Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is alive from coast to coast, with Caroline Hide in New York and Eva Low into San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. Amazon cuts sixteen thousand corporate jobs to remove letyers of bureaucracy and quote increase ownership.
That's ASML also announcing job cuts to boost efficiency and posting.
Strong fourth quarter orders, and.
Sources tell Bloomberg that SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as thirty billion dollars more into Open AI.
Let's check in on these markets though, because there's been some interesting whipsawing airsm hell among them.
But we go more macro right now.
One point, we saw the S and P five hundred above that seven thousand dollars seven thousand level. We have never seen that before, and that is as we see the momentum in AI continuing.
But we have a crucial FED meeting. What is going to be put to J.
Powell later today that independence of the Federal Reserve. We're not thinking that there will be any move in terms of race, but still there's nervousness, nervousness around Iran as well. And there's a lot to be focusing in on. But for now, now as that one hundred holds on to a gains of four tens percent, what are you looking.
At the breaking new story of the morning.
Amazon is cutting sixteen thousand more corporate roles, eliminate middle management, streamline. It confirms a lot of what Bloomberg had already reported. The slot kind of bouncing around in the session now softer by seven tenths of one percent. We're going to get to that later in the program and go deep
on what's happening in Amazon and tech more broadly. Then there's ASML at one point in the session up more than seven percent and pushing to a fresh record high, great blockbuster bookings, bookending the thirteenth consecutive year of growth, and also doing its own job cuts. I guess, you know, fix the roof while the sun is shining. Kind of an allergy carrow. But now the stock is down softer two and a half percent, something might have been happening on the core.
Yeah, we've got to.
Dig into it because, as you mentioned, seventeen hundred jobs to go in the Dutch maker.
The semiconductor equipment is.
World used, says it plans to cut seventeen hundred roles, around four percent of the workforce, as an effort to streamline the organization. The CEO has said. This is as the company reported earnings that you mentioned, showing record fourth quarter bookings field of course by AI demand. The SML CEO Christophe Fuget, did speak with Bloomberg on the phone earlier.
Take to listen to what he had to say.
The last three months have brought a lot of clarity, and I think what you see basically is that the semi industry, our customers start to believe that this AI demand is sustainable, and therefore they have moved into building capacity and they are moving very aggressively. And I think this has been very nicely translated indeed into a record booking number. So that's of course very good news for the mid term.
Why are the shares down, then, let's talk about.
The results when PFO is higher, global tech, infrastructure and new street research. Why did we sell the rally the record high and the shares earlier today?
Yes, that's a great question. So I think.
A SML basically confirmed what everybody suspected that twenty twenty six is going to be a great year. Now you have to take a step back and think what does that.
Mean agrate great year?
The guided revenue grows between four and nineteen percent, which in absolute term is very strong growth. As you mentioned, like the bookings were never seen. We've never seen that level of orders at the SML, like exceeding thirteen billion in a single in a single quarter. Now, when you take a step back, think about what is the downstream of SML.
Who are the clients. It's a Micron, it's a high.
Nix, it's a Samsuing, it's a TSMC, and these player are actually growing much much faster than that. They're growing, Like if you take for instance, c SMC is probably going to grow like between thirteen and thirty five percent this year. So we already see that semiicap equipment starts lagging a bit their clients in terms of growth, and that's a very natural thing because they sell equipment to
add capacity. And when you look at the trajectory of growth of air, we are actually just passing the inflection points. Going forward, gross is going to continue to be very strong, but it is going too slow and so it's going to translate into slower growth at semicap equipment manufacturers. And I really think this is the way the street is digesting the news today and overnight. Initially the stock was
up and now the street is raising. Okay, but if twenty twenty six is a peak spending air, maybe it's time to actually take profits on SML as a stock.
So you think this is peak, I mean, that's not what one would hear from Johnson one who thinks we still got trillions to go. Still in this mode of trying to question whether we're in an AI bubble or not, do you think that we've got any curacy on that from ASML after we of course got TSMC of skah next showed such strength and memory.
Yeah, so we're definitely not at peak on AI. And you look at the TSMC guide to twenty twenty nine growth between fifty five and sixty percent, so we are still in a very.
