From the heart of where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde.
And Ed Ludlow live from New York. This is Blomberg Technology. Coming up.
CEES kicks off in Las Vegas today with a keynote speech from Nvidia.
We'll have the latest on what to expect.
Plus, Disney and Fubo TV agreed to combine their online TV businesses live TV, creating the second biggest digital PATV provider and sending Fubo shares soaring and a lawsuit a ledgers TikTok's video livestreams facilitated the exploitation and.
Grooming of miners. Details later this hour.
First, we have some breaking news regarding the Federal Reserve. Bar Michael Barr is going to be stepping down as FED Vice Chair for Supervision, a key move that we want to bring in one Michael McKee here because, by I said, the risk of a dispute over the position could be a distraction. New administration in the White House means new change leadership in the FED.
Yeah, new regulatory era in the AT four banks and other institutions. Because of course the trumpet incoming Trump administration is going to be very much less so, so Michael Barr is stepping down February twenty eighth and he will serve until a successor comes.
There are other resignations we need to pay attention to.
Michael Meeky, Thank you, Canadian Prime Minister trust and Trudeau speaking in Ottawa.
Let's listen in.
To strengthen and grow the middle class. Why we rallied to support each other through the pandemic, to advance reconciliation, to defend free trade on this continent, to stand strong with Ukraine and our democracy, and to fight climate change and get our economy ready for the future. We are at a critical moment in the world. Canadia a shaq matti mus and tomi minestra, a spire para resilience, generosity,
character is sibia. On to Canadia siskim and motif a shak jou privilege, the survey, the post, the piedo, milkns chmus batsu, pusila, class man. Some mobilize on to Canadian for soutnir lison, a pandemic, fire, progress, reconcilia. They found liberation. Not in the Lucraine. The democracy h in plutic I prepari now Traversonalmond. My friends, is you all know I'm a fighter. Every bone in my body has always told
me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians. I care deeply about this country, and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians. And the fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months after what has been the longest session of a minority parliament in Canadian history. That's why this morning I advise the Governor General that
we need a new session of Parliament. She has granted this request and the House will now be prorogued until March twenty fourth. Over the holidays, I've also had a chance to reflect and have had long talks with my family about our future. Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement. So last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I'm sharing
with you today. I intend to resign as party leader as Prime Minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process. Last night I asked the President of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight in in all battles, I cannot be the best option in that election. Michel Settee come Vucevi starfighter.
Justin Trudeau there the Prime Minister of Canada, of course, now handing in his resignation as the leader of his party. There is an official suspension of parliament now in Canada until March the twenty fourth.
We will return to all of.
The moves when it comes to politics in Canada. But the announcement there that Canada will perode parliament until March to twenty fourth, and indeed Trudeau's Canada Parliament will be suspended and he announces his resignation after nine years in power. He says he'll stay as Prime Minister until a new Liberal leader is chosen.
His resignation announcement not the only one. This time.
We returned to Michael McKee and the Federal Reserve because Michael Barrs.
Stepped down as FED Vice chair for Supervision. But he's not resigning from the Federal Reserve. Just this Vice chair position.
Yeah, which makes a very interesting situation for the FED because there is no opening on the FED Board of Governors until January of twenty twenty six, when Ariona Cougler's term expires, and it's basically been thought she won't be replaced. But the incoming president won't have the opportunity to pick a different new vice chair for regulation. He could only
pick from those who are on the board now. The best guess is that if you were going to choose somebody from that board, it would be Mickey Bowman, because she's been the sort of community bank representative, she's been a banking official. She is a Republican, so she fits some of the characteristics that the president would want. But does Donald Trump want Mickey Bowman as vice chair or is he going to leave the position vacant for right now?
And the other key thing about this is the FED says it will take no new actions for bank regulation until his successor is confirmed, and that would seem to indicate that Basil three, the endgame proposal that has been sort of the big focus on Wall Street is if not dead on life support.
At this point, we'll get to some of the stock reactions on the banks.
