What Will it Cost for Meta to Dominate AI?

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What Will it Cost for Meta to Dominate AI?

Mark Zuckerberg believes Meta [META] “should invest significantly more over the coming years to build even more advanced models and the largest scale AI services in the world”. Speaking to analysts after Wednesday’s earning call, he said such spending will need to grow “meaningfully before we make much revenue from some of these new products”. Zuckerberg’s vision seems to have spooked investors: despite reporting record Q1 revenue, the Meta share price dropped more than 12% premarket Thursday.

AstraZeneca’s Healthy Q1

The British-Swedish pharma giant [AZN] reported revenue growth of 19% year-over-year, to $12.7bn in Q1, well ahead of consensus estimates of $11.9bn, reported the Financial Times. The growth was driven by an uptick in sales of its cancer drugs. It also repeated guidance of double-digit growth in both sales and earnings over the full year. Elsewhere, US pharmacy chain Walgreens [WBA] announced on Thursday that it is to work with drugmakers to bring cell and gene therapies to patients.

AI Boom Pushes SK Hynix into Profit

Attributing its performance to an “increase in the sales of AI server products backed by its leadership in AI memory technology including high-bandwidth memory”, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix [000660:KS] on Thursday reported a net profit of some ₩1.9trn in Q1, its first positive income since Q3 2022. The firm mentioned in its press release that it expects the memory-chip market will recover this year.

AI Gets Emotional

Backed by Nvidia [NVDA], AI firm Synthesia unveiled a new range of AI-generated digital avatars. The UK-based company said its ‘Expressive Avatars’ can convey human emotions based on users’ text inputs; the AI behind them was trained using actors reading scripts in front of a green screen, reported CNBC. Elsewhere, Nvidia on Wednesday confirmed it is to acquire two Israeli start-ups focused on lowering costs associated with creating and running AI.

Beijing Auto Show: EVs Everywhere

EVs are the star of China’s biggest auto show, which opened on Thursday. William Li, Founder and CEO of Nio [NIO] told Reuters: “you should have no doubt about EVs anymore. It is actually not the future but is what’s happening right now”. Brands including BYD [1211:HK] and upstart Xiaomi [1810:HK] are showcasing new models. The CEO of Geely-backed [0175:HK] EV brand Zeekr told CNBC his company has been outselling Tesla [TSLA] and plans to expand to Europe and Latin America this year.