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Nvidia’s profit soars
AI chipmaker Nvidia’s revenue beat analyst estimates boosted by the artificial intelligence push. The company’s net income grew more than seven times compared to a year earlier, growing to $14.88 billion from $2.04 billion a year ago, while revenue more than tripled to $26.04 billion from $7.19 billion in the previous year. The Santa Clara-based company now has the third highest market value just behind Microsoft and Apple. The company also announced a 10-for-1 stock split which will make their shares more accessible to employees and investors. It also increased its dividend from 4 cents to 10 cents a share. During post-trading, company shares were traded at past the $1,000 benchmark.
With demand for AI chips showing no signs of slowing down, all Big Tech companies including Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have said they plan to spend more in coming months on chips and data centers. The AI race has kept Nvidia’s GPUs at very steep prices for the whole last year. More than a decade ago, Nvidia started to shift from gaming towards AI compute which was still seen as a developing industry.
OpenAI signs content deal with News Corp
Sam Altman’s OpenAI has signed a content agreement with News Corp to bring their content on to their artificial intelligence platform, the companies said on Wednesday. The deal allows the AI firm to access current and archived news content of all of News Corp’s publications like Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, the Times, and others.
OpenAI did not disclose the financial details of its latest deal, but the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, reported that it could be worth more than $250 million over five years. While neither of the two parties has given out the details of the deal, a report by the Wall Street Journal has shared that it could be worth $250 million over five years. Just a few weeks ago, OpenAI had signed another deal with Financial Times to license their content for training AI models and also announced a deal with social media platform Reddit last week.
Meta’s tech advisory group criticised for lack of diversity
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has been criticised for the lack of diversity in its newly formed advisory board which comprises external members who will consult the tech giant on AI products. Stripe co-founder and executive, Patrick Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Shopify founder and CEO, Tobi Lutke and Microsoft’s former general manager of global corporate strategy, Charlie Songhurst have all been included as members.
The announcement was followed by criticism on social media that the council was all just white men. While the company’s website stated that, “Meta Advisory Group is composed of outside advisors that Meta’s management team will periodically consult with on strategic opportunities related to our technology and product roadmap,” most media outlets noted that the council was for AI.
