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Tag: NVIDIA

  • Nvidia’s Billion-Dollar A.I. Pitch: How the Chip Giant Ramps Up Startup Bets

    Nvidia’s Billion-Dollar A.I. Pitch: How the Chip Giant Ramps Up Startup Bets

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    Jensen Huang prepares to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Oracle Park on Sept. 03, 2024 in San Francisco. Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

    There’s no question that Nvidia (NVDA) is one of the biggest winners of the A.I. boom so far. Funneled by an insatiable demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs), the chipmaker’s stock has skyrocketed by more than 450 percent since early 2023. As Nvidia’s market cap and revenue soar, so does the pace of its investing in A.I. startups. More than half of the company’s startup investments since 2005 took place in the past two years.

    The value of the company’s startup investments reportedly totaled more than $1.5 billion at the beginning of 2024, a significant jump from the $300 million a year prior. The chipmaker has participated in more than ten $100 million-plus funding rounds for A.I. startups in 2024 alone, according to data from Crunchbase, and has backed more than 50 startups since 2023. That’s not to mention a flurry of activity from the company’s venture capital arm NVentures, which separately made 26 investments in 2023 and 2024.

    Nvidia’s seemingly unflappable upward trajectory took a hit yesterday (Sept. 3) after reports surfaced that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice as part of an antitrust probe. The company’s stock dropped nearly 10 percent, shaving $279 billion off its market cap, which currently stands at $2.6 trillion.

    But its falling stock price doesn’t mean the company is slowing down in its startup department. In addition to eyeing an investment in an upcoming funding round in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Nvidia yesterday unveiled its participation in a more than $100 million funding round for the Tokyo-based Sakana AI, a company that specializes in accessible A.I. models trained on small datasets.

    We invest in these companies because they’re incredible at what they do,” Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang told Wired earlier this year. “These are some of the best minds in the world.”

    From companies specializing in humanoid robots to autonomous vehicles, here’s a look at some of Nvidia’s most significant startup investments:

    Perplexity AI

    Huang hasn’t been shy about his love for Perplexity AI, the A.I.-powered search engine positioned as a competitor to the likes of Google. The Nvidia CEO uses the startup’s tool nearly every day for research, according to Huang’s interview with Wired.

    He has also put his money where his mouth is, with Nvidia partaking in a $62.7 million funding round for Perplexity AI in April that valued the startup at $1 billion. Led by investor Daniel Gross, the round included participants like Amazon (AMZN)’s Jeff Bezos. It wasn’t the first time Nvidia has backed the company—the chipmaker also invested in Perplexity AI during another funding round in January that valued the startup at $73.6 million.

    Hugging Face

    Hugging Face, a startup providing open-source A.I. developer platforms, has long had close ties to Nvidia. The chipmaker participated in a $235 million funding round in Hugging Face in August 2023 that valued the company at $4.5 billion. Other corporate investors participating in the round included Google, Amazon, Intel, AMD and Salesforce.

    Hugging Face has previously included Nvidia hardware among its shared resources. In May, it launched a new program that donated $10 million worth of free, shared Nvidia GPUs to be used by A.I. developers.

    Adept AI

    Unlike more well-known A.I. assistants from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, Adept AI’s primary product doesn’t center around text or image generation. Instead, the startup is focused on building an assistant that can complete tasks on a computer, such as generating a report or navigating the web, and is able to use software tools. Nvidia is on board, having participated in a $350 million funding round in March 2023.

    Databricks

    After receiving a giant valuation of $43 billion last fall, Databricks became one of the world’s most valuable A.I. companies. The data analytics software provider unsurprisingly uses Nvidia’s GPUs and has been backed by the chipmaker alongside other investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Capital One Ventures, all of whom participated in a $500 million funding round in September 2023. “Databricks is doing incredible work with Nvidia technology to accelerate data processing and generative A.I. models,” said Huang in a statement at the time.

    Cohere

    A formidable opponent to OpenAI and Anthropic, the Canadian startup Cohere specializes in A.I. models for enterprises. The company’s growth over the past five years has attracted backers such as Nvidia, Salesforce and Cisco, which funded Cohere during a round held in July. Nvidia also took part in a May 2023 funding round that brought in some $270 million for the startup.

    Mistral AI

    Mistral AI is a French startup focusing on developing open-source A.I. models. It was founded by former Google DeepMind and Meta employees in April 2023. Nvidia has participated in two of the startup’s fundraising rounds, a $518 million round in June and a $426 million round in December 2023. The collaboration between the two companies doesn’t end there—in July, Nvidia and Mistral AI jointly released a small and accessible language model for developers.

    Figure

    Huang has long reiterated his belief that A.I.-powered robots able to work among humans will constitute the next wave of technology. It is, therefore, no surprise that Nvidia is a backer of Figure, a startup developing humanoid robots for use in warehouses, transportation and retail. Nvidia reportedly funneled $50 million towards the company during a February funding round that raised a total of $675 million and included participants like Bezos and Microsoft.

    Scale AI

    To properly train A.I. tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tech companies need vast amounts of data. This is where A.I. startups like Scale AI, which provides troves of accurately labeled data and is headed by billionaire Alexandr Wang, come in. Nvidia participated in a $1 billion funding round for the company in May alongside Big Tech players like Amazon and Meta.

    Wayve

    Autonomous driving is another area of interest for A.I. leaders across the tech world. Huang himself said that “every single car, someday, will have to have autonomous capability” in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance. One of the startups at the forefront of this wave is the U.K.-based Wayve. Nvidia participated in a $1 billion funding round in the startup in May.

    Inflection AI

    Out of the 92 startups Nvidia has backed throughout the decades, Huang’s company has only been a lead investor in 20 rounds. One of these occurred in June 2023, when Nvidia led a staggering $1.3 billion round for Inflection AI. The chipmaker co-led the round alongside Microsoft, Bill Gates and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

    The A.I. startup, which was co-founded by LinkedIn (LNKD) co-founder Reid Hoffman and Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman and most recently valued at $4 billion, produces a chatbot known as Pi. Much of the round’s funding went towards bolstering Inflection A.I.’s computing cluster of 22,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs.

    Nvidia’s Billion-Dollar A.I. Pitch: How the Chip Giant Ramps Up Startup Bets

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    Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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  • Stock market today: S&P 500, Nasdaq slip as sluggish start to September continues

    Stock market today: S&P 500, Nasdaq slip as sluggish start to September continues

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    Gasoline prices have been on a downward trend as oil prices decline and gasoline futures (RB=F) approach three-year lows.

    The national average at the pump on Wednesday sat near six-month lows at $3.32 per gallon, $0.49 less than exactly one year ago, according to AAA data.

    “Combined with the end of the summer gasoline driving season in the USA along with a so far quiet hurricane season, oil prices simply collapsed, and that decline was led by weakness in gasoline,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

    As of Wednesday, the average retail price in nine states sat below $3 per gallon, with half the country likely touching those levels by the end of September as much of the country switches to a less expensive winter-grade gasoline later this month, Lipow predicted.

    “There is a good possibility that the average national retail price of gasoline hits $3 per gallon by the end of the year,” he added.

    Oil fell 4% on Tuesday, erasing the commodity’s year-to-date gains amid concerns over China’s economy and additional supply expected from OPEC+ this fall. Over the summer the oil alliance indicated it would roll back some of its voluntary production cuts starting in October.

    On Wednesday, West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) hovered below $70 per barrel, while Brent (BZ=F), the international benchmark, traded around $73 per barrel.

    “The low prices … may force OPEC+ to rethink its policy and it would not surprise me if they changed course and stuck with their existing production levels,” wrote Lipow in a note to clients.

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  • Stock market today: Dow slides 600 points, Nasdaq sinks 3% as Nvidia leads chip sell-off

    Stock market today: Dow slides 600 points, Nasdaq sinks 3% as Nvidia leads chip sell-off

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    Investors began September trading with a thud as stocks tumbled on Tuesday to start a historically tough month for markets, with AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) and chip names leading tech stocks down. The turn into the red comes amid a crucial week of data on the economy and labor market highlighted by an influential monthly jobs report.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid 1.5%, or over 600 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 2.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) pulled back 3.3%.

