now the latest business news from across the globe. stagflation fears: the federal reserve cuts the outlook for the us economy but keep interest rates on hold as the central bank warns over the effect of tariffs on inflation. increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity. building the way to growth: the uk government will unveil a 10-year infrastructure strategy plan later after confirming yet another delay to the arrival of the country's second high speed rail line. also on the programme: a slam-dunk deal!

one of the most famous basketball teams is sold in a deal worth over $10 billion - the most expensive ever involving a us sports club. and how much will ai change the advertising and marketing industries? as the great and good of the industry gather in cannes, we'll hear from a top agency about its impact. live from london, this is business today. i'm tadhg enright. thank you very much for joining us. let's start in the us, where its central bank, the federal reserve, has left its key interest rate unchanged, hovering around 4.3%, where it has stood since december. president trump has repeatedly pressed the independent central bank for rate reductions, despite the inflationary pressures of his economic policy, including raising tariffs on imports. he's called the fed chair jerome powell "stupid"

for not lowering rates more quickly. the fed cut its expectations for us economic growth this year and raised its inflation and unemployment forecasts. jerome powell warned that the economy is beginning to see "some effects" of tariffs on inflation. here's our north america business correspondent erin delmore. no big surprises from the federal reserve. the committee is standing pat on interest rates because the chair said it is hard to see whether us is going. changes continue to evolve and their effect on the economy remain uncertain. the effects of tariffs will depend among other things on the ultimate level. expectations of that level and thus of the related economic effects reached a peak in april and have since declined. even so, increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.

the concern is unemployment and inflation are ticking upward and that threatens slow growth. we are weeks away from the deadline president trump set on tariff injections. president trump has criticised jerome powell for taking too long to cut interest rates. american consumers would find it cheaper to take out loans on a house and a car, for example. there is also debt that needs to be refinanced, so that the fed decision came as no surprise and buy a lot of attention is being put on the summary of economic projections. in it we learned the federal open market committee expects to make two rate cuts later this year. let's delve more into this now with kallum pickering, chief economist at peel hunt. thanks for joining us. no surprises - the fed holds.

there was a stark warning in there for president trump, saying that inflation and unemployment are likely to rise. that is right, less growth and more inflation is never the news you want to hear from a central bank and lives, to keep inflation stable at 2% but also to achieve maximum employment. what the administration in washington, the trump administration, has done is put the fed dual mandate on a collision course with its tariff policy so all the fed can do staring at a weak economy is weight to see which breaks worst, employment or inflation. there has been pretty much universal consensus among economists that tariffs would be damaging but has there been any shift on that as we are learning more about the shape of these tariffs or how committed the trump administration is to them?

actually this is one of the achievements of the administration so far. economists can be disagreeable so the fact we have consensus among them is quite an achievement. though economists are still consistent in their views, if you raise tariffs, you are raising costs for consumers and producers, that lows living standards and will weaken growth, the costs will only be removed once the tariffs are removed. president trump unhappy with the fed and how it has dealt with its fiscal policy calling jerome powell stupid for not lowering rates more quickly. it appears resisting the pressure from the white house even though he has threatened its independence. do you see any evidence of any cracks in that resolve from the federal reserve? not really, it is independent, acting as if it

is independent. if there is any small political signal i would say if you look at the forecast yesterday, at the one inaudible estimates of growth that rate centres say we think is normal, around 1.8%, that has not changed. if it wanted to send a political signal it would start to downgrade its long estimates potential to signal perhaps these tariffs might be permanent in their harm to the economy but we don't see any of that yet. thank you very much. well, today will be the bank of england's turn to announce its latest rate decision and like the fed, the uk's central bank is widely expected to keep rates on hold. last month, the bank cut rates to 4.25% and hinted at further cuts to come.

analysts, though, now think those further cuts will not arrive until later in the year as the rate of price rises remains above target. let's speak now to sunaina sinha haldea, global head of private capital advisory, raymond james. tell us more about the factors that we think will make the bank sit on its hands. i think the most important factor is the rate of inflation which remains persistently sticky and above its target. the target the bank of england set is 2%, we saw inaudible make came at four inaudible % and a smidgen higher so higher than the bank would like. add to that the pressures with the middle east conflict as we are seeing unfold, one doesn't know how that impacts the price of oil, it has gone up over the last week as this has unfolded, if oil prices remain high that will feed through to higher, stickier inflation numbers going through in the coming months. all of this remains a concern, which is why it is

