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- [00:01]
Deloitte Representative
The right technology can strengthen human judgment. That's why Deloitte brings together AI and data analytics with multidisciplinary teams who can help you connect the dots across your enterprise, from risk to operations to customer needs. So opportunities don't slip by and surprises don't spread. Because the smarter your systems, the sharper your instincts. That's how technology makes people better at what they do best. Deloitte together makes progress. Learn more@deloitte.com TogetherMakesProgress so there's a lot
- [00:35]
IBM Representative
of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business.
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Public Representative
Business.
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IBM Representative
Let's create smarter business.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
IBM Sending a file is easy. Making sure your clients understand the file
- [01:08]
Adobe Representative / Advertiser
is the hard part. But with PDF spaces in Adobe Acrobat, you can give your clients the full
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
picture with custom intros, audio summaries and a helpful AI assistant to your docs.
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Adobe Representative / Advertiser
So if you want to stop the endless follow ups, do that with Acrobat. Need to make your docs crystal clear. Do that with Acrobat.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Want to make sure your clients get everything they need to hear?
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Adobe Representative / Advertiser
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Learn more at adobe.com/do that with Acrobat.
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Adobe Representative / Advertiser
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts radio news.
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Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to
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Adobe Representative / Advertiser
coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up, big swings in Korean stocks after a South Korean policymaker suggests paying citizens a dividend using taxes on AI profits.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Plus the largest US derivatives exchange, cme, is planning to create a futures market for computing power, one of the key drivers of the AI boom.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
And SAP pushes further into AI agents across business operations with its new autonomous enterprise platform. We'll discuss with the CEO.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
First we check in on these markets which, well, maybe for once we get a shock shakeout of what has been a relentless grind higher in the tech industry and most notably some of the chip stocks which today day are the biggest fallers. Having been, of course, the crescendo effect in the Nasdaq. We're up by 1.4%. It's the biggest drop we've seen since late March. ED and all of this is as we still have Anxiety about geopolitics and that is feeding through to inflationary pressures more broadly.
- [02:51]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Take a look at this chart. Korean stocks took a dive on Tuesday following a Facebook post by a South Korean policymaker saying the nation should pay citizens a quote dividend using taxes on AI profits. The benchmark cost me sank as much as 5%. Then paired losses when the Korean government later said that was his personal opinion. South Korean shares of Samsung and SK Hynix recoup some of their losses, but still closed down around 5%. Let's get more with Bloomberg's executive editor for Global Tech, Peter Elstrom. It's the kind of story you wake up, you see it number one on the Bloomberg terminal and you're not really surprised. But you do a double take and you go, a Facebook post that sank an entire market. Who's this policymaker and what do we need to know?
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Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
Yeah, it is a bit of a surprise and there are surprising dynamics behind this, this post. So as you mentioned, this adviser Kim Jong Bong posted on Facebook about this idea of an AI dividend, really a citizens dividend because of the profits. Again, it was posted on Facebook. It's not official policy. The President's office was quick to come out and say that it's his personal opinion. But it's a 2500 word post. It's very in depth. It's actually quite philosophical. He talks about the evolution of the Kore economy, what it means for the people, what it means for citizens, how they're going to be challenges, but they're going to be opportunities too. And then he homes in, out in this idea that perhaps there should be a dividend to rebuild the social foundation of the country as they go into this new era. So he's not talking about new taxes on these companies, just to be clear, on the key companies like Samsung and SK Hynix. He's just talking about how the country is going to benefit from their profits and what the country should do with those profits. And the profits are pretty staggering. Just to be clear, Samsung is on track to make something like $220 billion this year. SK Hynix won't be far behind. So you're talking about $400 billion in profits from just two companies. Of course, it's not as much as you would get in the US but it's much more concentrated in Korea. So the, the contribution to the Korean budget is going to be much more substantial. They're going to have this windfall. And so he's talking about what they
- [04:58]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
should do with it he's clicking in on a hot button topic, whether it be here in the United States where Open Air has been potentially suggesting ways in which there could be some sort of wealth fund created to distribute the wealth, create AI more broadly. But also there's potential labor issues, particularly for Samsung. SK Hynix has been promising profits towards its engineers and workers, but Samsung is facing a potential strike.