    Stocks are retreating from near highs as Wall Street hunkers down after a rollercoaster August, with the prospect of a potentially stormy September ahead. Investors are assessing the risk of data shocks or presidential race surprises in a month that’s typically terrible for traders.

    Nvidia (NVDA) fell almost 10% Tuesday, as investors continue to withdraw following a lackluster earnings report and lingering questions about the future of the AI trade. Other chip stocks fell in tandem, with Broadcom (AVGO), Qualcomm (QCOM), and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) all down more than 6%.

    Also top of mind is the August jobs report, due out on Friday, which could influence how deeply the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates at its meeting this month. With inflation now cooling, policymakers are on alert for the labor market to fall into place.

    For investors, the focus is on whether the signs of slowing in the July jobs report were overstated — or an early warning of a broader slowdown. Any hints of stress should put pressure on the Fed to make a bigger reduction in rates. As of Tuesday, traders were pricing in 31% odds of a 50 basis point cut instead of 25 basis points, per the CME FedWatch Tool.

    A measure of US manufacturing ticked up last month, according to fresh figures from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). But the metric reflected slowed factory activity, with a reading below a threshold that suggests a contraction in the manufacturing sector.

    Live10 updates

    • Dow loses 600 points in tough September start

      Investors still reeling from the sell off in early August were greeted with a flashback of sorts as the first trading day of September pummeled stocks.

      The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid 1.5%, or over 600 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 2.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) pulled back 3.3%.

    • The Nasdaq on track to shed 3% in rocky September start

      The major indexes were hit hard during the first September session, as the historically rough trading month lived up to its reputation on Tuesday.

      As investors waited for a crucial week’s worth of economic data that will impact how aggressively the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, stocks fell during the final hour of trading.

      The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is experiencing its worst session since the sell-off in early August rekindled fears of an economic slowdown. Big tech names are driving much of the losses. The AI darling Nvidia is down more than 9%, along with other chip stocks. And tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) shed 3%.

    • Nvidia stock tumbles to lowest level since mid-August

      Nvidia (NVDA) stock sank more than 8% Tuesday as the overall market declined on the first trading day of the month.

      The AI chip maker was the worst performer among the “Magnificent 7” stocks, falling to its lowest level since mid-August, Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferré reports.

      Technology (XLK) stocks led the declines as investors rotated into defensive sectors like Staples (XLP) and Utilities (XLU).

      Tuesday’s decline comes less than a week after Nvidia posted quarterly results that beat consensus estimates but failed to send the stock price higher.

      Up until last week, Nvidia had led the recent rebound in stocks, climbing nearly 25% in a span of three weeks following a global market sell-off.

      Despite Tuesday’s losses, the stock is up more than 125% year-to-date.

    • Rite Aid emerges as a private company after bankruptcy

      After completing a financial restricting following Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the drugstore chain Rite Aid will operate as a private company.

      Through the bankruptcy the pharmacy shuttered hundreds of stores, sold off its benefit company and ironed out settlements with its lenders, Reuters reported Tuesday.

      The new status of the company comes after Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy in 2023, reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and as it faced a flood of opioid lawsuits related to allegations of ignoring warning signs of suspicions prescriptions.

      The bankruptcy will leave the company with a much smaller footprint, down from its 2,000 pharmacies at the time of the filing.

      All of the company’s common shares were cancelled, the company said, and ownership transferred to some Rite Aid creditors. The company appointed Chief Financial Officer Matt Schroeder as CEO, according to the report.

      Moving forward, the company got rid of about $2 billion of total debt and took in roughly $2.5 billion financing.

    • Stocks trending in afternoon trading

      Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page during afternoon trading on Tuesday:

      Coinbase (COIN): The digital currency platform sank nearly 7% as a host of crypto-related firms followed much of the rest of the market into the red, as fears of an economic slowdown outweighed the prospects of the Fed’s expected rate cut later this month. The price of bitcoin, the main cryptocurrency sank further on Tuesday, around the $57,000 level, dragging the prospects of the digital currency ecosystem along with it.

      Boeing (BA): Shares of the plane manufacturer sank 6% Tuesday morning following a price target cut from Wells Fargo, which highlighted pressure on the company’s cash flow as it works to develop new aircraft. The company also faces a major potential strike, as its workers in Washington state are set to go on strike if a deal isn’t reached later this month.

      Nvidia (NVDA): Shares of the AI chip designer fell 7% during afternoon on Tuesday, continuing a slide that accelerated after the company’s earnings report last week that failed to impress Wall Street. The stock is down more than 12% over the last five days, highlighting a challenging moment for AI and chip companies that have stalled, as questions about returns on investments from their customers grow louder.

      Broadcom (AVGO): Shares of the semiconductor company slid 5% as an array of chip stocks fell in tandem, alongside Nvidia. Qualcomm (QCOM) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) were among the losers, shedding close to 6%.

    • Stocks fall to kick off bumpy September

      US stocks fell on Tuesday to kick off a historically tough month for markets, as AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) and chip stocks led tech stocks down.

      The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid 1%, or over 450 points. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 1.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) pulled back nearly 2.5%.

    • Construction spending falls more than expected

      While the August jobs report coming on Friday is the headline event for scheduled economic news this week, Tuesday offered a glimpse construction activity, with implications for the housing market.

      The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that construction spending fell 0.3% in July, compared to no change in the prior month. Forecasts had the spending figures dipping by just 0.1%

      The slightly larger than expected drop in spending reflects higher mortgage rates and greater supply.

      Weaker demand has led builders to ease up on new construction projects. Single-family homebuilding dropped to a 16-month low in July.

      However, mortgage rates continued to fall in August as expectations mount of a rate cut from the Federal Reserve during the upcoming September policy meeting. Rates are expected to slide even more as potential homebuyers wait out for better rates.

      Affordability remains an issue, even as borrowing costs are likely to drop.

      Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index, measuring consumer sentiment about the residential housing market, fell in July. That highlights how the lack of affordability is dampening housing activity.

    • Why we’re not ready for the first presidential election of the AI era

      With the election just a few short months away and generative AI detection technologies hit-or-miss, experts say we can expect to see more generative AI-based content designed to sow discord among the electorate, reports Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley.

      The 2024 elections are the first US presidential elections of the generative AI era, and we’re already seeing examples of the technology being used to impact how Americans cast their ballots.

      On Aug. 18, former President Donald Trump shared a series of AI-generated images of Taylor Swift fans wearing pro-Trump shirts, despite the fact that the photos originally appeared in a post marked as satire on X (formerly Twitter). In January, deepfake phone calls went out to some New Hampshire residents, attempting to discourage them from participating in the state’s Democratic primary.

      “The danger is that if there is a type of AI disinformation … like the Taylor Swift images … if millions of people are exposed to it and only 10% or 15% do not realize that that’s fake, that could be a substantial number for thinking about elections,” explained Augusta University political science professor Lance Hunter.

      “[In] swing states, sometimes the margin of victory is less than 1%. So … a small number of people being exposed to this disinformation and not realizing it’s disinformation could be influential for election outcomes,” Hunter added.

      Read more here.

    • Stocks trending in morning trading

      Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page during morning trading on Tuesday:

      Boeing (BA): Shares of the plane manufacturer sank 6% Tuesday morning following a price target cut from Wells Fargo, which highlighted pressure on the company’s cash flow as it works to develop new aircraft. The company also faces a major potential strike, as its workers in Washington state are set to go on strike if a deal isn’t reached later this month.

      US Steel (X): The steel producer slipped nearly 4% after Democratic nominee Kamala Harris said the company should stay American-owned and run in the face of a proposed takeover by Japan’s Nippon Steel. Republican nominee Donald Trump has also opposed the proposed sale.

      Nvidia (NVDA): Shares of the AI chip designer fell 5% during morning trading on Tuesday, continuing a slide that accelerated after the company’s earnings report last week that failed to impress Wall Street. The stock is down more than 10% over the last five days, highlighting a challenging moment for AI and chip companies that have stalled, as questions about returns on investments from their customers grow louder.

