The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS) (GF) a new 10-year contract for a supply of securely manufactured, U.S.-made semiconductors for use across a wide range of critical aerospace and defense applications.

With an initial award of $17.3 million this month and an overall 10-year spending ceiling of $3.1 billion, the new contract provides the DoD and its contractors with access to GF's semiconductor technologies manufactured at its U.S. facilities. These GF facilities are DoD-accredited to the highest security level, Trusted Supplier Category 1A, which implements proven stringent security measures to protect sensitive information and manufacture chips with the highest levels of integrity to ensure they are uncompromised.

In an event at the White House today, NVIDIA announced support for voluntary commitments that the Biden Administration developed to ensure advanced AI systems are safe, secure and trustworthy. The news came the same day NVIDIA's chief scientist, Bill Dally, testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee seeking input on potential legislation covering generative AI. Separately, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will join other industry leaders in a closed-door meeting on AI Wednesday with the full Senate.

Seven companies including Adobe, IBM, Palantir and Salesforce joined NVIDIA in supporting the eight agreements the Biden-Harris administration released in July with support from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI.

According to Reuters, Micron has followed in Intel's footsteps and asked the US Government to pitch in to help the company build new fabs in Boise, Idaho and Clay, New York. The funds would be part of the CHIPS Act, which means Intel is going to have to fight for its share, since Pat Gelsinger is expecting Intel to get a bigger share than other companies. However, as Micron is also a US company, Intel will have less clout to convince politicians to favour it over the competition for the funds. The CHIPS Act has earmarked US$52.7 billion in subsidiaries for semiconductor production and research in the US.

Last September, Micron announced that it would be investing some US$15 billion in new facilities at its Idaho location by 2032, which the company claimed would create some 17,000 jobs by 2030 in the area. In October, the company went on to state that it would invest up to US$100 billion for the next 20 years in what Micron says will be the largest semiconductor production plant in the world at its Clay, New York location. However, now it looks like at least a sizable chunk of that money will come from the US taxpayers, rather than from Micron's own pocket. Time will tell how much each of the CHIPS Act applications will get, as if enough companies apply, the money might not go quite as far as some of these companies have hoped for.

The Indian Government on Thursday announced restrictions on the import of pre-built laptop and desktop PCs, tablets, and convertibles. These restrictions take effect immediately. The decision is designed to get major PC manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and Apple, to manufacture their devices on Indian soil, or subject each individual PC model through a lengthy import licensing regime—essentially a penalty for not manufacturing locally. The new restrictions find several parallels to India's 2020 decision to restrict import of TVs, which caused major consumer electronics firms to rush to set up local assembly lines to keep up with the country's market demand.

The restrictions on the import of PCs is seen as complicating things for PC manufacturers, especially as the country heads into its biggest consumer cycle with Diwali (Q4-2023). India's current import restrictions on smartphones and TVs have caused most consumer electronics giants to set up assembly lines in India; however these lines barely contribute 20% of value-addition to the product (i.e. much of the product comes knocked down and is simply put together); however manufacturers are incentivized to localize more of their value-addition, through the country's performance-linked incentives (PLI) scheme. Certain whitebox ODMs have localized even PCB placement, and display panel manufacturing. India's ICT imports for the period of just Q2-2023 stood at $19.7 billion, the country clocks roughly $75-90 billion in ICT/PC sales per year.

According to a report published by Bloomberg, the German government has formed plans to create €20 billion ($22 billion) of investments to aid in the growth of local semiconductor manufacturing. The article proposes that the organization is racing to bolster the country's technology sector, and is attempting to secure essential supplies of components. Various geopolitical issues have complicated matters in recent times. Funding will be made available to German and international companies, from Germany's (now diversified) Climate and Transformation reserve, over the next four years. The finance ministry responded to Bloomberg's query, and stated: "The draft for the economic plan 2024 and the financial plan until 2027 for the Climate and Transformation Fund are currently being prepared...This process has not yet been completed." Germany's economy ministry did not provide a statement/response to Bloomberg's queries.