But is that going to be the big market move really, that's going to be what's digested here.
Yeah, the Fed was supposed to re announce in January or February their latest BUZZL three work up, because they pulled it back to do some revisions, and now apparently that's not going to happen.
We keep an eye on what's happening in the markets.
Yields till about three basis points to the higher side. That more based on tariff perceptions and whether or not they're going to be pulled back or indeed put in force as Trump had discussed before. We'll get to that a little bit later, but for now you'll see two year yields on the downside, thirty eight yields have been inching higher up four basis points. And we're keeping a close eye on the bank stocks and the back of Michael Barr's resignation as the vice chair of the FED
when it comes to supervision, Michael mckeey, thank him. Let's get back to the tech markets for a moment as well, because that we're at record highs on certain names Nasdaq app or another one point seven percent on the NAZAK one hundred, the big benchmark, what drives us higher.
The points being pushed higher by one.
In video, we are at a new record high for in video at the moment, we want to go to some other key market moves of the day. Fubo TV extraordinary move for this particular company, as we once again see the beginning of twenty twenty five kickoff to an m and a frenzy and consolidation within media. This is all about how you're going to be consuming your sports live TV online. We're getting the second biggest player when you combine Disney and Fubo to be taking on and
really only second to YouTube TV. Fubo up one hundred and ninety percent. Will delve into that later in the show. Microsoft and an interesting story it came on Friday, the fact that they're going to be spending eighty billion dollars in AI data centers. Many saying that, look, this is why we've got tech rallying on the day. More broadly, more commitment to AI infrastructure. Microsoft up two percent and
in Vidia in a new record high. We're up five percent, and that's because we're expecting a keynote at about six thirty pm at Pacific time, that is nine thirty pm New York time at later today from one Jensen Huang. Let's get out to Ian King for more. In of course, at CEES we're about to unfold.
What do we expect from Jensen in particular.
Yeah, I mean we don't know yet. There are going to be briefings and then he's obviously going to hit the stage later today. What we've seen are some leaks of a new GPU architecture that's going to becoming that's basically for the PC market. So used to be their pride and joy, but now it's kind of a minor thing. And you'll remember that we reported a long time ago now that this will be the year that Jensen and in video would directly get into the PC market, into the CPU market.
And not the only one, Quillcom introducing new chips designed to power PCs as well. It's all about the AIPC unfold.
Yeah, I mean, this is the big hope for both the PC makers and the guys that supply them that hey, this is something exciting, this is a new way to use your PC, and that everybody will rush out to trade in their old machine. And basically every chip maker out there is saying, hey, we've got the best solution for this particular way of doing things.
In you've got to be clued into what is writing on the Tech Daily today is a brilliant piece all about the important conversations that are going on outside the main floor of Las vegas Ian King in San Francisco for us, thank you so much for the look ahead to CES and of course that keynote from Nvidia's CEO tonight and it's the talk of the town. In fact, Jim Bianco from Bianco Research had this to say about the company and it's CEO just earlier today on Bloomberg Surveillance.
Well, first of all, everybody should care about Jenson Wang because he is the most important person in twenty twenty five to everybody's returns, no matter what market you are investing in right now, because Nvidia is the driver of everything.
Let's get more investor analysis.
Joann fini It is a partner and portfolio manager of Advis's Capital Management.
All on ten to Hooks the six thirty pm Pacific time.
Absolutely, Caroline, Clearly Jensen will have a lot that he can talk about and share with with his investor base. And because he has a lot of good stories to tell.
The AI demand is not debating.
In fact, that news from Microsoft last week shows how much more there is to be spent. And you know, Jensen's talk will likely also hit plenty of other companies that are more and more involved now in rolling out AI applications, whether it's in robotics or autos or digital twins or elsewhere.
Just talk about how in video itself can own that. What's been so phenomenal is the way in which you're sort of getting virtually vertical integate gration. They can offer you, of course the hardware, but he's rightly selling you the software like a.
One stop shop.
How does he continue to iterate that into the era and era of well apps and of course agents.
Yeah, so, you know it has been a long time coming, the development of the Nvidia specific songlfware for you know, building computational models called Kuda. You know, he's been working on that for decades and it's now fully integrated into the hardware. And that creates a really deep moat, which is why it's awfully hard for other companies to break
into this space. Not that we won't see them. We're going to see AMD, We're going to see more and more in house, but it creates a really strong platform for Nvidia, and we expect tonight that he'll talk more about how he's going to roll out more data centers to run AI models for other folks. So he's not going to be content I think to stick just with
the hardware and the software. I think he wants to get into services to some extent, and it's not been something that Nvidia has shied away from in the past, that is competing with its customers.
What new you hoping to see when it comes to applications When it comes to robotics, you just mentioned it for example.
Yeah, so you know Cees is always full of dreamware as well as reality and.
So it's always fun to see what small and.
Large companies roll out. But you know, robotics is clearly an area for growth that's more near term. We already see plenty of robotics, but they need to become smarter, They need to become more physically adept and graceful, and we think AI can really help in sensing the environment and responding to it. But another area that's a little
bit more overlooked is digital twins. This is when you build a model to replicate something in the real physical world, and you use that model to save on costs to improve design, whether that's a product, whether it's a building, whether it's infrastructure, and we think AI can really inform and make that a whole lot more efficient and improve designs. We own a company called Bentley Systems, for example. It provides software for management and development of construction and projects
in the infrastructure space. So that's an example of a company that could be a growing beneficiary of the infiltration of AI into that area.
We love how you bring up individual names, and of course you do have exposure to video, but you also mentioned AMD, there is the Amazon and even.
Broadcom in your portfolio.
Who else wins when it comes to what has just been the n video ride, Well, you know clearly.
And NAMD, you know, providing those chips. Broadcom we have owned for a very long time, and as they continue to acquire and build new capabilities, we think that's going to continue to be a really strong player in this space and has a lot more room for the valuation
to improve. And beyond that, you know, look in new applications in healthcare for example, you know companies that provide new ways to monitor personal health, so software leveraged to healthcare, new medical devices from for example, Medtronic that will bring more and more smarter analytics. And then in industrials, you know, whether it's that infrastructure build or you know, software to oversee agricultural.
Developments, that sort of thing.
So you know, there are a lot of opportunities. We do like those big names Microsoft, Amazon, because not only does it have Amazon Web services, but online retail is still gaining share. So there's still you know, a lot of opportunities out in the tech space for continued growth this year.
Advice's capital management partner Joann Feeney, brilliant to have your take on the trends and the individual companies as well.
Coming up, we're gonna be talking.
Trump's tariff position, the President elect denying reports of the potential pairing back of.
His tariff plans.
More on that next, but first we return to another key leader who today resigns his position as Liberal Party leader, Justin Trudeau. The Canadian Parliament will be suspended it on March the twenty fourth. Go to Life, Go for more.
Lister Blomberg Technology, did I the conver.
You spoke about the Liberal Party as an institution and the internal battles right now. But I'm wondering if you feel that another leader will have more success than you will at beating preclium.
Today, the Washington Post reported the President elects Trump's are said to be looking at tariff plans that could be applied to every country, but.
Only covering critical imports.
Trump has denied those reports through your post on True Social saying it's quote incorrect and that he won't be pairing back his tariff policy. Let's get out to blue Bags Mike Shepherd for more and just where are we on the latest of the tariff debate.
Well, it's unfolding still, Caroline. This is one of the biggest questions surrounding the incoming Trump administration's economic policy, together with his plans to cut taxes and his plans and immigration, and these are areas that would affect key industries, especially tech, and yet we don't have a clear picture from what we saw in this back and forth between the Post and then Trump today. No matter what, industries are going to be looking at what the tariffs could mean for them,
and it's really two key areas. One it would be the increased costs of any inputs that they have in their production lines. And the other thing that they will be worried about is possible retaliation by US trading partners. It could mean that US products, for instance, anything made by Apple or other name brand American companies could be hit or targeted in retaliation in response to anything that
Trump does. Now, it's important to note Trump still doesn't take office for another two weeks, and this will take shape over a matter of months, not just in the span of the time between now January twenty.
