Google has struck a deal to buy cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion in what would be the tech giant’s biggest-ever acquisition at the same time it’s facing a potential breakup of its internet empire.

The proposed takeover announced Tuesday is part of Google’s aggressive expansion into cloud computing during an artificial intelligence boom. The frenzy is driving demand for data centers that provide the computing power for AI technology and intensifying the competition in that space among Google and two other tech powerhouses, Microsoft and Amazon.

If the all-cash transaction is approved by regulators, Wiz will join Google Cloud — an increasingly important part of its business separate from the search and advertising operations that account for most of the $350 billion annual revenue at Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

With the advent of AI, however, the cloud division has become a rising star at Google. Annual revenue in the division was $26.3 billion in 2022, and soared 64% to $43.2 billion last year.

Wiz, a five-year-old startup founded by four longtime friends who met in the Israeli army when they were still teenagers, is on track for an estimated $1 billion in revenue this year. After getting its start in Israel in 2020, Wiz now oversees an operation that makes security tools protecting the information stored in data centers from its current headquarters in New York.

“Wiz and Google Cloud are both fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized, so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely,” Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote in a blog post.

In a Tuesday conference call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai predicted Cloud division’s addition of Wiz will result in even better security at a lower cost than can be provided now. That prediction may have been aimed as much at regulators likely to scrutinize how the deal will affect competition and pricing, as much as at prospective customers.

Google had been courting Wiz for some time before finally settling on a price that’s much richer than a reported $23 billion bid that was rejected last July.

The bid Tuesday easily eclipses the current largest acquisition in Google’s 26-year history — a $12.5 billion takeover of Motorola Mobility in 2012 that didn’t pay off the way that the Mountain View, Calif., company had hoped. The $32 billion purchase of Wiz would also go down as the biggest-ever cybersecurity acquisition and rank among the 20 most expensive takeovers of a software company in history, according to Mergermarket, a financial intelligence service.

As often happens with high-priced acquisitions, investors reacted coolly to Tuesday’s news. Alphabet’s shares declined 2% to close at $160.67.

— Associated Press

Nvidia unveils next generation tech

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang kicked off the company’s artificial intelligence developer conference on Tuesday by telling a crowd of thousands that AI is going through “an inflection point.”

At GTC 2025, heralded as “AI Woodstock,” Huang focused his keynote on the company’s advancements in AI and his predictions for how the industry will move over the next few years.

In a highly anticipated announcement, Huang revealed more details around Nvidia’s next-generation graphics architectures: Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin — named for the famous astronomer. Blackwell Ultra is slated for the second half of 2025, while its successor, the Rubin AI chip, is expected to launch in late 2026. Rubin Ultra will take the stage in 2027.

Eggs getting cheaper? Yes and not yet

The wholesale price of eggs has dropped sharply since the beginning of March after soaring for months, but it may take a few weeks for grocery shoppers to see the decline.

Wholesale egg prices, which is what retailers pay to procure eggs, have fallen to a national average of just over $4 for a dozen large white eggs, down from a peak of more than $8 at the end of February, according to data from the Agriculture Department released last week.

But because eggs typically have a four-week shelf life, it might be the end of March before retail prices start to drop.

Economists said that the decline in wholesale prices, which are still above long-term averages, was very likely fueled by a combination of factors: bird flu coming under control, weaker consumer demand, ramped-up supply and producer pricing decisions.

— From news services