alleged liability for its actions.

“Individuals acting for NoName057(16) are mainly Russian-speaking sympathisers who use automated tools to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Operating without formal leadership or sophisticated technical skills, they are motivated by ideology and rewards,” Europol said.

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Nvidia downplayed his role in getting the U.S. government to lift a ban on selling an advanced computer chip in China and said it will take time to ramp up production once orders for the AI-processor come in.

CEO Jensen Huang, speaking Wednesday in the Chinese capital Beijing, was upbeat about the prospects for the H20 chip, which was designed to meet U.S. restrictions on technology exports to China but nonetheless blocked in April.

He met U.S. President Donald Trump before his trip and his company announced this week it had received assurances that sales to China would be approved.

“I don’t think I changed his mind,” Huang told a cluster of journalists, many of whom asked for his autograph or to take selfies with him.

A carefully organized press conference at a luxury hotel descended into a crowd scene when Huang arrived in his trademark leather jacket and started taking questions randomly in his characteristic casual style.

Export controls and tariffs were something companies must adapt to in a world he said was reconfiguring itself. He described his role as informing governments in the U.S. and elsewhere of the nature and unintended consequences of their policies.

The decision to lift the ban on the H20 chip was entirely in the hands of the American and Chinese governments and whatever trade talks they had, he said.

“We can only influence them, inform them, do our best to provide them with facts,” Huang said. “And then beyond that is out of our control.”

Nvidia said in April that sales restrictions on its chip in China on national security grounds would cost the company $5.5 billion. The White House also blocked a chip from Advanced Micro Devices. Both companies say the Commerce Department is now moving forward with license applications to export them to China.

Huang said his company would likely be able to recover some of its losses but it’s unclear how much. That will depend on how many H20 orders are received and how quickly Nvidia can meet the demand.

“I think that H20 is going to be very successful here,” he said, noting the chip’s memory bandwidth makes it a good fit for the AI models being developed by Chinese companies such as DeepSeek and Alibaba.

Huang also touted the release of a new RTX Pro graphics chip that he said would power the development of humanoid robots. He described robotic systems with teams of robots working alongside people as the next wave in AI.

“Because there’s so much robotics innovation going on and so much smart factory work being done here and the supply chain is so vast, RTX Pro is perfect,” he said.

ATLANTA (AP) — Cal Raleigh was just as successful with the first robot umpire All-Star challenge as he was in the Home Run Derby.

Seattle’s catcher signaled for an appeal to the Automated Ball-Strike System in the first inning of the National League’s win Tuesday night, getting a strikeout for Detroit’s Tarik Subal on San Diego’s Manny Machado.

“You take ‘em any way you can get ’em, boys,” Skubal said on the mound.

Four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna’s calls were successful in the first All-Star use of the ABS system, which could make its regular-season debut next year.

Athletics rookie Jacob Wilson won as the first batter to call for a challenge, reversing a 1-0 fastball from Washington’s MacKenzie Gore in the fifth inning that had been called a strike.

Miami’s Kyle Stowers lost when ABS upheld a full-count Andrés Muñoz fastball at the bottom of the zone for an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth.

Mets closer Edwin Díaz earned a three-pitch strikeout against Randy Arozarena to end the top of the ninth on a pitch Iassogna thought was outside.

Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk used ABS to get a first-pitch strike on a 100.1 mph Aroldis Chapman offering to Brendan Donovan with two outs in the bottom half.

“The fans enjoy it. I thought the players had fun with it,” NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers said. “There’s a strategy to it, if it does get to us during the season. But I like it. I think it’s good for the game.”

Skubal had given up Ketel Marte’s two-run double and retired the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman on a groundout for his first out when he got ahead of Machado 0-2 in the count. Skubal threw a 89.5 mph changeup, and Iassogna yelled” “Ball down!”

Raleigh tapped his helmet just before Skubal tipped his cap, triggering a review by the computer umpire that was tested in spring training this year and could be adopted for regular-season use in 2026.

“Obviously, a strike like that it was, so I called for it and it helped us out,” Raleigh said.

An animation of the computer analysis was shown on the Truist Park scoreboard and the broadcast. Roberts laughed in the dugout after the challenge.

“I knew it was a strike,” Machado said.

