AI: Weekly Summary. RTZ #878

1. OpenAI’s Broadcom Deal: OpenAI continues its frenetic pace of AI Infrastructure deals, this time with Broadcom as a now third source for AI Inference chips besides its deals with Nvidia and AMD. The chips when rolling out at scale should cost OpenAI 20-30% less than similar chips from Nvidia. More importantly, Nvidia is likely to remain supply constrained for a few years, even as Broadcom and AMD ramp up on their versions of the needed AI chips. And helps OpenAI diversify from its sole reliance to date on Microsoft for AI Infrastructure. The multi-hundred billion dollar commitment continues to propel OpenAI to the trillion dollar market on AI Infrastructure commitments, while it works hard to ramp up revenues to meet that coming commitments. For now, Wall Street remains positive on these deals, despite the potential lag issues of revenues relative to costs. More here.

   

2. Microsoft’s Talking AI Copilot Windows PCs: Microsoft is ramping up its multi-year effort now to upgrade Windows 11 with AI Copilot talking capabilities now baked in across its dozens of PC hardware OEM partners around the world. This initiative is different from its AI Recall feature last year, which ran into some PR and technical issues around privacy and trust concerns. The new capabilities for AI Copilot to talk via desktop and laptop WIndows computer is targeted at both enterprise and consumer users in the hundreds of millions worldwide. The new features require meaningful behavior changes by mainstream users, vs the traditional ways of interacting with computers via keyboards and mice. The capability also extends to handheld WIndows based gaming devices, where Microsoft is also ramping up via its XBox brand with OEM partners like Asus, Lenovo and many others. More here.

   

3. AI Video Content & Copyright Tussles: The recent OpenAI Sora 2 hit with AI generated video is now running into headwinds from the estates of Celebrities, both in terms of permissions and compensation issues. OpenAI continues to recalibrate its approaches here, as it sees viral momentum for its AI video products, similar to its success a few months ago with its ‘Ghibli’ AI images service. This issue with content copyright holders is an example of the macro issue with content rights holders living or deceased worldwide, across sovereign jurisdictions. Much needs to be negotiated and/or litigated in multiple jurisdictions for some time to come. AI is dramatically accelerating media of all types from scarcity to abundance. And over time, it likely means larger financial opportunities for all parties down the road . More here.

   

4. OpenAI now drives ‘MANGO’: With OpenAI continuing to extend its leadership up and down the AI Tech Stack, the markets are modifying its favorite acronyms from ‘FAANG’ a while to, to ‘Mag 7’ today, to now ‘MANGO’, with OpenAI anchoring the rest. The evolution is a sign of the times, with the ‘A’ being represented by Apple, Amazon, and/or Anthropic. And the ‘M’ being interchangeable between Microsoft and/or Meta. Over time, we’ll likely need to include global AI/Big Tech names like TikTok/Bytedance, Alibaba and others. But for now, the US companies continue to morph the popular references amongst media and investors. More here.

   

5. US vs China AI Robots Update: Both the private and public markets remain excited over the nascent markets globally for AI Robotics, where China continues to have the manufacturing ecosystem advantage at scale. But recently US companies are also ramping up across companies large and small. The most visible one of course remains Elon Musk’s Optimus humanoid robots, and its Robotaxi, robot cars. But we’re seeing some headway by US companies in AI robots beyond them for both enterprise and consumer applications. On the latter front, Amazon, Apple, Google, OpenAI and others also remain focused on the opportunity. And of course Nvidia, which continues to provide open source AI hardware and software frameworks for AI robots globally. More here.

   

Other AI Readings for weekend:

1. Meta poaches more AI Talent from Apple. More here.

   

2. Ramping concerns over ‘AI Bubble’. More here.

   

(Additional Note: For more weekend AI listening, have a new podcast series on AI, from a Gen Z to Boomer perspective. It’s called AI Ramblings. Now 25 weekly Episodes and counting. More with the latest AI Ramblings Episode 25 here, on AI issues of the day. As well as our latest ‘Reads’ and ‘Obsessions’ of the Week. Co-hosted with my Gen Z nephew Neal Makwana):

Up next, the Sunday ‘The Bigger Picture’ tomorrow. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here).