Paramount to Cut 3.5% of U.S. Workforce Amid Industry Disruption

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Paramount Global is set to lay off 3.5% of its U.S. workforce as part of ongoing efforts to adjust to sweeping changes in the media industry, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters. The job cuts, announced to employees on Tuesday morning, may eventually extend to some international staff, the memo from the office of Paramount’s three co-CEOs indicated.

This new round of layoffs follows a previous 15% staff reduction announced in August 2024. The moves come as Paramount, like many traditional media companies, faces mounting challenges due to the rapid shift away from cable television toward streaming platforms such as Netflix. The company’s leadership cited the broader “generational disruption” affecting the industry as millions of consumers continue to abandon pay-TV subscriptions.

“We are taking the hard, but necessary steps to further streamline our organization starting this week,” co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy, and Brian Robbins stated in the memo.

As of December 31, 2024, Paramount employed approximately 18,600 people globally. CNBC first reported the latest job cuts on Tuesday.

The layoffs occur as Paramount is in the midst of attempting a major corporate merger. The company has proposed an $8.4 billion deal with Skydance Media, led by billionaire David Ellison. However, regulatory approval for the merger remains pending. Complicating matters is a $10 billion lawsuit filed by former U.S. President Donald Trump against CBS News, part of Paramount Global, over allegations that a 2020 interview with then-vice president Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to her advantage.

Glean Reaches $7.2 Billion Valuation Amid AI Investment Surge

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AI search startup Glean announced on Tuesday that it has reached a valuation of $7.2 billion following its latest funding round — the company’s third capital raise in under two years. This represents a valuation increase of nearly 57% since its previous round in September, where its value had already more than doubled in just over six months, highlighting continued strong investor demand for AI-driven companies.

The Palo Alto-based enterprise AI firm secured $150 million in this latest round, led by asset management firm Wellington Management. As public markets remain uncertain, many startups like Glean are choosing to remain private longer, raising significant late-stage funding. According to Michael Ashley Schulman, partner at Running Point Capital Advisors, “Founders avoid the volatility of public markets and employees receive secondary-market liquidity via structured rounds.”

Founded in 2019 by former Google search engineers, Glean has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in its last fiscal year. The company develops AI-powered search tools and large language models that provide businesses with personalized query responses, aiming to optimize enterprise productivity and internal information management.

Glean’s 72x valuation multiple on revenue is considered aggressive, but Schulman noted that investors are receiving “early access to a franchise,” particularly given that the company is currently cash-flow positive.

Earlier this year, Glean introduced its Glean Agents platform, which enables businesses to automate various operations through AI. The company expects the platform to facilitate 1 billion agent actions by the end of 2025. Industry leaders have pointed to AI-based agents as one of the most transformative applications of artificial intelligence. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has also highlighted how AI agents could disrupt the long-dominant software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model.

The AI sector continues to attract robust global investment as enterprises and governments pursue artificial intelligence for diverse use cases such as drug discovery, infrastructure management, and productivity enhancement.

Nvidia and HPE Partner to Build New Supercomputer in Germany

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Nvidia and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a collaboration with Germany’s Leibniz Supercomputing Centre to construct a new supercomputer named Blue Lion, which will incorporate Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin chips. The system is scheduled to become operational for scientific use in early 2027.

The announcement, made during a supercomputing conference in Hamburg, Germany, follows similar developments in the United States, where Nvidia recently revealed that Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will also deploy systems utilizing Vera Rubin chips next year.

Additionally, Nvidia confirmed that Jupiter, a separate supercomputer at Forschungszentrum Jülich, has officially become Europe’s fastest system, further cementing Nvidia’s growing role in global supercomputing efforts.

These initiatives reflect a broader push by European research institutions to maintain competitiveness with U.S. advancements in supercomputing, which serve critical scientific domains such as biotechnology, physics, and climate research.

Nvidia, which initially gained prominence by offering chips to accelerate complex scientific calculations, is now working to integrate artificial intelligence into these processes. Traditional models, like climate change simulations, require extensive and precise computations that often take months to complete. Nvidia’s AI approach aims to significantly shorten this timeline while still delivering valuable predictive insights.

As part of this strategy, Nvidia introduced its Climate in a Bottle AI model. According to Dion Harris, Nvidia’s head of data center product marketing, the system allows researchers to input initial conditions such as sea surface temperatures to generate 10- to 30-year forecasts, offering highly localized projections of future weather patterns.

“Researchers will use a combined approach of classic physics and AI to resolve turbulent atmospheric flows,” Harris explained. “This technique will allow them to analyze thousands and thousands more scenarios in greater detail than ever before.”

The ongoing evolution of Nvidia’s supercomputing and AI capabilities underscores its expanding influence beyond its traditional markets and highlights a significant technological shift in global scientific research methodologies.