Skubal doesn’t intend to use challenges during regular-season games if the ABS is put in place. He says he’ll rely on his catchers.

“I was joking around that I was going to burn two of them on the first balls just so that way we didn’t have them the rest of the game,” he said. “I’m just going to assume that it’s going to happen next year.”

Before the game, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the sport’s 11-man competition committee will consider the system for next season.

“I think the ability to correct a bad call in a high-leverage situation without interfering with the time of game because it’s so fast is something we ought to continue to pursue,” Manfred said.

ABS decisions may have an error of margin up to a half-inch.

“Our guys do have a concern with that half inch, what that might otherwise lead to particularly as it relates to the number of challenges you may have, whether you keep those challenges during the course of the game,” union head Tony Clark told the Baseball Writers Association of America. “Does there need to be some type of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in a world where it’s the most egregious misses that we want focus in on?”

Manfred sounded less concerned.

“I don’t believe that technology supports the notion that you need a buffer zone,” he said. “To get into the idea that there’s something that is not a strike that you’re going to call a strike in a review system, I don’t know why I would want to do that.”

MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter’s height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube.

“We haven’t even started talking about the strike zone itself, how that’s going to necessarily be measured, and whether or not there are tweaks that need to be made there, too,” Clark said. “So there’s a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable than not.”

Manfred has tested ABS in the minor leagues since 2019, using it for all pitches and then switching to a challenge system. Each team gets two challenges and a successful challenge is retained. Only catchers, batters and pitchers can call for a challenge.

“Where we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input,” he maintained. “If you had two years ago said to me: What do the owners want to do? I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. That’s because there is a fundamental, very fundamental interest in getting it right, right? We owe it to our fans to try to get it right because the players as I talked to them over a couple of years really, expressed a very strong interest or preference for the challenge system that we decided to test.”

Skubal wondered is all contingencies had been planned for.

“If power goes out and we don’t have ABS — sometimes we don’t have Hawk-Eye data or Trackman data. So what’s going to happen then?” he said. “Are we going to expect umpires to call balls and strikes when it’s an ABS zone?”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Donald Trump touted tens of billions of dollars of recent energy and technology investments Tuesday in Pennsylvania while boasting of a “true golden age for America” in energy policy and artificial intelligence.

Trump traveled to Pittsburgh at a summit helmed by Republican Sen. David McCormick that included dozens of top executives from companies aiming to make the city and the state a hot spot for advancements in robotics, artificial intelligence and energy. McCormick announced more than $90 billion of investments in the state — spurring tens of thousands of jobs — although some of the projects had already been in progress ahead of the summit.

“I think we have a true golden age for America. And we’ve been showing it, and it truly is the hottest country anywhere in the world,” Trump said at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, held at Carnegie Mellon University. “I’m honored to be in Pennsylvania, and I’m honored to be in Pittsburgh. And you’re going to see some real action here. So get ready.”

Trump has repeatedly pledged U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market, and Pennsylvania — a swing state critical to his wins in 2016 and 2024 — is at the forefront of that agenda, in large part due to its coal and gas industry that the Republican administration has taken steps to bolster.

Both the president and senior administration officials on Tuesday framed the investments as part of a race against China for the most advanced deployment of artificial intelligence, with Trump saying, “We are way ahead of China, I have to say.”

“China and other countries are racing to catch up to America on AI, and we’re not going to let them do it,” Trump said during the hourlong roundtable held in a university gymnasium, speaking often from prepared notes. Flanked by several of his Cabinet members, company executives and local political leaders, Trump added that the U.S. will be “fighting them in a very friendly fashion.”

Before Trump spoke, his Cabinet members spoke of the need to produce as much energy as possible — especially from coal and natural gas — to beat China in the AI race for the sake of economic and national security.

“The AI revolution is upon us,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during an earlier panel discussion. “The Trump administration will not let us lose. We need to do clean, beautiful coal. We need to do natural gas, we need to embrace nuclear, we need to embrace it all because we have the power to do it and if we don’t do it we’re fools.”

Some of the investments on a list released by McCormick’s office were not necessarily brand-new, while others were. Some involve massive data center projects — such as a $15 billion project in central Pennsylvania — while others involve building power plants, expanding natural gas pipelines, upgrading power plants or improving electricity transmission networks.

