Latest / Connecting the Dots / AI Agents Go Enterprise, Chips for Revenue, and a Shadow Fleet Exposed

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AI Agents Go Enterprise, Chips for Revenue, and a Shadow Fleet Exposed · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarfl Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Docs, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Good morning, I'm Alex. And I'm Morgan.
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  And this is Connecting the Docs for Wednesday,
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  December 31, 2025. Happy New Year's Eve. Happy
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  New Year's Eve to you too. And for anyone traveling,
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  just a heads up, we're seeing snow squalls from
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  the Great Lakes all the way to the Mid -Atlantic.
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  Yeah, and on the other coast, heavy rain and
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  flash flood warnings in Southern California through
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  New Year's Day, so be careful out there. Right.
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  And here at home in Sacramento, a dense fog advisory
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  until about 11 zero a .m. So typical winter morning
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  for us. OK, let's take a quick look at the markets.
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  We're seeing a little bit of a pullback as the
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  year closes out. Just a slight pause. Yeah, the
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  Dow closed down about one hundred and forty two
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  points, which is point three zero percent. Same
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  story for the S &P 500. Also down point three
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  zero percent. Nothing too dramatic and Bitcoin
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  dipped just a little down about half a percent
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  sitting just under $88 ,000 But you know, it's
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  had an incredible year overall. It really has
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  Okay before we jump into our top stories from
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  the Morningstar report. We want to thank our
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  oldglory .com. All right, let's get into it.
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  OK, first up. A huge story about big tech strategy.
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  It looks like Meta has just basically pivoted
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  overnight into the enterprise market. They've
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  done it by acquiring a Singapore -based AI startup
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  called Manus. And this is a massive deal. How
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  big are we talking? Over $2 billion, and this
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  is really key. It's not one of those classic
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  talent good -os where they just buy the engineers.
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  Manus is a real business. It's already running.
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  Oh yeah, it's pulling in well over $100 million
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  in annual recurring revenue. Meta is buying an
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  instant, mature business line. So what does Manus
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  actually do? I saw the term agentic first approach.
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  Right. So for you trying to wrap your head around
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  that, it's not just a fancy chat bot. Think of
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  it as a digital employee, a digital employee.
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  Exactly. It's a general purpose AI agent that
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  can handle really complex, multi -step tasks
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  like coding, deep market research, data analysis,
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  all. without leading a human to guide it at every
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  step. Wow. OK. The scale is just astounding.
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  It's processed 147 trillion tokens and powers
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  80 million virtual computers. It's a plug and
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  play enterprise AI. And that's the real so what
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  here, isn't it? Yeah. Because unlike Microsoft,
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  Google, or Amazon, who have their huge cloud
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  platforms to sell AI tools, Meta's been stuck.
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  They've been stuck. They use AI internally for
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  their ad business, but they haven't had a real
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  way to sell it to other companies. changes that
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  instantly. And you can tell it's a serious business
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  move from the internal structure. Oh, absolutely.
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  The Manny CEO, Xiao Hong, is reporting directly
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  to Meta's COO, Javier Olivan. He's not reporting
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  to the AI research group. Which signals they're
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  creating a whole new business arm. They know
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  enterprise sales are a different beast. It's
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  a totally different game, but that's the real
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  challenge, right? I mean, even with all of Meta's
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  money, how do you crack that market? Yeah, you've
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  hit companies with decades of trust built up
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  with Microsoft or IBM, why would they suddenly
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  switch over to, you know, a meta product? It's
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  a great question. But the promise of a true digital
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  employee might be so powerful that the cost of
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  not buying it becomes too high to ignore. But
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  there was another huge hurdle they had to clear
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  first, the geopolitics. Right. This is where
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  it gets really interesting. Manus had Chinese
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  founders, its parent company drew scrutiny from
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  US senators. That's usually deal killer. In this
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  climate, absolutely. So Metta was hyper aggressive
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  about cleaning this up. They've committed to
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  completely severing all ties with China post
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  acquisition. What does that actually mean? It
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  means shutting down their China specific operations
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  like an AI assistant they had there and removing
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  any Chinese ownership. It's them building a political
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  firewall around this new business. A firewall.
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  That's a great way to put it. Okay, so if Meta
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  is building a digital firewall, let's talk about
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  the hardware firewall the US government is trying
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  to build around AI itself. This is our second
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  story, and it's a $50 billion tug -of -war over
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  NVIDIA's chips. So the big news is that the Trump
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  administration has actually approved the sale
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  of NVIDIA's very powerful H200 AI chips to customers
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  in China. Which is a complete reversal of the
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  previous ban. It's a huge deal. And for you at
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  home, the H -200 is, it's a beast. It's nearly
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  10 times more powerful than what was previously
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  allowed for export to China. So this is a massive
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  compromise. Nvidia wanted to sell their even
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  better chips, the Blackwell generation, but this
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  is a massive leap forward for China. It is. But
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  the U .S. government, well, they got their pound
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  of flesh. The tariff. The tariff. A staggering
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  25 % surcharge on the sales revenue that goes
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  right back to the U .S. government. And that's
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  for any chip maker, right? Nvidia, Intel, AMD.
