In November, CNBC visited Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, to get a look inside one of the company’s many chip labs. CNBC also got a rare chance to talk with the senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, and Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus, about the company’s push into the complex business of custom semiconductor development, which is also being pursued by Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Tesla.

Unlike traditional chipmakers such as Nvidia and Intel, Apple is not making silicon for other companies.

“Because we’re not really selling chips outside, we focus on the product,” Johny Srouji said. “That gives us freedom to optimize, and the scalable architecture lets us reuse pieces between different products.”

Watch the full interview to hear the executives speak about AI, its latest A17 Pro chip, working with manufacturing partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and more.

Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Nadella said on social media platform X that Altman and former OpenAI President and Board Chair Greg Brockman, alongside other colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.

Tech giant Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has a close technology partnership with the company.

“We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,” Nadella said.

“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners.”

Altman himself reshared Nadella’s post, adding a somewhat cryptic comment to it: “The mission continues.”

Altman had been leading the company since 2019. OpenAI’s board announced late Friday that it was removing Altman and replacing him on an interim basis with technology chief Mira Murati. The post said that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”

This did not dissuade a group of OpenAI investors, who were pushing to bring Altman back as CEO over the weekend.

Late Sunday night, OpenAI said it was bringing on board former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to run the artificial intelligence company. Just hours after, Nadella announced that Altman and Brockman — who was removed from his role as chairman on Friday alongside Altman, and later quit the company altogether — would be absorbed in-house into the Microsoft team.

Nadella said Sunday night he was looking forward to getting to know Shear and OpenAI’s new leadership team.

OpenAI, which was reportedly in talks as recently as last month to sell employee shares to investors at an $86 billion valuation, emerged as a household name this year after releasing its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. ChatGPT allows users to type in simple text queries and retrieve answers that can lead to more in-depth conversations.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy and Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

SoftBank reported a surprise loss in the first quarter covering April-June, despite an investment gain from its massive tech-focused Vision Fund.

Last quarter, SoftBank recorded a $32 billion loss at its Vision Fund investment arm, which has backed some of the largest names in technology today from Uber to South Korean e-commerce titan Coupang.

The company at the time said that, despite having exited its remaining stake in Uber, it still logged losses from investments such as SenseTime, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, and GoTo, an Indonesian ride-hailing and e-commerce firm.

The tech conglomerate, which engages in venture capital investing through its Vision Fund, has had its fair share of ups and downs. It halted new investments and offloaded its holdings of ride-hailing giant Uber, and trimmed its stake in Alibaba.

Investors will be looking for clues on how SoftBank has benefited from the rise in technology stocks these past few months. Major technology names such as Alphabet and Amazon have seen their share prices climb since the start of the year, as investors bet on an end to a relentless rise in interest rates.

Also in focus will be whether SoftBank has benefited from swelling demand for artificial intelligence following the rise of ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot owned by Silicon Valley startup OpenAI. SoftBank has shied away from making new investments amid a grim market environment. But the company has made no secret of its desire to capitalize on the “AI revolution.”

In a shareholder meeting in June, CEO Masayoshi Son said that SoftBank plans to shift from “defense mode” to “offense mode.”

“In the past few years, we focused on being [on] ‘defense.’ Three years ago, we didn’t have a lot of cash on hand. But because we have been in defense mode, we have built our cash on hand to five trillion yen ($35.3 billion),” Son said. “We are ready to shift to offense mode. I am excited about that.”

Meanwhile, market players are keenly watching for any commentary from SoftBank on the initial public offering of Arm, the chip design company it acquired in 2016 for $32 billion.

SoftBank was originally meant to sell Arm, whose chip architectures can be found in 99% of all smartphones, to Nvidia for $39 billion, but it called off the deal after facing intense backlash from regulators, who flagged concerns over competition and national security.

During last quarter’s earnings call, the firm’s Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said that SoftBank has a number of companies ready to go public, which are valued at a combined $37 billion. He did not name these companies.

The brainchild of founder Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s Vision Fund comprises Vision Fund 1 and Vision Fund 2 and invests in high growth stocks. Both portfolios have faced headwinds from rising interest rates globally causing investors to sell out of riskier equities such as tech.

Last year, faced with mounting losses, Son’s key ally and top SoftBank executive Rajeev Misra stepped back from some of his roles at the company. Misra was instrumental in the early days of the Vision Fund, which was launched in 2017.