Google said it would invest $25 billion on AI and data center infrastructure over the next two years in PJM’s mid-Atlantic electricity grid, while investment firm Brookfield said it had signed contracts to provide more than $3 billion of power to Google’s data centers from two hydroelectric dams on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.

Frontier Group said it would transform the former Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania into a new natural gas-fired plant, and AI cloud computing firm CoreWeave said it will spend more than $6 billion to equip a data center in south-central Pennsylvania.

Blackstone plans to spend $25 billion on data centers and building new natural gas-fired power plants in northeastern Pennsylvania, and the company will start construction by the end of 2028, said Jon Gray, its CEO.

McCormick, a first-term Republican senator who organized the inaugural event, said the summit was meant to bring together top energy companies and AI leaders, global investors and labor behind Trump’s energy policies and priorities.

The list of participating CEOs includes leaders from global behemoths like Blackstone, Bridgewater, SoftBank, Amazon Web Services, BlackRock and ExxonMobil and local companies such as the Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, which deploys AI to bolster energy capacity.

“What’s exciting about this event is it’s a great catalyst for investments and closing deals in the region,” said Jake Loosararian, the founder and CEO of Gecko Robotics.

Administration officials at the summit included White House crypto czar David Sacks, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Lutnick. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also attended. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also spoke.

McCormick credited his wife, Dina Powell McCormick, with the idea for a summit. Powell McCormick served as Trump’s deputy national security adviser in his first term and is a former Goldman Sachs executive who is now at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank.

Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie Mellon University, a prestigious engineering school, plus a growing industry of small robotics firms and a so-called AI Avenue that’s home to offices for Google and other AI firms. It also sits in the middle of the prolific Marcellus Shale natural gas reservoir.

“What’s going on is a rewiring of the economy, of the world over the next 15 years and that takes trillions and trillions and tens of trillions of dollars, and it starts with power,” said Bruce Flatt, CEO of Brookfield, during a panel discussion.

Pennsylvania has scored big investment wins in recent months, some driven by federal manufacturing policy and others by the ravenous need for electricity from the fast-growing AI business.

Nippon Steel just bought U.S. Steel for almost $15 billion, getting Trump’s approval after pledging to invest billions alone in U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh-area plants.

Amazon will spend $20 billion on two data center complexes in Pennsylvania, while the one-time Homer City coal-fired power plant is being turned into the nation’s largest gas-fired power plant to fuel a data center campus. Meanwhile, Constellation Energy is reopening the lone functional nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island under a long-term power supply agreement for Microsoft’s data centers.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pa. Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in Washington contributed to this report.

RESTON, Va. (AP) — Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Tuesday that Google will partner with his administration to provide free and low-cost artificial intelligence certification courses to Virginians as part of his office’s ongoing effort to connect citizens to new jobs amid changes to the state’s economy.

The partnership, which he has described as an AI career launchpad, will provide Google-sponsored AI training courses for up to 10,000 Virginians at any given time, officials said at Google’s office in the northern part of the state.

The training opportunities will be listed on a job website that Youngkin launched earlier this year, in response to significant layoffs among federal workers by the Trump administration, including many workers from Virginia.

“All fields, all career movements somewhere along the way, are going to incorporate this next generation of technology,” Youngkin said at the news conference.

The initiative comes with unemployment rising in Virginia, which has roughly 20,400 continued unemployment claims, state Secretary of Labor George’ Bryan’ Slater said after the news conference. Roughly 2,800 people initially filed unemployment claims during the first week of July, which is about 6.1 percent higher than the previous week.

The AI webpage will feature the free courses as well as some low-cost learning opportunities, ranging “from beginner friendly courses on AI fundamentals and practical workplace applications of artificial intelligence to bootcamps and degree programs offered by Virginia’s leading-edge community colleges and universities,” according to the governor’s office.

Nicole Overley, commissioner of Virginia Works, said businesses have told her office that AI proficiency has become increasingly necessary in their industries. She said the training would help Virginians become competitive in the job markets where these very businesses are hiring.

Overly confirmed that the training courses won’t cost taxpayers anything and are being donated by Google. Bronagh Friel, head of partnerships at Google, said she was proud of the collaboration with the state.

