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This Week’s Alpha Coverage: YouTube Playlist.
Editor’s Pick:
[News] Nvidia reveals Blackwell B200 GPU, the ‘world’s most powerful chip’ for AI
"Accelerated computing has reached the tipping point," Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said at the annual confab. "General purpose computing has run out of steam."
"We're gonna have to build even bigger GPUs. Hopper is fantastic, but we need bigger GPUs," Huang said, introducing the new Blackwell GPU platform.
The Blackwell platform is available both as an accelerator, the GB200 (which can go into existing H100 or H200 systems) and as a super-chip.
A GB200 that combines two B200 GPUs with a single Grace CPU can offer 30 times the performance for LLM inference workloads while also potentially being substantially more efficient. It “reduces cost and energy consumption by up to 25x” over an H100, says Nvidia.
It would take 2,000 new GB200 GPUs to train a 1.8 trillion parameter GPT model in 90 days, with just four megawatts of power, compared to 8,000 GH100 GPUs using 15 megawatts of power, Huang said.
"Blackwell will be the most successful product launch in our history," Huang added, noting sovereign nations, cloud service providers, telecom companies and more have signed up for the new platform.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 18, 2024
Link to The Verge News Article - Mar. 19, 2024
AAPL 0.00%↑ GOOG 0.00%↑ GOOGL 0.00%↑
[News] Apple in discussions to allow Google's Gemini to power iPhone AI features: Bloomberg
The two tech giants are in talks to let Apple license Google's AI model Gemini to power some new features which would come to the iPhone software in 2024, the report added.
Apple was also in talks with Microsoft (MSFT)-backed OpenAI and has considered using its AI model, the report noted.
The companies have not decided on the terms of the potential AI agreement, and the report noted that it was unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when Apple intends to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
It is also possible that an agreement is not reached or that Apple may choose another partner, the report noted.
Link to Seeking Alpha Opinion Piece - Mar. 18, 2024
[News] Joby Aviation and other eVTOL players look to the United Arab Emirates for initial launches
The United Arab Emirates appears to be ground zero for the launch of commercial flying taxi services. Joby Aviation (JOBY) expects to launch in Dubai before anywhere else and Archer Aviation (NYSE:ACHR) plans to operate flights between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as other routes across the UAE. In addition to those two major players, eVTOL upstarts Lilium N.V. (LILM), Embraer's (ERJ), Eve Air Mobility, and Volocopter GmbH have also signed agreements in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, or both.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Joby Aviation (JOBY) executive Bonny Simi said the UAE is a bit more advanced in the approach that it is taking than in other jurisdictions and offered more economic support, including the U.S. The company tipped off earlier this year that it was targeting initial operations by 2025 in Dubai. Joby (JOBY) has a six-year exclusive agreement to operate its electric air-taxi services and commercial services by early 2026, although the milestone may now be reached as soon as late 2025.
Link to Seeking Alpha Opinion Piece - Mar. 22, 2024
News, Facts, Analyst & Market Commentary - Short Reads:
[Newsletter Exclusive] Japan's central bank hikes interest rate after 17 years, scraps yield curve control
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has raised interest rates by 0.10%, marking the end to its negative interest rates policy. This is the first hike in 17 years and marks a historic shift away from a focus of reflating growth with decades of massive monetary stimulus.
The BOJ also scrapped yield curve control, a policy introduced in September 2016 under which it bought massive quantities of Japanese government bonds to keep short-term yields near its target of minus 0.1% and long-term yields around zero.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 18, 2024
[Newsletter Exclusive] AI PCs set to grow share in global PC shipments, starting major market transition
In 2024, about 18% of total personal computer shipments globally will be AI-capable PCs, according to research firm Canalys.
The firm predicts that an estimated 48M AI-capable PCs will be shipped worldwide this year, and the number is expected to exceed 100M, representing 40% of all PC shipments in 2025.
In 2028, the firm expects vendors to ship 205M AI-capable PCs, representing a compound annual growth rate of 44% between 2024 and 2028.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 18, 2024
Spire Global gains on partnership with NVIDIA to advance AI-driven weather prediction
Spire Global (NYSE:SPIR) on Tuesday announced a collaboration with NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) to advance AI-driven weather prediction, sending the space-based data provider's shares rallying in premarket trade.
Through this collaboration, Spire’s Radio Occultation data and proprietary data assimilation capabilities will be integrated with NVIDIA Earth-2 Cloud APIs to leverage AI to accelerate climate and weather predictions.
"Through this collaboration, Spire aims to deliver differentiated forecast products that are computationally infeasible using traditional NWP models," Spire Global (SPIR) added.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 19, 2024
[Newsletter Exclusive] CrowdStrike, Zscaler best positioned following healthcare hacks: Macquarie
"We like CrowdStrike (CRWD) and Zscaler (ZS) for their positioning as core pillars of software-based zero-trust cybersecurity practices," analysts led by Frederick Havemeyer wrote in an investor note. "We believe CrowdStrike's best-of-breed endpoint security platform is ideally positioned to mitigate ransomware attacks, and we think Zscaler's cloud- based network security solutions provide strong protection against attackers moving laterally within hybrid cloud environments."
