Tencent Q1 2023 & China Tech – Doldrums

Tepid resumption of consumption Tencent reported a return to YoY growth in Q1 in a sign that some consumer activity is coming back in China, but the shares did not budge as investors remain unwilling to invest in China given the less-than-spectacular economy and geopolitical events. Q1 2023 revenues / EPS were RMB150bn (up 11% YoY) / RMB2.63 (up 9%...

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Artificial Intelligence – Regulatory debate

Regulation should target humans not machines. The recent Congressional hearings greatly increase the prospect of some form of regulation of the AI industry, but this will have to be very carefully crafted to ensure that unintended consequences are minimised and that the USA does not hamstring itself in the technological arms race with China. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, NYU Professor...

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Amazon – Alexa me too

Alexa is the obvious place for generative AI at Amazon Amazon is jumping on the generative AI bandwagon with the intention to use it to power searches on its site, but Amazon seems to be ignoring or is ignorant of some of the fundamental issues that will make this very difficult. Amazon is planning to replace the search function for...

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Automotive ecosystems – All in pain.

Cariad – execution or strategy? Cariad has reshuffled its executive team again in an attempt to get its vehicle software program back on track, but the risk remains that the new boss confuses strategy with execution. Cariad is on its second CEO in a year as the company is now 2 years behind on delivering a new software platform to...

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Google I/O 2023 – Fightback

Google mounts a steady fightback. Google is clearly still on the back foot, but the sense of panic and disarray has gone to be replaced with a sense of purpose and its hardware division has finally come up with a compelling product. Unsurprisingly, the whole show was all about generative AI and how Google is not the laggard that the...

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Artificial Intelligence – Job debate

AI could make work better not worse. The AI debate continues to dominate public discourse with the emphasis now being on the job market and while there are going to be some effects, they are unlikely to result in millions of white-collar workers being out of work. The other problem with this debate is that it is already becoming highly...

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Palantir Q1 23 & Lucid Q1 23 – Moody market.

Palantir and Lucid together demonstrate the mood of the market. Palantir Q1 2023 – Generative AI use case. Palantir reported an excellent set of results reinforcing the view that it has no real competition and that it is in a good position to help governments and companies use generative AI in their activities. Q1 2023 revenues / EPS were $525m...

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Apple FQ2 2023 – Top dog.

Hardware rocks but AI flops Apple executed a pretty flawless quarter with market share gains in emerging markets offsetting the macro, but it is clear that when it comes to AI, Apple is miles behind. FQ2 2023 revenues / EPS were $94.8bn / $1.52 slightly ahead of estimates of $92.6bn / $1.43. Revenues were down YoY but if one excludes...

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Qualcomm FQ2 23 & AMD Q1 23 – Cycle hurts

Down cycle sinks all boats. Qualcomm FQ2 23 – Well positioned Qualcomm reported results that demonstrated its ability to manage its business but was forced to guide weakly as the economy refuses to play ball. Qualcomm reported FQ2 2023 revenue / Adj-EPS of $9.3bn / $2.15 in line with what the company had guided for, but it was more cautious...

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Artificial Intelligence – Man not machine

Humans are at risk from humans, not machines. The exit of Geoffrey Hinton from Google has caused a stir and has reignited the AI safety/Armageddon debate, but the reality remains that humans are at much greater risk from humans than they are from machines which remain as dumb as ever. Geoffrey Hinton is widely known as the “godfather of AI”...

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