SoftBank has a chequered track record with its investments into technology over the years.

The company notoriously backed U.S. office rental startup WeWork, which at one point was worth as much as $47 billion before SoftBank leapt to rescue the firm in a deal that sharply devalued it. It also took a stake in crypto exchange FTX, which last year collapsed owing investors billions after facing U.S. charges of fraud.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Sheila Chang contributed to this report.

This is a breaking new story. Come back for more updates.

Amazon doesn’t plan to host its re:MARS conference on cutting-edge technologies like robotics and space this year, the company confirmed on Friday. It will incorporate the subjects into its existing lineup of Amazon Web Services events.

The tech giant launched re:MARS, which stands for “Machine learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space,” in 2019 as a way for startups, academics, researchers and executives to discuss the latest developments in these technologies. It morphed out of a private, invite-only version of the event, called Mars, that attracted tech elite and was hosted by Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.

The decision to cancel re:MARS was not made for budgetary reasons, Amazon said.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been taking a hard look at costs across the company as it confronts slowing sales growth and a gloomy economic outlook. The company has undergone the largest layoffs in its history and Jassy has cut a number of initiatives, including the Amazon Care telehealth program, touring “treasure truck,” Glow children’s videoconferencing device and Explore virtual tours service.

Amazon used re:MARS to spotlight some of its futuristic innovations, such as delivery drones, warehouse robots, and its first home robot. Bezos also held talks on space colonization, and tested out a pair of giant remote-controlled robotic hands. At last year’s conference, Amazon demonstrated a feature where its Alexa digital assistant impersonated a deceased relative.

An Amazon Web Services spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: “AWS hosts hundreds of thousands of customers and partners every year at hundreds of events around the world. These events provide an invaluable opportunity to connect with our customers. Their time is precious and we take seriously the responsibility to make each event valuable for every attendee, whether that’s through developing new skills, identifying new solutions that will transform an organization, or building new connections that can advance a career. We consulted with customers and the community as always, and for 2023, decided to incorporate re:MARS topics — machine learning, automation, robotics, and space — into a well-funded lineup of existing AWS events.”

The Nasdaq just wrapped up its fifth straight week of gains, jumping 3.3% over the last five days. It’s the longest weekly winning streak for the tech-laden index since a stretch that ended in Nov. 2021. Coming off its worst year since 2008, the Nasdaq is up 15% to start 2023.

The last time tech stocks enjoyed a rally this long, investors were gearing up for electric carmaker Rivian’s blockbuster IPO, the U.S. economy was closing out its strongest year for growth since 1984 and the Nasdaq was trading at a record.

This time around, there’s far less champagne popping. Cost cuts have replaced growth on Wall Street’s checklist, and tech executives are being celebrated for efficiency over innovation. The IPO market is dead. Layoffs are abundant.

Earnings reports were the story of the week, with results landing from many of the world’s most valuable tech companies. But the numbers, for the most part, weren’t good.

Apple missed estimates for the first time since 2016, Facebook parent Meta recorded a third straight quarter of declining revenue, Google‘s core advertising business shrank and Amazon closed out its weakest year for growth in its 25-year history as a public company.

While investors had mixed reactions to the individual reports, all four stocks closed the week with solid gains, as did Microsoft, which reported earnings the prior week and issued lackluster guidance in projecting revenue growth this quarter of only about 3%.

Meta was the top performer among the group this week, with the stock soaring 23%, its third-best week ever. In its earnings report on Wednesday, revenue came in slightly above estimates, even with sales down year over year, and the first-quarter forecast was roughly inline with expectations.

The key to the rally was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pronouncement in the earnings statement that 2023 would be the “Year of Efficiency” and his promise that “we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.”

“That was really the game-changer,” said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors, in an interview on Friday with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“The quarter itself was OK but it was the cost-cutting that they finally got religion on, and that’s why I think Meta really took off.”

Zuckerberg acknowledged that the times are changing. From the year of its IPO in 2012 through 2021, the company grew between 22% and 58% a year. But in 2022 revenue fell 1%, and analysts expect growth of only 5% in 2023, according to Refinitiv.

On the earnings call, Zuckerberg said he doesn’t expect declines to continue, “but I also don’t think it’s going to go back to the way it was before.” Meta announced in November the elimination of 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce.