Around 75% of the fund is reportedly set aside for multinational semiconductor firms including Intel Corporation (USA) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). Bloomberg believes that Team Blue is due an allocation of €10 billion for investments in its new production facility, located close to Magdeburg, Germany. The government is allegedly deep into talks with TSMC regarding the foundation of a proposed €10 billion production base in the Dresden area—the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG would benefit greatly with quicker access to (localized) microcontrollers manufacturing facilities. The government could subsidize half of that total investment (€5 billion). Infineon is possibly in line to receive a €1 billion aid package, since it is building a new fab location in Dresden.

According to various news sources, CEOs from Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm have been holding meetings with representatives of the US government—with the topic of discussion reportedly being the escalation of semiconductor import restrictions placed on China. AMD was notably absent from Monday's proceedings, due to Dr. Lisa Su attending to business matters in Taiwan. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Economic Council director Lael Brainard and National Security Council director Jake Sullivan were alleged to have met with industry leaders.

Chipmakers have expressed worry about new restrictions coming into effect within the next couple of week—the latest negotiations could have touched on some sort of provision for leading silicon manufacturers. The US government believes that by limiting China's access to cutting-edge technology, it will bolster national security interests—with the Chinese military not being able to develop competitive defense systems. The Semiconductor Industry Association stated on Monday that: "overly broad, ambiguous and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the US semiconductor industry's competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China." Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm did not provide any comments to press outlets following the conclusion of their meetings with senior government officials. It is speculated that Qualcomm is set to lose the most trade following the implementation of stricter rules—Bloomberg proposes that 60% of the firm's business revenue comes from Chinese territories.

The Government of the Netherlands has agreed to incorporate Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in its cloud service offerings for government agencies as part of a renewal of its existing service contract with Oracle. OCI's commercial public cloud regions will enable the National Government to take advantage of the many benefits cloud computing offers, including scalability, security, flexibility, and reliable performance.

The renewal of the agreement includes a version of the standard cloud terms and conditions as well as a Data Processing Agreement based on the government's Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) of available cloud services. "This renewed agreement with Oracle marks an important milestone in our strategic collaboration," said Richard Wiersema, director operations, DICTU of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate and strategic supplier manager, Oracle for the Dutch government. "With Oracle, we as the national government have an important partner in house that helps us achieve our digital goals and enables us to meet the needs of Dutch society. The cloud plays a crucial role in meeting these objectives."

The US government yesterday revealed its $42.45 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding program that will aim to deliver reliable, affordable high-speed internet to everyone in the nation by 2030—including all fifty states and US territories. Evidently parts of the country are lacking in terms of online access infrastructure—the briefing room statement outlines some of these issues: "High-speed internet is no longer a luxury - it is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school, access health care, and to stay connected with family and friends. Yet, more than 8.5 million households and small businesses are in areas where there is no high-speed internet infrastructure, and millions more struggle with limited or unreliable internet options."

The initiative is said to be "the largest internet funding announcement in history," and the White House is readying packages valued from $27 million to $3.3 billion—White House said that it'll award sums of (starting at) $27 million going up to a maximum $3.3 billion, based on the required level of upgrades for a given state/territory. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communication and Information Alan Davidson stated: "This is a watershed moment for millions of people across America who lack access to a high-speed Internet connection. Access to Internet service is necessary for work, education, healthcare, and more...States can now plan their Internet access grant programs with confidence and engage with communities to ensure this money is spent where it is most needed."

Intel and the German federal government have signed a revised letter of intent for Intel's planned leading-edge wafer fabrication site in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state in Germany. The agreement encompasses Intel's expanded investment in the site, now expected to be more than 30 billion euros for two first-of-a-kind semiconductor facilities (also known as "fabs") in Europe, along with increased government support that includes incentives, reflecting the expanded scope and change in economic conditions since the site was first announced.