      Unity (U): The video game software developer gained more than 7% Tuesday after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded its shares to Overweight from Equal Weight, pointing to the strength of its game engine business and Unity’s hold of its market share.

    • Stocks slide in morning trading

      US stocks fell on Tuesday to kick off September, a historically tough month for markets as attention turned to a week of labor data highlighted by a crucial monthly jobs report.

      The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slid roughly 0.5% on the heels of a winning session booked before the Labor Day break. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 0.6% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) pulled back 0.8%.

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  • Nvidia data center revenue up 154% YoY |Bank Automation News

    Nvidia data center revenue up 154% YoY |Bank Automation News

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    Chip manufacturing behemoth Nvidia reported record second-quarter revenue on growing demand for its data centers, hardware and AI models.  “Data center revenue of $26.3 billion was a record, up 16% sequentially and up 154% year-on-year,” Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said in the company’s earnings release on Aug. 28.  Nvidia attributed its data center growth […]

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    Vaidik Trivedi

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  • Why Is Nvidia Stock Down After Reporting Parabolic Growth?

    Why Is Nvidia Stock Down After Reporting Parabolic Growth?

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    Expectations were high heading into Nvidia‘s (NASDAQ: NVDA) fiscal 2025 second-quarter financial report. The company has become the de facto standard bearer for the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Its graphics processing units (GPUS) provide the computational horsepower necessary to create the large language models (LLMs) that make generative AI possible.

    The surging demand for AI has propelled Nvidia’s stock into the stratosphere. The stock has gained more than 150% so far this year and more than 750% since the accelerating adoption of AI kicked off early last year (as of this writing).

    In recent weeks, however, investors have become concerned that Nvidia has simply come too far, too fast, and they are wondering whether the hectic pace of AI adoption could continue. Nvidia answered that question with a resounding “yes,” but given the stock’s parabolic gains, blockbuster results simply weren’t enough.

    Nvidia's GB200 Grace Blackwell AI Superchip.

    Nvidia’s GB200 Grace Blackwell AI Superchip. Image source: Nvidia.

    By the numbers

    In the second quarter, Nvidia generated record revenue of $30 billion, which surged 122% year over year and 15% quarter over quarter. This gave rise to adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.68. The results sailed past analysts’ consensus estimates for revenue of $28.6 billion and EPS of $0.64. Revenue also eclipsed management’s forecast of $28 billion.

    The headliner was Nvidia’s data center segment — which includes chips used for AI — as revenue of $26.3 billion soared 154% year over year and 16% sequentially, fueled by strong AI adoption among cloud computing and hyperscale data center operators.

    It wasn’t just AI that fed Nvidia’s growth, though the data center segment dwarfed results from the company’s other segments (all segment gains year over year):

    • The gaming segment grew 16% to $2.9 billion.

    • The professional visualization segment jumped 20% to $454 million.

    • The auto segment climbed 37% to $346 million.

    • Original equipment manufacturer increased 33% to $88 million

    Nvidia’s gross margin of 75.1% was up compared to 70.1% in the prior year quarter, largely due to the company’s enormous pricing power. That said, the measure edged lower sequentially from 78.4% in Q1. The company had previously signaled margins would moderate throughout the remainder of the year. CFO Colette Kress cited inventory provisions for its Blackwell chips and product mix for the decline.

    What the future holds

    CEO Jensen Huang noted that demand for its current Hopper chip “remains strong,” calling anticipation for its next-generation Blackwell architecture “incredible.” He went on to note that in recent industry testing, Nvidia’s Hopper H200 and the Blackwell B200 chips “swept” the MLPerf benchmark results for AI inference. Despite the best efforts of its rivals, Nvidia chips remain the gold standard for processing AI.

    Media reports suggested that the new Blackwell chips might be delayed by as much as three months due to design flaws, but Nvidia put those fears to rest. “We shipped customer samples of our Blackwell architecture in the second quarter. We executed a change to the Blackwell GPU mask to improve production yield. Blackwell production ramp is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter and continue into fiscal 2026.”

    Another by-product of Nvidia’s growth trajectory is the tremendous amount of cash the company is generating, as free cash flow more than doubled to $13.5 billion. As a result, Nvidia is increasing its returns to shareholders. The board of directors approved an additional $50 billion in share buybacks, adding to the $7.5 billion remaining on its existing authorization.

    These factors have combined to fuel a robust outlook for the third quarter. Management is guiding for revenue of $32.5 billion, which would represent year-over-year growth of 80%. That’s a deceleration from the triple-digit growth Nvidia has delivered in each of the past five quarters — but investors have long known that growth of that magnitude couldn’t continue indefinitely. Yet, the numbers show investors were seemingly disappointed.

    Nvidia stock was down roughly 7% in after-hours trading (as of this writing,) but it’s too early to tell what tomorrow will bring. Taking a step back, the company’s results continue to defy the odds, but a deceleration in its parabolic growth rate was inevitable. Nvidia’s star is still burning brightly, and the long-term investing thesis is intact.

    Taken together, Nvidia’s durable competitive advantage, strong results, and robust outlook show the company still has a long runway for growth ahead.

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    Why Is Nvidia Stock Down After Reporting Parabolic Growth? was originally published by The Motley Fool

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  • Nvidia’s forecast dampens AI enthusiasm in other tech stocks

    Nvidia’s forecast dampens AI enthusiasm in other tech stocks

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    By Noel Randewich and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

    (Reuters) -Nvidia dragged technology heavyweights lower after the chip maker’s earnings disappointed investors who had been hoping they would fuel fresh gains in Wall Street’s most valuable companies, and sent stocks in Asia down on Thursday.

    Nasdaq futures initially dropped about 1% following Nvidia’s quarterly earnings report late Wednesday, suggesting traders expected tech stocks to lose ground.

    Nvidia dropped almost 7% and lost $200 billion in stock market value after it forecast third-quarter gross margins that could miss market estimates and revenue that was largely in line. A handful of other AI-related companies shed around $100 billion in combined value.

    Shares of Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices were each down about 2%. Microsoft and Amazon each dipped almost 1%.

    Weakness in tech stocks continued into Asian trade on Thursday. Nvidia’s chip contractor TSMC slid 2%, and declines in other tech names weighed on shares in Tokyo and Seoul, dragging Korea’s KOSPI to a two week low. [.T] [.KS]

    Nvidia’s Frankfurt-listed shares slightly pared back the after-hours move, falling 5%. Even if Wednesday’s late-day dip extends into Thursday, it would be well short of the 11% price swing the options market had priced for the shares, according to data from options analytics firm ORATS.

    Surging demand for its AI chips helped Nvidia crush consensus analyst estimates for several quarters, a trend that led investors to expect the company to exceed forecasts by higher and higher margins.

    Nvidia’s soft forecasts overshadowed a beat on second-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings as well as the unveiling of a $50 billion share buyback.

    “They beat but this was just one of those situations where expectations were so high. I don’t know that they could have had a good enough number for people to be happy,” said JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America and president of online broker Tastytrade.

    The lackluster response to Nvidia’s earnings report could help set the tone for market sentiment heading into what is historically a volatile time of the year. The S&P 500 has fallen in September by an average of 0.8% since World War Two, the worst performance of any month, according to CFRA data.

    Investors are also watching next week’s U.S. employment report for signs on whether the labor market weakness that roiled stocks in early August has dissipated.

    Optimism about AI technology, in part due to Nvidia’s explosive growth, has fueled gains on Wall Street over the past year.

    However, confidence in that rally has wavered in recent weeks following an earnings season that saw investors punish shares of tech companies whose results failed to justify rich valuations.

    Investors have also become concerned about increases in already hefty spending by Microsoft, Alphabet and other major players in the race to dominate emerging AI technology. Microsoft and Alphabet’s stocks remain down since their reports last month.

    Nvidia forecast revenue of $32.5 billion, plus or minus 2%, for its fiscal third quarter, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $31.8 billion, according to LSEG data. That revenue forecast implies 80% growth from the year-ago quarter.

    The Santa Clara, California-based company expects adjusted gross margin of 75%, plus or minus 50 basis points, in the third quarter. Analysts on average forecast gross margin to be 75.5%, according to LSEG data.

    Nvidia’s stock dropped 2.1% in Wednesday’s session, ahead of its report. It remains up about 150% so far in 2024, making it the biggest winner in Wall Street’s AI rally.

    Nvidia’s stock was valued at 36 times earnings ahead of its quarterly report, inexpensive compared to its average of 41 over the past five years. The S&P 500 is trading at 21 times expected earnings, compared to a five-year average of 18.

    (Reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Saqib Ahmed in New York; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili, Lisa Shumaker and Mark Potter)

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  • Stock market today: US stocks tread water with Nvidia, rate cuts in focus

    Stock market today: US stocks tread water with Nvidia, rate cuts in focus

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    US stocks moved lower on Tuesday after the Dow hit an all-time high the day prior. Investors are treading carefully on the eve of Nvidia’s (NVDA) potentially market-moving earnings report.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell roughly 0.2% after the blue-chip benchmark eked out a record close to start the week. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) also edged about 0.2% lower while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped roughly 0.3% on the heels of closing losses for both gauges.

    Stocks are struggling to find a footing as investors debate whether chipmaker Nvidia’s high-stakes results on Wednesday can once again live up to elevated expectations. Semiconductor stocks lost ground on Tuesday alongside a 1% drop for the AI darling, a sign of how Nvidia’s report could ripple through techs as it tests the AI trade that has driven gains.

    At the same time, investors are counting down to a crucial update to the inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve. Chair Jerome Powell’s clear message that an interest rate cut is imminent confirmed widespread confidence in a policy pivot in September. Friday’s reading on the PCE price index could dent or cement bets on a 0.5% interest rate cut next month.

    On the corporate front, Apple (AAPL) is replacing its long-standing CFO with an insider, Kevan Parekh, with just two weeks to go for its biggest product launch of the year. Meanwhile, the Paramount (PARA) takeover looks to be nearing an end, with Skydance Media set to seal a deal after media veteran Eric Bronfman dropped his bid.

    Live1 update

    • Stocks edge lower at opening bell

      US stocks moved lower on Tuesday after the Dow hit an all-time high the day prior.

      The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell roughly 0.2%. The benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) also edged about 0.2% lower while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped roughly 0.3% on the heels of closing losses for both gauges.

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  • Millionaire Nvidia Employees Still Working Until 2 AM: Report | Entrepreneur

    Millionaire Nvidia Employees Still Working Until 2 AM: Report | Entrepreneur

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    What is it like to work at Nvidia, the $3 trillion AI chipmaker with a storied work culture over 30 years in the making?

    Long-time CEO Jensen Huang said in an interview this year that he rarely conducts layoffs and instead prefers to “torture employees into greatness.” It turns out, he might not have been joking.

    Being the AI chip brain behind ChatGPT and other popular forms of AI has led Nvidia — and its vested employees — to benefit financially from the AI boom. A June poll of over 3,000 Nvidia employees (out of around 30,000) showed that 76% were millionaires and one in three had a net worth of more than $20 million because of the company’s growth. Since October 2022, Nvidia’s stock has jumped over 1,000%.

    However, a Monday Bloomberg report revealed that though Nvidia’s boom may have created millionaires, its work culture and expectations for those employees remain the same: It’s a “pressure cooker.”

    Related: Nvidia and the Magnificent Seven Have ‘Immense Returns,’ but Strategists Say There Are Risks

    Ten current and former Nvidia employees who spoke with Bloomberg detailed long working hours, yelling and fighting at meetings, and vying for the attention of a supervisor who could have more than 100 other direct reports.

    A former enterprise tech support employee claimed he worked every day, including weekends, until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., and that his engineer coworkers worked longer hours. Other employees claimed to have at least seven meetings a day.

    Employees who worked less than the norm were called out at company-wide meetings. In December, Huang faced complaints from staff about their “semi-retired” peers. He responded by asking every employee to become the CEO of their time.

    Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

    Still, despite reports of a stressful work environment, Nvidia has had no trouble retaining employees. The company’s sustainability report for fiscal year 2024 details that overall turnover was 2.7% compared to the industry average of 17.7%.

    Nvidia’s low turnover rate could be attributed to the way it gives employees access to stock grants. The stock vests over four years, so an employee gradually gains ownership of the award. So it’s in the employee’s best interest to stick with the company to maximize benefits.

    Nvidia is also a famously “flat” organization, with minimal hierarchy, which could make the company an appealing choice. Huang has 60 direct reports.

    Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Turned Down a Merger Offer in the Company’s Early Days, According to Insiders. Here’s Why.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Prediction: This Will Be Nvidia’s Next Big Move

    Prediction: This Will Be Nvidia’s Next Big Move

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    By now you probably know that Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the hottest stock in tech. The company’s rapid ascent from gaming chipmaker to poster child of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and one of the largest public companies in the world has been nothing short of remarkable.

    After its stock nearly tripled since the beginning of the year, it retreated about 8% from its peak in June. Fear not. I think it’s still got a lot of room to run. If anything, this is a buying opportunity.

    Nvidia is in a good position

    Nvidia’s incredible revenue growth is being driven largely by a handful of companies like Amazon and Microsoft that operate “hyperscale” data centers (or “hyperscalers”) — really, really, really big server farms. The companies are upgrading and expanding them in order to keep up with the massive and specialized computing resources demanded by AI. Nvidia’s superchips power them. Yes, there are other players, but Nvidia dominates the market.

    The good news for Nvidia? This firehose of cash doesn’t seem likely to be shut off any time soon. During recent earnings calls, CEOs from the companies that run these hyperscalers reiterated the need to continue — and even expand — AI-focused capital expenditures (capex). Alphabet spent roughly $31 billion on capex in 2023. This year, that figure could reach $50 billion — a colossal increase. And Alphabet isn’t alone.

    Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, summed up big tech’s attitude toward these investments like this: “The risk of underinvesting is dramatically greater than the risk of overinvesting for us here.” This messaging was echoed by almost every CEO leading a hyperscaler. Nvidia is likely to enjoy substantial cash inflows for the foreseeable future. Of course, it will need to fend off competitors, but it is well positioned to do so.

    Now, that’s business as usual. What’s Nvidia’s next big move?

    Spotlight on networking

    Data centers are incredibly complex, especially those built for AI. At the heart of these systems are the chips that perform the computations. This is the market Nvidia dominates. However, all this high-powered computing creates massive amounts of data, and that data needs to be transported. This is where networking infrastructure comes in.

    The standard for networking in most data centers has been ethernet, but the demands of AI computing are too great for the technology. Companies needed to retrofit their data centers with a different networking technology like InfiniBand to keep up. This is extremely costly, but Nvidia has an answer. It recently released its Spectrum-X platform, which allows data centers to remain ethernet-based and run advanced AI. This represents a large new revenue stream for the company.

    Last quarter, Nvidia made close to $20 billion from its chips and $3 billion for its networking products. Mordor Intelligence estimates that the total market for data center networking infrastructure is about $26 billion in 2024 and it forecasts the space to grow at an 18% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2029. There is significant room to grow in this arena.

    There is competition, however. Broadcom is already a major player. Nvidia is unlikely to dominate this space as it has with the chip market. However, this new ethernet-based approach could be a game changer. A bigger share of the market is very possible.

    Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

    Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

    The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

    Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $763,374!*

    Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

    See the 10 stocks »

    *Stock Advisor returns as of August 12, 2024

    Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

    Prediction: This Will Be Nvidia’s Next Big Move was originally published by The Motley Fool

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  • Nvidia, California Team Up on AI Training Initiative, Labs | Entrepreneur

    Nvidia, California Team Up on AI Training Initiative, Labs | Entrepreneur

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    California wants to equip its workforce with AI skills by partnering with Nvidia on training across the state. The AI chip giant is headquartered in Santa Clara and is currently the third most valuable company in the world.

    California Governor Gavin Newsom and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the “first-of-its-kind” partnership that will focus on training students in AI, creating jobs, and using AI to solve real-world problems.

    “Together with California, Nvidia will train 100,000 students, college faculty, developers, and data scientists,” Huang stated, adding that the aim was “to prepare California for tomorrow’s challenges” and “unlock prosperity.”