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Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
Yeah, that's a really important point. This is not just a Korea issue. This is really a global issue. Governments around the world are trying to figure out what are we going to do if there is this big, big AI boom as we've seen so far. What are you going to do with all those profits? What are you going to do with that new wealth? You've had the billionaires tax proposed, of course, in, in California too. Now Samsung and SK Hynix have been wrestling with this issue. As you mentioned. Samsung right now is in negotiations with its labor union which is threatening to strike because they want a bigger share of those profits too. Again, this is not a new tax on these companies though, if they proceed with this dividend. As we've talked about, it's more a sense of what the Korean government can do to prepare. And the big message from Kim in this whole discussion is that his government in Korea and then governments around the world need to be more proactive in thinking about how they're going to navigate this much more complex world with AI as it begins to change the economy, begins to change the workplace and employment too.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Philosophical indeed. Bloomberg's Peter Alstrom. Thanks for running us through it. Staying in Asia. President Trump is poised to travel to China to meet with President Xi Jinping later this week. Now a number of top tech executives are expected to join the trip. As we told you yesterday, the likes of Tim Cook, the likes of Tesla's Elon Musk Newton. Noticeably absent, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who was reportedly not even invited. Here with more is Bloomberg's chip and AI reporter Maggie since that the case that the invite wasn't extended to Jensen, who seemed so close to the president.
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Bloomberg Chip and AI Reporter Maggie Eastland
Yes, exactly. That's what we're reporting here. Nvidia's chief executive officer, the leader of America's most valuable company, did not get the invite to come to China, even though he has a lot at stake in China. And Huang is continuing to push for some sort of AI chip sale there. Though this seems to be a signal that he's not going to get Blackwell sales in China anytime soon, at least from the US Permission side.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
It's Interesting. You're writing about this in your tech in depth today, right? That the President's priorities and Jensen Huang's priorities right now, they might not be as aligned as they have been in recent months. Just take us into your tech in depth.
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Bloomberg Chip and AI Reporter Maggie Eastland
Absolutely. So there's really a stark contrast here. If you look at the last time President Trump met with President Xi in Korea last October, Blackwells were top of mind. You know, President Trump was telling reporters that he was going to talk to Xi about those chips. At the same time Nvidia was lobbying for potentially selling those high powered processors to China. So now we're seeing sort of a reversal in Trump's priorities. The issue of AI chips has been deliberated and it was decided that, you know, the US would allow Nvidia to sell its H200 processor, which is less powerful than the Blackwell. And it seems to be that that's sort of where the line stands. And the latest signal of that is, of course, Jensen not joining for this China trip.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
It's interesting that maybe more on the focus from the Chinese leadership perspective is Taiwan. And therein lies the whole issue of supply chain and a desire to make America stand alone a little bit more in its own ability to, to fabricate these chips. Maggie, who do you think is going to be centered around conversation? And when it comes to Jensen, is it a big loss because the market is down what, 8, 10% on his name today?