“Google is committed to championing economic growth and opportunity in Virginia,” she said.

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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

BANGKOK (AP) — Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips used to develop artificial intelligence to China.

The news came in a company blog post late Monday, which stated that the U.S. government had “assured” Nvidia that licenses would be granted — and that the company “hopes to start deliveries soon.” Shares of the California-based chipmaker were up over 4% by midday Tuesday.

Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run CGTN television network, in remarks shown on X.

“Today, I’m announcing that the U.S. government has approved for us filing licenses to start shipping H20s,” Huang told reporters in Beijing.

He added that half of the world’s AI researchers are in China. “It’s so innovative and dynamic here in China that it’s really important that American companies are able to compete and serve the market here,” he said.

Huang recently met with President Donald Trump and other U.S. policymakers — and is in Beijing this week to attend a supply chain conference and speak with Chinese officials. The broadcast showed Huang meeting with Ren Hongbin, the head of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, host of the China International Supply Chain Expo, which Huang was attending. Nvidia is an exhibitor.

Nvidia has profited enormously from the rapid adoption of AI, becoming the first company to have its market value surpass $4 trillion last week. However, the trade rivalry between the U.S. and China has been weighing heavily on the industry.

Here’s what we know.

What is Nvidia’s H20 chip?

The H20 graphics processing unit, or GPU, is an advanced AI chip — a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But it’s less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today.

That’s because the H20 chip was developed to specifically comply with U.S. restrictions for exports of AI chips to China. Nvidia’s most advanced chips, which carry more computing power, are off-limits to the Chinese market.

Washington has been tightening controls on exports of advanced technology to China for years, citing concerns that know-how meant for civilian use could be deployed for military purposes. And in January, before Trump began his second term in office, President Joe Biden’s administration launched a new framework for exporting advanced computer chips used to develop AI — in an attempt to balance national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries.

Restrictions on sales of advanced chips to China have been central to the AI race between the world’s two largest economic powers, but such controls are also controversial. Proponents argue that these restrictions are necessary to slow China down enough to allow U.S. companies to keep their lead. Meanwhile, opponents say the export controls have loopholes — and could still spur innovation. The emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot in January particularly renewed concerns over how China might use advanced chips to help develop its own AI capabilities.

What’s happened since Trump took office?

In April, the White House announced that it would restrict sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China — as well as MI308 chips from rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices — with the Trump administration again citing national security.

At the time, Nvidia said these tighter export controls would cost the company an extra $5.5 billion — and Huang and other technology leaders have been lobbying Trump to reverse the restrictions since. They’ve argued that such limits hinder U.S. competition in a sector in one of the world’s largest markets for technology, and have also warned that U.S. export controls could end up pushing other countries toward China’s AI technology.

Monday’s announcement from Nvidia signals that its lobbying efforts paid off. White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks told Bloomberg on Tuesday that allowing Nvidia to restart Chinese sales of its H20 chip would help the U.S. better compete abroad — particularly with Chinese chipmaker Huawei Technologies.

Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Tuesday that the renewed sale of H20 chips in China was linked to a trade agreement made between the two countries on rare earth magnets — and maintained that the administration was also reversing course from April’s restrictions because the U.S. still doesn’t sell China “our best stuff.”

Still, calls for restrictions on advanced chip exports to China have persisted among U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Just last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks wrote a letter to Huang noting that the hardware powering advanced AI “is of immense strategic importance” — and again warned that this kind of technology could be used to accelerate Beijing’s effort to modernize its military if exported freely. U.S. lawmakers have also proposed that chips subject to export controls should be tracked, to ensure they don’t end up in the wrong places.

Beyond export controls, California-based Nvidia — like other tech giants today — has been caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s tariff wars abroad, particularly amid America’s tit-for-tat levies with China. But Beijing and Washington recently agreed to pull back some non-tariff restrictions. China says it’s approving permits for rare earth magnets to be exported to the U.S., while Washington has lifted curbs on chip design software and jet engines.

Nvidia and its CEO have also garnered Trump’s favor in recent months. In April, the company announced that it would be producing its AI chips in the U.S. for the first time, starting with more than one million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test its specialized Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.