High growth environment in AI. The peak I refer to Caroline is.
A peak in actually capacity increase, because if in twenty twenty seven you still grow very fast but a bit slower than twenty twenty six, you will not need more equipment than you needed in twenty twenty six. So this is this idea that Semica players are driven by incremental capacity, not by growth directly. It's the first order of derivative
of the growth of their clients. And that's the reason why the market is right to be a bit nervous specifically on submitting now when it comes to their clients. Like the groser for twenty six is amazing. It's already very strong for twenty twenty seven, and it looks really good for twenty twenty eighteen, twenty twenty nine. So we are still in very, very very strong growth environments in AI.
Yeah, if the stocks down and twenty twenty six is the peak, the market doesn't believe mister Fuque, he thinks it's about sustainability.
Listen to this real quick.
I think we have all been surprised by the magnitude of AI, and we all saw it coming a bit. But at the same time, you know, we see those investment coming out and it's really big, and I think that all of us are continuing to watch basically for the sustainability of those investments. I think sustainability is a keyword. I think the question is always.
Is this going to last?
I think that more and more of our customer are responding positively to that question.
Is this going to last? And he's saying that the signals from its customers are that it is going to last. And you're saying the market isn't showing us.
That, whereas the market is showing is being careful about it because this is going to last. For the CEO of might mean we still have very good level of spending in twenty twenty seven. But if twenty twenty seven is as good as twenty twenty six, how is the STUG going to work on that?
It's rightly not going to work.
Well, I have a question for you, what is the leading indicator in the world of tech?
Right?
I can give you a chart right now.
It shows you expected capital expenditures for the hyperscalers and other associated names like Meta and Oracle. Right, is that the leading indicator? Or Bloomberg's Ian King is going to come on next and tell us that Texas Instruments is a leading indicator for the health of the economy, or ASML and EUV demand is a leading indicator? Which data set is most critically important to you right now?
Per So what's most critically important? Ed east to connect these data sets rightfully?
I love that chart you just showed.
This is like capex and you see that we expect capex to grow a lot this year growth next year, and as we are not too sure, we don't model much beyond that. This is a leading indicator. Now, what is going to drive the business of ASML is how much incremental capex you add every year. And what you see very clearly is that this incremental capex is now plateauing and coming down. And that's the reason why in semi cap equipment you have to be careful and expect like a significant slowdown.
In revenue growth for the rest of the industry.
Capex growth is a very very good indicator and it takes us instrument is actually a very interesting indicator. That is the most important indicator today outside of AI, because it's quite important to understand what is the global economy doing outside of AI. And we've been into like a very very painful, lengthy downce I can in automotives, in industry roles and what simply said, it's confirmed signals that we've had already for a few weeks that we are at the bottom and things are improving.
Just trying to answer the question is this going to last, Pierre fair Agree from New Street Research, thank you very much. I alluded to it just then. Shares of texts instruments soaring after the company gave a surprisingly robust forecast for the first quarter, signaling that customers have worked through inventory and a returning for chips analog chips. Multiple analysts are
raising price targets, calling the outlook encouraging. Bloomberg's inking is here analog chips simple translation of a touch of a button into a signal. But we always write in our story, in our summary of earnings, this is like the bell weather, the crystal ball for the economy. What do we learn through their earnings prece.
I mean, they've got tens of thousands of products, tens of thousands of customers, so they are literally everywhere everything that's got a on and off switch, that's where they are. What they said was again, you were very careful, and they're incrementally better. They had been talking about a recovery being kind of off pace, not as kind of robust as we would normally get. Now they're saying, actually orders are improving and are continuing to improve. The signs are now better.
How much are they able to harness any of the AI vibes rather than auto's industrials, the bell Weather part.
Yeah, that's a very good question. The answer is they confirmed the AI vibe is good for them. It's now a significant business, but really it's not the main business. The main business for them remains industrial and automotive, the things that are a broader I mean, we know that data centers is a big right and they confirm that. What they told us was that industrial is getting better as well, which is what we want to hear.
We've really focused right now on how global these companies are, like currency impacts, like China, what's going on with China. Is there anything kind of extra that Texas Instruments can tell us about different geographies, other industries? Industrial good? Is there anything that's pretty bad?