Intel acquired the land for the project in November 2022, and the first facility is expected to enter production in four to five years following the European Commission's approval of the incentive package. Given the current timeline and scale of the investment, Intel plans to deploy more advanced Angstrom-era technology in the facilities than originally envisioned. The Magdeburg site will serve Intel products and Intel Foundry Services customers.

The European Parliament has greenlit new rules relating to battery technologies that are likely to cause headaches for smartphone manufacturers (in particular). The organization published their summary of this environmentally conscious and sustainable strategy on June 14: "Parliament approved new rules for the design (on Wednesday), production and waste management of all types of batteries (including non-replaceable types) sold in the EU. With 587 votes in favor, nine against and 20 abstentions, MEPs endorsed a deal reached with the Council to overhaul EU rules on batteries and waste batteries. The new law takes into account technological developments and future challenges in the sector and will cover the entire battery life cycle, from design to end-of-life."

The section for portable device batteries (for smartphones, tablets and cameras) outlines new consumer rights, with a demand for easily removable and replaceable (DIY) cells. Smartphone manufacturers including market leaders Apple and Samsung will have to go back to the drawing board and figure out ways to reformat how their batteries are mounted and connected internally. Plenty of devices have their units sealed behind protective layers, requiring specialist tools and varying levels of user expertise to access and remove in a safe manner. The European Council has more work to do following their starter announcement: "(We) will now have to formally endorse the text before its publication in the EU Official Journal shortly after and its entry into force." News outlets have interpreted that these provisional rulings will go into effect by early 2027, but they also anticipate that big time players could appeal for extensions beyond that window.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced its selection of Intel as one of 15 organizations tasked with developing high-performance, energy-efficient cooling solutions for future data centers. The award, announced in May, is part of the COOLERCHIPS program - Cooling Operations Optimized for Leaps in Energy, Reliability, and Carbon Hyperefficiency for Information Processing Systems - supported by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Intel's project, anticipated to be a three-year agreement with $1.71 million in funding, will enable the continuation of Moore's Law by allowing Intel to add more cores and transistors to its highest performance processors, while managing the heat on future devices.

Tejas Shah, principal engineer and lead thermal architect for Intel's Super Compute Platforms Group said: "Immersion cooling is used for its simplicity, sustainability and ease of upgrades. This proposal will enable two-phase immersion cooling to align with the exponential increase in power expected by processors over the next decade."

The European parliament has voted today on a proposed set of rules that aim to govern artificial intelligence development in the region. The main branch has approved the text of draft of this legislation—a final tally showed participant counts of 499 in favor, and 28 against, and 93 abstentions at the Strasbourg HQ-based meeting. The so called "AI Act" could be a world first as well as a global standard for regulation over AI technology—members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are expected to work on more detailed specifics with all involved countries before new legislation is set in stone.

Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market stated today: "AI raises a lot of questions socially, ethically, economically. But now is not the time to hit any 'pause button'. On the contrary, it is about acting fast and taking responsibility." The council is aiming to gain control of several fields of AI applications including drone operation, automated medical diagnostic equipment, "high risk" large language models and deepfake production methods. Critics of AI have reasoned that uncontrolled technological advancements could enable computers to perform tasks faster than humans—thus creating the potential for large portions of the working population to become redundant.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a leading American venture capital firm is in the process of setting up its first international office (outside of its California base of operations) in the United Kingdom. One of their mission statements reads: "(we) invest in seed to venture to late-stage technology companies, across bio + healthcare, consumer, crypto, enterprise, fintech, games, and companies building toward American dynamism." News sites have reported on Facebook and Twitter being notable "safe" prospects for a16z's team in the past. The company is hedging its bets on the UK government's fairly lax approach to crypto and blockchain regulation, following crackdowns on the cryptocurrency industry in the US. News outlets point to a notable case where the North American financial watchdog/regulator is suing the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, due to activities "placing investors' assets at significant risk." The new Andreessen Horowitz London office is marked for a late 2023 opening—Chris Dixon the head of crypto investing at a16z has written about his firm's decision to embrace a new market location: "While there is still work to be done, we believe that the UK is on the right path to becoming a leader in crypto regulation...The UK also has deep pools of talent, world-leading academic institutions, and a strong entrepreneurial culture."