likely the bank of england remains on hold this week. absolutely. those geopolitical risks posing a threat to the recovery and more broadly talk to us about what the state of readiness, not just the uk economy but all global economies would be to cope with another wave of inflation if the middle east conflict heads in that direction, after all we have been through with the covid pandemic, the invasion in ukraine and the trump tariffs? it would inflict further pain because we are looking at not just inflation, we're looking stagflation, lower growth forecasts, because of the global impact of tariffs, irrespective of the deal the us and uk would have, the global impact would cause a slowdown, we haven't seen growth come through in the uk economy yet and a further inflation spike would cause the bank of england to raise rates further which will again choke off growth, lead to lower borrowing for

companies and individuals so that cycle we have all been through, lived through in the cost-of-living crisis a couple of years ago and that is likely to happen again if tariffs are not mitigated but also if geopolitical conflicts especially in the middle east with respect to oil prices does not come down in a meaningful way. thank you for joining us and sharing that analysis. staying in the uk, and the government is expected today to publish its 10-year infrastructure strategy, which will outline the framework they plan to use to help address the country's infrastructure needs. investment in infrastructure is key to the government's pledge to deliver higher growth. on tuesday, the transport secretary, heidi alexander, confirmed that the opening of the hs2 high-speed rail line between london and birmingham, has been delayed, describing the project as an "appalling

mess" amid soaring costs. confirmed that the opening of the hs2 high-speed rail line it had been due to start operating in 2033, but no new date has been given. i'm joined now by dr manu sasidharan, assistant professor in infrastructure asset management, at university college london. what do you make of the latest delay to hs2? the government keen to pin the blame on the previous administration describing it as a mess. is it fair for today's government to criticise its predecessor? good morning. we need to get everything right, when you are building critical national infrastructure like hs2, the design to the infrastructure, the imp -- economic impact so putting aside any factors that may have contributed, we are looking at several reasons and one is successive scope changes and resets that of all become

inaudible complex infrastructure that needs to be built. from that look i sincerely hope hs2 can deliver capacity on economic gains it originally promised but only if the new reset turns the ambition into disciplined execution so lack the scope, share the risk fairly and keep a fairly relentless grip on every pound spent because it is not just a railway it is the launchpad of britain for a greener, faster and resilient railway technology. let's look more broadly at the plan that the government will announce. i am sure you are watching for links and hearing things on the grapevine. what do you think should be prioritised? the success of that ten year infrastructure strategy depends on the government does make ability to reducing the time, cost and obstacles to infrastructure delivery and more importantly making very key strategic investments and

maintaining the uk infrastructure, ageing infrastructure especially, so investments would be an affordable housing and social sectors and investment auntie congesting the transport networks and increasing the reliability, so hs2 as well and transport route upgrades, plus and active travel schemes gathering momentum but the condition of the infrastructure especially the ageing transport assets is a matter of concern because chronic underinvestment and inadequate maintenance have resulted in a significant repair backlog with recent reports suggesting the local road network has less than 15 years of structural life remaining. we have also seen climate shocks and environmental pressures disrupting our daily lives, inaudible trains delayed by floods last year, water resources under pressure, so battling climate change and investing in clean energy to secure the energy transition

will be high up on the agenda. we are also hearing there will be a new government body established with a mission to ensure infrastructure is delivered in a joint upwey. briefly, do you think that is necessary? what are your hopes and fears? there is a continual need for a more integrated and systematic approach for planning and inaudible is the creation of that strategy and the planning and infrastructure build. the project, i think we need a joined up plan for the whole system and treat not just symptoms. i think if it is to be a reality, the minister needs real authority and can challenge the government. i think i find it positive it is coming into place. thank you for joining us today.

one of the most famous teams in sport, basketball's los angeles lakers, has been sold, reportedly for a record $10 billion. if confirmed it would be the most expensive franchise sale in sporting history. here's our la reporter regan morris. that $10 billion pricetag if indeed it comes up to that will mark the largest sale for a us professional sports team in history. it inaudible la lakers control inaudible the matriarch, has been in this family since 1979 when her family forced bought the team and that family has transformed the team, it is not just a possible brand, they made it into a fashion, culture, brought people into the sport from around the world. they now have a fan base and you see the hollywood celebrities sitting courtside. does not hurt and now that the family has decided

to sell it reportedly for $10 billion to mark walter, mark walter is well known in los angeles, a familiar face, he owns the los angeles dodgers. people who love the la lakers, what they are comfortable with is his winning streak with the la dodgers, they like what he has done with the team since he bought the controlling stake in the baseball franchise and now he will own the basketball franchise as well and many of them have cross over fans in los angeles, so this is a major deal here and under the deal, the terms, which are still coming out but we understand that jeannie must will remain in control, will

