Nvidia's Impossible Bind

The Made-For-China Chip One way to think about the US-China tech war is as a grand strategic chess match. Another, it seems, is as a farce. Last month, the story was that China was rejecting Nvidia’s made-for-China H20 chip because its homegrown alternative from Huawei was somewhat competitive. This
Nvidia's Impossible Bind

Europe's AI Playbook

The Capital Efficiency Bet The rationale behind ASML's €1.3 billion investment in French AI startup Mistral, as we explored last week, is one of sound corporate strategy. The Dutch company that makes the world's most critical chip-making machines wants to embed AI into its own
Europe's AI Playbook

Oracle's Over-Engineered Cloud

The $455 Billion IOU Ordinarily, if you are a giant, publicly traded company and you miss your quarterly earnings, your stock goes down. Oracle's stock, apparently, did not get the memo. The company reported revenue and profit that fell short of expectations, and in response, its stock soared
Oracle's Over-Engineered Cloud

Meta Deep Dive

Section 1: Company Overview Meta's stated mission is to build technology that helps people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. The company's operations are centered around its Family of Apps (FoA), which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads. These platforms are offered to users at
Meta Deep Dive

ASML Makes Its Move

The Chipmaker's AI Ordinarily, the company that makes the printing presses does not buy a stake in the author. In the neat, layered world of technology, hardware companies make the physical stuff, and software companies make the virtual stuff that runs on it. This week, that tidy separation

OpenAI's Landlord Problem

The $115 Billion Burn The artificial intelligence business continues to be a story of landlords and tenants. The landlords—Microsoft, Amazon, Google—own the vast, expensive data centers. The tenants—AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic—rent immense amounts of computing power to train and run their models. For a
OpenAI's Landlord Problem

The Software Seat-Eater

The Per-Seat Problem Salesforce, a titan of the cloud software era, has become one of the worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year. The stock has plunged 23%, a dramatic reversal for a company that had soared over 150% in the preceding two years. The slump stands
The Software Seat-Eater

Did AI Just Save Google?

The Market Moves Faster Than the Law The funny thing about being found guilty of running an illegal monopoly is that it might be the best news your shareholders get all year. After a five-year legal battle, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that while Google did indeed maintain an
Did AI Just Save Google?

Who Wins When Robots Fight Robots?

Cybersecurity's Kafka Problem Modern cybersecurity has entered a truly Kafka-esque state of affairs. The problem, it seems, is artificial intelligence. The solution, it turns out, is also artificial intelligence. Last week, identity management platform Okta and cybersecurity company SentinelOne provided a financial snapshot of just how profitable this
Who Wins When Robots Fight Robots?