Yeah?
I mean they talked about consumer electronics not being fantastic, and that's because consumer electronic actually recovered earlier than other markets and now it's kind of slowing down a little bit. Some of the consumer electronics devices, home theater maybe PCs a little bit memory dependent. We talked about memory. The press of memory is going up. That's snow secret and that has a knock on impact.
Thinking as always breaking it down, and you mentioned memory, We're going to go there check out Skhiinex shares. They have really rocketed on the back of their earnings, and there's this relentless appetite for AI memory, which s CA Heinex serves. They're also in fact going to be establishing an AI data center. Solutions from here in the usaid how much has that to do with South Korea US relationships going forward and the need to invest in the
United States. It's going to be backed by ten billion dollars of capital to pursue partnerships and investments in the sector.
So keep an eye on that stock. And that was its training in South Korea today.
Hey, coming out, trade tensions rise between the US and South Korea.
More on the why. Next, this is Bloomberg Tech.
Taking a look at shares of Amazon softer seven tens of one percent, the company announcing the card of sixteen thousand corporate jobs worldwide, saying it's an effort to remove layers of bureaucracy and to quote, increase ownership. It also confirms quite a lot of what Bloomberg has been reporting of late. Bloomberg Spencer Soper, who covers Amazon joins us. Now, sixteen thousand corporate jobs is the latest.
Wave of more than one wave.
And the messaging and in line with your reporting, right is that this is about efficiency and streamlining, not about AI. What are the details of this particular trim that we're seeing.
Yeah, definitely delayering, the kind of targeting the middle. And this is something that goes back to last year when Jase was talking about you know, more more people who are doing the direct work and fewer people managing the work you know in the middle. So there's that in there. It also hit a large you know, different parts of the organization. So when they had initially laid off fourteen thousand back in October, departments were given a choice, they
said they had to hit some numbers. They were given a choice, do you want to cut people now or wait until after after the holiday season. And so a lot of departments, particularly the retail division, waited until after Christmas to do their cuts. So now we're seeing a total of thirty thousand, which is the biggest in Amazon's history for the corporate side.
And that's you know, compared.
To I think twenty seven thousand, which was a few years ago, Back in twenty twenty one and twenty two now.
Phil Spencer that they've been at length to say this isn't some regular occurrence. I know, Beth Galetti, who's really in charge of people experience technology, is this isn't going to be some rolling set of cuts that we see every few months. But thirty thousand last three months is a huge amount.
Yeah, thirty thousand is a big amount. But also if you read her statement very carefully, it's really corporate goblety Google trying to strike that tone between you know, reassuring employees but also not making any promises, you know what I mean. So's she's saying some might ask if this is going to be a rolling theme and you know, but she's not really saying, hey, we're not going to
cut anymore over this period of time. So it's kind of just not noncommittal Gobletygoog if you really read it carefully.
Yeah, saying is this the beginning of a new rhythm. That's not our plan.
But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speeding capacity to invent for customers. Bloomberg Expense of Sofa thanks for breaking it down for us. Now, the Trump administration is demanding the South Korea implement it's a six month old trade deal with the US to prevent Harrison rising to twenty five percent. Trade Tensions between the two countries have been rising mean worse by the
US's frustration with Korean digital services regulations. New Vaccinia tech editor Mike Shephard joined US Now to unpack what is a tech centric story in many ways because it involves key chip makers over in Korea, for example, Well, it really does.
And we saw actually the flashes of this growing as long as ten days ago Caroen, we saw Howard Lutnik threatening those memory makers with tariffs of up to one hundred percent if they didn't step up their investments here.
In the US.
And that is one of the issues that we have seen surge more recently with the president's threat of increasing tariffs to twenty five percent from the current agreed upon fifteen percent level. And a lot of that has to do with what is happening with those investments. Remember, under the deal, South Korea had promised to invest as much as three hundred and fifty billion dollars in the US over the next several years, but that step has been
installed in the South Korean parliament. They are just beset by a lot of issues, including currency woes and capital outflows, and so lawmakers there have really not been able to codify how this investment would go forward.