Trump was quick to applaud Nvidia’s move. He introduced Huang as a “smart cookie” who was helping bring jobs to the U.S. at an “Investing in America” event held at the White House later that month.

Similar to Nvidia, AMD is now also poised to restart Chinese sales of its MI308 chips. The California-based company said in a statement that the Commerce Department was moving forward with license applications for these exports to China, and that it plans to resume shipments as those licenses are approved.

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Grantham-Philips reported from New York. AP Writers Didi Tang in Washington, D.C., Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island and AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed.

BANGKOK (AP) — Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips used to develop artificial intelligence to China.

The news came in a company blog post late Monday, which stated that the U.S. government had “assured” Nvidia that licenses would be granted — and that the company “hopes to start deliveries soon.” Shares of the California-based chipmaker were up over 4% by midday Tuesday.

Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run CGTN television network, in remarks shown on X.

“Today, I’m announcing that the U.S. government has approved for us filing licenses to start shipping H20s,” Huang told reporters in Beijing.

He added that half of the world’s AI researchers are in China. “It’s so innovative and dynamic here in China that it’s really important that American companies are able to compete and serve the market here,” he said.

Huang recently met with President Donald Trump and other U.S. policymakers — and is in Beijing this week to attend a supply chain conference and speak with Chinese officials. The broadcast showed Huang meeting with Ren Hongbin, the head of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, host of the China International Supply Chain Expo, which Huang was attending. Nvidia is an exhibitor.

Nvidia has profited enormously from the rapid adoption of AI, becoming the first company to have its market value surpass $4 trillion last week. However, the trade rivalry between the U.S. and China has been weighing heavily on the industry.

Here’s what we know.

What is Nvidia’s H20 chip?

The H20 graphics processing unit, or GPU, is an advanced AI chip — a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But it’s less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today.

That’s because the H20 chip was developed to specifically comply with U.S. restrictions for exports of AI chips to China. Nvidia’s most advanced chips, which carry more computing power, are off-limits to the Chinese market.

Washington has been tightening controls on exports of advanced technology to China for years, citing concerns that know-how meant for civilian use could be deployed for military purposes. And in January, before Trump began his second term in office, President Joe Biden’s administration launched a new framework for exporting advanced computer chips used to develop AI — in an attempt to balance national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries.

Restrictions on sales of advanced chips to China have been central to the AI race between the world’s two largest economic powers, but such controls are also controversial. Proponents argue that these restrictions are necessary to slow China down enough to allow U.S. companies to keep their lead. Meanwhile, opponents say the export controls have loopholes — and could still spur innovation. The emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot in January particularly renewed concerns over how China might use advanced chips to help develop its own AI capabilities.

What’s happened since Trump took office?

In April, just months after Trump took office, the White House announced that it would restrict sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China — as well as MI308 chips from rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.

At the time, the Trump administration again cited national security. But Nvidia said these tighter export controls would cost the company an extra $5.5 billion — and Huang and other technology leaders have been lobbying Trump to reverse the restrictions since. They’ve argued that such limits hinder U.S. competition in a sector in one of the world’s largest markets for technology, and have also warned that U.S. export controls could end up pushing other countries toward China’s AI technology.

Monday’s announcement from Nvidia signals that its lobbyingefforts paid off — although the Trump administration has yet to publicly comment on the future of H20 chip sales in China. And the exact timing remains unknown overall. It’s also unclear whether AMD will similarly see restrictions lifted for its MI308 chips. AMD didn’t immediately return an emailed request for comment Tuesday about how Trump’s policies would affect its chip sales in China.

On top of export controls, California-based Nvidia — like other tech giants today — has been caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s tariff wars abroad, particularly amid America’s tit-for-tat levies with China. But Nvidia and its CEO have garnered Trump’s favor in recent months. In April, the company announced that it would be producing its AI chips in the U.S. for the first time, starting with more than one million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test its specialized Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.

Trump was quick to applaud Nvidia’s move. He introduced Huang as a “smart cookie” who was helping bring jobs to the U.S. at an “Investing in America” event held at the White House later that month.

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Grantham-Philips reported from New York. AP Writers Didi Tang in Washington, D.C., Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island and AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed.