From Marhart where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
I'm Caroline Heydet Bloomberg's World head quarters in New York, and I'm Met Ludlow in San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
Apple shares slide for a fifth day. That is, the iPhone maker sees a big drop in China sales to start off the week with a stock in correction. Will break down everything you need to know.
Plus we stay with China as AMD faces a US roadblock in selling its artificial intelligence chips in the Chinese market.
Bloomberg Exclusive ahead.
And Bitcoin oh it hits a fresh record for the first time since its peak back in November twenty twenty one. We'll have full coverage of the digital currency market and those meancoin come up in the rush. There's so much more going on throughout this hour. Let's first check in
on these markets because what bitcoins up. The rest of the market still trying to digest some of the run up that we've seen in particularly the AI related names, and we focus in on what is some mixed economic data today, the US showing some services weakness, and we look ahead to testimony coming from J. Powell on the Hill, his semi annual experience over in terms of the politicians, what will the grilling mean? How much will he be reticent to say that they're looking at those rate cuts
anytime soon. We're looking at one point eight percent down on the Nasdaq now, so big tech feeling some of the big pain. As we talk China, ed, I want to focus a line on what's happening in China. These of course, these traded names here in the United States
with the Golden Dragon index of five percentage point. As we see a five percent growth perspective coming from China that target, how will they get there and ultimately what is the debt that they're going to be issuing fueling in terms of the focus on AI on technology coming from China not en After buoying the stocks today in the Chinese names, I'm looking at the tenure yield off by seven basis points as we anticipate the FED and Jpowe's speech move on, have a look at what is
happening in the asset class that we need to discuss a little bit today. Bitcuinn does manage to hit that all time high. We're above sixty nine thousand. Happened and just after about nine am, nine thirty ten am, but we're looking at a sixty six back to at the moments and profit taking is we hit that psychological level already.
We've seen the market capitalization eclips that of twenty twenty one because of because there's more bitcoin in supply and they are worth up to one point sixty nine thousand. We're currently up nine point nine percent, as we'll see over the course of what has been a mega run throughout twenty twenty four, in particular twenty twenty three though they were in the doldrums, and twenty twenty two. But we are back at that level that we hit in
November twenty twenty one. And what are you watching on the micro.
There is a lot in the newsflow that is hitting technology shares. Tesla down almost five percent. A fire near its Berlin plant has halted production. Officials are investigating if arson was the cause of that fire.
That's one news item.
The other is data out a China that's a little softer, showing that maybe growth in China sales to Tesla not as strong that stock under pressure. Two other big stories we're watching. We're going to head to DC in just a minute. Bloomberg reporting that US officials are going to block AMD selling a made for China lower spec GPU or AI accelerator. It's something similar to what Nvidia did, and that seems to be weighing on shares two down one point eight percent, but in line with the broader market.
Then you have Apple down two point eight percent, trading at its lowest level since October. We have data from Counterpoint Research, and that data shows that in the first six weeks of twenty twenty four, sales of the iPhone in China fell twenty four percent year on year compared to that same six week period a year ago. I want to bring in bloombergs Mark German and go through this data because the data also shows that other handset makers had a surge in sales, and so therefore the
market ches picture in China, Mark is changing. With Apple dropping below sixteen percent and Huawei now back above sixteen percent.
What's going on?
You know?
This is this is hugely significant. We've known for a couple quarters now that Apple has been running into roadblocks in China. Certainly that new Huawei phone has been very popular, that new made device with the locally designed processor we've known. For a while, there's been this sense of renewed nationalism in China where people are, you know, maybe putting Apple purchases a little bit on the back burner and focusing on purchases from state side companies. They also have been banned.
There's been some bands and some organizations owned by governments, government entities where they don't want American made devices, they don't want Korean made devices like Samsung. So the impact has been there. But what's so interesting about this first six week's number is that it's actually a little bit worse than it seems on the surface. Right, let's do a comparison. So what happened last year? The iPhone fourteen Pro came out. Now, obviously that was not as a
significant of an update as the iPhone fifteen Pro. So from that perspective, you'd think that a nicer phone, new design, titanium, that would sell better. But then we also remember that there were no supply chain issues this year and last year there were significant supply chain issues. There was a lot of pent up demand for the iPhone in the first six weeks of twenty twenty three, because you really couldn't find an iPhone fourteen Pro or Promax at the
tail end of twenty twenty two. So not only is Apple down, they're down in comparison to a phone that was not as big of an.
