Major Announcements at AI Summit

Major Announcements at AI Summit 

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit got underway in Paris yesterday, attended by politicians and sector leaders such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. To get the ball rolling, French President Emmanuel Macron announced €109bn in AI investment in France. Elsewhere, France’s Mistral and Germany’s Helsing — two of Europe’s most valuable start-ups — announced a partnership focused on applying AI to warfare, Bloombergdetailed. The summit concludes today.

Apple Supplier Posts Revenue Jump

Foxconn Technology [FXCOF] posted a 3.16% year-on-year revenue rise in January, hitting NT$538.7bn, Seeking Alpha reported. The Apple [AAPL] and Nvidia [NVDA] supplier expects strong Q1 2025 growth despite the usual seasonal slowdown; Q4 2024 revenue hit a record. Foxconn forecasts better sequential performance than the past five years’ average and robust year-on-year growth.

Quakes Wobble TSM’s Q1 Forecast

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co [TSM] expects Q1 sales at the low end of forecasts after January quakes caused NT$5.3bn in net losses, Bloomberg detailed. The company is working to recover production. January revenue rose 36% year-on-year to NT$293.3bn, slowing from Q4’s 38.8% growth. TSM was one of three tech stocks that OPTO flagged as having a lot of potential in 2025: read more on Foresight.

The Future of AI According to Arm CEO

In an interview with the Financial Times, Arm [ARM] CEO Rene Haas explains that, although DeepSeek came as a surprise, he does not believe “the rumors” that it was made on a shoestring budget: “I think that’s where people just over-indexed on ‘maybe the world’s coming to an end’.” Hass observes that tech giants are still spending big on AI R&D, and that there is ample reason to be excited about AI’s potential — for example, the “opportunity to cure cancer in our lifetime. It’s pretty real.”

China: Closer and Closer to Chip Self-Sufficiency

China’s leading memory chip maker CXMT is gaining ground in the $90bn DRAM market, growing from near zero in 2020 to 5% in 2024. Analysts expect further momentum as it challenges Samsung [SSNLF], SK Hynix [HXSCL] and Micron [MU]. CXMT is also pushing into high-bandwidth memory, crucial for AI, joining OpenAI rival DeepSeek in advancing Beijing’s tech self-sufficiency. 

Uber: Massively Undervalued?

Activist investor Bill Ackman has acquired a $2.3bn stake in the ride-hailing firm [UBER], saying on X that it is “one of the best-managed and highest-quality businesses in the world”. What’s more, “it can still be purchased at a massive discount to its intrinsic value.” Ackman singled out CEO Dara Khosrowshahi for praise; his hedge fund now owns more than 30 million shares, according to the Financial Times. 

4 Fintech Stocks to Watch: Incumbents vs. Upstarts

The fintech theme was buoyed by Donald Trump’s election win, amid hopes that a crypto-friendly administration will be a boost for the industry. OPTO takes a look at four companies in the fintech space, which can be separated into two groups: incumbents — those that have a wealth of experience in the industry — and upstarts — younger companies that can be considered more technologically savvy.