Markets
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Luke Kawa

Alibaba gains as Q2 cloud revenues beat estimates on “robust AI demand”

China’s leading cloud giant is cashing in on the huge appetite for AI compute.

Alibaba ADRs are up big in premarket trading after the e-commerce and cloud giant reported second-quarter sales above analysts’ estimates.

Revenues in its Cloud Intelligence Group rose to 39.8 billion yuan (~$5.6 billion) for the three months ended September 30, ahead of estimates for roughly 38 billion yuan (~$5.35 billion).

“We have entered into an investment phase to build long-term strategic value in AI technologies and infrastructure and a consumption platform integrating daily life services and e-commerce,” said CEO Eddie Wu. “Robust AI demand further accelerated our Cloud Intelligence Group business, with revenue up 34% and AI-related product revenue achieving triple-digit year-over-year growth for the ninth consecutive quarter.”

For traders, the potential benefits from establishing a dominant cloud position in the region are outweighing Alibaba’s bottom-line figures. The positive reaction to these quarterly results comes despite adjusted net income falling 72% compared to the same quarter last year.

Management made it clear that profits are not the top near-term priority.

“We are re-investing our profits and free cash flow for the future while near-term profitability is expected to fluctuate,” Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu added in the press release. “Over the past four quarters, we have deployed approximately RMB120 billion in capital expenditure toward AI and cloud infrastructure.”

This continues the trend of Alibaba’s commitment to AI capex being received enthusiastically by the market. Ahead of earnings, the company announced that its Qwen AI app was downloaded more than 10 million times in the week following its relaunch.

Elsewhere, its domestic e-commerce business — still far and away the firm’s biggest revenue driver — beat sales estimates, while international digital commerce came up short.

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Matt Phillips

Vistra beats Q4 earnings expectations for adjusted EBITDA, but dips on income decline

Power provider Vistra, a key player in the AI energy trade, reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings results early Thursday, but shares dipped in early trading as Q4 net income dropped.

The Texas-based company, which supplies nuclear- and natural gas-fueled power to wholesale and retail markets, reported:

  • Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.

  • Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

  • Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.

Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.

Vistra beats fourth-quarter core profit estimates on AI-driven power demand

Vistra beats fourth-quarter core profit estimates on AI-driven power demand

  • Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.

  • Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

  • Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.

Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.

Luke Kawa
21m
Why Nvidia’s terrific quarter is getting a tepid reaction

Nvidia’s CEO gave a deeply unsatisfying answer about his biggest customers’ ability to generate cash. But they might be investing more in AI GPUs in 2027 anyway.

Jensen Huang in front of Vera Rubin at CES 2026
markets
Claire Yubin Oh

Sandisk rises on partnership with SK Hynix to standardize memory chip architecture tailored for AI data centers

Sandisk is up 3% in premarket trading on Thursday after it began its global standardization strategy of high-bandwidth flash (HBF) memory solutions with SK Hynix.

SK Hynix commented in a press release on Thursday that “by making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together,” adding that the companies will set up a dedicated workstream to work on the standardization under the Open Compute Project, the world’s largest organization dealing with data center technologies.

First debuted last February, Sandisk’s HBF technology lies in between ultrafast high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and high-capacity SSDs. That is, these have more storage capacity than HBMs, but are still fast enough to be utilized in AI inferencing (albeit not as quick as HBM).

Sandisk has previously argued that this hybrid architecture is central to AI services that need user applications but require a significant amount of fast interconnect between GPUs. The latest announcement also notes that HBF technology is expected to be more cost-efficient compared to alternatives of similar scale.

The launch, which was shared in an kickoff event on Thursday evening, starts SK Hynix and Sandisk’s workflow, which was announced when the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding “to standardize the specification, define technology requirements and explore the creation of a technology ecosystem” last August, per Sandisk’s press release at the time. Ultimately, by collaborating with SK Hynix, one of the three key HBM suppliers, to standardize and commercialize the technology, Sandisk is manufacturing somewhat of a first-mover advantage to offer the system-level “AI-optimized memory architecture” required for AI inference markets, rather than focusing on the performance of a single chip element.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Warner Bros. reports deeper-than-expected Q4 loss amid its bidding war

Warner Bros. Discovery reported its fourth-quarter earnings before the market opened on Thursday. The results come as the company finds itself in the middle of a still-hot bidding war between Netflix and Paramount. Its shares were flat in premarket trading.

In the three months ended in December, WBD reported:

  • A loss of $0.10 per share, deeper than the $0.03 loss expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

  • Total revenue of $9.46 billion, ahead of the $9.35 billion consensus.

Warner Bros.’ cable business booked $4.2 billion in revenue, beating estimates of $4.04 billion but down 12% from last year. The division is a key difference between the Netflix and Paramount acquisition offers: Netflix is seeking to acquire everything except Warner’s cable networks, while Paramount is seeking to purchase WBD in its entirety.

Industry analysts mostly view WBD’s cable networks as being worth between $2 and $4 per share, and Paramount’s most recent bid is $3.25 per share more than Netflix’s. Paramount has said its own analysis values Warner’s cable division at $0 per share.

WBD said it would not answer any questions about the two proposals on Thursday’s earnings call, but noted the following about Paramount’s recent offer:

“There can be no assurance that the Board will conclude that the transaction proposed by PSKY is superior to the merger with Netflix or that any definitive agreement or transaction will result from Warner Bros. Discovery’s discussions with PSKY.”

Luke Kawa
3h
D-Wave Quantum pares gains after underwhelming Q4 results

The annealing-centric quantum computing company just released quarterly results.

Julich Research Center Inaugurates Europe's First 5,000+ Qubit Quantum Computer

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