Good morning, Google vs OpenAI AI race, EV boom, mortgage rise and so much more. Here’s what’s up:

• Canada is getting it’s first $1.6B EV plant.

• Mortgage payments are expected to rise big time.

• US imposed 100% tariffs on EV imports from China.

• AWS CEO stepped down.

• Bill Gates ex-wife left Gates foundation with $12.5B.

• Google is leading in the AI race.

• VR flight experience with Meta and Luftansana.

Let’s get into it.

CANADIAN 

🔋 Canada’s first, $1.6B EV battery plant in Ontario

Port Colborne will be home a $1.6 billion electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in 2027 - thanks to an investment from a Japanese company Asahi Kasei.

Prime Minister and Ontario Premier made official announcement yesterday in Port Colborne.

Why this matters: This will be Canada’s first EV battery plant and it’ll be the biggest investment in the city in past 100 years. It will create hundreds if not thousands of new jobs in the region, in fact for Canadians.

📈 Big jump in mortgage payments is coming

According to Bank of Canada, homeowners who are due to renew mortgages in coming years can see a huge jump in mortgage payments.

How much and when?

Variable rate mortgages with fixed monthly payments holders will be affected the most. Based on the banks estimates, in 2025 the median increase will be 50% and by 2026 it can rise more than 60%. 

Fixed-rate mortgage holders are in a bit of luck here, the median increase is expected at 20% which will occur in 2026.

GLOBAL

💹 100% tariffs on Chinese EV imports

Biden administration’s big blow on China as they impose new tariff on Chinese products this week, especially EVs.

Bloomberg reported that these tariffs are expected to reach 100% on EV imports, with the objective to shut them out of the US market.

🔻 AWS CEO steps down

Adam Selipsky - CEO Amazon Web Services (AWS) is stepping down on June 3. Matt Garman a former senior vice president of sales and marketing will take on the CEO role.

💰️ Melinda Gates leaves Gate foundation with $12.5B

Melinda French Gates, ex-wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, will be stepping down from Gates foundation after three years of separation from the husband.

As part of the agreement she will retain $12.5 billion which she plans to giveaway to support working women and families.

Impact: Gates Foundation has impacted millions over the last three decades and made $77.6 billion in grant payments, making them the largest donor organization in the world.

AI

🤖 Google is leading in the AI race

First day of Google I/O conference was yesterday and oh boy did they shock everyone with some massive announcements.

Here are 6 major announcements you need to know:

• Project Astra: an AI agent that can see and hear what you do in real-time.

• Google workspace agents: AI agent that can answer your email questions and meetings - let’s just say everyone is about to have their own AI assistant at work.

• VEO: an AI video generation model that can generate high quality videos in 1080p. You can give it a text, image or video prompt.

• Google Search with AI overviews: think of it like ChatGPT with google search capabilities.

• Imagen 3: Google’s text-to-image model that can create highly detailed images.

• Gemini 1.5 Pro update (Google’s ChatGPT competitor): now users can talk to the AI model in real time.

Our thoughts: one thing is clear, Google is extremely bullish on AI. After the recent OpenAI announcements for ChatGPT, Google had to one up them. Umm.. and let’s just say they are ahead in this AI battle.

- More to come from I/O conference. You already know we’ll keep you ahead on everything that matters.

VR

🥽 VR flight experience with Meta and Lufthansa

Fight entertainement experience is about change completely.

Meta and Lufthansa Airline collaborate to offer Quest 3 (Meta’s virtual reality headset) access to Allegris Business Class Suite customers.

GAMES

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