Upgrade, and they're.
Down when there was so much pent up demand for this device. So clearly not a terrific situation here, but I do see some momentum shifting. The iPhone sixteen Pro is going to launch later this year. There are some cool new camera features that could excite that market. The other thing to note is that the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality. That's a pretty popular technology in China and in Asia in general, and I expect China to be one of the first markets to get that headset.
So it's not all.
Bad for Apple and China. There is going to be a little bit of a shift here, I think later in the year.
I mean, thus far as data coming from center point counterpoint, it's their narrative, it's not Apples. What are we hearing from Apple to try and regain that narrative? You, of course pushed out a story yesterday about how they've been updating some of their MacBook airs at the moment, so clearly bringing in faster chips. But we need to hear
a little bit more about artificial intelligence as well. Your amazing scoop last week about the fact that they're putting back on the car, putting their technology experts to work in AGI more focused and generative AI. Does that mean that we could start to see a refresh and exuberance around purchasing.
Yeah, I mean the big question is if a lot of these new AI features are going to be available globally, right, it could be sensible that Apple first roles now in English speaking countries, right, and then they have a long roadmap ahead to expand the artificial intelligence features to China and some of the international regions. I'm not sure that AI is going to give a significant boost to their product sales. I think the AI would be better served
in terms of new revenue for future products. What kind of new devices can you enable thanks to AI? Right, things like more advanced headsets, augmented reality glasses, AirPods with cameras, tabletop robotics devices and before was canceled the car of course, so certainly that's something to watch. Apple's not saying much when they last spoke, they seemed pretty you know, excited
about what's going on in China. They were referencing Counterpoints previous report that indicated the iPhone is doing extremely well, and everyone who talked negatively about Apple and China was completely wrong. So this is a complete narrative shift. Now again the first thing you said, I think was really important. This is Counterpoints narrative. This is Counterpoints numbers. Now, some
times these numbers are correct, sometimes they're completely incorrect. I would say, on average, they give a fair idea of what's going on. So it's possible the real situation is not as bad as Counterpoint is indicating today. But certainly there is some indicator from them at least that things are not as great as one would hope. If you are an Apple.
Shareholder, certainly it's taken a big hit to market capitalization over the course of this year. Mark German as always so fantastic to run through all Apple with you. Meanwhile, let's just stay with China as a narrative right now, because US officials actually told chip maker AMD is artificial intelligence chip designed for the Chinese market, it's too powerful. They can't sell it without a license. From the Commerce Department.
For more on that particular scoop as Blue Megs Mackenzie Hawkins and well, what's interesting is AMD hadn't really been discussing what they were making for China, but you got the inside.
Track, that's right.
So we've actually seen this story play out before with AMD's main American rival and Video, which publicly said we are trying to design an a processor for the Chinese market to align with US export controls after those initial curbs were put in place in October twenty twenty two, and then the US moved to tighten those restrictions about a year later October twenty three, that captured in Video's chip. The US said, you can't sell that to Chinese customers.
It allows them to develop AI models that pose a security risk. And since then we've seen in Video release new processors for China that they say align with even the stricter restrictions, and also am D trying to get into this market as well. AMD debuted a new suite of AI chips in December called the Mi I three hundred series, and this China specific chip is a less powerful version of that broader lineup of products.
Right, the important thing here is there are two potential lines of rules that AMD has to follow. There is a technological restriction, a sort of blanket rule that says you cannot offer anything in China di spec, and then there's the end user specific rule, which says you cannot sell to this company. Do we know which one AMD is caught by.