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  Anyone who wants to sell these high -end chips
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  to China. And that tax gets applied when the
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  chips go from Taiwan to the U .S. for inspection
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  before heading on to China. 25 % is huge. But
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  I guess when the market is worth $50 billion,
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  it's a cost they're willing to eat. You have
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  companies like Alibaba and ByteDance lining up.
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  Right. But here is the fascinating twist. Just
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  as the U .S. finally opens the door, China is
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  now thinking about imposing its own internal
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  limits on who can buy the H -200. Wait, so the
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  seller finally says yes, and now the buyer's
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  saying... Hang on, maybe we shouldn't use it.
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  Precisely. The idea is that Chinese companies
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  would have to go through this whole approval
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  process and prove why a domestic chip, like one
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  from Huawei, can't do the job. So it's not about
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  the technology, it's about national pride. National
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  pride and a long -term strategy to boost their
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  own homegrown chip industry. It's a huge statement,
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  even if it slows them down in the short term.
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  And this leaves Nvidia in a bizarre spot. They
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  get access to the market, but the market's own
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  government might be artificially shrinking it.
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  Exactly. And meanwhile, back in the US, you have
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  senators calling this a colossal economic and
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  national security failure. The political heat
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  is just getting started. It really feels like
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  the rules are being written and rewritten every
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  single day on this. They are. It's the central
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  conflict of the global economy right now. OK,
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  so shifting from these regulatory battles to
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  a very, very physical risk to the infrastructure
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  that carries all this data. Yeah, our final story
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  takes us to the Baltic Sea, where a tanker has
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  been seized for causing just massive damage to
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  undersea cables. This is just a wild story. It's
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  a stark reminder of how fragile the physical
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  Internet really is. So Finnish authorities have
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  charged the captain and two officers of a tanker
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  called the Eagle S. And the ship is registered
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  in the Cook Islands, but it's suspected of being
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  part of Russia's shadow fleet, which That term
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  alone raises some red flags. It does for you
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  listening The Shadow Fleet is basically this
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  network of often older uninsured ships used to
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  get around international sanctions and scrutiny
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  So not exactly following the rules. Yeah, and
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  what they're accused of doing is just It's hard
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  to believe they dragged their anchor along the
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  seabed for 90 kilometers 56 miles. It is not
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  a small mistake. No, that is a sustained deliberate
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  act and the damage is immense. It severed the
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  S -Link 2 power cable connecting Finland and
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  Estonia plus four major internet lines. And the
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  cost, I saw the number, it's staggering. The
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  immediate repair costs are estimated at a minimum
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  of 60 million euros. So about 70 million US dollars
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  to fix the damage from one ship's anchor. Right.
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  And you know, while they were able to reroute
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  services, think about what these cables carry.
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  Financial transactions, phone calls, all our
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  data. An incident like this could be catastrophic.
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  And given the location, the Baltic Sea and the
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  Shadow Sleet connection, this is being treated
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  as more than just an accident. Absolutely. It's
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  raising huge sabotage concerns across NATO and
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  the EU. It turns a maritime incident into a major
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  international security flashpoint. And of course,
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  there's a huge legal battle now. The defendants
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  are questioning whether Finland even has jurisdiction.
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  It just shows that our international laws weren't
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  really designed for a world where one ship can
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  cause 70 million dollars in damage to the foundation
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  of the digital economy. It's an incredible story.
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  Okay, before we wrap things up, we want to give
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  The website is scony .com. OK, so let's quickly
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  recap the three dots we connected today. First,
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  we have Meta making a massive strategic pivot
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  into enterprise. Right. They're buying the AI
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  company Manus and building a huge geopolitical
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  firewall around it to make the deal work in the
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  West. Then we've got the global AI hardware race,
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  with the US finally allowing Nvidia to sell powerful
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  H200 chips to China, but with a huge 25 percent
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  tariff. And at the same time, China might restrict
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  access to those very chips to boost its own domestic
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  industry. It's an incredibly complex situation.
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  And finally, a reminder that the Internet is
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  intensely physical and vulnerable. A suspected
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  shadow fleet tanker caused 60 million euros in
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  damage to critical undersea cables in the Baltic
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  Sea. It just shows that all this amazing tech
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  we talk about. It's all built on foundations
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  that are, well, pretty fragile. They're vulnerable
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  to politics, to national pride, and even to a
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  single misplaced ship anchor. We're here to help
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  it snarfle, so reach out on our website if you
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  have any more questions. That's a wrap on today's
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  top stories. Remember, tech doesn't have to be
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  complicated, and we're here to help connect the
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  dots. If you've got questions or want to learn
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  more, visit us at snarful .com. Thanks for listening,
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  and we'll catch you next time.