Sign up for our free daily newsletter
Get the latest news and some fun stuff
in your inbox every day
Get the latest news and some fun stuff
in your inbox every day
CoreWeave is having its day in the sun, its shares surged 29% in the past week after smashing expectations in its first quarterly results as a public company. Revenue hit $982 million, up 420% year-on-year, and a new $4 billion deal with OpenAI added to an already massive $12 billion contract.
Last night, Nvidia reported quarterly revenue of $44 billion, up 69%, and profits of $20 billion. These spectacular numbers would have been even stronger if they hadn't taken a $4.5 billion loss on chips designed for the Chinese market, now blocked by the US government. That inventory will have to be destroyed.
Every action produces a reaction, and leads to unintended consequences. When these actions are taken by interfering governments, the outcomes are usually negative. The recent situation involving Nvidia and China is a good example.
Nvidia has had a great week, rising from $116 to $135 per share. The rally is partly due to easing trade relations between the US and China. Perhaps more importantly, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been given the green light from the White House to purchase billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips. Currently, there are export restrictions on the most powerful Nvidia cards because of supposed "national security" concerns.
Nvidia is pivoting by bringing a significant chunk of its AI chip and supercomputer manufacturing to the US, partnering with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor, and SPIL. The company has committed over a hundred thousand square metres of space across Arizona and Texas, where production is expected to ramp up over the next 12 to 15 months.
Blackwell is old news, stand by for headlines about Rubin. I'm talking about AI chips from Nvidia. They've only just started shipping the former in a big way, and are already revealing details about the latter.
Nvidia's latest quarterly results showcased another top-notch performance, but the market reaction was not great. The shares opened in the green yesterday, but closed down 8.5%.
DeepSeek made more than just a massive impact on the market on Monday. It is also dominating the app charts in recent days. I saw some articles suggesting that the drop in Nvidia's share price is the least of the Western world's worries. DeepSeek officially marks the entry of Chinese companies in the race for Artificial Intelligence dominance.
Shares of SoftBank surged up to 10.2% after President Trump announced a massive AI push involving SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle.
The US government announced on Monday it would further restrict AI chip and technology exports. The regulation divides the world into three tiers. About 18 countries, including Japan, Britain, South Korea and the Netherlands, will be exempt from the rules. Another 120 other countries, including South Africa, Singapore, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will face country caps. Arms-embargoed countries like Russia, China and Iran will be barred from receiving any high-end chips at all.
CoreWeave is preparing for a US IPO in mid-2025, aiming for a valuation of over $35 billion. The New Jersey-based AI cloud platform plans to raise over $3 billion, which is great news for Nvidia, one of its original investors.
Nvidia has had a spectacular rise over the last few years, which is well documented. But did you know that the company has been listed for 25 years? That's a long time and it certainly hasn't been plain sailing throughout that period.
Nvidia is now the largest company in the world, so every time it releases results they are described as "the most important earnings report in history". We are certainly witnessing history in the making because no company has ever grown so fast, to such size and scale.
Nvidia's exciting new Blackwell AI chip has its first official customer. The lucky buyer at the front of the very long queue was Softbank, run by long-time Nvidia fan, Masayoshi Son.
Nvidia has been the early winner of the AI boom; there is no doubt about that. The big question is, who will be next? The most likely answer is the guys that have been buying all those chips, namely the big tech companies. There are various theories about returns per GPU purchased but let's be honest, these businesses do very different things and calculating an IRR on the capital invested is too generic.