It's not yet clear which Chinese customer was trying to buy AMD's chips. So basically the process that they went through is there's a set of chips that are just deemed too powerful no matter what. If you have chips at those specs, you need to apply for a US government license. Then there's a lower tier of chips, for which you have to notify the US government of your intent to sell those chips to a Chinese customer, and they let you know whether you need a license. So
that's what happened to AMD. They designed a chip that fell below the highest threshold, the most strict cutoff, but the US said, actually, you're not allowed to get an exemption from the overall licensing regime and you are going to have to go through this onerous process. And now it remains to be seen whether AMD is actually trying to do that, or whether they'll pivot away from this strategy.
An AMD down one point eight percent, that the entire sox is and other chip names too, Bloombergs Mackenzie Hawkins terrific reporting.
Thank you.
Meanwhile, I has pledged to harness the entire nation's resources to speed homegrown scientific breakthroughs, reaffirming its priority to become self reliant in spheres from AI to chip making, to rest technological supremacy from the US.
At Day one of the.
National People's Congress, Premier Lee Chang laid out the nation's priorities, which are still technological innovation and upgrading its industries, including new energy vehicles.
Caroline, Well, let's.
Go over to what's happening in the world of politics right now because it affects the world of technology. On this Super Tuesday, we're going to be discussing the impact of AI misinformation and what local election offices can be doing to prepare for that conversation coming up next. Meanwhile, check out what's happening with meta shares. We're off by one point eight percent. Yes, the rest of technology is off in sympathy today, but more broadly, we're looking at
reports that showing meta services are having issues now. Down Detector reporting plenty of problems, whether it be across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger at the moment. Ironically, on x the Rifle platform is where we heard from meta communications director Andy Stone saying they are aware of people having issues accessing its services and they're working on a fix. This is
the Bloomberg Technology. Now, let's get into the latest from today's Super Tuesday primaries and caucus is happening across the country. Bloomberg's Kaylee Lines has been very busy in anticipation of this day and throughout it. Kaylee, what are we bracing for?
Well, we're bracing for what could, effectively, Caroline be the start of the general election tonight, because the front runner in the Republican primary, Donald Trump, could very well sweep all fifteen of these states, which would get him not exactly at the very close to the twelve hundred and fifteen delegates he needs to secure the nomination. Of course,
Nikki Hayley still is in the race. He has committed to staying in through the contest today, but it is unclear if her campaign last beyond today, should she not actually come out as the victor in any of these states. The states to watch for her could be the likes of Vermont, maybe even of Virginia, but if she can't win in those states is highly unlikely she will be
victorious in any others. It's worth keeping in mind that Heley does have financing theoretically to continue her campaign as she continually pulls in millions of dollars from donors twelve million in the month of February. Her campaign says another
one million so far in March. But mathematically it just might not be possible for her to secure the nomination after tonight, which means we could be looking down the rematch tunnel here of Trump versus Joe Biden, who also is highly likely to come out on top on all of the Democratic primary states today.
Kaylee, I'm looking forward to joining you in Bloomberg's Joe Matthew this evening with our special show and coverage.
When you look at.
California, right, Trump and Biden basically say, I just want to get it out the way, get it done, even though it's the most populous state. What's probably more interesting is some of the dollars that originate from the state and some of the initiatives that they're backing.
Yeah, absolutely in the down ballot races. Specifically, if you look at the Senate primary, for example, this is to replace the late Senator Diane Feinstein. In California, you have three Democratic members of the House, Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee, who are competing against one Republican Steve Garvey, who you may know as a former Los Angeles Dodgers player.
But California has a jungle primary, which means whichever to get the highest number of votes, be that Democratic or Republican, they are the ones that will advance to the general election in November. And crypto packs specifically have been throwing a lot of money at this race, specifically throwing money against Congressoman Katie Porter, spending about ten million dollars against her, which has actually helped Adam Schiff, who does have some
more crypto friendly language on his campaign website. So that's one of the races to watch, and I would just note when you're thinking crypto, they're spending money in other states as well, like Alabama and North Carolina. So certainly the industry is trying to advance its objectives through dollars in some of these down ballot.
Races this evening. All right, bloom As Klines, I'll see you in a few hours for off Super Tuesday coverage. Thank you very much. Let's keep a conversation going.
