Intel jumped early Tuesday, hitting a 52-week high soon after the open, as Keybanc analysts upgraded the stock to “overweight” and put an above-consensus $60 price target on the shares, suggesting an upside of 25%.
They also upgraded Advanced Micro Devices to “overweight” and put a $270 target on the shares, a ~23% premium from where they’re trading.
The Information is reporting that Chinese customers won’t be able to get their hands on as many Nvidia H200 AI chips as they want.
Per the outlet, the “Chinese government this week told some tech companies it would only approve their purchases of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips under special circumstances, such as for university research and development labs,” citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation.
On December 8, US President Donald Trump said Nvidia would be allowed to sell these chips, the most advanced in its Hopper generation, to China. This was shortly followed by a report from the Financial Times that Chinese regulators were “discussing ways to permit limited access to the H200,” as the world’s second-largest economy has been keen on boosting its domestic chip industry. Last week, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese officials are preparing to allow local companies to buy the component from Nvidia for select commercial use,” with imports beginning “as soon as this quarter.”
Call it information fatigue, because the market doesn’t seem to care about this latest report, with shares making fresh highs for the day not even 10 minutes after this news hit the wires. Or perhaps when it comes to AI development, it’s not hard to come up with “special circumstances” to justify access to powerful chips.
The report adds that Chinese officials have told companies to only buy these chips if “necessary” — without really defining what “necessary” means.
It’s not the first time traders shrugged off reporting from The Information on Nvidia. Shares finished up 1% on January 7, the day the outlet reported that Beijing was suspending purchases of the H200 pending a decision on what the import restrictions would be.
Boeing shares are up more than 2% on Tuesday after the plane maker reported 160 commercial jet deliveries in the fourth quarter, sending its full-year total to 600. That’s a 72% improvement from the company’s disastrous 2024, when it delivered 348 jets amid safety probes and a lengthy strike.
As expected, Boeing was out-delivered by its European rival Airbus for the seventh year in a row. Airbus reported 793 annual commercial handoffs for the year.
Boeing’s 193-jet delivery gap on the year improves on its performance vs. Airbus in 2023, when it delivered 207 fewer jets than its chief competitor.
A hack that stole sensitive data in Oracle’s business software — which may have started as early as last July, but wasn’t disclosed by the company until October — is still generating ransom demands, per reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
The number of affected organizations seems to be rising, with executives at Harvard University, Canon USA, Mazda, American Airlines unit Envoy Air, and Logitech all receiving emails demanding millions in exchange for the release of data in recent months.
An online extortion group known as Cl0p had been identified as the source of the breach on Oracle’s E-Business Suite, with the hackers reportedly leveraging a security flaw that did not need any fake or stolen sign-in credentials, and leaving responsible teams “zero-days” to fix the vulnerability. By the time Oracle issued software patches in October to prevent further attacks, more than 100 companies were estimated to be affected by the data breach, per the WSJ.
The number of affected organizations seems to be rising, with executives at Harvard University, Canon USA, Mazda, American Airlines unit Envoy Air, and Logitech all receiving emails demanding millions in exchange for the release of data in recent months.
An online extortion group known as Cl0p had been identified as the source of the breach on Oracle’s E-Business Suite, with the hackers reportedly leveraging a security flaw that did not need any fake or stolen sign-in credentials, and leaving responsible teams “zero-days” to fix the vulnerability. By the time Oracle issued software patches in October to prevent further attacks, more than 100 companies were estimated to be affected by the data breach, per the WSJ.
Taiwanese tech site DigiTimes reports that Micron is warning customers that the supply shortage for memory chips could last until 2028, as its Boise, Idaho, fabrication facility slowly comes online.
In addition to Micron, this is a big deal for memory and storage stocks like Sandisk, Seagate Technology Holdings, and Western Digital, which soared last year after a price spike for DRAM and NAND — types of memory chips — pushed their profit margins sharply higher.
With demand from AI data centers seemingly insatiable, the key question for investors is how long the supply crunch — and for the chipmakers, the profit-palooza — will last.
With demand from AI data centers seemingly insatiable, the key question for investors is how long the supply crunch — and for the chipmakers, the profit-palooza — will last.
Microsoft is committing to paying up for its data center electricity needs so American households won’t have to face higher costs.
This announcement comes after President Donald Trump posted on Monday evening that his administration was working with leading tech companies to ensure that US households don’t “pick up the tab” for their data center-driven energy demands, which have helped propel electricity bills higher.
Microsoft, he said, would be the first to unveil steps in this direction.
Here’s its plan, from a post attributed to Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith:
From a markets and economics standpoint, the first part is the most interesting. Smith said that Microsoft will ask utilities and public commissions to charge Microsoft enough to cover both data center installation and usage, as well as support two-tier pricing systems (like what’s being proposed in Wisconsin) that will see “Very Large Customers” like data centers face higher costs.
The hyperscalers are walking a fine line of trying to aggressively pursue a build-out of a technology that they believe will be transformative and offer profits for years to come while avoiding public and political backlash due to how resource-intensive these capital outlays and operations are.
“Especially when tech companies are so profitable, we believe that it’s both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public to shoulder added electricity costs for AI,” Smith said. “Instead, we believe the long-term success of AI infrastructure requires that tech companies pay their own way for the electricity costs they create.”
Microsoft’s 12-month forward expected profit margin is above 38%, per analysts polled by Bloomberg, its highest projection on record.
Microsoft, he said, would be the first to unveil steps in this direction.
Here’s its plan, from a post attributed to Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith:
From a markets and economics standpoint, the first part is the most interesting. Smith said that Microsoft will ask utilities and public commissions to charge Microsoft enough to cover both data center installation and usage, as well as support two-tier pricing systems (like what’s being proposed in Wisconsin) that will see “Very Large Customers” like data centers face higher costs.
The hyperscalers are walking a fine line of trying to aggressively pursue a build-out of a technology that they believe will be transformative and offer profits for years to come while avoiding public and political backlash due to how resource-intensive these capital outlays and operations are.
“Especially when tech companies are so profitable, we believe that it’s both unfair and politically unrealistic for our industry to ask the public to shoulder added electricity costs for AI,” Smith said. “Instead, we believe the long-term success of AI infrastructure requires that tech companies pay their own way for the electricity costs they create.”
Microsoft’s 12-month forward expected profit margin is above 38%, per analysts polled by Bloomberg, its highest projection on record.