But we heard this morning from.
US Trade Representative Jamison Greer that time is up in South Korea needs to start moving otherwise the US will move to the next step, perhaps, and that is implementing a potential tarer of increase.
Mike.
The other news story at the intersection of tech and what's happening in Washington, DC is Intel pledging to match Trump account contributions for its employees.
What do we need to know about that?
Well, it's an interesting step, and it's one that other companies, including Blackrock, have already taken and that they are in Dell, of course, Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computing, is one of the pioneers behind this Trump accounts project and has made some big pledges that we've talked about.
On this program before.
But Intel is getting in line with that. And of course the stakes for Intel are quite different. And when I say stakes, it's quite literal. The US government owns currently five point five percent of the company and is on course to own as much as ten percent of the chip maker. And it's also interesting ed that in December the company hired Robin Colwell from the White House to serve as its next government head of government affairs
here in Washington. So Intel is in a way really aligning with this initiative, the Trump Accounts, which are designed to encourage saving and investment by parents four young children over the next several years, to try to get people not only invested in the stock market, but saving over the long haul. And in this way, Intel is trained to get on the right side of the story with the administration in another one of the president's priorities.
Blouemberg's Mike Shefard, thank you very much, Caro.
It's time now for talking tech ed first up.
Elil Musk has suggested the timing of SpaceX is possible. Blockbuster IPO could come in mid June and is according to a report in the Financial Times. The owner of the rocket maker, of course, is wanted to be targeting the IPO for when Jupiter and Venus will appear very close together in the sky.
Mask's fifty fifth birthday is also in June.
Plus, Snap has created a subsidiary dedicated to augmented reality glasses specs. Now the unit is intended to give the smart Iwear team more independence.
Will allow it to raise some money.
A spokesperson confirmed Snap will launch the AAR glasses regardless of external investment, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has joined other tech leaders weighing in on the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minnesota. In an internal memo, Cook called for de escalation. He said he had spoken to President Trump about the situation. Soft Bank as in talks to invest as much as thirty billion dollars.
More into Open Ai. And now that's according to sources, the.
Japanese firm is already one of opening Ice big as backers within eleven percent steak in the chatchipt maker and with More's bloomgs AI and data centers are Lin Dwan. And so thirty billion really makes massa all in. I mean, we know he takes big bets.
Yeah, and I think we had one of the nalysts out in Asia saying he is literally betting the house on open in other AI.
Six.
Now that being said, it's probably worth pointing out that it's as much as thirty billion dollars as opposed to thirty billion dollars itself, So we'll see exactly where he lands there. But I mean, let's face it, like Saffink has already invested tens of billions of dollars in open Ai, so it's another thirty billion dollars at this point, right.
Lynn, There are lots of people in my world asking equally if open ai is good for it in all their capital commitments for infrastructure and where the soft bank has up to thirty billion dollars. But the main thrust of it is that this is part of a that we know is happening. Right open ai wants to raise money. What do we know about its target raise overall and the valuation it wants to hit irrespective of how much soft Bank contributes to that.
That's exactly right, and we've been reporting on this funding round that open ai has been orchestrating over the past several months for a while now. Obviously stop Bank isn't the only name that is intended to invest in this round. We very recently broke the news that open ai has been in conversations with very big name investors in the Middle East, and so it's possible that we see some
sovereign wealth money wind up in this round. Now in terms of like what their targeting valuation wise, very difficult to say. It's even like difficult to say exactly how much they may end.
Up raising in the end.
The ranges that you see out there from us, from others in the media are kind of all over the place. It's like anywhere from some hundred and fifty billion dollars to eight hundred than fifty billion dollars depending on where investors in Open AI decide to land in the end. So it's very much an active round and we continue to try to keep tabs of exactly where it lands.
What's interesting is how SoftBank has been very focused on the AI play, but also selling down an invidio to be able to loosen up some cash. They made a purchase of Ampare, for example in the chips area. Are they deemed winner in the AI space right now?