There's something to discuss around the intersection of artificial intelligence and misinformation in this election cycle. Here's what some of our recent guests on bloombag TV have had to say about.
That misinformation with artificial intelligence.
I think that could be another factor that impacts what's going on around the election.
I don't think independent center right Republicans or Democrats really have any idea about how effective AI can be if it's in the hands those specific individuals that have no moral boundaries.
So tho's sort of the big things.
You know, if somebody does that deep fake, whether it's Joe Biden or Trump, and you know, we're going to be able to find that you may not even need an algorithm.
So what we're seeing also is that the foreign disinformation campaigns could be very effective with AI. With deepfakes specifically.
There's much more subtle manipulation that I think we need to watch for.
Let's bring in Marcy Andino for her take. She's the senior director of the Election infrastruct Information Sharing an analysis center which supports state, local and territorial election offices. You heard that the diverse range of opinion. It is super Tuesday, social media is down. What do you think will happen tonight in the context of AI and misinformation?
Thank you so much for that question, and it's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. AI is certainly a new topic that we're talking about. We're talking and tracking five cybersecurity Brett's as we move into the general election, and AI is the new kid on the block, if you will. We're not seeing a lot of AI activity right now, but it certainly has the potential to increase misinformation campaigns. It will amplify or magnify the risk that already exists out there.
What your role does at the moment is you're offering tools, no cost tools, it might be said, training to those who are out there in the field trying to ensure that this isn't spreading and that their elections have been run fairly. But also you're providing sort of effective remediation if ever there are incidents, talk us through. What you'll go to is in a response to any sort of sudden sweeping of a misinformation out the break that might or might not occur as people had to polls.
Well, we've been talking with election officials over the last year about the possibility of seeing generative AI used to disrupt elections, and we're reminding election officials that they need to collaborate with us and share information so we can pass that information on to other election officials so they might know what's coming in their states. We also remind them probably the most powerful thing they can do is to educate voters, citizens, candidates, and even their local media.
So when people see something that they think might not be exactly right, they know where to go to get accurate information, and that is with the state or local election officials. So it's very important that they establish themselves as the trusted source of information, and that even goes for training their staff. In election offices, they work long hours, they get very tired, so they're more apt to click on something, and they bring in a lot of seasonal workers.
So those seasonal workers may or may not have had any training, so it's important to make sure they're trained and ready to go as well, and of course, using good cyber hygiene passwords strong passwords, turning on multi factor authentication on every application. They can using our no cost tools to protect their network, their critical networks.
MARSI.
I think cyber hygiens a new one for us on this show. Is there any proof that we are better prepared for this year's election than we were in twenty twenty.
Well, the EII sack just turned six years old, and for the last six years we've been working with election officials across the country and in the territories to raise their cybersecurity posture. We've deployed lots of solutions, cybersecurity solutions that would harden their defenses, and we've also provided a lot of training, and we're talking to election officials in
terms they understand. We're former election officials in many cases, so we're breaking down those barriers and making sure that they understand that cybersecurity is everybody's responsibility and that they need to take action. So I believe, yes, we are better prepared. But cybersecurity is a long term game. It
is not a one and done. It's constantly changing, and as you started the conversation with Generative AI, that's the new thing that we are trying to build defenses around and prepare elections, to deal with election officials, to deal with especially as we move into the general election.
MASSI great to have some time with you on head of this super Tuesday Mussi Andina. It's a UNI director for the election of the Structure Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Great expertise coming there. I meanwhile, coming up for the first time in more than nine months, a mosque is no longer the world's richest person. Bezos, He's back.
We'll have more for you. This is new by Technology.
Time now for talking tech First. Sub Ali Baba spearheading its second major deal in AI this year, needing a financing round of at least six roundred million dollars for Chinese AI startup Minimax, as the e commerce pioneered actually deploying its own capital and pursuit of growth. Now the two year old firm that it's backed has secured from not only Alibarb but other investors that bring its now valuation to two and a half billion.
Dollars, according to sources.