Mike shefferd it's going to be our daily dose until that time, an onwards.
We thank you so much.
Meanwhile, let's talk about politics and take a little bit more. One person within Trump's sphere, you know, Musk is now under scrutiny by senior UK politicians.
This after the Tesla boss.
Made a series of inflammatory remarks accusing Prime Minister Kastama of complicitly involved in a decades old scandal over child sexual exportation gangs. Max Schaffkin, a blombag BusinessWeek joins US fund more and look, this is following a barrage of posts on his own social media platform x where he has been calling for prior Minister kiss Stama to be imprisoned.
He's been urging with the release of Tommy Robinson, who is a far right leader, and ultimately stirring up even the surprising move away from Nigel Farage.
He's the leader of the UK Reform Why is he getting so involved? Well, I think two things are going on.
One and probably the most important thing is Elon Musk is stirring the pot on social media. This is somebody who likes to be a provocateur. He basically goes wherever there's heat. You know, we saw this during the twenty twenty four election, where he's sort of spreading you know, unfounded conspiracy theories, backing questionable figures. Really the same playbook we're seeing, you know in the UK.
The difference is, of course that.
Elon Musk lives in the United States and has sort of more explicitly engaged politically. Here we have a guy who's not really doesn't have a ton of business interests in the UK getting involved, you know, initially backing Nigel Farage's party, now coming out against Nigel Farage. It really feels like a combination of again stirring the pot, but also perhaps having a real disagreement with kerstar Or over
some of these speech rights. Of course, X has had you know, some back and forth with the British government over you know, how he should regulate misinformation and that sort of thing.
Kis Dama now speaking back.
He had been relatively silent, but now he says there's a line that has been crossed, particularly when it came to the safety of one of his own MPs.
Just Phillips all.
Regarding previous roles in the Crown Prosecution Service that when he was leading, but away from the intricacies of really what's going on in the UK, how does it affect Ino must relationship with Trump going forward and the administration there, because as we reported, these UK senior figures are coming out and saying this is bad for US UK relationship.
Yeah, I mean it's I do think people realize people in the UK realize that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are two different people. There may be a close relationship, but you know, of course Trump is going to make his own policy, and of course historically Trump has kind of cultivated ties with extreme figures who would sometimes come out and stir the pot and almost gives Trump a
weapon perhaps in dealing with UK politicians. That said, you know, Tommy Robinson is a very extreme figure, a far right figure, and I think it's you know, the sort of back and forth with Farraj shows that it's possible that Musk may have crossed the line. Maybe he didn't quite know what he was stepping into.
We'll see how this continues to unfold. Max trafckn all things elon Ink. You've got to check out the podcast as well.
We thank you.
Disney and streaming provider Fubo TV are nearing a deal to combine their online live TV businesses. Now we understand that Disney is going to be folding in its Hulu plus live TV business into Fubo, creating a new venture that will be owned seventy percent by Disney and the rest by Fubo. It continues to be listed on publicly traded benchmarks and Lucas Shaw is here too get into
what is actually a pretty complex deal. But the key takeaway is Venue, which is the new sports offering, is going to be able to go ahead.
Yeah, Bubo had sue to block the debut of Venue, which is a joint venture between Disney, Fox and Warner Brothers. Discovery. They said it was a sign of the anti competitive nature of these big companies because Venue was going to offer a bundle of live sports channels in a way that these companies wouldn't let Fubo do. The lawsuit proved to be pretty effective for Fubo, right, they won the first injunction or they want an injunction to stop it.
And now they're essentially getting acquired for a bunch of money.
Bunch of money that sends shares rocketing my one hundred and ninety percent the six point two million that they're likely to now offer.
How big is that?
What does it mean in terms of how they can survive the on and off switch of subscriptions around the sporting dary.
Yeah, so both Fubo and Hulu's live TV service are unprofitable. To my knowledge. Fubo reports its numbers, Hulu Live Tv doesn't. Six point two million makes it the second biggest among the digital only PATV companies. It makes it, I think, kind of number five or six total. You still have YouTube TV, Comcast, Charter and the satellite companies ahead of it.
Oh M and A.
The watchwork for twenty twenty five, and it kicks off strong with this particular deal. Lukashaw all in on the consideration around convergence. Welcome back to Blue Meg Technology. I'm Caroine Hid in New York. A quick check on these markets.
We are higher.
Substantially on the nasat one hundred, were up by one point seven percent, and it's basically your magnificent seven that lead us higher to the tune of Nvidia up to a new record high. But you've got Microsoft, Amazon, some of the key names in the biggest points contributors to the upside. We're all in on AI and infrastructure, and we look ahead to Jensen Wang and his keynote has six thirty pm Pacific time later today. Bitcoin also on file risk assets on the higher side, and we're up
four percent. One hundred and two still offer that record high, but we've certainly been clawing back some of those prem year's eve losses by coin one hundred and two thousand. But let's dig into a company that isn't traded, TikTok and it's darker side.
Now.
There's a lawsuit from the state of Utah alleging that TikTok has long known its popular video live streams it encourages sexual content including streams exploiting and quick grooming miners, and that TikTok also discovered through an internal investigation it's feature called TikTok Live facilitated money laundering and it allowed users to sell drugs and fund terrorism. That's bring in
Bloomberg's Alex Levine for more Alex. That all of this is after we finally get more detail on a lawsuit brought by Utah and other states, but it's been relacted.
We get to see the details. What did you learn?
Well, to your point, all of this really is it has taken a lot of time for this to come to light. I reported on TikTok Live and some of the issues that you've stated back in twenty twenty two, we're now in early twenty twenty five, and so it is, you know, it is the platform is much bigger now, it is much more far reaching. There are much more, you know, much younger of a demographic on the platform.
But what the internal investigation found, which was unredacted in this newly filed complaint on Friday, is that TikTok was very aware of a lot of the issues that we had reported on on TikTok Live back in twenty twenty two, except that the issues were much larger and much there was much more scale to the issues than we were
even aware of. So they found that there were hundreds of thousands of miners who were not supposed to be using the TikTok Live future at all, who were not only using it but also using it making money off or making money off of it, and they were essentially being asked by adults to perform sexual acts racy acts in exchange for virtual gifts that can be cashed out for real money.
Now.
In a response, TikTok says, this lawsuit ignores a number of proactive measures that TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support community safety and well being. They have taken measures since your first incredible reporting that we think about that was bringing it to light in twenty twenty two.
But is it enough?
Has enough steps been taken for Utah and other states to feel like this is okay now?
I think the timing of these lawsuits filed both in June by Utah and then in September by a bunch of other states that cited similar issues with TikTok Live shows that it is not enough, especially against the backdrop of what we are now seeing with the national security issues. You know, TikTok is going before the Supreme Court in this unprecedented hearing this Friday, and that is over national security issues and the fact that TikTok may be banned
over those national security issues. But I think the child safety issues far predated that, and in fact, the fact that they are so prevalent on the platform, which this unredacted complaint has now shown, makes the national security concerns, I would say even even more concerning.
And as you mentioned, this is a massive week for TikTok.
We've got Friday the Supreme Court, we might be hearing the details of whether or not indeed they do think that well freedom of speech outweighs access to TikTok.
Llor not absolutely. It's a huge week for TikTok.
I think that everyone is very much looking to the Supreme Court to see are they going to up hold this law that is about to take effect or will they stay the law, which means hit pause on it while considering what they want to do with it. But I think the fact that Trump's inauguration is just over a week later is going to complicate things and it's going to make it a very bumpy couple of weeks for the company no matter how this plays out.