Macquarie also mentioned Palo Alto Networks (PANW) in a positive light, noting that its Unit 42 is offering "boots on the ground" for UnitedHealth's investigation, along with Google's (GOOG) (GOOGL) Mandiant.
The Biden administration also requested a 10% year-over-year increase in its fiscal 2025 budget for cybersecurity spending, bumping it up to $13B from $11.8B in fiscal 2024.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 19, 2024
Joby Aviation to deliver two eVTOL Aircraft to MacDill Air Force Base
Company developing electric air taxis Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY) will deliver two aircraft to MacDill Air Force Base in 2025 as part of the company’s AFWERX Agility Prime contract with the U.S. Air Force.
Joby delivered its first aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base in California in September 2023, with a second aircraft expected to be placed on the base this year.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 19, 2024
Super Micro's time to market is its 'strongest moat,' Barclays says
Shortly after Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced its new Blackwell GPU platform, Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) announced artificial intelligence servers would be ready to go and incorporate Nvidia's latest B100, B200 and GB200 offerings.
That speed may wind up being Super Micro's "strongest moat," Barclays said.
"As NVDA increases the new product launch cadence of now once a year, vs. once every other year in the past, it should structurally increase SMCI’s advantage as SMCI will have a list of matching server products ready immediately and offer design assistance after NVDA/AMD/INTC announce a new silicon product, vs. a much longer development cycle for competitors," analysts George Wang and Tim Long wrote in an investor note.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 20, 2024
Shell to sell up to 1,000 retail stations globally, expanded electric vehicle charging
Shell (NYSE:SHEL) plans to divest ~500 gasoline stations annually in 2024-25, the company said in its Energy Transition Strategy 2024 report.
The closures would shrink Shell's (SHEL) global retail footprint by 2.1%, as the company operated 47K locations in 2023.
In its energy transition report, Shell (SHEL) said it is upgrading its retail network with expanded electric vehicle charging and convenience offers in response to changing customer needs.
Shell (SHEL) also said it plans to spend more on public charging, rather than home charging initiatives that are more popular in regions like North America, because the company believes public charging will be "needed most by our customers."
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 20, 2024
#ETH
SEC seeks to classify ether as a security - report
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to categorize ether (ETH-USD) as a security, according to a Wednesday media report.
The SEC has issued investigative subpoenas to U.S. companies over the past few weeks, Fortune reported.
The news comes after the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the ETH ecosystem, received last month a voluntary and confidential inquiry from an unnamed "state authority."
That said, not everyone agrees that Ethereum is a security. Most importantly, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the SEC’s smaller sister agency, has for years allowed ETH futures trading, implying that it is a commodity. And, in the CFTC’s lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried, the agency outright said ETH is a commodity (alongside BTC and (USDT).
Indeed, the SEC’s unilateral determination that ETH is a security would have severe repercussions for U.S. businesses and investors that already interact or rely on Ethereum, including major exchanges like CME Group and Cboe Global Exchange that trade millions of dollars of ETH futures per day.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 20, 2024
Link to Coindesk News Article - Mar. 20, 2024
NUE 0.00%↑ $MBGAF
Nucor signs deal with Mercedes-Benz to supply steel products made with 100% renewable energy
Nucor (NYSE:NUE) will supply Econiq-RE for Mercedes-Benz (OTCPK:MBGAF) models.
Econiq-RE is a category of Econiq that certifies Nucor steel or steel products made with 100% renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to less than half that of extractive blast furnace-based steel production (Scopes 1, 2 & 3).
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 20, 2024
SNPS 0.00%↑ ISRG 0.00%↑ QCOM 0.00%↑ ANET 0.00%↑
[Newsletter Exclusive] 32 “Breakthroughs” stocks by BofA
BofA Securities published a list of 32 companies that its analysts believe will benefit from breakthroughs.
Among those breakthroughs, analysts name the GPT movement, disruptions, artificial intelligence, and technology secularity, scarcity, and economics.
A common denominator is that these are disruptors, analysts said.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 21, 2024
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 21, 2024
[Newsletter Exclusive] U.S. solar manufacturers urge greater government support for local production
The report said much of the U.S. manufacturing deficiency is tied to the ingot and wafer subsectors, according to PV Tech, as the U.S. has 20 GW of annual crystalline polysilicon production capacity but no ingot and wafer manufacturing capacity, a sharp decline since 2014 when the U.S. had 500 MW of such annual capacity.
The report noted the U.S. is on track to have ample cell and module capacity, but a lack of ingot and wafer production capacity means even this move to expand U.S. manufacturing remains heavily reliant on overseas products.