Meanwhile, four ex Twitter executives, including former CEO Paragagua Wall, they've sued Elon Musk for allegedly stivving them on more than one hundred and twenty eight million dollars in severance
payments after they were ousted from the company. The former top officials said Musks showed quote special ayre towards him after he took over the company in twenty twenty two, publicly vowing to withhold their severance to recoup two hundred million dollars from the forty four billion deal and sat according to the lawsuit, Let's talk about Elon Musk a little bit more, because it's been dethroned by Jeff Bezos
as the world's richest person. The Tesla founder lost his position at the top of the Bloomberg Billionaire Index to the Amazon founder after shares in Tesla. Of course, I've been under pressure to start this week this Mark Spazios his first return to the top of the Nexus twenty twenty one. First, I Musk hasn't topped the ranking more than nine months ed and this is of course, as we see significant issues with Tesla and over in China.
For example, Musk has lost thirty one point three billion dollars of wealth so far this year. Bezos gain twenty three point four billion. They're separated by three billion. What's a few billion among friends.
Are they friends?
Peels out? They're not.
Meanwhile, coming up, they are added in space, added all the bit on the billionaires index as well. Meanwhile, let's just return to the state of cybersecurity. Kato Networks is with our CEO Shlomo Kramer.
This is a Blueberg.
Welcome back to blue mert Technology and Caroline had in New.
York and amed love Low in San Francisco. Let's get back to Bitcoin.
We are now lower in the session below sixty six thousand US dollars. Earlier, about an hour ago, Bitcoin touched its first record high since November of twenty twenty one, just above sixty nine thousand US dollars. You see that all the time in different asset classes, right Carol, You hit a record, there's enthusiasm, there's sentiment, and then it
very quickly falls away. But you can see over a five day basis the kind of near term momentum we've seen in bitcoin and its market cap also now globally near at that one point five trillion mark. There's a lot happening in equity markets. You were right to point out earlier that it's jpowweek. We'll hear from him on the hill. Later in the program, it is tech that is the drag on major indices, and as that one hundred down one point six percent. Apple is off session
lows but down two point seven percent. Again that third party counterpoint research data showing weakness in China. Continuing to update your meta, we're getting reports from down Detector that Instagram, threads and Facebook are all down. The company has responded to a spokesperson ironically on x form formerly knows Twitter to say they're aware of it.
Also, earnings continues. We're at the tail end.
But CrowdStrike reports after market, and that brings cybersecurity back into focus. Right now, we've been thinking about cybersecurity in the context of Super Tuesday, the election cycle. Everyone is doing a lot to counter it, but the threats appear to be growing.
Let's bring in somebody.
We're excited to speak to a co founder and CEO of Cato Network, Shlomo Kramer, aka the Godfather of cybersecurity. Some people have called you that. To be fair, I want to start with the election and Super Tuesday.
You know, earlier in.
The program we attributed a ramp up in activity or risk to Generative AI.
Do you see that across your desk at the moment.
Probably generally, AI is the next phase in cybersecurity, both foremen influencing the opinions as well as industrializing the attacks. So absolutely, and that does you need AI for protection as well?
We welcome you to San Francisco.
How much of the conversation that you're having while you're in town is about the election or do you clients and your peers have other concerns.
Well, it's mostly around cybersecurity in general, and the election is one big transaction that needs to be protected. But I would say that if you look at the new economy, the number one risk to it is cybersecurity.
And yet, and yet, post this earning season, of companies that you wrote the first check into, Palo Alto Networks or other cybersecurity names, they're down because people aren't spending at quite the pace that the market had anticipated in their cyber defenses. Do you worry about that?
Actually, I'm we are here in Cato. My company is here to solve that because the security industry for thirty years have focused on the what and created a huge number of point products that essentially are not consumable by most enterprises. So they security market is broken and the need to fix it is by finding new ways to consume it. And the platform that cater provides is the new how that will fix it.
Let's talk about that secure access service EDGE says, as one might say, it for sure seems to be the new way in which you think you should be delivering cybersecurity across a platform workload, unlike you say, now one of your biggest competitors, which is Palo Alto networks. How much is that resonating, how much you're seeing enterprises adopt or indeed is it governments? Who are your end consumers for this at the moment?