He has also declared that the UK Prime Minister - Rishi Sunak - is very pleased about a16z setting up shop in the City of London (financial district). The UK leader's statement reads: "As we cement the UK's place as a science and tech superpower, we must embrace new innovations like Web3, powered by blockchain technology, which will enable start-ups to flourish here and grow the economy. That success is founded on having the right regulation and guardrails in place to protect consumers and foster innovation. While there's still work to do, I'm determined to unlock opportunities for this technology and turn the UK into the world's Web3 centre. That's why I am thrilled world-leading investor, Andreessen Horowitz, has decided to open their first international office in the UK - which is testament to our world-class universities and talent and our strong competitive business environment."

Natural disasters, like flooding, are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change, threatening people's safety and livelihood. It's estimated that flooding affects more than 250 million people globally each year and causes around $10 billion in economic damages.

As part of our work to use AI to address the climate crisis, today we're expanding our flood forecasting capabilities to 80 countries. With the addition of 60 new countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America, our platform Flood Hub now includes some of the territories with the highest percentages of population exposed to flood risk and experiencing more extreme weather, covering 460 million people globally.

Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been approved by EU regulators today - rumors emerged late last week that the bloc's executive arm, the European Commission, would give the takeover bid a thumbs up this week, with early indications that May 15 would be the day of declaration. EU antitrust regulators have let the acquisition pass due to commitments/reassurances from Microsoft relating to the cloud gaming sector. This is in sharp contrast to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) organization's judgment, who chose to block the deal in late April and have since added restrictions (as of late last week) via a new interim order.

EU antitrust regulators have found that Microsoft "would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision's games to Sony" and that "even if Microsoft did decide to withdraw Activision's games from the PlayStation, this would not significantly harm competition in the home gaming console market." But the European Union's competition regulators have found points of concern (much like the UK CMA's further investigations) and reckon that the segment could be disrupted in the area of cloud gaming services - on PC and console platforms. The body has received the promise of several remedies from Microsoft - these matters will be resolved through flexible terms - including a free license to consumers in EU countries that will grant stream access to "any cloud game streaming services of their choice" - with the ownership of Activision Blizzard PC and console titles (current and future). Cloud providers operating within EU markets will also be offered a free license to stream the Acti-Blizz library.

The US Government is considering new plans that will attempt to curb the after effects of cryptocurrency mining. The White House revealed details about its proposed "DAME Tax" scheme on Tuesday of this week - the Digital Asset Mining Energy excise tax is under consideration for this year's US Budget. The government wants to address the impact that cryptomining has on the US economy as well as the environment, alongside numerous other national challenges. Companies engaged in the extraction of cryptocurrencies could be charged extra for the running of computer equipment (starting in early 2024). A White House spokesperson states: "after a phase-in period, firms would face a tax equal to 30 percent of the cost of the electricity they use in cryptomining."

American crypto companies are facing a 10 percent taxation of their energy bill for 2024, that will then increase to 20 percent in 2025, and the maximum tax rate will hit a high of 30 percent in 2026. The White House number crunching team reckons that $3.5 billion could be generated by the proposed DAME excise tax. The new rules would represent a radical change for large scale cryptomining efforts: "Currently, cryptomining firms do not have to pay for the full cost they impose on others, in the form of local environmental pollution, higher energy prices, and the impacts of increased greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. The DAME tax encourages firms to start taking better account of the harms they impose on society," reads a White House statement." The government's investigation has determined that the domestic cryptomining industry is close to consuming more electricity than the entire nation's residential lighting system. US lawmakers last year calculated that some of the larger digital asset mining firms are capable of using more energy than nearly all of the residential population based in Houston, TX.

