WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is anticipated to announce it would send $1.25 billion in military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Friday, amid pushes from the Biden administration as much help as possible for Kyiv before leaving office on January 20.

The large aid package includes a big amount of ammunition, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. It may also supply Stinger missiles and 155mm and 105mm artillery shells, officials said.

The officials, who said they expected Monday's announcement, spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose details not yet released.

The latest aid comes as Russia has launched a spate of attacks on Ukraine's energy facilities in recent days, although Ukraine says it has intercepted a big variety of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are still engaged in a bitter battle across the Russian border region of Kursk, during which Moscow was also involved sent 1000’s of North Korean troops to assist reclaim territory captured by Ukraine.

Earlier this month, senior defense officials admitted this was the case The Department of Defense may not give you the option to broadcast All of the Pentagon's remaining $5.6 billion in weapons and equipment stockpiles have been approved by Congress for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in.

Trump has talked and talked about reaching some form of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many U.S. and European leaders worry that this might lead to a foul deal for Ukraine and worry that he won’t provide Ukraine with the entire arms funding approved by Congress.

The aid included in the brand new package is a presidential withdrawal authority that permits the Pentagon to take weapons off the shelves and quickly send them to Ukraine. This latest aid would cut back the remaining amount to about $4.35 billion.

Officials said they hope an influx of aid will help strengthen Ukraine's position should Zelensky determine it’s time to negotiate.

A senior defense official said that while the U.S. would proceed to produce Ukraine with weapons through Jan. 20, there should still be resources available to the brand new Trump administration.

There also stays about $1.2 billion in longer-term Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, in line with the Pentagon, which will likely be used to pay for weapons contracts that won't be delivered for a 12 months or more. Officials said the federal government expects to release all the cash before the top of the calendar 12 months.

If the brand new package is included, the U.S. may have provided greater than $64 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

Mira Murati, chief technology officer of OpenAI, announced on Wednesday that she is leaving the corporate after six and a half years.

Later within the day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that chief research officer Bob McGrew and vice chairman of research Barret Zoph were also leaving the corporate because the highly valued AI startup continues to lose top talent.

Murati wrote in a memo to the corporate that she was “resigning because I want to create time and space for my own exploration.” She said her focus could be on ensuring a “smooth transition.”

“After much thought, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI,” she wrote within the memo, which she also published on social media site X“There is never an ideal time to leave a place you love, but this moment feels right.”

Shortly after Murati’s announcement Reuters said OpenAI plans to restructure right into a for-profit company that may not be governed by a nonprofit board. The company will retain its nonprofit arm, Reuters reports.

Altman wrote late within the afternoon Post on X that McGrew and Zoph were leaving and that their decisions were made independently.

“The timing of Mira's decision was such that it made sense to do this all at once now so that we can work together on a smooth transition to the next generation of leadership,” Altman wrote.

They are the newest high-level executives to depart OpenAI, which has grown in popularity and value since releasing chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and former head of security Jan Leike announced their departures in May. Co-founder John Schulman said last month that he would go away the corporate to hitch competitor Anthropic.

OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, is currently searching for a funding round that may value the corporate at greater than $150 billion, in keeping with sources acquainted with the situation who asked to not be identified because details of the round weren’t made public. Thrive Capital is leading the round and plans to speculate $1 billion, and Tiger Global plans to hitch as well.

Microsoft, Nvidia and Apple are According to reports also in investment discussions.

While OpenAI has been in hypergrowth mode since late 2022, it has also been marked by controversy and executive departures, with some current and former employees concerned that the corporate is growing too quickly to operate safely.

Murati became a household name when OpenAI's board abruptly fired Altman last November and named Murati interim CEO.

OpenAI's board said in an announcement on the time that Altman had “not been consistently candid in his communications with the board.” The Wall Street Journal and other media reported that Sutskever had focused on ensuring AI didn’t harm people, while others, including Altman, were as an alternative more desirous to push for deployment of latest technologies.

Nearly all of OpenAI's employees had signed an open letter declaring they were leaving the corporate in response to the board's decision. Days later, Altman was back at the corporate and Murati returned to her previous role as CTO. Board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley were out. Sutskever was faraway from the board but remained an worker on the time.

Murati caused a stir in June when he told an audience on the Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech Live conference that latest artificial intelligence tools would likely result in the disappearance of some creative jobs.

