“The Future is Here”: Waymo Milestone

“The Future is Here”: Waymo Milestone

Alphabet-backed [GOOGL] Waymo has announced that its Waymo One autonomous service now provides over 150,000 paid trips and drives over a million fully autonomous miles each week, Seeking Alpha reported. This rapid growth follows its August milestone of 100,000 weekly trips, a figure achieved through scaling, cost optimization and a strong consumer focus, according to Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi. “The future is here, it’s growing, and it’s taking riders safely to their destinations every day,” the company said in an update. 

One Million Nvidia GPUs

Sakura Internet [3778:T], Japan’s local network provider, is accelerating Nvidia [NVDA] GPU acquisitions in response to rising demand, with its new data center expected to be fully booked by launch in three years. “We need some 50,000 to 100,000 Nvidia GPUs to comfortably handle the demand we see today,” CEO Kunihiro Tanaka said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We would need a million GPUs 10 years from now, if demand rises at the current pace.” 

Welcome News for Beleaguered VinFast

Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer VinFast Auto [VFS] is set to secure at least $1bn in investments from a consortium led by Emirates Driving, Bloomberg reported. Announced Tuesday, the agreement includes not only capital infusion, but also support from Emirates Driving in driver training, road safety and building an EV ecosystem. VinFast shares are down some 53% year-to-date; the firm aims to open a factory in India the first half of next year.

Reddit in the Black

Reddit [RDDT] has posted its first-ever profit, only months after its IPO, driving shares up by over 20% to a new high. Executives highlighted improvements in ad technology and “machine translation” capabilities, which have expanded Reddit’s audience and increased engagement. The platform’s daily active users reached nearly 100 million, a 47% year-over-year rise. Back in August, OPTO detailed how AI offered the stock novel means of improving customer numbers and engagement, as well as providing new revenue streams.

Alphabet Profit Jump Eases AI Concerns

Alphabet reported a 34% surge in profit for Q3, driven by strong growth in its Google Cloud business, amid high demand for computing and data services to train and run artificial intelligence (AI) models. Google Cloud’s revenue jumped 35% to $11.4bn, while operating profit soared from $266mn to $1.9bn. Alphabet’s net income rose to $26.3bn, exceeding the $22.8bn analysts projected, with overall revenue up 15% to $88.3bn, surpassing the expected $86.3bn. 

Washington Cannot Stymie Chinese Innovation

New data from Bloomberg Economics and Bloomberg Intelligence shows that China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative has significantly advanced the country’s position in global tech. Of 13 key areas, China now leads in five, including EVs and solar energy, and it is quickly closing the gap in seven others. As Chinese tech products gain international traction, US policies aimed at curbing China’s influence risk isolating the US and potentially impacting its businesses and consumers.

This “Unsexy” AI Stock is at a Three-Year High

Demand for AI tools that help manufacturers to save time and cut costs — plus a new transaction model designed to make it easier to manage subscriptions — has pushed the Autodesk [ADSK] share price to a three-year high. While ADSK stock may be overshadowed by bigger AI names, Goldman Sachs considers it to be an ‘unsexy’ play on the theme. In the Foresight Substack channel, OPTO unpacks the investment case for ADSK, and compares its fundamentals to that of its biggest competitors in the computer-aided design market.