Well, I think it's probably two different questions that you're looking to unpack there. One is what does stopping selling down its sake and in VideA really mean? And I think that for a moment, people were making the mistake of interpreting that as ooh, stopping sees that it's getting like way over its skis and it's not really you know, all in on AI, when in fact, what it was really doing is trying to raise enough money to make even more bets on AI. Your other question though, was like,
is Stoppank a winner in AI? I mean, is anybody a winner in AI? I think that the concerns of an AI bubble are still relevant. We saw is Sameltho report some strong bookings, So.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Let's check in on these markets which I've been flip flopping, and we build anticipation of the FED decision and indeed many feeling we're not going to get a rate change.
But what will J Powell say at the press conference.
We also got building geopolitical anxiety where it's about Iram, whether we've got still tensions with South Korea in terms of trade. Nevertheless, one point, the S and P five hundred go is above seven thousand, and then as that one hundred holds onto its gains, earnings are coming thick
and fast. This is where we see the fundamental picture of this tech rally that we're so used to seagate best performer in terms of actual percentage move when you're look at the nast that one hundred and twenty percent. This is again winning formula on memory and it is calling the numbers that came put out last night terrific.
Texas Instruments also came out with numbers. This is like the bell weather when you're thinking about industrials and ththing about autos and we've hit a bottom word coming back out of it. Were up almost eight percent on that now ASML actually turns red it had blowout orders. But see many people questioning perhaps where they can keep on building momentums selling chip equipment to those chip makers such as TSMC Intel here in the United States, Intel, as
I say, up ten percent. Keep an eye on how the moon music has changed around AI or whether there's a bubble or not ed. It's all about these.
Earnings right now.
It is, and big tech earnings are well and truly upon us, and that includes service now. Bloomberg Intelligence says investors want to hear about the pending acquisition of cybersecurity startup Arms, along with new AI sales and a lot more. Bloomberg's Brady Ford, who covers the software space, is here with us generally right now that the IT spending environment
isn't great. What is the kind of read through an expectation from the street on how service Now will talk about that, right and how it will show up in their own numbers.
Application software has just had a really tough stretch the last year, right. I Mean we've seen all of these big vendors, whether it be Salesforce or Service Now, talk up their new AI tools, but it just seems that we can't quite see it in the numbers that there's a real revenue uplift and with service Now, add on top that they've made two big deals in the last years, so I just see a lot more investor anxiety about them than I had at any point in recent years.
I mean, you just have to look back to how their shares have deeply underperformed last year, where they were off by basically almost thirty percent. When you flip into what we might hear from IBM, it has actually outperformed software names, But their consultancy side of the business is maybe the one that you get the AI part of the equation coming in exactly.
IBM is facing this moment where the discretionary spending is being taken out of those traditional consulting projects. But it doesn't seem to matter too much for them because a lot of their infrastructure software is doing quite well and people are still buying a ton of mainframes. Who knew so IBM has actually face study pretty you know, positive environment for a name that in the past was associated with kind of stargy, boring, slow growth company.
You know.
Don't even get them started on quantum, Brody, We've got a lot to digest after the biles.
Thanks to you. We appreciate it, Brodie Forward. Now, another stock we're watching is Microsoft.
Investors are paying close attention to its cloud computing service as You and the impact of AI generalor AI how thin can is.
A Wolf Research analyst.
Expects the platform's growth to exceed guidance at thirty nine percent, writing, we believe that open ai training revenue will begin contributing more materialy to as You're in the second fiscal quarter and beyond, which could provide incremental upside to our preview.
Alex joins us. Now, the question is do.
They have the capacity to serve the relentless demand from a player such as open ai ad it.
Yeah, I mean that's the I think the big question and look We're excited. We think this is the bell weather that's going to help usher AI into the enterprise era, the mo from co pilot to coworker that never sleeps, never eats, never complains, just works on complicated problems all the time with the same tool chain that you're used to as a human. We think Microsoft is very well positioned as a platform to deliver on all parts of that stack and journey, the most important metric being Azure.
The capacity constraint issues we think do start to get resolved as they bring the Fairwater data centers online. We see both the Wisconsin and Atlanta data center starting to ramp and contribute. We think that unlocks about a gigawatt of capacity over the course of the next year, which we estimate about twenty billion dollars of incremental Azure unlock.