“Some creative jobs may disappear, but maybe they shouldn't have existed if the content that comes out of it isn't very high quality,” Murati said in an interview on stage, adding: “I really believe that using it as a tool for education [and] Creativity will expand our intelligence, creativity and imagination.”

McGrew wrote in a Disposal items on Wednesday that OpenAI has “develop into an important research and deployment company on the earth” since joining “the small nonprofit” in January 2017. He said he was taking a break and Mark Chen would lead the research team.

In a Post on XZoph called it a “natural point for me to explore latest opportunities outside of OpenAI,” adding that the “post-training team has lots of talented leaders and is in good hands.”

The aviation industry still sees so-called “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF) because the only viable option to achieve its decarbonisation goals, although resistance to the fast-growing sector and potentially higher costs for passengers remain obstacles.

In recent months, various deals have been concluded, from United Airlines Partnership with major supplier Neste to offer SAF at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, South Korea's destination Announced at the top of August From 2027, a SAF mixture of around 1% is for use on all outgoing international flights.

Within its first month in office in July this 12 months, the brand new Labour government laid down its own mandate The company has set a goal of meeting 10% of jet fuel demand from SAF by 2030 and pledged to support production through measures that include a revenue security mechanism for SAF producers looking to speculate in recent plants within the country.

SAF is a broad term for fuel burned by aircraft engines but derived from more sustainable sources relatively than kerosene. These can include feedstocks equivalent to used cooking oil, animal feed, wood biomass, animal fat, crop products or waste.

While SAF still produces emissions, proponents argue that its greenhouse gas footprint is far lower over the product’s life cycle – by as much as 94%, based on a reportThis value is dependent upon the source, production and path to the aircraft.

airbus announced several SAF commitments at this 12 months's Farnborough Air Show, certainly one of the biggest aviation events held within the UK in July. The aircraft manufacturer said it was working with manufacturer HIF Global to develop methanol-based fuels and Investment in alcohol-based jet fuel manufacturer LanzaJet.

For greater than a decade, there was speculation that SAF has the potential to cut back emissions from aviation.

This is especially because it could actually be blended with conventional fuel and utilized in existing aircraft engines and pipelines and subsequently has relatively low barriers to entry; nevertheless, regulators have set different limits on the permissible mixing percentage.

But it stays controversial in some circles. Campaign groups and NGOs have raised concerns that some types of SAF are problematic, potentially resulting in deforestation or the withdrawal of land for agricultural purposes. Some argue it’s an exercise in “Greenwashing” whose use on a big scale is unrealistic.

United Airlines sees the transition to greater use of SAF as certainly one of the core parts of its sustainability agenda. The airline has been using it on its existing aircraft since 2016, but “the challenge is that there just isn't enough of it,” Lauren Riley, the airline's chief sustainability officer, told CNBC on the Farnborough Air Show earlier this 12 months.

Other industry participants also said that SAF stays essentially the most effective and realistic option to work towards net-zero carbon emissions from aviation by 2050 – the goal agreed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 2021.

But IATA predicts that SAF production will triple to 1.9 billion liters by 2024, which might only cover 0.53 percent of annual aviation fuel demand.

According to Riley, United alone consumes about 4.25 billion gallons of fuel annually.

Projects equivalent to hydrogen-powered and electric aircraft are United's longer-term goals, but SAF is a priority for its short- and medium-term goals, she said.

The biggest challenges, based on the industry, are creating sound regulatory frameworks for SAF and securing each private and non-private funding – with the dearth of private and non-private funding hampering private funding.

Rick Nagel, managing partner at private equity firm Acorn Capital Management, told CNBC that the dimensions of the SAF market has grown from nearly zero to about $1 billion lately.

However, there are obstacles starting from the development of refineries and associated infrastructure to the procurement of the biomass needed to make sure regulatory cooperation, he said.

“There's this circular argument between the demand created by industry targets and environmental mandates, between government incentives that not everyone can always count on to fill in the gaps and make it all affordable, between the years it will take to get all the infrastructure online and where it's going to go – all while airlines are still figuring out how to maintain competitive prices,” he continued.

“For investors to really get on board, there needs to be a clear path for how everything comes together.”

Clara Bowman, chief operations officer of Porsche-backed SAF company HIF Global, told CNBC she was confident money would flow into the sector so long as governments and regulators provided the mandatory assurances.