So I would say that the pain of point solutions is everywhere, but at least that the mid to large enterprises, the gap between resources and challenges is the most severe. So the need for SASSI and platforms such as Kato provides is the most acute, and we see the most direction in this type of organizations today. But eventually the concept of platforms and consumption food platforms is going to replace the entire cybersecurity market.
Let's talk about the market and its players.
We have a little David and Goliath story or hands you wrote the first c check for palab Alto Networks. Now you have Kto. It's a smaller player. But if we extrap lay out, you're basically saying, I don't think the legacy big guys have done very well. I'm going to try again to do something a bit different.
You're absolutely right, And there was also a first generation checkpoint where I was the co founder and pal Alto came and simplified through convergence and through a platform a market that was software based by using an appliance. But guess what, Digital transformation came and created a very fluid way of doing Businesses work from anywhere, applications are anywhere, So there was a need for a new type of
platform and that's essentially what CATO provides. And all the appliance vendors or the second generation vendors are trying to adjust and adapt, but they bring with them so much baggage that it is very difficult for them.
We've talked about where technologically the threats are coming from. What the concerns of your industry are that geographically, where are the threats coming from? You know, we're kind of zeroed in on a domestic situation, but as we learned, foreign entities China, Russia are active in this space.
Right absolutely, And we are talking about times of peace when you're seeing this massive international course border attack happens and organizations, especially the media enterprise are suffering, and imagine what will happen at times of war. You don't need to imagine much. You go to Ukraine in twenty seventeen with no Petia and you would see that eighty percent of the economy was down because of this type of attack.
So really fixing this mass market problem of cybersecurity is critical as a defense against these.
Times of wars.
And it's notable, of course, which our hearts go out to the fact that, of course you're traveling to US from Israel at the moment, and I know that always something affects your businesses and those of course cross the border as well. I'm interested in Shomo in your business in particular at a time when the market was having
real difficulties. We were thinking in the doldrums of twenty twenty three, VC had been pulled back and you were still able to raise funds and you're still putting in what two hundred and thirty eight million dollars was what you raised back in September of twenty twenty three, light speed ventures there. Once again, you've talked a lot about wanting to go public at the moment, are you thinking
about that will be a twenty twenty four endeavor? How are you assessing the American markets not as also as well as the American cybersecurity markets that you sell into.
Well, Cato is a leader in this next generation SASE market and being public companies in milestone, which we will get to when both company and markets are already but absolutely this is this is an opportunity to build a large public company that will lead this copyboard.
Sliman Cromer, We really appreciate you coming in to visit our sort when you're over on the West Coast as well, Cato Networks will keep up to speed with the growth of the business.
Meanwhile, coming up, I'm.
Going to be discussing how organizations can ensure an ethical use of artificial intelligence within their workforce. In particular, we'll have the latest from the Deloitte survey on AI ethics.
That's next, Ed, what.
Were you watching, I'm looking at shares of Alphabet, parent of Google. In the first instance, because the Digital Markets Act kicks into effect this week, we've zeroed in on Apple because of their EU find and the need to compliance. But i'd also bring you a small update. The down detector is now also saying that YouTube is experiencing outages. Alongside are reporting that many of Meta's platforms are currently down. The stock down one and a half percent. We will
keep an eye on all of it. This is blombog technology.
Let's get back to artificial intelligence and its impact on the future. Because some Fisisco based benu fund s v angels well, it's just written an open letter making a pledge to help build quote AI the improves lives and unlocks a better future of humanity is he had another open letter that we've seen, and this time this one was signed by open AI, Google, Meta, Microsoft and many others.
And look, maybe it is one way some would argue to think about how to implement AI ethics, and we're going to get into the more specific ways in which you can actually be there in a business.
They're not alone in that.
Deloitte released a new study today about just that how organizations can prepare their workforce for an ethical and responsible use of AI. Joining us now for more is Deloitte Technologies trust Ethics Practice Leader. So also the author of Zero Latency Leadership, a book that takes a look at the leadership of the age of AI. Being a amanap
joins me on set in San Francisco. Clearly, there is a concern about how a even technologically savvy for one of a better expression workforce uses AI from an ethical perspective. I know Deloitte, I know how to Luyte works. There must be a reason that you felt compelled to publish that study.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Look, you know, I'm a technologist by training and we've seen the rapid evolution of technology.