Link said the reason Meta’s stock got such a big bounce after earnings was because “expectations were so low and the valuation was so compelling.” The stock lost almost two-thirds of its value last year, far more than its mega-cap peers.

Apple, which slid 27% last year, gained 6.2% this week despite reporting its steepest drop in revenue in seven years. CEO Tim Cook said results were hurt by a strong dollar, production issues in China affecting the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, and the overall macroeconomic environment. 

“Apple is navigating what is of course a very difficult environment quite well overall,” Dan Flax, an analyst at Neuberger Berman, told “Squawk Box” on Friday. “As we move through the coming months and quarters, we’ll see a return to growth and the market will begin to discount that. We continue to like the name even in the face of these macro challenges.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos in mid-2021, took the unusual step of joining the earnings call with analysts on Thursday after his company issued a weaker-than-expected forecast for the first quarter. In January, Amazon began layoffs, which are expected to result in the loss of over 18,000 jobs.

“Given this last quarter was the end of my first full year in this role and given some of the unusual parts in the economy and our business, I thought this might be a good one to join,” Jassy said on the call.

Managing expenses has become a big theme for Amazon, which expanded rapidly during the pandemic and subsequently admitted that it hired too many people during that period.

“We’re working really hard to streamline our costs,” Jassy said.

Alphabet is also in downsizing mode. The company announced last month that it’s slashing 12,000 jobs. Its revenue miss for the fourth quarter included disappointing sales at YouTube from a pullback in ad spending and weakness in the cloud division as businesses tighten their belts.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s finance chief, told CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa that the company is meaningfully slowing the pace of hiring in an effort to deliver long-term profitable growth.

Alphabet shares ended the week up 5.4% even after giving up some of its gains during Friday’s selloff. The stock is now up 19% for the year.

Should the Nasdaq continue its upward trend and notch a sixth week of gains, it would match the longest rally since a stretch that ended in January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic hit the U.S.

Investors will now turn to earnings reports from smaller companies. Some of the names they’ll hear from next week include Pinterest, Robinhood, Affirm and Cloudflare.

Another area in tech that flourished this week was the semiconductor space. Similar to the consumer tech companies, there wasn’t much by way of growth to excite Wall Street.

AMD on Tuesday beat on sales and profit but guided analysts to a 10% year-over-year decline in revenue for the current quarter. Intel, AMD’s primary competitor, reported a disastrous quarter last week and projected a 40% decline in sales in the March quarter.

Still, AMD jumped 14% for the week and Intel rose almost 8%. Texas Instruments and Nvidia also notched nice gains.

The semiconductor industry is dealing with a glut of extra parts at PC and server makers and falling prices for components like memory and central processors. But after a miserable year in 2022, the stocks are rebounding on signs that an easing of Federal Reserve rate increases and lightening inflation numbers will give the companies a boost later this year.

WATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with Truist’s Youssef Squali

The U.K.’s competition watchdog on Wednesday opened an investigation into Microsoft’s planned acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard.

It marks one of the first probes by a major antitrust enforcer into the $68.7 billion deal, which was announced in January.

In a statement, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said its investigation would “consider whether the deal could harm competition and lead to worse outcomes for consumers – for example, through higher prices, lower quality, or reduced choice.”

The CMA has set a Sept. 1 deadline for its initial decision. The regulator said it wants feedback from interest third parties, with a consultation running until July 20.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

The planned acquisition has huge implications for the $190 billion video game industry, handing control of incredibly lucrative franchises including Call of Duty, Candy Crush and Warcraft to one of the world’s biggest tech companies.

Microsoft hopes the purchase will help it in the race to build the so-called metaverse, a hypothetical network of large virtual worlds. Various other companies are vying for a role in the space, including Facebook parent company Meta and Sony.

However, analysts are skeptical about the chances of a deal being approved by regulators.

Microsoft is one of the largest games console manufacturers alongside Sony and Nintendo, and the company is sitting on a growing hoard of first-party content — including popular game series like The Elder Scrolls and Doom, which it acquired after buying Bethesda-owner Zenimax for $7.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Activision has been beset by numerous internal issues in the past year, including accusations of sexual harassment, unionization efforts and walkouts from staff.

Employees at the company are deeply unhappy with the management and have called on CEO Bobby Kotick to resign. Microsoft previously said Kotick will stay on as CEO of Activision until after the deal closes.