HIF Golbal calls its product “e-fuel,” which is produced using renewable energy from recycled CO2 and hydrogen. The company currently operates a plant in Chile and plans to construct one other in Texas.

“I think the funding is there. There is tremendous liquidity around the world to fund green solutions. The problem is that we have a well-structured project to be able to leverage that funding,” Bowman said.

Regulatory certainty has progressed more slowly than she would have liked, but measures equivalent to those of the European Renewable Energy Directive and Japan Mandate 2030 The indisputable fact that SAF covers 10 percent of domestic airlines' kerosene consumption and the associated subsidies are all encouraging, she said.

In the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act signed by the Biden administration in 2022 has sparked “extraordinary” growth in SAF corporations and startups, said United's Lauren Riley, which in turn encouraged the airline to ascertain a $225 million SAF enterprise capital fund with partners including Boeing, Google, Embraer and other airlines.

Despite this progress, Riley said banks and investors would proceed to indicate that policies needed to be made more “sustainable”, equivalent to tax breaks for many years, before they might trust in financing recent earthworks.

However, Riley expressed confidence that SAF's momentum would withstand a change in leadership within the White House, with a presidential election looming in November. Investor Rick Nagel echoed that sentiment, saying it was a “misconception” that an administration would reverse all the last administration's regulatory actions.

“Even though the rhetoric may say otherwise, if there is a business model, they are looking for infrastructure projects in America overall,” he added.

Many working on SAF projects indicate that it would be dearer than conventional jet fuel within the initial phase. Consumers – especially in wealthier, less price-sensitive markets – could have to bear a few of that cost through higher ticket prices, the industry also acknowledges.

“The truth is, it’s getting more expensive, there’s no sugarcoating that,” said Clara Bowman of HIF Global.

“On the other hand, we're talking about a very small percentage of fuel that you need to really jumpstart this industry and get it to produce at scale. When you start producing plants at scale, you can see what's happened with solar and wind and batteries. That's really the key to driving prices down,” she continued.

“The global expansion of production is a process that is happening right now. With the expansion comes lower prices, more investment and an increase in the efficiency of these plants, because that is where a really big part of our cost structure is today. And so we see that production becomes more efficient with the expansion.”

Added to this are the prices of carbon emissions from fossil fuels, she noted. “When you take that into account, we believe that in the short to medium term, taking into account the total costs, [SAF] will be competitive.”

It was quite per week for Intel.

The chipmaker, which has lost greater than half its value this 12 months and had its worst trading day in 50 years last month after a disappointing quarterly report, began the week on Monday by announcing that it could split off its manufacturing division from its core business of developing and selling computer processors.

And late Friday, CNBC confirmed that Qualcomm recently approached Intel about an acquisition. It could be considered one of the most important tech deals ever. It's not clear whether Intel has held talks with Qualcomm, and representatives from each firms declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal was the primary to report on the matter.

The stock rose 11% in the course of the week, its best performance since November.

The rally is hardly a relief for CEO Pat Gelsinger, who has had a rough run since taking office in 2021. The 56-year-old company lost its long-standing title because the world's largest chipmaker and was ranked second in artificial intelligence chips by NVIDIAwhich is now valued at nearly $3 trillion, greater than 30 times Intel's market capitalization of just over $90 billion. Intel announced in August that it could cut 15,000 jobs, or greater than 15% of its workforce.

But Gelsinger remains to be in charge, saying Intel is currently moving forward as an independent company and has no plans to spin off the foundry. memo In an interview with employees on Monday, he said the 2 halves were “better together,” whilst the corporate is within the means of establishing a separate internal unit for the foundry, with its own board and management structure, in addition to the flexibility to boost external capital.

For the corporate that brought chips to Silicon Valley, the road to recovery just isn’t getting any easier. By moving forward as a closed company, Intel must overcome two huge hurdles without delay: greater than 100 billion US dollars by 2029 to construct chip factories in 4 different states while participating within the AI ​​boom that’s shaping the longer term of technology.

Intel expects to spend about $25 billion on its manufacturing facilities this 12 months and $21.5 billion next 12 months. The company hopes that becoming a domestic manufacturer will persuade U.S. chipmakers to source their production domestically moderately than counting on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung.

This prospect could be more palatable to Wall Street if Intel's core business was at its peak. But while Intel still makes nearly all of processors for PCs, laptops and servers, the corporate is losing market share to Advanced micro devices and reports a decline in sales that’s jeopardizing its money flow.

