US and Japan unveil $36bn of oil, gas and critical minerals projects in challenge to China
Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Donald Trump.The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Trump administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history.As a diplomatic row between Japan and China over the security of Taiwan continues, testing the Japanese economy, Takaichi said the projects would strengthen her country’s ties with the US.While Takaichi did not directly mention China, she expressed hope in a statement that the investments would enhance Japanese and US economic security.“Our massive trade deal with Japan has just launched,” Trump declared in a social media post.
The White House said Japan would also invest in a deepwater crude oil export facility off the coast of Texas, and a synthetic industrial diamond manufacturing site.The projects are the first batch of the $550bn Japan committed to invest under a trade deal with the US last year.In return, Trump agreed to reduce US tariffs on Japanese exports including cars.“The scale of these projects are so large, and could not be done without one very special word, tariffs,” Trump claimed on Tuesday.His controversial trade strategy alarmed economists in the US, who warned it risked exacerbating inflation.
Most of the first wave of investment will go towards the plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, which will generate 9.2 gigawatts of electricity each year, according to the administration.It will be operated by SB Energy, which is a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group.The industrial diamond manufacturing site in Georgia, valued at about $600m, is designed to ensure the US can fully produce all the synthetic diamond grit – a critical material for advanced manufacturing and semiconductors – it requires domestically.The project “will end our foolish dependence on foreign sources”, said Trump.
China controls much of the critical minerals market, dominating the world’s mining and processing of rare earths that are essential across a wide array of industries, from oil refining to car manufacturing.Beijing has not hesitated to wield this dominance, imposing restrictions on global imports of its rare earths.Such curbs were at the heart of an economic spat with Washington last year.While Trump and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, reached a deal last October which reduced tensions in the short term, US officials have repeatedly spoken of the need to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals.Beijing has started in recent months to restrict some exports of rare earths to Japan, amid a row with Tokyo over Taiwan.
Takaichi angered Chinese officials in November 2025 by suggesting Japan could become militarily involved in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion of the self-governing island.“We will no longer rely on foreign supply for this essential material,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, said of the planned industrial diamond project.“Japan is providing the capital,” added Lutnick.“The infrastructure is being built in the United States.The proceeds are structured so Japan earns its return, and America gains strategic assets, expanded industrial capacity, and strengthened energy dominance.
”Japan reported on Wednesday that its exports rose almost 17% in January, driven in part by a sharp rise in exports to China despite the current tensions.
Palantir moves headquarters to Miami amid tech’s growing retreat to Florida
Palantir announced on Tuesday that it has moved its headquarters to Miami from Denver. The data analytics company, criticized for its role in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, joins a host of other businesses and billionaires that recently moved to Florida in search of a more business-friendly climate.Palantir’s move across state lines comes after its chair, Peter Thiel, announced on 31 December that he opened a Miami office for his private investment firm. Thiel already has a mansion in Miami Beach. The company, previously headquartered in Palo Alto, announced the move on X but did not provide further details or respond to a request for comment
AI’s workplace revolution is here – and anxiety is rising with it
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, The Guardian’s US tech editor, writing to you while cheering on Team USA in the Winter Olympics.Throughout 2026, The Guardian will publish a series of stories about how artificial intelligence is affecting modern labor. We’re calling it Reworked: A series about what’s at stake as AI disrupts our jobs.Our first story published this morning
Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found.The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools such as Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Copilot were leading to a “material, verifiable, and substantial” reduction in planet-heating emissions.Ketan Joshi, an energy analyst and author of the report, said the industry’s tactics were “diversionary” and relied on tried and tested methods that amount to “greenwashing”.He likened it to fossil fuel companies advertising their modest investments in solar panels and overstating the potential of carbon capture
TikTok creator ByteDance vows to curb AI video tool after Disney threat
ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports.The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt.Several big Hollywood studios have accused the tool of copyright infringement.On Friday, Walt Disney reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance which accused it of supplying Seedance with a “pirated library” of the studio’s characters, including those from Marvel and Star Wars, according to the US news outlet Axios
Google puts users at risk by downplaying health disclaimers under AI Overviews
Google is putting people at risk of harm by downplaying safety warnings that its AI-generated medical advice may be wrong.When answering queries about sensitive topics such as health, the company says its AI Overviews, which appear above search results, prompt users to seek professional help, rather than relying solely on its summaries. “AI Overviews will inform people when it’s important to seek out expert advice or to verify the information presented,” Google has said.But the Guardian found the company does not include any such disclaimers when users are first presented with medical advice.Google only issues a warning if users choose to request additional health information and click on a button called “Show more”
Starmer to extend online safety rules to AI chatbots after Grok scandal
Makers of AI chatbots that put children at risk will face massive fines or even see their services blocked in the UK under law changes to be announced by Keir Starmer on Monday.Emboldened by Elon Musk’s X stopping its Grok AI tool from creating sexualised images of real people in the UK after public outrage last month, ministers are planning a “crackdown on vile illegal content created by AI”.With more and more children using chatbots for everything from help with their homework to mental health support, the government said it would “move fast to shut a legal loophole and force all AI chatbot providers to abide by illegal content duties in the Online Safety Act or face the consequences of breaking the law”.Starmer is also planning to accelerate new restrictions on social media use by children if they are agreed by MPs after a public consultation into a possible under-16 ban. It means that any changes to children’s use of social media, which may include other measures such as restricting infinite scrolling, could happen as soon as this summer
March cut to UK interest rates more likely after inflation drops to 10-month low; London house prices fall – as it happened
As real wage growth falls again, Australian workers must feel the economy is rigged against them | Greg Jericho
Is it smarter to have a dumb home? ‘We’ve seen clients unable to flush toilets’
The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’
Winter Olympics 2026: Mikaela Shiffrin soars to slalom glory; Klæbo wins fifth gold of Games – live
‘My DNA is in this car’: Lewis Hamilton revved up for Ferrari in new F1 season