    Related: How Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Transformed a Graphics Card Company Into an AI Giant: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Business Pivots in History’

    The partnership brings AI workshops, labs, curriculum, certifications, and technology from Nvidia to community colleges. Individuals have the opportunity to enhance their careers through these efforts.

    The state of California benefits from a pipeline of AI talent and will explore how it can nurture early-stage AI startups through the effort.

    “We’re in the early stages of a new industrial revolution that will transform trillion-dollar industries around the world,” Huang stated.

    Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang talks next to a robot. Credit: JOSH EDELSON / AFP

    AI has helped reduce repetitive tasks and streamline communication, say company leaders. A recent Microsoft study found that even though employers are looking for candidates with AI skills, only 39% have provided AI training for existing employees. And the majority of AI use in the office is secretive, with 78% using AI tools at work “without guidance or clearance from the top.”

    At the same time, it’s expensive to create AI: One model could cost $100 million today and tens of billions of dollars in the next few years. AI could also drive energy emissions up, as seen by Google’s July environmental report.

    Despite AI’s drawbacks, it could have a positive impact in California through the new partnership. California is the most populated state in the nation, with over 39 million residents. California’s unemployment rate hit 5.3% in February; as of June, there were 999,897 people unemployed in the state.

    Related: Nvidia’s CEO Sold Stock for the First Time This Year and Netted the Most He Ever Has in a Single Month

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Super Micro gives margin, profit forecasts below estimates; shares tumble

    Super Micro gives margin, profit forecasts below estimates; shares tumble

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    By Arsheeya Bajwa

    (Reuters) -Super Micro Computer reported quarterly adjusted gross margin below estimates on Tuesday, as high costs tied to the production of servers with the latest AI chips weighed on profits, sending its shares down 14% and dragging chipmakers.

    Its shares, which have more than doubled this year on expectations of booming AI computing demand, swung wildly after announcements of the results and a stock split. They initially jumped 12% in extended trading before reversing course.

    Nvidia shares, which rose 3% in trading after the bell, reversed course and fell 2%. Shares of Arm Holdings and AMD fell 2.1% and 1.2%, respectively, while those of rival Dell Technologies were down about 5%.

    AI-related stocks have come under immense pressure following a relentless rally for most of this year, amid worries about the high cost of building new data centers and other infrastructure to power the new technology.

    The company also forecast profit below Wall Street targets but estimated first-quarter and annual sales above estimates.

    “The initial aftermarket reaction was better than I thought it would be,” Running Point Capital Chief Investment Officer Michael Ashley Schulman said.

    “The focus must have been on the higher-than-expected 2025 estimates, but as you dig through the numbers, all the actual misses and especially the much lower-than-expected gross margin may make portfolio managers question whether management can effectively and efficiently scale to handle the growth.”

    CEO Charles Liang said on a conference call with analysts that margins would return to a normal range before the end of fiscal 2025. The company reiterated its gross margin target of a range of 14% to 17%.

    The company’s fourth-quarter adjusted gross margin was 11.3%, compared with analysts’ average estimate of 14.1%, according to LSEG data.

    Competitive pricing also impacted gross margin, CFO David Weigand said on the call. The company has resorted to lowering prices for its servers to stave off competition from rivals like Dell and HP Enterprise .

    Super Micro expects adjusted profit between $6.69 to $8.27 per share for the first quarter, the midpoint of which is below estimates of $7.58.

    Analysts have questioned the company’s hefty spending on supporting new generation of AI chips, such as those sold by Nvidia.

    The company is also grappling with higher supply chain costs and a tight supply of key components, CFO Weigand said.

    Super Micro expects net sales between $6 billion to $7 billion for the first quarter, compared to analysts’ average estimate of $5.46 billion, according to LSEG data.

    Analysts also peppered executives with questions over potential delays in shipments of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell processors. CEO Liang said the overall impact from a possible delay “should not be too much.”

    (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Noel Randewich in Oakland, California; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

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  • NVIDIA’s AI team reportedly scraped YouTube, Netflix videos without permission

    NVIDIA’s AI team reportedly scraped YouTube, Netflix videos without permission

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    In the latest example of a troubling industry pattern, NVIDIA appears to have scraped troves of copyrighted content for AI training. On Monday, 404 Media’s Samantha Cole reported that the $2.4 trillion company asked workers to download videos from YouTube, Netflix and other datasets to develop commercial AI projects. The graphics card maker is among the tech companies appearing to have adopted a “move fast and break things” ethos as they race to establish dominance in this feverish, too-often-shameful AI gold rush.

    The training was reportedly to develop models for products like its Omniverse 3D world generator, self-driving car systems and “digital human” efforts.

    NVIDIA defended its practice in an email to Engadget. A company spokesperson said its research is “in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of copyright law” while claiming IP laws protect specific expressions “but not facts, ideas, data, or information.” The company equated the practice to a person’s right to “learn facts, ideas, data, or information from another source and use it to make their own expression.” Human, computer… what’s the difference?

    YouTube doesn’t appear to agree. Spokesperson Jack Malon pointed us to a Bloomberg story from April, quoting CEO Neal Mohan saying using YouTube to train AI models would be a “clear violation” of its terms. “Our previous comment still stands,” the YouTube policy communications manager wrote to Engadget.

    That quote from Mohan in April was in response to reports that OpenAI trained its Sora text-to-video generator on YouTube videos without permission. Last month, a report showed that the startup Runway AI followed suit.

    NVIDIA employees who raised ethical and legal concerns about the practice were reportedly told by their managers that it had already been green-lit by the company’s highest levels. “This is an executive decision,” Ming-Yu Liu, vice president of research at NVIDIA, replied. “We have an umbrella approval for all of the data.” Others at the company allegedly described its scraping as an “open legal issue” they’d tackle down the road.

    It all sounds similar to Facebook’s (Meta’s) old “move fast and break things” motto, which has succeeded admirably at breaking quite a few things. That included the privacy of millions of people.

    In addition to the YouTube and Netflix videos, NVIDIA reportedly instructed workers to train on movie trailer database MovieNet, internal libraries of video game footage and Github video datasets WebVid (now taken down after a cease-and-desist) and InternVid-10M. The latter is a dataset containing 10 million YouTube video IDs.

    Some of the data NVIDIA allegedly trained on was only marked as eligible for academic (or otherwise non-commercial) use. HD-VG-130M, a library of 130 million YouTube videos, includes a usage license specifying that it’s only meant for academic research. NVIDIA reportedly brushed aside concerns about academic-only terms, insisting their batches were fair game for its commercial AI products.

    To evade detection from YouTube, NVIDIA reportedly downloaded content using virtual machines (VMs) with rotating IP addresses to avoid bans. In response to a worker’s suggestion to use a third-party IP address-rotating tool, another NVIDIA employee reportedly wrote, “We are on [Amazon Web Services](#) and restarting a [virtual machine](#) instance gives a new public IP[.](#) So, that’s not a problem so far.”

    404 Media’s full report on NVIDIA’s practices is worth a read.

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    Will Shanklin

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  • Delay to Nvidia’s new AI chip could affect Microsoft, Google, Meta, the Information says

    Delay to Nvidia’s new AI chip could affect Microsoft, Google, Meta, the Information says

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    (Reuters) – Design flaws could cause a delay of three months or more in the launch of chip giant Nvidia’s upcoming artificial-intelligence chips, tech-focused publication the Information said on Friday.

    The setback could affect customers such as Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft, which have collectively ordered tens of billions of dollars’ worth of chips, it said, citing people who help produce chip and server hardware for Nvidia.

    The AI chip company unveiled its Blackwell chip series in March, succeeding its earlier flagship AI chip, the Grace Hopper Superchip, that was designed to speed generative AI applications.

    “As we’ve stated before, Hopper demand is very strong, broad Blackwell sampling has started, and production is on track to ramp in the second half,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement in response to the report.

    Microsoft said it had nothing to add, while Meta and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Nvidia informed Microsoft and another major cloud service provider this week of a delay in the production of its most advanced AI chip in the Blackwell series, the Information said, citing a Microsoft employee and another person with knowledge of the matter.

    (Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, William Mallard and Matthew Lewis)

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  • Can This Hot Semiconductor Stock Keep Outperforming Nvidia?

    Can This Hot Semiconductor Stock Keep Outperforming Nvidia?

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    The market warmed to ON Semiconductor’s (NASDAQ: ON) second-quarter earnings report, and the stock has now significantly outperformed Nvidia over the last month, with a 14.2% increase compared to a 5.4% decline for the stock market darling (as of this writing). The question is why and whether it can continue.

    A cyclical stock to buy

    ON Semiconductor services two highly cyclical end markets, namely automotive (electric vehicles, power management, advanced driver assistance systems, etc.) and industrial (automation, EV infrastructure, machine vision, etc.), which are declining this year for various reasons.

    The chart below shows the sequential revenue decline trend established since the third quarter of 2023. Moreover, management expects the year-over-year declines to continue in the third quarter, with guidance for revenue of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, compared unfavorably with the $2.18 billion reported in the third quarter of 2023.

    However, in a sign of stabilization, the midpoint of the third quarter guidance implies a sequential increase in revenue from the $1.74 billion just reported in the second quarter. This is just one of the reasons why investors bought the stock after the recent results. In other words, they are looking at the forecast for sequential improvement and taking it as a potential bottoming process in action.

    On Semiconductor revenue chart.

    Data source: ON Semiconductor presentations. Chart by author.

    It’s an intriguing viewpoint, especially since semiconductor stocks are considered highly cyclical. The optimal time to buy is often during their darkest hour before the light of recovery appears. That sort of argument is why ON Semiconductor can outperform Nvidia. Given the surging interest and investment in AI applications driving demand for high-performance computing (HPC) chips, the latter is already firing on all cylinders.

    Is ON Semiconductor on the path to recovery?

    The critical question here is not only whether a recovery is coming, but also what kind of recovery it will be. While investors typically look for a V-shaped recovery, ON Semiconductor’s CEO, Hassane El-Khoury, does not share this view. He continues to forecast an ” L-shaped curve” to the recovery. In plain English, this means there won’t be a dramatic uptick in sales, but instead, revenue will bottom and then move along the bottom.

    That might not be what investors want to hear, particularly if they buy ON Semiconductor as a typical semiconductor recovery play. Still, El-Khoury’s cautious approach is perfectly understandable in the circumstances.

    Electric vehicles.Electric vehicles.

    Image source: Getty Images.

    Relatively high interest rates make monthly repayments on car loans more expensive, negatively impacting car sales, including EV sales. In turn, automakers are pulling back on EV investment — bad news for ON Semiconductor, which is positioning itself in the intelligent power solutions market for EVs.

    In addition, its industrial end markets, as typified by industrial automation, are battling to increase orders as customers continue to run down inventory built up when product lead times were much longer, and they need to build inventory to service demand. I’ve discussed these dynamics with regard to Rockwell Automation previously.

    It’s fair to say that both of ON Semiconductor’s end markets have deteriorated through 2024.

    Why ON Semiconductor is still a buy

    While the near-term outlook remains uncertain, there’s little doubt that the company is set for long-term growth. In addition, it’s only a matter of time before its end markets recover. History suggests the interest rate cycle will turn, and there’s no moving back from a future in which EV sales outpace internal combustion engine (ICE) sales — ON Semiconductor has much more intelligent power and sensing chip content on EVs than on ICEs.

    A person stands on a roof holding an arrow and a pair of binoculars.A person stands on a roof holding an arrow and a pair of binoculars.

    Image source: Getty Images.

    Indeed, in a sign of the business’s potential, the company announced that “Volkswagen Group has selected Onsemi to be the primary supplier of a complete power box solution as part of its next-generation traction inverter for its scalable system platform.”

    In addition, industrial automation is the future in relatively high-cost labor countries and the solution for reshoring production cost-effectively. Investment in automation is likely to increase when end demand picks up, and distributors running down inventory now will only make the recovery stronger when it comes.

    Finally, whether it’s an L-shape recovery or V-shape, or even an L-shape that turns into a hockey stick recovery, ON Semiconductor’s valuation, trading at 18.6 times Wall Street’s estimate for earnings in 2024, is highly attractive and quite capable of continuing to outperform Nvidia.

    Should you invest $1,000 in ON Semiconductor right now?

    Before you buy stock in ON Semiconductor, consider this:

    The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and ON Semiconductor wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

    Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $657,306!*

    Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

    See the 10 stocks »

    *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2024

    Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and Volkswagen Ag. The Motley Fool recommends ON Semiconductor. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

    Can This Hot Semiconductor Stock Keep Outperforming Nvidia? was originally published by The Motley Fool

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  • Mark Zuckerberg says ‘f*ck that’ to closed platforms

    Mark Zuckerberg says ‘f*ck that’ to closed platforms

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    In his two decades running the company now known as Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has gone through many transformations. More recently, he’s been showing off less filtered version of himself. But during a live streamed conversation with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, the Meta CEO seemed to veer a little more off script than he intended.

    The conversation began normally enough, with the two billionaire executives congratulating each other on their AI dominance. Zuckerberg made sure to talk up the company’s recent announcement before settling into his usual talking points, which recently have included .

    Zuckerberg then launched into a lengthy rant about his frustrations with “closed” ecosystems like Apple’s App Store. None of that is particularly new, as the Meta founder has been with Apple for years. But then Zuckerberg, who is usually quite controlled in his public appearances, revealed just how frustrated he is, telling Huang that his reaction to being told “no” is “fuck that.”

    “I mean, this is sort of selfish, but, you know, after building this company for awhile, one of my things for the next 10 or 15 years is like, I just want to make sure that we can build the fundamental technology that we’re going to be building social experiences on, because there just have been too many things that I’ve tried to build and then have just been told ‘nah you can’t really build that by the platform provider,’ that at some level I’m just like, ‘nah, fuck that,’” Zuckerberg said.

    “There goes our broadcast opportunity,” Huang said. “Sorry,” Zuckerberg said. “Get me talking about closed platforms, and I get angry.”

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    Karissa Bell

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  • Prediction: 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks That Could Be Worth More Than Apple 5 Years From Now

    Prediction: 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks That Could Be Worth More Than Apple 5 Years From Now

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    Apple is the most valuable company in the world right now with a market capitalization of $3.4 trillion, but it’s closely followed by two other tech giants, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). It’s worth noting that both Microsoft and Nvidia have taken turns becoming the world’s most valuable company this year, but Apple has managed to regain the top spot, thanks to a recent surge in the stock price.

    However, if we compare Apple’s prospects to those of Nvidia and Microsoft for the next five years, it won’t be surprising to see them becoming more valuable than the iPhone maker. Below is a look at the reasons why.

    1. Microsoft

    Microsoft’s market cap of $3.3 trillion means that it’s strikingly close to Apple right now. More importantly, Microsoft is clocking faster growth than Apple, a trend that’s likely to continue over the next five years, thanks to the growing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in multiple markets.

    For instance, Microsoft’s revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2024 (which ended on March 31) increased 17% year over year to $61.9 billion. Meanwhile, Apple’s fiscal 2024 second-quarter revenue (for the three months ended March 30) was down 4% year over year to $90.8 billion. This stark difference in the performance of the two tech giants is largely due to AI.

    While Microsoft is capitalizing on multiple AI-driven growth trends such as cloud computing, personal computers (PCs), and workplace collaboration tools, Apple has been late to the AI smartphone market. Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud segment reported a 21% year-over-year increase in revenue in fiscal Q3 to $26.7 billion, driven by the growing usage of its cloud-based AI services.

    The company pointed out that its Azure cloud business received a boost of 7 percentage points, thanks to AI. The cloud-based AI services market is forecast to generate $647 billion in revenue in 2030, clocking a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% through the end of the decade, and Microsoft is sitting on a potentially large incremental revenue opportunity in this market.

    Also, Microsoft Azure’s 25% share of the cloud computing market means that it’s well-placed to tap this multibillion-dollar AI opportunity. But this isn’t where the AI-driven catalysts end for Microsoft. The company’s Copilot generative AI chatbot, which serves both individual and business users, is witnessing healthy adoption.

    For example, Microsoft’s Copilot for GitHub, a developer platform used by more than 100 million users, boasted of 1.8 million paid subscribers at the end of March. Meanwhile, the enterprise adoption of Copilot for workplace productivity remains solid. In the words of CEO Satya Nadella:

    This quarter, we made Copilot available to organizations of all types and sizes from enterprises to small businesses, nearly 60% of the Fortune 500 now use Copilot and we have seen accelerated adoption across industries and geographies with companies like Amgen, BP, Cognizant, Koch Industries, Moody’s, Novo Nordisk, Nvidia, and Tech Mahindra purchasing over 10,000 seats.

    Microsoft is charging $30 per user per month from enterprise customers for its Copilot. The individual plan is priced at $20 per user per month. So the company is already monetizing the AI-assistant market, which is expected to grow eightfold over the next decade and generate almost $167 billion in revenue in 2033.

    The above AI-related catalysts indicate why Microsoft’s annual earnings are expected to grow at 16% a year for the next five years compared to Apple’s projected growth rate of 10%. This could eventually help Microsoft stock deliver more upside and become more valuable than Apple in the long run.

    2. Nvidia

    Nvidia is currently the third-largest company in the world, with a market cap of $3 trillion. Shares of the semiconductor specialist have surged a remarkable 745% since the beginning of 2023 as the likes of Microsoft and other tech giants have been looking to get their hands on its AI graphics processing units (GPUs) to train and deploy AI models and services.

    More importantly, Nvidia controls over 90% of the AI chip market. This terrific market share is the reason behind its outstanding growth in recent quarters, resulting in a much better financial performance than Apple.

    AAPL Revenue (TTM) Chart

    AAPL Revenue (TTM) Chart

    With the global AI chip market estimated to grow tenfold in the next 10 years to become a $300 billion market, there’s a good chance that Nvidia’s outstanding growth will continue. According to some analysts, the company’s data center revenue alone could jump to $280 billion over the next four years from $47.5 billion in the previous fiscal year.

    Throw in additional catalysts, such as the recovery in the PC market thanks to the adoption of AI-enabled PCs (which has started lifting Nvidia’s gaming business), and it’s easy to see why analysts are estimating Nvidia’s earnings to increase at 46% a year for the next five years. That’s significantly faster than the growth Apple is expected to deliver over the same period.

    Of course, Apple could get a shot in the arm, thanks to the emergence of AI smartphones, but investors should note that the company is operating in a very competitive market. In the second quarter of 2024, Apple’s smartphone market share stood at 15.8%, down from 16.6% in the same quarter in 2023. Its shipments grew only 1.5% year over year as compared to the overall smartphone-market’s growth of 6.5%.

    It’s easy to see why Nvidia’s growth is expected to be faster as it leads the AI chip market, while Apple operates in a crowded space where rivals have acted with alacrity in jumping onto the AI bandwagon. As such, the possibility of Nvidia overtaking Apple’s market share over the next five years, thanks to its faster bottom-line growth, can’t be ruled out, and AI is going to play a central role in helping the semiconductor company achieve that.

    Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

    Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

    The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

    Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $692,784!*

    Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

    See the 10 stocks »

    *Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

    Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, BP, Microsoft, Moody’s, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Amgen, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Novo Nordisk and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

    Prediction: 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks That Could Be Worth More Than Apple 5 Years From Now was originally published by The Motley Fool

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  • 3 reasons tech stocks, once hot, are suddenly not

    3 reasons tech stocks, once hot, are suddenly not

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    A selloff in technology stocks Wednesday drove the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices to their worst performances since 2022. The slump in high-tech follows a year-long rally by the “Magnificent Seven,” a group of seven industry giants that have led markets into record terrain.

    The slump continued on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index slipping 0.5% in morning trade. Chipmaker Nvidia shed 1.4% and Google-owner Alphabet fell 1.2%, while four other members of the group — Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft — also lost ground. The only member of the group to gain on Thursday morning was Tesla, which rose about 3%.

    The Magnificent Seven (sometimes called the “Mag Seven”) fueled two-thirds of the S&P 500’s growth last year, with investors betting that these companies would profit from their investments in artificial intelligence. But investors are now increasingly questioning whether the billions in capital funneled into the emerging technology will pay off anytime soon.

    “The Magnificent Seven stocks now look like the “Lag” Seven,” noted Piper Sandler analysts in a research note.

    Here are three issues weighing on tech stocks.

    Questions about AI profitability 

    First and foremost, investors are increasingly concerned about whether the tech giants’ massive investment in artificial intelligence will boost their bottom lines. Companies, as well as utilities and governments, are expected to spend a total of more than $1 trillion in the next few years on AI, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. 

    “[P]eople are starting to ask more questions about the economics of AI (what is the ROI on all this investment?),” wrote analysts at Vital Knowledge on Thursday. 

    These questions were weighing on investors amid earnings reports this week from Tesla and Alphabet. While their quarterly earnings weren’t disasters, they raised questions among investors about which other market heavyweights’ financial results could fall short of expectations, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

    “How many disappointments are we likely to see? Maybe let’s sell first and ask questions later,” he said.

    Great expectations can be hard to meet

    Profit expectations are high for U.S. companies broadly, but particularly so for the Magnificent Seven. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla need to keep delivering powerful growth after being responsible for most of the S&P 500’s run to records this year.

    Tesla was one of the biggest drags on stocks Wednesday, tumbling 12.3% after reporting a 45% drop in profit for the spring, and its earnings fell short of analysts’ forecasts.

    “[W]ith great outperformance comes great expectations, and the bar for this group was extremely high – therefore, what may look like a ‘beat and raise’ report on paper might actually be disappointing” for some stocks such as Alphabet, the owner of the Google search engine, Vital Knowledge said. 

    An investor shift to smaller stocks

    Lastly, investors are shifting money as part of a strategy called “sector rotation,” according to John Lynch, chief investment officer for Comerica Wealth Management. This strategy involves investing assets based on changes in the business cycle, with investors switching into different types of stocks based on trends like inflation and profit growth. 

    “Equity market leadership has experienced a dramatic shift in recent weeks,” Lynch wrote in a recent report, noting that small-cap stocks have enjoyed a “significant’ rally this month. 

    The most recent inflation report, which showed U.S. prices cooling faster than expected, spurred some investors to shift money into smaller stocks because of the expectation that the Federal Reserve could soon cut rates. That could provide an outsized benefit to these businesses since they are more reliant on borrowing than bigger companies, Lynch noted.

    —With reporting by the Associated Press.

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  • How Nvidia Pivoted From Graphics Card Maker to AI Chip Giant | Entrepreneur

    How Nvidia Pivoted From Graphics Card Maker to AI Chip Giant | Entrepreneur

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    A decade ago, Nvidia was a major graphics card maker, vying with competitors like AMD and Intel for dominance. Now it’s an AI giant with 70% to 95% of the market share for AI chips, and the brains of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s also the best-performing stock with the highest return in the past 25 years.

    Why did Nvidia invest in AI chips over 10 years ago, ahead of the competition? CEO Jensen Huang and board member Mark Stevens, Nvidia’s two largest individual shareholders, talked to Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha to explain what Botha called “one of the most remarkable business pivots in history.”

    Nvidia’s original product was 3D graphics cards for PC games, but company leaders noticed by the mid-2000s that the PC market was hitting a growth limit.

    Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Turned Down a Merger Offer in the Company’s Early Days, According to Insiders. Here’s Why.

    “We felt we were always gonna be boxed into the PC gaming market and always knocking heads with Intel if we didn’t develop a brand new market that nobody else was in,” Stevens explained.

    Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia. Photographer: Lionel Ng/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    That need for a new market intersected with a product Nvidia already had on hand: its graphics processor unit, or GPU, which could be used to power tasks outside of gaming. Researchers at universities across the world began exploring the graphics cards, eventually building advanced computers with them.

    Related: Is It Too Late to Buy Nvidia? Former Morgan Stanley Strategist Says ‘Buy High, Sell Higher.’

    Huang recalled meeting a quantum chemist in Taiwan who showed him a closet with a “giant array” of Nvidia’s GPUs on its shelves; house fans were rotating to keep the system cool.

    “He said, ‘I built my own personal supercomputer.’ And he said to me that because of our work… he’s able to do his work in his lifetime,” Huang said.

    Other researchers, like Meta AI chief Yann LeCun in New York, began reaching out to Nvidia about the computing power of its chips. Nvidia began considering the AI market when AI had yet to enter the mainstream and was a “zero billion dollar market” or a market that had yet to materialize.

    “There was no guarantee that AI would ever really emerge because, keep in mind, AI had had many stops and starts over the last 40 years,” Stevens said. “I mean, AI has been around as a computer science concept for decades. But it had never really taken off as a huge market opportunity.”

    Related: Nvidia Is ‘Slowly Becoming the IBM of the AI Era,’ According to the Leader of a $2 Billion AI Startup

    Huang and other company leaders still believed in AI and decided to invest billions in the tech in the 2010s.

    “This was a giant pivot for our company,” Huang said. “The company’s focus was steered away from its core business.”

    Huang highlighted the extra cost, talent, and skills Nvidia had to account for with the pivot, as it affected the entire company. It took 10 to 15 years of effort, but that business decision led to Nvidia powering the AI revolution with an early ChatGPT partnership.

    “Every CEO’s job is supposed to look around corners,” Huang said. “You want to be the person who believes the company can achieve more than the company believes it can.”

    Related: How to Be a Billionaire By 25, According to a College Dropout Turned CEO Worth $1.6 Billion

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Is It Too Late to Buy Nvidia Stock After Its 10-for-1 Split?

    Is It Too Late to Buy Nvidia Stock After Its 10-for-1 Split?

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    Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest industries for investors right now. Semiconductor darling and data center specialist Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is considered by many on Wall Street to be a lucrative opportunity for AI enthusiasts.

    With shares of Nvidia up over 170% so far in 2024, some investors may think they’ve missed the boat.

    Let’s take a look at what is going on at Nvidia, and assess if now is still a reasonable time to scoop up some shares.

    Nvidia’s hot start to 2024

    2023 marked a new age for the technology industry. Behemoths such as Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon all made a series of splashy investments revolving around AI applications.

    Some of the bigger investments these tech giants made were buying AI-powered semiconductor chips, as well as ramping up data center services. Considering Nvidia has an estimated 80% share of the AI chip market, these moves by big tech undoubtedly served as a big boost to the company.

    The strong momentum from last year’s AI euphoria carried into 2024, and Nvidia investors haven’t stopped buying up the stock. To put this into context, shares of Nvidia have increased almost 800% since January 2023.

    This unprecedented run briefly catapulted Nvidia over Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company by market cap. Moreover, as shares continued to eclipse new heights, Nvidia’s management finally decided to implement a 10-for-1 stock split last month.

    An AI chip on a circuit board.

    Image source: Getty Images.

    Nvidia is more than just a chip opportunity

    What’s incredible is that much of the narrative surrounding Nvidia deals with the company’s chip business. Indeed, its H100 and A100 graphics processing units (GPUs) are used by companies all around the world — including Meta Platforms and Tesla.

    Moreover, Nvidia is continuing to lead the innovation front in the GPU realm with the introduction of its new Blackwell and Rubin chips.

    With that said, it’s important to understand that Nvidia makes money from other products and services as well. In fact, one of its lesser-known growth opportunities is outside of hardware.

    Nvidia’s compute unified device architecture (CUDA) software platform is already proving to be a lucrative business. Essentially, CUDA is a programming tool that is meant to be used in parallel with Nvidia’s GPUs. So, in a sense, the company is attempting to build out an end-to-end AI ecosystem encompassing both hardware and software.

    One of the big reasons CUDA is going to be important for Nvidia is due to competition in the chip space. Companies such as AMD, Intel, and even Amazon and Meta are all working on competing GPUs to that of Nvidia.

    Although it’s too early to get a sense of how these competing products will impact Nvidia, I think it’s reasonably safe to say that the company will eventually lose some of its pricing power in the chip space. As a result, Nvidia’s profit margins are likely to take a hit at some point in the future. However, some of this margin deterioration should be mitigated so long as CUDA continues to thrive. The reason is because software products tend to carry much higher margins than hardware.

    Is now a good time to invest in Nvidia stock?

    The chart below illustrates Nvidia’s price-to-earnings (P/E) and price-to-free-cash-flow (P/FCF) multiples over the last 12 months. While a P/E of 75.9 and a P/FCF of 82.2 may look pricey, there are a couple of ideas to explore here.

    NVDA PE Ratio ChartNVDA PE Ratio Chart

    NVDA PE Ratio Chart

    First, both Nvidia’s P/E and P/FCF multiples are lower than they were a year ago. In other words, despite the rapid ascent of the stock price, Nvidia’s earnings and cash flow are accelerating at a faster rate — therefore, Nvidia stock is technically less expensive today than it was 12 months ago.

    Moreover, Nvidia’s commanding lead in the chip space and its under-the-radar software services should be analyzed further. The company is an investor in Databricks, one of the most valuable AI start-ups in the world. Nvidia is also an investor in Figure AI — a developer of humanoid robotics.

    I do not think that opportunities in robotics and AI software are priced into Nvidia stock yet. I think many of these applications are currently overshadowed by the performance of the chip business, and many investors are discounting the potential Nvidia has in other areas in the AI arena.

    Long-term investors have an opportunity to gain exposure to many different aspects of AI simply through Nvidia. Despite the meteoric rise in share price, the valuation analysis above, as well as some of the other growth opportunities explored make a compelling case that Nvidia stock is a good buy right now and significant upside could very much be in store.

    Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

    Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

    The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

    Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $791,929!*

    Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

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    John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Intel and recommends the following options: long January 2025 $45 calls on Intel, long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short August 2024 $35 calls on Intel, and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

    Is It Too Late to Buy Nvidia Stock After Its 10-for-1 Split? was originally published by The Motley Fool

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  • Nvidia Is Becoming the IBM of AI, Says Former Apple Engineer | Entrepreneur

    Nvidia Is Becoming the IBM of AI, Says Former Apple Engineer | Entrepreneur

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    Jim Keller, an engineer who has worked at AMD, Apple, and Tesla and is now CEO of an AI chip startup taking on Nvidia, says that Nvidia is “becoming the IBM of the AI era.”

    On a Sunday podcast episode of DemystifySci, Keller brought up Nvidia’s AI chips and called attention to companies like Microsoft and Google that are using Nvidia’s technology to power their own innovations.

    “All the big tech companies are in an arms race and they’re all calling Nvidia,” Keller said.

    Related: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Turned Down a Merger Offer in the Company’s Early Days, According to Insiders. Here’s Why.

    Keller, who now leads the $2 billion AI chip startup Tenstorrent, which has funding from Samsung and Hyundai, stated that Nvidia currently has “the best processors by functionality.”

    He then said that Nvidia is “slowly becoming the IBM of the AI era,” adding, “We’ll see how that goes. I run an AI tech company so I have opinions about that too.”

    Jim Keller, chief executive officer of Tenstorrent. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Nvidia is now the industry leader for AI chips, with over 80% of the market share. It benefits from a first-mover advantage in AI computing; Nvidia claims to have started investing in AI and machine learning development starting in 2006.

    Related: Employees Who Worked at This Company for the Past 5 Years Are Now Multi-Millionaires in ‘Semi-Retirement’

    IBM, too, could be considered a first mover in the PC market. Though IBM did not invent the PC, the company’s 1981 personal desktop opened computers up to a broader audience and generated $1 billion in revenue in its first year.

    IBM “set a technology standard” with its first PC, according to IEEE Spectrum.

    Keller has previously weighed in on the cost of AI chips, both from Nvidia and from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which currently uses Nvidia’s chips. He claimed in April that Nvidia could have cut research and development costs and in February that he could build AI processors for all workloads and AI companies at one-eighth of the cost suggested by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in March that its next-generation AI chip would cost more than $30,000.

    Related: Here’s How Much Investing $10,000 in Nvidia When It Went Public Would Be Worth Now

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