In view of the increasing challenges, the Board of Directors met last weekend to debate the corporate's strategy.

The announcement of the brand new governance structure for the foundry business on Monday was a primary step in convincing investors that serious changes are afoot as the corporate prepares to launch its manufacturing process, called 18A, next 12 months. Intel said it has seven products in development and landed an enormous customer, and announced that Amazon would use its foundry to supply a network chip.

“It was very important to say we're entering the next phase of this foundry journey,” Gelsinger said in an interview with CNBC's Jon Fortt. “As we enter this next phase, it's much more about creating efficiencies and making sure we get a good return for shareholders on these significant investments.”

Still, Gelsinger's investment within the foundry will take years to repay. Intel said within the memo that it doesn't expect significant sales to outside customers until 2027. And the corporate may also pause its manufacturing efforts in Poland and Germany “for approximately two years due to expected market demand” and withdraw its plans for its Malaysian factory.

TSMC is the enormous within the chip factory world, producing for firms like Nvidia, Apple and Qualcomm. Its technology enables fabless firms – those who outsource production – to supply more powerful and efficient chips than are currently possible in large quantities at Intel's factories. Even Intel uses TSMC for a few of its high-end PC processors.

Intel has not yet announced a significant traditional American semiconductor customer for its foundry, but Gelsinger said to remain tuned.

“Some customers are reluctant to reveal their names because of competitive dynamics,” Gelsinger told Fortt. “But we have seen a significant increase in customer activity.”

Before Amazon’s announcement Microsoft said Earlier this 12 months, the corporate was seeking to hire Intel Foundry to supply custom chips for its cloud services, a deal that would earn Intel $15 billion. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in February that the corporate would hire Intel to supply a chip, but didn’t provide details. Intel has also signed a take care of MediaTek, which mainly makes low-end chips for mobile phones.

Intel's biggest advocate for the time being is the US government, which is making great efforts to secure chip supplies from the US and reduce the country's dependence on Taiwan.

Intel announced this week that it had received $3 billion to construct chips for the military and intelligence agencies at a special facility called the “Secure Enclave.” The program is assessed, so Intel didn’t disclose details. Gelsinger also recently met with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who has been a vocal advocate for Intel's future role in chip production.

Earlier this 12 months, Intel received as much as $8.5 billion in funding from the Biden administration under the CHIPS Act and will receive an extra $11 billion in loans through laws passed in 2022. However, the funds haven’t yet been disbursed.

“Ultimately, I think policymakers want a thriving semiconductor industry in America,” says Anthony Rapa, a partner at Blank Rome, a law firm specializing in international trade.

Currently, Intel itself is its largest foundry customer. The company began disclosing its division's funds this 12 months. In the last quarter, which resulted in June, it reported an operating lack of $2.8 billion on revenue of $4.3 billion. Only $77 million of the revenue got here from external customers.

Intel has set a goal of generating $15 billion in external revenue from the foundry industry by 2030.

While this week's announcement was seen by some analysts as step one toward a sale or spin-off, Gelsinger said it was intended partially to draw latest customers who could also be concerned about their mental property migrating out of the foundry and into Intel's other businesses.

“Intel believes this will provide clearer separation to third-party foundry customers/suppliers,” JPMorgan Chase analysts, who rate the stock with a sell rating, wrote in a report. “We believe this could ultimately lead to a spin-off of the business over the next few years.”

No matter what happens on that side of the home, Intel needs to search out an answer for its core business, Core PC chips and Xeon server chips.

Intel's client computing group – the PC chip division – reported a revenue decline of about 25% from its peak in 2020 to last 12 months. The data center division saw a 40% decline during that period. Server chip volumes fell 37% in 2023, while the price of creating a server product rose.

Intel has added AI chips to its processors to spice up sales of latest PCs, however it still lacks a robust AI chip competitor to Nvidia's GPUs, which dominate the info center market. Daniel Newman of the Futurum Group estimates that Intel's AI accelerator Gaudi 3 contributed only about $500 million to the corporate's revenue last 12 months, in comparison with Nvidia's $47.5 billion in data center revenue last fiscal 12 months.

Like many Intel investors, Newman asks the identical query: What's next for the corporate?

“When you break those two things down, you ask yourself, 'What else do they do best? Do they have the best process? Do they have the best design?'” he said. “I think part of their strength was that they could do everything.”

REGARD: CNBC's full interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger