Google‘s ongoing antitrust battle has reached a pivotal moment as the Justice Department surprisingly drops its effort to force the tech giant to divest its AI investments while maintaining pressure on Google to sell Chrome. This shift highlights the DOJ’s evolving strategy in addressing Google’s market dominance while acknowledging the potential negative consequences of disrupting the rapidly developing AI landscape, especially as Google has invested heavily in AI startups like Anthropic.
The big picture: The Department of Justice has abandoned its earlier position that Google should divest from AI companies, citing potential “unintended consequences in the evolving AI space.”
- Google’s $3 billion investment in Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, is now safe from forced divestiture.
- The DOJ’s final remedy proposal still includes significant oversight of Google’s future AI investments, requiring advance notification for review of proposed transactions.
What’s still at stake: While Google wins on AI investments, the DOJ continues to push for Chrome divestiture following Judge Amit Metha’s August ruling that Google maintains an illegal search monopoly.
- A trial to determine final remedies is scheduled for April, where Google’s ownership of the Chrome browser remains a central point of contention.
- The DOJ has also conceded that Google can continue paying Apple for services unrelated to search.
Google’s response: The company has characterized the DOJ’s proposed remedies as “extreme” and potentially harmful to user privacy and security.
- In a November blog post, Google argued that selling Chrome could expose user search queries to “unknown foreign and domestic companies.”
- Despite these objections, Google faces significant business restructuring if the court ultimately requires Chrome divestiture.
Why this matters: The DOJ’s shifting position reflects the complex challenge of regulating tech giants in rapidly evolving markets, attempting to balance antitrust enforcement with concerns about disrupting innovation in strategic sectors like artificial intelligence.
Recent Stories
DOE fusion roadmap targets 2030s commercial deployment as AI drives $9B investment
The Department of Energy has released a new roadmap targeting commercial-scale fusion power deployment by the mid-2030s, though the plan lacks specific funding commitments and relies on scientific breakthroughs that have eluded researchers for decades. The strategy emphasizes public-private partnerships and positions AI as both a research tool and motivation for developing fusion energy to meet data centers' growing electricity demands. The big picture: The DOE's roadmap aims to "deliver the public infrastructure that supports the fusion private sector scale up in the 2030s," but acknowledges it cannot commit to specific funding levels and remains subject to Congressional appropriations. Why...
Oct 17, 2025Tying it all together: Credo’s purple cables power the $4B AI data center boom
Credo, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company specializing in data center cables and chips, has seen its stock price more than double this year to $143.61, following a 245% surge in 2024. The company's signature purple cables, which cost between $300-$500 each, have become essential infrastructure for AI data centers, positioning Credo to capitalize on the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure expansion as hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI rapidly build out massive computing facilities. What you should know: Credo's active electrical cables (AECs) are becoming indispensable for connecting the massive GPU clusters required for AI training and inference. The company...
Oct 17, 2025Vatican launches Latin American AI network for human development
The Vatican hosted a two-day conference bringing together 50 global experts to explore how artificial intelligence can advance peace, social justice, and human development. The event launched the Latin American AI Network for Integral Human Development and established principles for ethical AI governance that prioritize human dignity over technological advancement. What you should know: The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Vatican's research body for social issues, organized the "Digital Rerum Novarum" conference on October 16-17, combining academic research with practical AI applications. Participants included leading experts from MIT, Microsoft, Columbia University, the UN, and major European institutions. The conference...