As a part of the CHIPS act, the US government has announced that it will set up a network for advanced chip design that goes under the name of the National Semiconductor Technology Center or NSTC. The NSTC is intended to help the US pull ahead of other nations when it comes to advanced chip design, but it's also meant to help reduce the time and maybe more importantly the cost of going from a design concept to a final commercial product. A big part of this is said to be about helping startups and entrepreneurs make prototypes and pilot runs, to enable them to bring proof of concepts to the market, so they can raise funds for a full production run.

However, it doesn't stop there, as the US government also wants the NSTC to help build and sustain a suitable workforce for the semiconductor industry, suggesting that the NSTC will be involved in academia as well as the industry itself. The NSTC is backed by the Commerce Department and it's expected to involve multiple locations nationwide, although at this point in time, it's not clear if this involves new locations outside of areas where the US based semiconductor industry is located today. Even the NSTC headquarter location has as yet to be decided, but its location alongside other sites are said to be worked out over the next few months. Time will tell if the NSTC will help bring change to the US semiconductor industry, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the Chinese Government could retaliate to the U.S. ban on YMTC by banning Idaho-based Micron Technology from selling memory products to Chinese firms—something that can severely hit Micron's bottom-line if you consider the various smartphone brands and PC OEMs based out of China, not to mention foreign companies that manufacture the entire spectrum of consumer electronics in China.

While Beijing is still making up its mind on whether go ahead with this ban, Washington threw a wrench in the works, by "urging" South Korean memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix not to fill the shortfall in supply left by a ban on Micron. It stands to reason that a similar request has been made with Kioxia, which is majority-owned by Bain Capital. Therefore, if China were to ban Micron, it would have to do so only after scaling up production at YMTC to make up for the supply, or end up with a chip shortage that can hurt Chinese ICT and PC firms in the immediate aftermath of the ban.

The Sky UK news network has gathered intel from industry and government sources about an industry event that is due to take place next week at a very famous location - 10 Downing Street - the residence of the UK's Prime Minister. Sky News has been informed that Microsoft has been invited to attend the showcase by the UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) industry organization - best described as the main trade body for the nation's games and interactive entertainment sector. The American technology behemoth is expected to display and demonstrate their Xbox gaming product range in front of top politicians and key entertainment industry figures. There is no mention of representatives from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) being invited to attend in a similar capacity. The timing of this UKIE organized event (to take place on April 26) is highly controversial as it will coincide with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority's statutory deadline to deliver a Phase-2 verdict on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulatory body has already delivered a provisional approval of the aforementioned deal, but stated that it required more time to investigate the potential for irregularities in competition within the cloud gaming sector. The Phase-2 verdict, due to be delivered next week, is anticipated to include the antitrust watchdog's finalized judgement on cloud gaming market affairs. Sky's insider sources in the city of London have speculated that Microsoft could face a humiliating situation at the 10 Downing-hosted party, if by coincidence the CMA changes its opinion on the Activision Blizzard takeover bid. If the competition regulator stays consistent with its (earlier) provisional decision, Microsoft could be criticized for its extensive courting of government organizations - not only in the UK, but around the world.

US authorities have imposed a $300 million penalty on Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a market leader in data storage solutions, for an alleged violation of export controls. The US Commerce Department has investigated the California-based company's business dealings with Chinese hardware firm Huawei Technologies Co. Limited, specifically for the sale of hard disk drives to operations within mainland China. It has found that Seagate has broken the "foreign direct product (FDP) rule" that was established by the US Government back in 2020. Seagate is said to have sold approximately 7.4 million hard drive units to Huawei after the period in which the new rulings took effect - the total value of these shipments was estimated in the region of $1.1 billion.

The US government's serving of a civil penalty to Seagate appears to be part of a larger drive to prevent North American tech companies from selling advanced computer equipment to Chinese firms. Two other suppliers (not named) of storage solutions had agreed to the government imposed terms and ceased trade with Huawei in 2020. In contrast, Seagate has seemingly become a record breaking heretic according to a statement released yesterday by the Bureau of Industry (BIS) and Security: "This historic foreign direct product enforcement case and settlement represents the largest standalone administrative penalty in BIS history. Today's resolution also includes a multi-year audit requirement and a five-year suspended Denial Order. In August 2020, the Bureau of Industry and Security imposed controls over certain foreign-produced items related to Huawei. Despite this, in September 2020, Seagate announced it would continue to do business with Huawei. Seagate did so despite the fact that its only two competitors had stopped selling HDDs to Huawei, resulting in Seagate becoming Huawei's sole source provider of HDDs."