And we're just glad that you're there to report on all of it. Alexandra Levine, We thank you. Now let's just keep the discussions going on TikTok it's potential ban, and as you mentioned, the Supreme Court set to consider the constitutionality of the law on an expedited timeline, arguments scheduled for a special session on January tenth.
Now, we want to be talking with a key voice on all of this.
Ivan Sharony is CEO for Route Security, a data protection intelligence software company who is testified, of course before the House Commerce Committee in the past, to explain how TikTok accesses, how it disseminates personal data, and just remind us, ultimately, Ivan, how it does.
That's an excellent question, thank you, Carlin. Number one, how does it? It's obviously through its app and secondly is through a lot of something called data trickers that are embedded into all kinds of websites Americans use every day. So that's how they can access information, collect informations on Americans that actually never even use TikTok app in their life.
What's also interesting is the way in which you've been trying to access and continuing to understand that those, yes, you might have the app, you might therefore be vaguely aware of some of the issues or risks that are at play. But even if you don't have the app, you continue to monitor basically how pixels or more prevalent,
even in things like Google Classroom, TikTok has been. Can you understand can you help us understand how you performed that and ultimately what it means for the prevalence of TikTok across us people's data.
Yeah.
Absolutely. What is really concerning, what we've found is that even over the last twelve months since TikTok was there's so much scrutiny. What we've found is that the presence of TikTok, for example, on a healthcare website had actually increased by about thirty five percent in the last year,
rather than decreasing. And what is concerning is that those pixel structures that are all over the websites that we all use on every day, that they're collecting a lot of information, whether it's like wood websites you use would you enter into the websites where you're coming in, and all kinds of information that is collected can potentially be used for all kinds of nefarious reasons, whether it's for targeting individuals or groups of people, or even potentially speculating
here teaching AI systems to be even more precise on targeting American So it's a very very concerning on how much data is being collected everywhere by TikTok on people who never even use the app.
So if ultimately the presence of TikTok trackers are going up into the right of thirty five percent versus last year, how impactful we will be removed moving an app if it's affecting people who don't have the Apple Tool.
Yeah, So it's definitely very loaded topic and a question. So presumably if it is banned, the step one will be obviously to remove the app it self from the app stores, from Apple, Google and everywhere else is available. Secondly, it's also removing it from all Americans websites, so making sure that it's not collecting information on Americans outside of the app as well. And thirdly, which will be an ongoing task to ensure that it will never come back,
and frankly speaking, it's not just TikTok. There's a lot more other information being collected by other companies associated to China on Americans in addition to to TikTok as well.
So iven just give us out of one to ten how hard it would be too?
It sounds easy. You just remove it from the app store, you get rid of it on websites. But technically speaking, how effective do you think this can be?
It can be definitely very active. Probably a really good illustration here is something that is happening in the payment security in this credit cards being governed. You know how you're paying online and how the security of your credit card information is being governed. And what payment security is doing is they've introduced something called the New Standard PCI for which now ensures and mandates companies on a weekly basis.
It verifies that no unauthorized software, big pixel structors, anything else, any software technology pieces are collecting credit card information without authorization. So a similar approach can definitely help prevent TikTok or other spying or you know, a data collection being down Americans without authorization.
I mean, of course, the Supreme Court matter is a matter of law and interpretation, and there is politicking amongst you know whether or not January the nineteenth will be pushed out to post a new administration in the White House. But can you set if you were having the air of one Donald Trump right now, how would you articulate how risky this is for everyday Americans?
How risk it is. It has already been publicly admitted and found and disclosed that information collected by TikTok was already used against Americans, whether it was spying on journalists and other cases that have been already reported in in use. So it is already happening, and is it happening on a larger scale very likely. So in terms of the impact data being collected and shared potentially with the adversarial country, is it a risk in my personal opinion, yes, it is a very high risk.
Well, certainly your evidence gave sway when you gave it on the House as well, Ivan SARENI, we thank you so much for youo for security on all things TikTok. Meanwhile, coming up, how Microsoft is using its venture fund to shape.
The future of AI.
We've got Michael Stewart, managing partner of N twelve here that's next to rebtechnology. Microsoft it's making a major AI investment, announcing it will spend eighty billion dollars on data centers over the next year. The company wrote previously that not since the invention of the electricity has the United States had the opportunity it has today to harness new technology
to invigorate the nation's economy. Now, Microsoft is also investing in AI through its venture capital fund M twelve, calling it the defining technology of our times. Please therefore to welcome Michael Stewart, managing partner of M twelve, who has been at this AIML hardware software investment for a long time. Michael, and we're pleased to have you. So, where are other than the AI applications? I want to just dig into that idea of data centers and the commitment of money
towards it. Where are innovations happening within the data centers?
Yeah?
So, uh, the the the demand that we're gonna see for AI as as some of these applications start to roll out this year and the next year, is is gonna really accelerate. And it's key not just to have an AI that's available, but it's also performance, affordable, secure, and and in in In doing that, it's not just about building out more GPUs, more data centers, but actually increasing the quality of the AI output to be UH
suitable for enterprise use. In that and in that sense, what we're seeing right now is building out kind of the foundation for a lot of different places for technologies to plug in to make this AI better for for its customers.
I wanna talk optimizing of applications, but can you go to the optimizing of AI infrastructure right now and where you think some of the most exciting moves forward have.
Been Efficient chips are are are clearly an opportunity to address not just the uh the space and the racks that we have to put, you know, in the data centers, but also the power that goes into them. And you know that's one of our portfolio companies, d Matrix that makes an innovative in memory compute architecture for AI inference.
The compute and memory are are are kind of combined into one in a new architecture that also uses chiplets or heterogeneous integration to flexibly maximize the performance of the silicon that you need in.
A given card, and that in many ways affects the energy usage as well power needed And I know energy innovation is another key area of yours, Michael, but taught us there for about how we're going to use it. In twenty twenty five, all I hear is agents, agent, force, agentic.
No matter how you term it, is it all about agents.
I'm not gonna sound too different from that. I'm a strong believer that this year, the quality of the AI models, the architecture of the agentic applications, they're going to get better and better and attract more attention from companies that want to use them to address their own.
Costs and scaling needs. And we're seeing this come in two directions.
Startups that are creating agents or platforms for agents and selling them as services, a sort of SaaS model. The other is the use of the AI itself in these small companies. Is is something to really start to look at. These founders are building the companies with an AI first mindset that's really quite different. But it's also going to inspire and stimulate larger companies to take note at the efficiencies enabled and adopt this into their own uh their own infrastructure.
But I feel like the larger software players have already got the memo and you're seeing the likes of sales Source go all in your who knows where, of course, Microsoft be able to push forwards with its co pilots.
How are you seeing the opportunity of the.
Startups to be able to innovate faster or in a more niche manner.
And fast, you know, as you use word fast, velocity is the absolute definitive trend of this era. Everything's moving faster, Companies getting form faster, funded faster, growing revenue faster, and agents as they mature and as they become part of the everyday makeup of these companies themselves, are you know, at the same time the product but also the organizing
principle of these companies. And I think that's a different way to look at this from where we expect to see SaaS revenues build up over time as it happened in the in the prior couple of years software investing contexts. To today, the companies are able to accomplish far more with a much smaller team, reach revenue targets far greater than we had expected, and I think they're going to be profitable much sooner than we had otherwise thought possible.
Fast doesn't always bode well for deep analysis and doing your corporate governance tease trust and as dotted, how are you ensuring that the return on investment that it seems to be evident is actually happening and it's actually going to be resigned that these companies aren't just scaling very quickly over a quarter, but they're going to maintain that user base for the next year and the next year.