PV Tech reported Chinese-owned PV companies supplied slightly more than half of all PV modules shipped into the U.S. market in 2023, with more than 98% of the Chinese-owned modules manufactured in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 21, 2024
Microsoft introduces first Surface AI PCs for businesses
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) revealed its first Surface AI PCs built exclusively for businesses, the Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business, on Thursday.
"These are the first Surface PCs optimized for AI, with the new Copilot key being added to Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro keyboards that accelerate access to the best Windows AI experiences," Microsoft said in a blog post.
The new PCs are powered by Intel (INTC) Core Ultra processors.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 21, 2024
WEN 0.00%↑ DASH 0.00%↑ GOOG 0.00%↑ GOOGL 0.00%↑
Hamburger delivery by drone? DoorDash, Google and Wendy's are making it happen
Mar. 21, 2024
DoorDash (NASDAQ:DASH) and Wing announced on Thursday the launch of their drone delivery partnership in the U.S. The partnership will start in Christiansburg, Virginia, where select local consumers will be able to order eligible menu items from Wendy's (WEN) through the DoorDash marketplace and have them delivered via drone.
The new offering is expected to provide a quick and sustainable delivery option for small, short-distanced orders.
Wing is part of Google’s parent company, Alphabet (GOOG).
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 21, 2024
Nvidia is on the cusp of an 'entirely new wave of demand,' UBS says
Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Japan, Korea and Malaysia were all specifically mentioned by Chief Executive Jensen Huang, which could result in Nvidia generating $150B in revenue in 2025, up 30% year-over-year, UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri said.
"New pre-packaged and pre-trained modular AI models announced with together with Blackwell should also accelerate the distribution flywheel for [Nvidia's] AI solutions to ride alongside enterprise software," Arcuri wrote in a note. "The entire framework creates a central distribution structure similar to an app store and given the vast array of companies to potentially license NVDA's AI Enterprise software ($4500/GPU/yr), monetization can add up quickly."
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 22, 2024
[Newsletter Exclusive] Palo Alto built to last as generative AI becomes security threat: Argus
As Palo Alto switches to its go-to-market strategy, the company is offering extended free trials to customers switching from legacy vendor point cybersecurity tools to the Palo Alto platform. This is expected to temporarily affect billings and revenue growth. However, that should bottom out by July 2025, Argus notes.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 22, 2024
Apple in talks to use Baidu's AI model for devices in China: report
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has held preliminary discussions with Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) about using the Chinese company's generative artificial intelligence tool in its devices in China, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The iPhone maker is seeking a local generative AI model provider, mainly due to the fact the models need to be vetted by China's cyberspace regulator before being introduced to the public, the report added, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 22, 2024
MSFT 0.00%↑ #OpenAI
OpenAI meets with Hollywood studios, agents to discuss AI partnerships: report
OpenAI, the generative artificial intelligence startup backed by billions of dollars from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), is meeting with Hollywood studios, entertainment executives and agencies to discuss partnerships, Bloomberg reported.
The Sam Altman-led company is speaking to the groups about bringing its AI video generator, Sora, into the fold, the news outlet said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Link to Seeking Alpha News Article - Mar. 22, 2024
Opinion Pieces - Facts & Opinions - Long Reads:
TransMedics Group: Emerging Medical Device Market Leader With A Long Growth Runway
Increasingly unhealthy lifestyles are leading to a higher incidence of organ failure worldwide, and while organ transplantation is generally the preferred treatment for organ failure due to better outcomes and quality of life, organ supply is currently heavily constrained for a variety of reasons, leading to a waiting list that as of 2023, numbers over 100,000 patients in the U.S. alone. American medtech company TransMedics’s (NASDAQ:TMDX) disruptive FDA-approved medical device - the Organ Care System (OCS) - offers a radically different solution to the current decades-old method of organ preservation and thereby holds the potential to dramatically increase organ supply. With TransMedics appearing to be among the more competitive players in a landscape with few alternatives and extremely high barriers to entry, the company looks poised to be a leading player in organ preservation. Their current valuation appears attractive and could be viewed as a buy.
Link to Seeking Alpha Opinion Piece - Mar. 19, 2024
YouTube:
If You're Not Bullish Now... I TCAF 135
I would recommend you to listen to the entire Nvidia section. Josh explains why Nvidia is the biggest story today in the simplest way possible.
Link to Full Video (Timestamped) - Mar. 23, 2024
Sodium or Lithium Batteries? | Transforming Business
When salt-powered e-cars recently rolled off the production lines in China, it hit the headlines. Not only because sodium makes up one of our favorite table condiments, but also because, so far, no electric vehicle has been able to run without lithium – an element that is difficult to extract and pretty expensive. So what are the pros and cons of the new sodium-ion battery technology? How big is the market? Why is China so far ahead in sodium battery technology? And what role do European companies like Northvolt and Altris play?
Link to Link to DW News YouTube Clip (09:32 Mins) - Jan 10, 2024
Disclosure: We own positions in some/all of the tickers mentioned in this article.