welcome back. air india has announced it will reduce the use of wide-body aircraft on international routes by 15% until mid-july. the airline cited ongoing safety inspections and operational disruptions following last week's deadly crash of one of its boeing 787 dreamliners. let's go live now to our india business reporter archana shukla. what can we read into this decision? the airline is trying to reduce the instances of flight cancellations. we have seen 83 in the last six days post the crash and 66, a majority, were on the 787. air india's wide body fleet has the blown 787 and 777s. the dreamliner which was the one that went down in the crash, that fleet has been under safety and structure... inspections mandated by the

regulator, 26 so far out of the fleet of 33 had been cleared for flying but the inspections still go on. at that air india is adding additional tracks on its boeing triple seven fleet as well, so that is increasing to the turnaround time for how these aircraft are available. add to that night-time airspace closures in east asia that have led to flight cancellations and to minimise that, the airline is now reducing the use of wide-body fleet in its international operations and curtailing it for the next few weeks. thank you very much. in the race to the top of the artificial intelligence industry, one company, nvidia, is sprinting ahead. nvidia's chips are generally seen as the industry standard for running ai models, but another company called

groq, with a q, not to be confused with elon musk's ai chatbot, is making ai chips that experts say could outperform nvidia chips for some tasks. suranjana tewari went to meet the head of groq for the asia pacific region. the peaceful chess opponent, an ai painter arguably not a great one and countless companies offering ai solutions for everything from recruitment to medical care. it is all here at the super ai summit in singapore. when you come to these events, it is plain to see the hype around artificial intelligence is very real, especially here in asia, but it is not just about the robots and the large language models, it is about the chips that power these systems. groq's chips are optimised to speak responses. some experts say chatgpt could reply up to 13 times faster if running on make three trips compared to those

of nvidia. if you'd talking over the phone, you could be talking to an ai agent instead of a human and you want that conversation to be natural which needs it has to happen fast. if you are a doctor and using software to transcribe your notes, you want that to happen in real time. it is there enough supply and can companies like you scale up fast enough? what we do differently is our chips are far more power efficient and they use a supply chain that is very differentiated in the gpus which means we can produce many more at a faster rate. we think that will be of benefit to the wide world that wants to adopt ai. you make all your trips in north america. given everything going on in the world and the rising cost, is a challenging? no, we think it is a strategic advantage, a deliberate choice. we wanted to build this technology in america, thought

that was strategically important to be aligned to us interests, have built a resilient supply chain that is diverse, allows us flexibility and options, so we do not see constraints. are you concerned about china? they are trying to reach their own and making progress no doubt. the hole we think it will be competitive, they are innovating and will keep innovating but we think the technology we are building in north america is outpacing and will lead the way. when people think of groq, they think of elon musk's grok. we are groq with a q, not a k. we think as we become more common, people understand the difference and developers understand that difference. we develop ai chips, develop groq cloud and that is what we do.

let's stay with ai, this year's edition of the advertising and marketing industry conference cannes lions festival of creativity is focusing on how artificial intelligence is disrupting the advertising business. meta, the parent company of facebook and instagram, recently announced it will soon allow advertisers to make ai generated ads without any ad agency involvement, marking a power shift from creative agencies to the tech giants that control the platforms. i'm joined now from cannes by ali mcclintock, managing director at the marketing agency dept. let's talk about what kind of the threat, the threat that is being posed to sue --to your sector? the disruption is huge, disrupting every single part of our business. and we are seeing this play out in three broad

areas, so first we are seeing it disrupt in terms of efficiency, so to your point, businesses can go to meta and create advertising campaigns but it is disrupting artistry, so creativity and ultimately, productivity. but i think with that challenge also comes huge opportunities and we are seeing the kind of new businesses, new ways of working on making the most of these changes and that has been impactful and driving a lot of growth in the industry as well as change. as we are speaking we are looking at creative pictures of adverts, marketing campaigns which no doubt were devised by humans. as you understand it, what will the macro to be able to do in the here and now? so again, it is changing every day. what we are seeing today might be

different tomorrow and definitely different in a month. what we are seeing, the lowest hanging fruit is the efficiency. how can we create more with less time or less manual work? i think it is only as strong as the brief to give it and the insights we give it and the prompts and so you need a team that is really creative and interested and can use the tools to get those beautiful images out of the back and you also need to train it on that creativity, so it does not, cannot do it all itself, there needs that -- needs to be that human and creative element and what makes it magic and special and we see it as an amplification of excellent creativity than of create tv -- creativity in and of itself.

could it kill off businesses like yours? i'm privileged because i work at a technology and marketing agency so i'm seeing a real need for talent, brilliant people, we are growing, so actually contrary to the prevailing narrative of fewer jobs and roles, we are seeing the opposite. i think if the businesses failed to adapt, we will see that. ultimately what ai will enable us to do is less of the work which we do not want to do and less of the work that doesn't make us excited and so then spend more of our time making better work, supercharging it. enjoy the festival and stay away from the ai

bots.