R&D Market Pulse: NVIDIA hits $37.5 billion in revenue as UK regulators curb oversight of investment in AI startups

In a move signaling a softer regulatory approach to the booming AI sector, British regulators announced they would not investigate Google’s $2 billion investment in the startup. up from AI Anthropic. The move mirrors a similar decision regarding Amazon’s earlier $4 billion stake. This green light comes as Amazon doubles its stake, bringing its total investment in Anthropic to 8 billion dollars.

Elsewhere, this week’s tally includes Huawei unveiling a new chip that challenges U.S. dominance, and Samsung investing billions in advanced semiconductor R&D.

Overall, the R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending November 22, 2024 closed at 3,764.08 for the 25 RDWI companies. The index increased by 1.49% (or 55.18 basis points). Twenty RDWI members gained value last week, from 0.24% (Eli Lilly & Co.) to 8.77% (IBM). Five RDWI members lost value in the previous week, from –1.12% (Roche Holdings AG) to –6.16% (Alibaba).

AI R&D

Regulators are easing AI startups

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced last week that it would not open an investigation into Google’s $2 billion investment in the intelligence startup (AI) Anthropic, in San Francisco, California, because Google has not acquired the ability to materially influence Anthropic’s business policy. Google holds no board seats or voting rights at Anthropic and has no veto power over the startup’s strategic business decisions. The move echoes a similar decision not to open a formal investigation into Anthropic’s ties to Amazon, which invested $4 billion in the startup, saying they lacked jurisdiction. Last week, Amazon and Seattle announced they would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, doubling their initial investment. Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other tech giants have been pouring money into AI startups as they seek the next version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Technological R&D

An image broadcast on X by the user “TECH INFO”.

Last week, Huawei Technologies in Shenzhen, China, announced the availability of a new advanced semiconductor chip that will be used in its latest Mate 70 series of cellular smartphones. Huawei chips have been placed on a US trade blacklist under the first Trump administration in 2019. The new chips pose a security concern for the United States and a business challenge for Apple, which views China as its second-largest cellphone market after the United States. on the new Huawei chips have not been published. Nonetheless, the company said the phones would be installed and put on sale this week. Huawei has also avoided using banned Google Android operating systems on its phones by developing its own operating systems.

Samsung Electronics, Suwon, South Korea, announced last week that it has installed production equipment in a new integrated R&D complex in Yongin, South Korea, with operations expected to begin in mid-2025. Samsung said it would invest $14.3 billion in the facility, which will become a key research base for its memory, large-scale integration (LSI) systems and semiconductor foundry businesses. The 109,000 square meter facility is called NRD-K and is located south of the Korean capital, Seoul, at its Giheung campus. Equipment installed includes extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and new metal deposition systems, which will be used to develop next-generation memory chips, including 3D DRAM and V-NAND with more than 1,000 layers. In the same announcement, Samsung said it invested $6.4 billion in its R&D efforts in the third quarter of 2024.

Automotive R&D

Corporate Research headquarters in Renningen, Germany

Robert Bosch, GmbH, Gerlingen, Germany, announced plans last week to cut 5,500 jobs at its global factories. The company employs approximately 429,400 people and has nine major R&D sites worldwide, three in the United States, Europe and Asia. Most of the job cuts will take place over the next five years and will be fueled by weak auto sales and intense competition. Other automotive suppliers, including Ford Motor, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen, have also announced significant workforce reductions, particularly in Europe.

Bosch will also reduce the working hours of around 10,000 workers Germany, according to Reuters.

AI R&D

(NVIDIA)

AI chipmaker NVIDIA, of Santa Clara, Calif., reported last week that its third-quarter revenue was about $37.5 billion, beating analysts’ forecasts. To maintain its leadership, Nvidia is exploring new markets and uses for its chips, including drug discovery applications and humanoid robots, and various countries are working to invest in national AI infrastructure. Nvidia expects so-called sovereign investments in AI to add $10 billion to its sales in 2024, up from zero in 2023. Analysts currently estimate the company has more than 80% chip market share AI.

Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., a member of the RDW Index, announced last week that it is working with pharmaceutical and agricultural materials maker Bayer, Leverkusen, Germany, on specialized AI models fine-tuned on industry-specific data. ‘industry. Businesses can now list and monetize these templates on Microsoft’s online template catalog. For Bayer, this means that an AI model refined with its data and designed to provide answers about agronomy and crop production is available for licensing from its distributors. The model can also answer questions about the ingredients in an insecticide or which crops it can be applied to.

Company News

The Conference Board of New York released its leading economic index (LEI) last week, indicating that the index fell 0.4% in October, following a 0.3% decline in September. According to the report, the main contributor to this decline came from the manufacturing sector, which remained weak in 11 of 14 sectors. October’s decline was slightly larger than economists expected for that month. The LEI fell 2.2% from April to October, slightly more than the 2.0% decline recorded in the previous six months. The LEI is a predictive variable that anticipates turning points in the economic cycle by approximately seven months.

The global R&D index

The R&D World R&D Index is a weekly stock market summary of leading international companies involved in R&D. The top 25 industrial R&D spenders in 2020 were selected based on the latest lists of R&D ratios and budgets from Schonfeld & Associates from June 2020. These 25 companies include pharmaceuticals (10 companies), automotive (6 companies ) and ICT (9 companies), which invested a cumulative total of nearly $260 billion in R&D in 2019, or around 10% of all R&D spending worldwide. by government, industry and academia combined, according to R&D World’s 2021 global R&D funding forecast. Stock prices used in the Global R&D Index are calculated using NASDAQ, NYSE and over-the-counter common stock prices for selected companies as of the close of trading on the Friday preceding the online publication of the index. global R&D index.