ROIS is the key theme here is like, if you are a founder and you are creating an AI product, this isn't just about creating a white paper that your customer might read to see where the ROI could plausibly occur in their organization. This is really an opportunity for those founders to go out and drive those pilots themselves. The customers will see these savings hit their bottom line,
thereby driving more consumption of AI. And I think that kind of virtuous cycle is a really big difference from prior eras of a where the savings might come in a defrayed expenses or defrayed capex point of view. Here it's about getting higher return on capital, higher return on the company's operations. And I think as a startup you really have to get serious about the intellectual honesty of it,
and your customers must agree with you. Those those startups that are able to accomplish that are going to grow ten times faster than the norm.
Well, we know that you'll takes one to know one, or you're a guy with more than forty patterns of your own, so appreciate your time. Michael Stewart, managing partner of M twelve. Of course Microsoft VENTUREM. Meanwhile, it's time for talking tech first up in video partner on High It's posted a fast than expected fifteen percent revenue growth, that is as the company rides a sustained demand for
AI infrastructure. The company, also known as Fox Gone sow December revenue rising forty two percent, which really did beat anast expectations, and expects significant sales growth in the fiscal first quarter two plus. TDK, the main supplier of iPhone batteries, says it plans to roll out an improved version of its product to help mobile devices keep up with the
rising power demands view guests at ai now. The Tokyo based company says it will begin mass production of its third gen batteries in the late summer and Samsung is expanding its AI reach, adding.
A new suite of features to its line up.
A premium TVs now the Electronic strand is set to introduce Vision AI. It's allowing information to be displayed of what's on the screen. Other features include a built in AI processor to analyze content whose colors and contrast, and optimized audio Tube. Today, we bring you the latest from an exclusive Bloomberg BusinessWeek interview as with the Open Ai
CEO Samalman. In it, he discusses his infamous Forda firing, how he runs open ai now, his plans for the Trump must presidency, and of course, his relentless pursuit of AGI. Here for more Bloomberg Smart million Who's part of what is very deeply reported out Q and A. So it starts with all like, what were the key dinners, What were the key moments him sam Oltman discussing the time that he sat down with Elia really started to think about building AGI.
What for you was the biggest like jaw dropping moment of the interview?
Uh?
I mean, I think the thing that surprised me the most is when he's given like the opportunity to talk about what what are your what are your big ambitions?
What what do you want to solve?
He talks about fusion energy like that that's that that's the one thing that he I mean, you know, obviously he's focused on creating super intelligent supercomputers and artificial general intelligence and all these uh, you know, wacky ideas that they're working on in open AI. But he's got this big investment in fusion energy, which is like sort of a kind of a scary.
Concept to a lot of people.
That and and also one that like is it is it even really going to work? Has science really proven that fusion energy is like going to solve all of our energy shortage issues?
But like energy is a big kind of need for AI, which you know sucks up so much electricity.
Well, he's not afraid to be way ahead and trying to solve the unsolvable. He really details how back in twenty twelve he's sort of a heretic for even discussing AGI, and people didn't want to talk about it with him. But what does he ultimately think that this is all for the greater good? Is there a utopian idea here as to why we need nuclear fusion, why we need AGI?
Yeah, I mean there's also a lot of ways that any of those things could go wrong, but he is I think you'll see it in the tone of the interview, and you'll you'll find it when you read this.
It's it's a long read, so, but I think.
The context is important with someone like that who's in such a big position of power, that you kind of get a sense for who he is as a person. And he is an optimist and he does believe that the things he's working on he can shape them for the better.
Even with a new administration.
Yes, and that was that was a that was ak of the interview, especially in the latter half. You'll see we talk about his relationship with Donald Trump, who he's previous previously had differences of opinion with his relationship with Elon Musk, who that it's very strained, a co founder of open ai now suing open Ai, and his his optimism very much extended to the idea that he'll be able to repair those relationships and have a working relationship
in the new administration. He's asked about his donation to Trump's inauguration and and you know, of course, he's like, I support whoever the president is, and yeah, I mean, I.
Found that all very fascinating. His view on politics me too.
Go read it. You've got to see Mark million there on the latest big take.
Now that does it for this edition of Blue meg Technology Tomorrow yet more, all from.
CS in Las Vegas tens Huang. Don't miss it.