But technology comes with its side effects.
There are risks that come alongside it, and there's not as much focus put on the ethical risks or the trustworthy risks that come with technology.
So we thought it was important to highlight.
It, raise the awareness, and really get companies to address the ethical risks so that we can truly get the full potential of AI.
You know, I'd say that the media, the discourse, the latest news has been doing a lot of the heavy lift thing for you. We were just talking about the latest open letter. There has been a lot of handwringing about ethics implementation of AI. We've also seen, of course, concerns about the latest image generation and whether or not by trying to correct one element of bias, that's overcorrecting in another direction and not getting historically accurate images out Pina.
I'm interested as to ultimately what CEOs are asking you that they can do to implement right here, right now. Do they slam on the brakes of using the latest chatchipt or generative AI tool?
Absolutely not.
Look, there are relatively low risk ways to use the technology, and it's important to identify the right use case, right I think this is a very very powerful technology.
We see a variety.
Of users of it across different products, different functions. It's about finding that right opportunity where you can get the maximum value while minimizing the risk. And what CEOs are looking at is how do you implement the right ethical policies and guidelines to get that maximum benefit wile minimize.
The risk, which is sure chart.
Sorry, Oh I apologize, Caroline, I just was I couldn't believe what I just saw in that chart, Director Alice, So we can let's bring it back. Eighty four percent respondents said they are you currently using AI?
Well four I mean think about all.
Of the businesses that Deloitte works with, big and small. Yeah, what do you mean eighty four percent of them using AI?
It's you know, and I don't think it's generative AI specifically, which is a current.
Flavor since the last eighteen months.
It's AI for predictive analytics, for maintaining your jet engine, for you know, from a finance perspective, from auto approving expense reports. Right, there are a lot of boring AI use cases that companies are focusing on and have been focusing on. Look I myself, I've been applying AI for over twelve thirteen years, right, So generative AI is a current flavor. But when you see that number, it's really talking about how companies have been using AI for a much longer time.
And now companies try and get in place the guard rails. Do you think we need more government enforced guardrails found an executive order for example.
Yeah, and I think you know, look, Caroline, there's absolutely a need for AI regulation and policies and best practices.
You know, if you take a step back.
And look at it, AI as a technology is still maturing, right, and there's a parallel stream, which is ethical risks or nuances that come with using this technology.
Call it the side effects.
It's the impact to the workforce, it's the impact to the organization itself. Right, and then the third stream is AI regulations and policies, and they each one of these move at a different pace, but it needs to happen, and we've seen it across different industries happening over time.
I think there is an acceptance that a lot of the focus is automation, right, removing the role of a person that might have been mundane. What kind of people do to firms need to hire if they're going to think about AI.
You know, our service shows and this was specifically focused on AI ethics and trust. Our service shows that companies are actually hiring more AI ethics researchers, compliance specialists, tech quality analysts for over fifty percent of organizations that are going for that ground level roles, and about thirty eight percent are going for chief trust officers or chief AI
ethics officers. So there's really that need to focus on AI ethics research and bring it to an organizational and use case level.
We thank you for bringing your expertise on it today. Deloitte Technology Trusts Ethics Practice Leader being a Amena f Thank you. Meanwhile, coming up, we'll get back to it. Bitcoins rally is sustainable, well clearly ahead of record high. It's just come back down from it. We're going to dig into it with jalak Job and Putra from beuch Perfect Ventures.
This is bring my technology.
Let's get back to Bitcoin hit a new record high, and of course it's actual record market capitalization had already been hit because there's more bitcoin and circulation sets November twenty twenty one, and so now we hit above the sixty nine thousand dollar mark and almost coming up to a one point twenty five that's called almost one and a half trillion dollar market capitalization. Let's get to more broadly how this affects the rest of the ecosystem investing
in it, Jalacto. When Putcher is with us, founder and managing partner of Future Perfect Ventures, and you were in crypto before crypto as cool as some people have been able to say, Jalex, And I'm interested therefore on whether with Bitcoin ramping up higher, people worrying about leverage coming to the system once again. Are we just bracing ourselves for consolidation or are we on our march higher for sustainable reasons.