The Japanese government, on Friday March 31, announced that it plans to place restrictions on its export of 23 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. This follows similar efforts announced by other nations, including the USA and the Netherlands. In a news conference, the Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Yasutoshi Nishimura stated: "We are fulfilling our responsibility as a technological nation to contribute to international peace and stability." The press release makes no mention of a trade battle between the USA or China, but the implication is that METI is limiting the latter's access to Japan's most advanced chip making equipment.

Nishimura-san continues: "If our exports are not being re-appropriated for military use, we will continue exporting. We believe the impact on companies will be limited." The U.S. government has called on its allies to prevent China's access to semiconductor manufacturing technology in order to slowdown domestic technological and military advancement. Japan and the Netherlands have previously agreed, back in January of this year, to restrict exports to China of equipment that could be used to churn out sub-14 nm chips.

The UK Treasury has set aside a budget of £900 million to invest in the development of a supercomputer that would be powerful enough to chew through more than one billion billion simple calculations a second. A new exascale computer would fit the bill, for utilization by newly established advanced AI research bodies. It is speculated that one key goal is to establish a "BritGPT" system. The British government has been keeping tabs on recent breakthroughs in large language models, the most notable example being OpenAI's ChatGPT. Ambitions to match such efforts were revealed in a statement, with the emphasis: "to advance UK sovereign capability in foundation models, including large language models."

The current roster of United Kingdom-based supercomputers looks to be unfit for the task of training complex AI models. In light of being outpaced by drives in other countries to ramp up supercomputer budgets, the UK Government outlined its own future investments: "Because AI needs computing horsepower, I today commit around £900 million of funding, for an exascale supercomputer," said the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. The government has declared that quantum technologies will receive an investment of £2.5 billion over the next decade. Proponents of the technology have declared that it will supercharge machine learning.

Samsung Electronics has announced ambitious long term plans to expand its operation in South Korea. The company is set to invest around $230 billion in new fabrication facilities, with five locations marked for development in Yongin, a city located within the Seoul Capital Area. The five new factories with mixed foundry and memory manufacturing purposes, will form part of the South Korean government's intentions to assemble a mega semiconductor hub in the region.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) on Wednesday revealed its intent to invest $422 billion by 2026 to boost production of six core technologies: semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, autonomous vehicles, robots and displays. The government provided a breakdown of the total budget, and $260 billion has been allocated for the country's chip space to develop system semiconductors into the year 2026.

Seagate Technology and Seagate Federal, Inc. (dba. Seagate Government Solutions) and Los Alamos National Laboratory signed a cooperative research and development agreement to jointly explore developing efficient computing near storage, especially in settings where erasure encoding is needed for data protection. The overarching goal is to improve the sustainability of compute and storage architectures.

Seagate and Los Alamos are collaborating on a proof-of-concept high-performance compute architecture that provides optimized computing capabilities across and within storage devices. The architecture allows for computing functions to be pushed down into an erasure-encoded hard drive tier. The architecture will allow for faster, more efficient, less energy-intensive and less thermally demanding data retrieval.

Today the Dutch government has published more information on upcoming restrictions on export of semiconductor equipment. These new export controls focus on advanced chip manufacturing technology, including the most advanced deposition and immersion lithography tools. Due to these upcoming regulations, ASML will need to apply for export licenses for shipment of the most advanced immersion DUV systems.

It will take time for these controls to be translated into legislation and take effect. Based on today's announcement, our expectation of the Dutch government's licensing policy, and the current market situation, we do not expect these measures to have a material effect on our financial outlook that we have published for 2023 or for our longer-term scenarios as announced during our Investor Day in November last year.