Artificial intelligence

OpenAI IPO would create the next hot meme stock

16 Dec 2024

Sam Altman’s $157 bln ChatGPT creator looks increasingly like a money pit in need of constant funding. Elon Musk’s Tesla has shown that retail investors can support the stock price of a buzzy brand. An ongoing cleanup of the company’s unusual governance structure would help too.

US-China tech war will hold Asian allies hostage

16 Dec 2024

Washington’s curbs on semiconductors and other goods are starting to elicit a response from the People’s Republic. New export control rules offer a way for Beijing to retaliate. Its leverage over giants like Japan’s Toyota or South Korea’s SK Hynix make them prime targets.

AI models’ slowdown spells end of gold rush era

13 Dec 2024

Rapid progress from building bigger systems set off a dash for data centers and chips. But progress may be slowing. Microsoft and Alphabet face less existential pressure but also new competitors, putting a question mark over the $8 trln rise in Big Tech’s market value since 2022.

Nvidia probe lets China have cake and eat it

10 Dec 2024

Beijing has started an antitrust investigation into the $3.4 trln firm. Coming after more US tech curbs on the country, the motive seems political. But Nvidia's AI chip dominance means monopoly concerns can't be dismissed. And the decision may resonate with regulators elsewhere.

Masa Son risks overcompensating for his AI misses

3 Dec 2024

The SoftBank founder sold Nvidia too early and seems late to the party with his recent OpenAI investments. Now, he may be planning to invest $9 bln a year in artificial intelligence. The risk for the billionaire’s shareholders is that he acts recklessly to make up for lost time.

A financial historian’s warning about the AI boom

26 Nov 2024

Artificial intelligence hopes have unleashed an investment frenzy, propelling chip giant Nvidia’s value to $3.5 trln. In this episode of The Big View podcast, mathematician Andrew Odlyzko explores parallels with the 1990s dotcom bubble and Britain’s railway mania of the 1840s.

Gulf states wedge AI efforts between superpowers

21 Nov 2024

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are building home-grown silicon smarts and forging links with the likes of Microsoft. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss how the region is muscling its way into a technology arms race between China and the US.

ASML’s sunny AI destination has a cloudy roadmap

15 Nov 2024

The $270 bln semiconductor equipment maker has stuck to its 2030 sales guidance, thanks to growing data centre needs. But chipmakers’ strife, politics, and weak smartphone demand remain near-term headaches. Investors may like ASML’s destination, but the route there looks bumpy.

Gulf’s AI strategy is built on more than sand

13 Nov 2024

The UAE and Saudi are raising $200 bln for artificial intelligence. A reliance on imported chips means AI superpower status akin to China or the US is unlikely. But even if the region can’t build a ChatGPT-killer, it can carve out a niche to make the exercise worthwhile.

Schneider fails first test of CEO succession plan

4 Nov 2024

The French electric equipment maker ousted Chief Executive Peter Herweck after finding him slow in the execution of his strategy. The $150 bln group needs to be fast in hot markets like data centres. But firing its boss after 18 months shows its decision-making is also wanting.

Saudi’s Davos is no longer such a desert

1 Nov 2024

Around 8,000 CEOs and financiers flocked to the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, twice the number at its inception in 2017. Western bosses were keener to talk about artificial intelligence than investing in the kingdom. But Saudi’s progress suggests that may yet change.

AI venture shapes up to be glue for the Muskiverse

31 Oct 2024

Tesla boss Elon Musk is in talks to raise money for his year-old xAI at a whopping $45 bln valuation. From satellites to cars to social media, his holdings have access to gobs of differentiated data. Self-dealing concerns aside, the OpenAI rival might just turbocharge the empire.

Big Tech’s AI spending isn’t crazy, in a vacuum

29 Oct 2024

Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet are all ramping investment by 40% or more this year. Each decision seems defensible, as an 8% revenue increase might justify the expense. Sitting out also could push businesses into extinction. But too many firms want pieces of the same pie.

China robotaxi IPOs may struggle to find their way

25 Oct 2024

Pony AI and rival WeRide are prepping US listings. But shares in fellow autonomous-vehicle pioneers like Mobileye and Hesai have lost half their value or more in the past year, and the road to profitability for driverless cabs looks long. That makes these deals a harder sell.

ASML’s weakness flags limits of the AI boom

15 Oct 2024

The 260 bln euro chip-machine maker’s shares plunged again amid flaky demand from smartphone customers. ASML already has separate issues with Intel and China. The struggles of a key sector stock are a timely reminder that the AI wave doesn’t lift all boats.

Why data centres are a bottleneck for the AI boom

15 Oct 2024

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT depend on chips and energy. But a $1 trln rush to build data centres faces constraints on planning and power. In this episode of The Big View podcast, Morgan Laughlin of asset manager PGIM explains the virtual frenzy’s physical limits.

Tesla chooses a harder set of unanswered questions

11 Oct 2024

Boss Elon Musk revealed the self-driving Cybercab, reinforcing a turn from car-industry supremacy towards AI. As growth stalls, it offers a new excuse for Tesla’s $700 bln valuation, yet raises fresh technological and operational concerns. On those counts, the event was a dud.

Google antitrust roulette puts $600 bln at stake

9 Oct 2024

US competition cops presented a grab bag of possible remedies, including breaking up the $2 trln tech giant, after it was ruled a monopoly. Its dominance may soften the blow. But with search revenue and more at risk, the worst-case hit could top a quarter of Google’s value.

Decoding the puzzle of SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son

8 Oct 2024

The Japanese tycoon shaped global technology while building and losing vast fortunes. How does he keep going? In the first episode of Breakingviews’ new podcast, The Big View, former FT editor Lionel Barber discusses what he uncovered in his biography of Son, ‘Gambling Man’.

AI sparks only dim odds of nuclear chain reaction

7 Oct 2024

Plans to reopen a Three Mile Island plant have created buzz about an atomic energy comeback. For $1.6 bln, however, Constellation’s site would power just one big data center. The economics may someday compete with solar, but it will take coordination as hard to manage as fission.