Well, we have a confluence of factors that make this rally different than rallies that we've had previously. I mean, first we had the ATF launchers, which we're off to a bit of a slow start, but now you know, black Frocks has been the most successful ETF launch in history, and we continue to see interest from institutions coming into the sector. Black Rock is also launching a Brazil ETF product for spot bitcoin, so we're going to see not only the US, but the rest of the world continue
to have more access. So that shows that, you know, we are in a different situation than we were in previous rallies and consolidation. And then we also have the Bitcoin happening coming up or happening as some of us call it, which traditionally constricts the supply of bitcoin because it reduces the rewards that bitcoin minors get. So these two factors, along with more let's say, favorable regulatory movements around the world, point to us, you know, continuing to
go higher. That doesn't mean we won't have pullbacks along the way, but the macro environment certainly supporting higher highs.
The exuberance around the og of bitcoin has spilled into other areas. We've seen other protocols do well. Of course Ethos on the upsilona, but then like twenty twenty one, the meme coins come back. Dot quid Hat doing particularly well at the moment, Bonk for example, some ridiculous names, but some of them thinking that there'll be some practical use case. What are the spillover effects? Are you worried about too much exuberants? Are the more you know, dicey areas.
In the market.
Well, there's always going to be speculative activity. When we see you know, bitcoin and ethereum and some of the blue chips continue to go higher. People are looking for even higher returns with some of these lower liquidity long tail protocols, and some of them are these meme coins, and that's to be expected. I think investors just need to realize that they're dealing with more volatile assets as
they get into these long tails. But we've certainly seen some outside returns and some of those names that you mentioned.
There are more long term holders of bitcoin, you know, away from inflows outflows of ETF the price. What does that tell you that data point.
Well, I think it shows that longevity of this asset class. That we've seen more and more people moving bitcoin off of exchanges, which means that they're not going to trade, that they're storing them in highly secure ways, which means that they're looking at this as an asset that could had against inflation. I mean, we've seen a lot of back and forth on you know, our interest rates going to because are they going to bold study? Are they
going to increase? And bitcoin provides an asset that is independent of this government policy and more and more people worldwide want to hold this.
Carol, I mentioned you investing in blockchain startups before it was cool. Has your approach changed over the years in the types of company you now want to back.
Well, what exciting now versus two hundred twenty thirteen. When I first started investing in the sector, I mean, bitcoin was really the only crypto, publicly traded crypto that you could invest in, and then there were a number of exchanges that we invested in data analytics companies around crypto assets, but there really wasn't a lot of infrastructure there. And now we've seen ten years of build out, not only in bitcoin, but in ethereum and all these layer twos of scalability.
So I also.
Invested in the early Internet in the mid nineties and the late nineties, and you know, back then we couldn't watch, you know, videos online, and so in twenty thirteen, I say, you know, we couldn't easily access and trade bitcoin, and now ten years later we have ETFs and so it's
very similar progression. I'd say even faster progression as we see the build out and so you know, just like you know, any assets need you know, custody, need market makers, we've seen all of that, and so the opportunity set for investing is even wider than ever before. I mean, we are investing out of our third fund, will be apt to market with a fourth fund shortly, and we've just seen more and more interesting growth.
Jelakdevan Poochri, founder managing partner of Future poe Venger is great to catch up and we take your word in it before it was cool.
A quick update Caroline.
Google's issue to statement saying it's working on a loading.
Issues fixed for YouTube.
Curious timing that down detectasays YouTube is down along with those other platforms.
Yeah, I mean across the board, we're seeing Facebook being impacted Instagram as well. We'll have to see, of course, at the moment, plenty of rather amusing means coming out of one, you know, musk of the moment as some of these communications achieves have to go to X to tell us about the acknowledgment of some of these down issues. But meanwhile, that does it for this edition of bloembd Technology.
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