We think that they also are contracting and expanding their capacity with third parties like the Neo Clouds, n Scale, Nebius, and a few others that could be up to another gigawatt of capacity or another potential twenty billion. So we think that you start to see those resolutions come through over the course of the next few quarters.
I want to go back to where you started co pilot and then you went coworker. What's so interesting really on the show the last few days and really thinking about anthropics offering cowork how much is that potentially a real competitor to Microsoft?
Could it up end it in the space?
To me?
And the way we think about it is that we're in phase zero of adoption in the enterprise. A lot of the tools, the way they're being used right now,
we're in the discovery phase of what's possible. We think that anthropic open AI really all the model companies have an opportunity to massively expand the value creation that they're delivering in their offerings in the enterprise specifically, and so this is a demonstration, we believe where different vendors at different times will be able to exhibit share gains with functionality that they launch in their ecosystems to enable value creation.
We view it less as a zero sum and more of as an infinite game that we're just starting to play.
A I find this so interesting that we started this conversation about top line growth and Azure right almost the reverse of a conversation we might have had one or two quarters ago, which would have started with kappas or expenditures.
How much do you need to just get a projection.
Of confidence from Microsoft on their capital expenditure figures to keep this big story alive.
Yeah, So look, last quarter was the big shift quarter in terms of CAPEX, going from you know something where we thought it was going to be one hundred billion to one hundred and fifty billion this year.
We think that the CAPEX shift has been made.
We think now it's a question of stability and you know, to some extent, maybe aligning the increase from here with some of your kind of core revenue growth assumptions.
But look, that could change too. Over the last month, we.
Think inference has quite frankly exploded with the amount of tokens being generated for autonomous coding tasks that are now running you know, at large when people sleep, as well as some of the possible functionalities exhibited by things like clog bot and these other kind of orchestration engines. So it's anyone's guest. We don't think CAPEX is going down anytime soon. We think kind of stable to up is how we are thinking about it.
When it comes to genuinely autonomous agents. You know, Microsoft's are very good. I always say this on the program. That's what I grew up with, selling software that you can otherwise get for free elsewhere. They're not the only game, right. When it comes to the coworker, AWS has a very
similar story they like to tell. They like to talk up their prowess in observability, right, really important critical factor when an agent is an autonomous and they talk up at AWS how well they're doing to help engineers get through backlog. How are you going to discern addicts which companies better at that you know, and therefore which will be adopted in the enterprise.
Well, look, I think all three hyperscalers have a role to play.
I think the one element about autonomous agents, particularly ones that have to handle sensitive, oftentimes customer privileged information is security. Now, we think one of the key differentiators for Microsoft is their security portfolio, their security stack, their security graph as well as you know, all of the investments that they've made in other parts of the data platform has stayed
over time. So we think that is a critical piece of the puzzle that will help them gain share of this developing market that we're just kind of starting to discover.
The use cases around Alex Zuchin and four research greats. Have you on the show in Advanced Microsoft now coming up? While b CEO Raquel Eredison joins us to talk about the self driving startups, latest funding and push into robotaxis.
A's next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
Self driving startup warbe I secured one billion dollars in new funding and includes a seven hundred and fifty million Series C that was led by Coast Adventures by G two venture partners, plus two hundred and fifty million in a milestone based investment from Uber to lunch.
Wabi enabled robotaxis.
Joining us now Raquel Rotisen, she's a CEO founder of Wabi. How important is this focus on physical AI in the trucking space now moving to the robo taxi?
How significant is that for you?
Yeah, so it's a really exciting moment. I will say, where you know, the physically a revolution is here and sold Iran is what is going to skill first, and you know we have a very Advanne system in tracking and now we are entering rowo taxi with a massive furnitshire with with Uber and you know it's really the next stage for that company is really exciting to be you know, reading their way in physical AI.
What's interesting is we had gatekon yesterday also raising fun well, they're securing new deals, they're already commercializing.
How is your go to market looking?
It's all about the platform that you offer when it comes to trucking and now robotaxis.
What is it that makes you so distinct?
