International business briefs: US approves Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine

Novavax gets US nod for Covid-19 vaccine

Bengaluru — Novavax shares surged more than 17% before the bell on Monday, after the long-delayed approval of its Covid-19 vaccine from the US health regulator, albeit with new conditions.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the vaccine, Nuvaxovid, but limited its use to older adults and people over 12 years with conditions that put them at risk due to the illness.

The conditions on the label are medically unusual but consistent with the chatter to date, said BTIG analyst Thomas Shrader.

Analysts at Leerink Partners echoed the view. The approval is in line with expectations and “no more restrictive than we expected” from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory committee, they said.

The vaccine’s future was called into question after the FDA missed its April 1 deadline to approve the shot — a more traditional protein-based vaccine unlike its messenger RNA-based rivals.

US health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr, a longtime vaccine sceptic, also expressed concerns about the vaccine’s efficacy in a CBS interview. Reuters

VW mulls offloading Italdesign unit

Bengaluru — Volkswagen is considering a plan to sell its fully owned design and engineering unit Italdesign, or to find a partner for it, union representatives said on Monday, as part of the German automaker’s efforts to overhaul its European operations.

Volkswagen, which controls Italdesign through its Audi unit, is under pressure from increasing competition and a lacklustre European car market. Audi was not immediately available for comment.

Volkswagen, has received preliminary expressions of interest from four or five counterparts, the union representatives said after a meeting with Italdesign management, adding the German company will not consider offers from competitors or financial groups.

“The management confirmed in the meeting that Audi is assessing a possible sale of Italdesign,” Gianni Mannori of Fiom union said, adding alternative options could be considered. The process could take a few months, he added. Rocco Cutrì, the head of FIM CISL union in Turin, said Audi was running a preliminary due diligence process at Italdesign, to prepare the unit for the plan.

Headquartered in Turin, Italdesign employs about 1,300 people, including 1,100 in the northern Italian city itself. Volkswagen announced sweeping changes to it German operations in December, including job cuts and sharp capacity reductions. Measures included the end of production of Volkswagen-branded cars in Dresden and Osnabrueck, while the company is exploring alternative uses for the plants.

Audi has already closed its plant in Brussels after the search for a buyer ended without success, while in March the company announced it would cut thousands more jobs. Reuters

Imec chief backs reconfigurable AI chips

Bengaluru — The CEO of imec, one of the world’s top semiconductor research & development firms, has said the industry needs to steer towards reconfigurable chip architectures if it wants to avoid becoming a bottleneck for the future generations of AI.

Rapid AI algorithm innovation outpaces the strategy of developing specific, raw-power-focused chips, leading to major drawbacks in energy, cost and hardware development speed, CEO Luc Van den hove said in a statement seen by Reuters ahead of its publication.

“There is a huge inherent risk of stranded assets because by the time the AI hardware is finally ready, the fast-moving AI software community may have taken a different turn,” he said. Some, such as OpenAI, have taken the path of building custom chips to speed up innovation, a move Van den hove said was risky and uneconomical for most. The Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (imec) pioneers many semiconductor breakthroughs that chipmakers such as TSMC and Intel often widely adopt years down the line. As the AI industry moves beyond large language models to argentic AI and physical AI for medical or autonomous driving applications, Van den hove sees future chips regrouping all necessary capabilities into building blocks called supercells. “A network-on-chip will steer and reconfigure these supercells so they can be quickly adapted to the latest algorithm requirements,” Van den hove said.

This will require true three dimensional stacking, a manufacturing technique where layers of logic and memory silicon are bonded together, he said. Belgium-based imec was a significant contributor to the advancement and refinement of 3D stacking, a technology that will be featured in TSMC’s A14 and Intel's 18A-PT future nodes. The R&D firm will hold its flagship conference, ITF World, on Tuesday and Wednesday in Antwerp, Belgium. Reuters

India rejects Vodafone Idea debt petition

Bengaluru — India’s Vodafone Idea had its petition to waive more than $5bn in debt it owes the government rejected by the country’s top court on Monday, dealing a hammer blow to the country's third-largest telecom company.

The court also dismissed a similar petition from bigger rival Bharti Airtel, but the rejection will have a bigger effect on debt-ridden Vodafone Idea. The company’s stock fell as much as 10% on Monday after the court ruling. Vodafone Idea, a joint venture between UK-based Vodafone Group and India’s Aditya Birla Group, filed a plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday asking the judges to direct New Delhi to act “in public interest” and protect the “sensitive telecom sector”.

Vodafone Idea has struggled to pay outstanding spectrum and revenue-sharing dues since a landmark 2019 Supreme Court order that widened the scope of revenues on which the dues are assessed. The ruling on adjusted gross revenue has been the biggest overhang for India’s telecom industry, increasing demands on companies by billions of dollars. Reuters