AI Boom Faces New Tests From Chips to Immigration

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart of Silicon Valley with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

Ed Ludlow (0:14)

This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, the Trump administration says it's suspending an immigration program for multiple tech firms, including Microsoft, alleging widespread abuse of a worker visa system. Plus, Samsung's quality profit jumps, TSMC sales surge, but investors are still worried about the staying power of the AI investment boom. And NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 makes its way back down to Earth after 237 days in space. We'll bring you live coverage of the splashdown. Breaking news just before we came to air, the US is suspending an immigration program for multiple tech firms. This after Vice President JD Vance called out Microsoft saying it had abused the system. Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines joins us with the latest. Kaylee.

Kaylee Lines (1:00)

Yeah, Ed, this news came from a fraud and protecting American workers event that the Vice President, the Secretary of Labor and the Attorney General are all taking part in this morning. And it pertains to the Permanent Labor Certification Program. Basically, this is a program managed by the Department of Labor that does allow firms in the US to get permanent residency to employees if they can prove that they qualify for the program because there are not enough available and qualified workers in the United States for the jobs in question. The Labor Secretary, Keith Sunderling, who was just approved to be the Labor Secretary by the Senate at the end of last month, said that it supplies to a number of firms. After investigations, Adobe and Microsoft will see their access to this program suspended as well as Cognizant, Infosys, TAT, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. And as you mentioned, the Vice President, JD Vance, he did say that Microsoft has been the biggest abuser of this. The administration pointing to figures, including Microsoft laying off 6,000 workers in the US last year at the same time they applied for 6,000 H1B visas and about 3,700 applications to this permanence program. Vance says that the Microsoft suspension to that program will last as long as needed. And he said his message to Adobe and the other firms is to stop defrauding US workers. We heard from the Attorney General Todd Blanch on this as well. I'll quote him directly. He says the announcement today should send and does send a strong signal to every single employer in the US that the Trump administration will not tolerate discrimination against American workers. I would point out as well that the action on visas here is extending to universities. The Trump administration is probing alleged J-1 visa issues at nine American universities, including Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Brown, Caltech and Arizona State. J-1 visas apply to things like researchers and professors who, through certain programs, can come to the United States. But it looks like they're probing that and again, cracking down on the permanent labor certification program for companies, including Microsoft. Ed.

Ed Ludlow (2:58)

Okay. We're keeping an eye on ongoing headlines. A lot of the names that you mentioned in the tech sector have either paired their gains or gone into negative territory.

Thank you very much, Ed. This all comes as NVIDIA says it will commit a billion dollars to advance US science over the next five years. And as President Trump is putting AI at the center of his push for what he calls a new golden age of American innovation. Later today, the White House will be holding a summit where the president will award the National Medal of Science to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong and AMD CEO Lisa Su. He will also award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Dell CEO Michael Dell and Microsoft and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Bloomberg's Mike Sheppard, Senior Tech Editor is with us. Go back to the breaking story and the idea that later today, the president will be with Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, having just removed them from the perm program.

Mike Sheppard (4:01)

It does create a bit of an awkward look there, Ed, but it is not entirely inconsistent. As part of this initiative today, this Golden Age of Science, there are going to be a number of announcements. And you mentioned the one from NVIDIA, but there's another that our colleague, Liam Knox, was first to report yesterday. And that is that the administration is setting aside $100 million in an effort to help train homegrown American scientists. There's this concern that there is an excess reliance on foreign talent in the science talent pool here in the United States, at the academic level, but also at the corporate level. So we're seeing that initiative, and yet at the same time, this crackdown on visa abuse is that they are citing on the administration side by some of these companies, including Microsoft and others. Now, we have not heard comments yet from the companies. It's important to note. So we'll wait to hear back to see what they have to say, but it does make an awkward contrast, certainly, at the event.