So what makes us very very unique is the fact that we have next generation technology physically I platform that for the first time in the industry, in the industry is going to be able to drive both fhon factors robotaxes as well as the driving trucks. We are very advanced in terms of both the technology as well as commercialization in trucking and now you know entering robotaxi, and
we're going to enter robotaxi really really quickly. So it's very you know, it's great to see that, you know, this next generation technology enables you to go so much faster, so much more capital efficient, and with a product that really miss the customer demands.
Okue, Well, congratulations on the round, you know, really notable. It reads like the money that's coming in from Uber is continue on. You hitding some milestones in robotaxi, right, your focus has been autonomous trucking.
What are those milestones in.
Robotaxi that Uber requires you to hit so you can unlock access to that cash.
So so not sharing a lot of details yet on the amazing partnership with Uber, but those are simple milestones that we can you know, we can achieve quickly and you know, thanks to the technology that we have, you know, already today we have the capabilities to you know, the core capabilities required for robot taxis with our cell arriving trucks unless the Unlike the rest of the industry, we can drive not only on highways but in generalized surface streets.
So that's why you know, we feel, you know, very confident that you know, we can enter robot taxi and dis wrapted market really really, you know, swiftly.
You're Canadian company essentially, and one of the conversations that we were having yesterday with Gattik is in American US a need for a federal regulation. Your framework you able to give me a kind of assessment of going to market in Canada versus the United States, which jurisdiction you think is ahead right in accommodating this nascent technology.
Yeah, the US is definitely ahead of the Canadian market in terms of you know, regulatory peace as well as adoption, and Canada has to do you know, quite a bit to catch up. But there is a lot of excitement on the Canadian eical system to make this possible. They really understand that this technology has so many benefits from safety to you know, all the efficiency that is, sustainability, extra sustainability that is going to come with the technology.
So definitely there is a desire, but the US is way ahead of Canada. So we will you know, for us, our first market has been over the last couple of years for tracking really the US or a march lagger market and then we will see a out you know, more expansion in the years to come.
What's interesting is that you've been in AI deeply entrenched in the academic side of it, still a full professor over in the University of Toronto for twenty five years.
Is talent everyone is for you people, so know who you are.
They must gravitate towards the expertise you've brought in physical AI. But it's getting very expensive. Is that almost what some of this funding round is for.
It's a great, great point, Caroline. So there is definitely you know, a lot of you know, talent war for EI these days with obviously the revolution that is happening. But you know why we can't attract the best in class without paying premiums.
And the reason why is that if you're.
Interested in physically, if you're interested in you know, bringing a product that is you know, you said, once in a lifetime or in a generation sort of opportunity to really change the world as we know it today, and you want to do it with innovative technology that and really pushing the industry to the next level, then what is the place to be? And that's what you know, we have hired divesting class, you know, talent team, and
we continue to attract the best in class. And you know also what attention numbers are of the chart, so definitely you know, amassing team and we continue to double down in terms of hiring.
Okay, I have another question about Canada, and you know, forgive me, it's just been so much in the news recently the ecosystem in Canada. You probably saw that why Combinator cut Canada from its list of countries that it would invest in startups in what do you make of that? And like what is the ecosystem in Canada right now? Like on the software and hardware side, do you see the talent pool that you need available in your home country.
Yeah, so I'm not going to comment on you know, you know why combinitory specifically, but I will say that, you know, there is a vibrant, you know, take an ecosystem in Canada. You know, as you as you know, Canada has been at the forefront of really all the innovation and the majority of the innovation that under pin the AI revolution that we're seeing today with folks like
you know, give Hinton, Nobel, Price, et cetera. Right, So, so the talent is there, the CoSystem is there, and uh, you know, from my perspective, you know, Wabi is a proud Canadian company and there is you know a few others that are really leading the way. And it's a mass.
You know, it's an amazing market. And if you look at that list of investors, you know, we have plenty from the value plenty for Canada from Canada as well as Europe and the even me the list now, so you know, I will say that we you know, Canada can really attract capital from you know, across the globe and and you know it's it's a miss if you don't, you don't invest in Canada.
Thank you.
Riquel Edison, CEO and founder of WARB closing seven hundred and fifty million dollar Series C, taking up to a billion dollars with support from Uber to.
Wool Street.
Feeling some mixed signals on has ahead of its earnings price targets. For the ev maker, they're rising despite investor concerns over its earnings potential this year.
Here with more is Steve Man a Bluemeg Intelligence and for Tesla.
It's always a question of whether you care about the fundamentals and the court are just gone, or whether you're betting on AI optimists and the future of robotics.
Yeah.
I think if you look at the stock price over the last quarter, there's definitely some push and pull on the stock price. It's been pretty steady where it's at at the moment. So there are two camps. One is looking at the business fundamentals. You know, sales in the fourth quarter was down fifteen to sixteen percent, not you know, there's been a lot of pull ahead before the seventy five hundred dollars US tax credit went away, so earnings
are probably not gonna be pretty. But on the other camp, you know, investors are really stoked with their cybercav robot taxi rollout.
Steve, in your January twelfth preview, you wrote that twenty six is the pivot for AI and robotics, right, and that you expect management to talk up those things.
But what do you actually need to hear?
What things of substance do you want Musks to say on the call that actually will be a driver of confidence in the near term, even if that is this year.
Yeah, I think investors is very anxious about that. You know, Elon Musk has talked about you know, the vision system, self driving vision system that they're rolling out. There's a lot of anticipation because you know, I think the next leg for the company is really scaling that business. So it's about robotaxi, it's about rolling out the cybercab, the new you know, steering wheelless brake, pedaliss vehicle, and the
f ST subscription. So, I mean there's investors are very stoked about this, and they're really looking for Elon mus to tell them that, hey, in the next three to six months. We are really going to scale it up beyond astin.
See Man of bloom Megan Intelligence. We're all bracing for aftermarket today and Tesla. We're also bracing for Meta, which reports after the bow. Investors are focused on AI capital expenditure plans for twenty twenty six, which analysts say could overshadow the company's advertising revenue growth. Luvis Kurt Wagner joins us for the details. It's a pretty familiar formula at this point. I hand it over to you. Give us the Meta earnings preview as best you can.
I feel like we've been talking about a lot of the same stuff for the past year, which is what is spending going to look like? And can the company paint this picture for investors that all the spending ultimately pay off down the line. And you remember it was just a year ago that Mark Zuckerberg was saying, hey, record spending up to sixty five billion in capital expenditures, and everyone's head spun around, you know, crazy to think
of that. I saw the estimates on the Bloomberg today that they think capital expenditures could be one hundred and eleven billion dollars for Meta in twenty twenty six, and so it's just hard to quantify, you know, easy to quantify a harder rager head around the jump we've seen and spending from this company in particular as they rush toward AI, and there's going to be a lot of questions about what the ROI on that is going forward.
And that is why the stock has taken some hits.
I mean, initially it was talk up your capex and you're rewarded for it, but then in the last innings, I'm just looking at the chart of how swiftly they fell back in October as maybe we then started to be worried about the commitment of capital expenditure.
How can they steady nerves in other parts of the business.
What do we need to hear on the bread and butter of ads sales?
And they like, well, I imagine we'll hear them talk about how AI is improving ads today, right, and that's going to be in automated campaigns, that's going to be in better targeting, pretty much anything they can do to show, hey, look this this fifty billion dollar data center we're building in Louisiana is actually helping our revenue or will help
our revenue immediately. I think that's going to be very important because a lot of their futuristic bets we talked about the metaverse on here, virtual reality, even the AI glasses, which seem to be going well. I mean, these are not driving meaningful revenue to the company, and yet they are sucking tons of cash to operate, and so that is the trade off. A lot of the big bets
still haven't materialized on the revenue side just yet. So they need to show that AI is continuing to help on that ads business.
Most Kurt Wagner, He's going to be all over them post the bell today.
Thank you. That does it for this meeting edition of Bloomberg Tech. So much more to comment.
Yeah, the mag seven starts in ernest. Today is the day and it's the market run up going into it kind of got.
Me on edge, you know, recap on the podcast. Carry's right, it was meeting.
You know where to find it on the Bloomberg platforms online, Apple, Spotify, and iHeart. I know I'll be at my desk after the market bell. I know what I'm bracing for. Question is will you be back with us? This is Bloomberg Tech