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Bloomberg Chip and AI Reporter Maggie Eastland
Well, look, it's certainly not the boost that the idea that chips could be on the table and Blackwell's could be on the table was last October. I mean, that's an Nvidia's, you know, market cap above $5 trillion. So we're not seeing that same enthusiasm. And even for something like the 2002, it's unclear if Nvidia will ever be able to, you know, tally up sales from selling those to China. China could still reject those. You know, it's possible that comes up in this meeting though, the focus is probably going to be bigger geopolitical issues, especially the war in Iran. And so it seems since AI chips are just not a focus, Nvidia's definitely not going to get a boost reduced from, from this meeting. And you know, they might even see some declines as you're pointing out.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Limbo's. Maggie Eastland, thank you very much. The melt up in chips and infrastructure stocks is hitting a pause today. I'm looking at the Philadelphia Semiconductor index. It's up 140% over the last 12 months through yesterday's close up 70% year to date. But today in the moment, we're on track for our biggest drop since that last week, week of March is probably worth pointing out as well that CPI inflation accelerating in April, coming in 3.8% year on year, that has had big impact on the markets at the moment. Let's get more with Kim Forrest, CEO, Boca Capital Partners. I was talking with the equities desk this morning at Bloomberg News about a lot of these names that are really lower today taking a pause. Intel, Micron, intel in particular, they were kind of primed for a bit of a pause pullback. Right? Is that it? Is that just timing in the moment or is it the CPI print we got this morning?
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Kim Forrest, CEO Boca Capital Partners
I think the CPI print is completely disregarded by the chip nation and AI because they don't care. They just simply don't care what cost things are or I guess overall they don't care. God knows that, you know, AMD is probably making some gains because they have a somewhat lower priced GPU than in video and it's capable. So you know, cost is relative. But yes, I don't think CPI has anything to do with today's tech sell off. I think it has more to do with just look at the gains for the year and sometimes you just run out of buyers. Even momentum buyers can't continue. So it's probably that as well as what happened in South Korea. Again, momentum buyers want to buy companies that are going up and perhaps yesterday's sell off of those memory names was enough to cool the temperature of buying chip stocks today.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
It's interesting talk about momentum. And we've been hearing from some of the biggest leaders on Wall street just today about whether AI is real, what the investment opportunities are, who wins, who loses. Just take a listen to Jamie Dimon a little bit earlier, Kim.
- [11:39]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
The way I look at is that AI is real.
- [11:42]
Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
A lot of money is going to go into it.
- [11:43]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
That doesn't mean everyone who does it
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Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
is going to be a winner like
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Christian Klein, SAP CEO
go back to the Internet.
- [11:48]
Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
A lot of people lost, a lot of people won.
- [11:50]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
And so you know, in the hyperscales
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Bloomberg Executive Editor Peter Elstrom
with those data centers not find use, they probably will. But is it possible some do it badly, design it badly, didn't get the right. Yes, of course it's possible, Kim, you've
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
bet on invested in the right names, some that have done incredibly well through momentum or otherwise recently. But are too many ramping higher at this moment? Will we start to see more discernment?
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Kim Forrest, CEO Boca Capital Partners
I hope so. It actually we've, we've seen some discernment with intel coming back from, you know, it was not only dead and buried, but it had the grass grew over its grave. Right. I mean, it was gone. And yet here we are. And why are we here? I think it's the forward movement of AI development. And whenever I came on the scene and chat, GPT captured everyone's imagination, both in video and OpenAI seemed to be like the winners and everybody else was just going to languish. Well, technology rollouts don't really work that way. And I think we're probably in. I've been watching a lot of baseball because the Pittsburgh Pirates are actually tolerable to watch this year so far. And we're probably in the bottom of the second inning in. So we have a lot of road to go ahead of us.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
The big calendar item this week probably is President Trump's visit to China, meeting with with President Xi and also the delegation of top CEOs, all relevant to the, to the fields that you've outlined. What's at stake here for the technology investor and for markets this week?
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Kim Forrest, CEO Boca Capital Partners
Well, the US and China are walking a really, really narrow line between each other. Where AI is considered is, you know, the topic. For a long time, America has been winning. But I think it feels like decades ago, whenever Deep Seek came out, maybe it was the beginning of 2025, you know, the shiver went through the community going, oh my gosh, China might have something here. And while we want competition, it's the military uses of AI and the military uses of the chips that we're very cognizant of. And I think that's why, you know, Jensen Huang didn't get the invite. They don't really want to discuss that at this point. So don't invite them, don't have the conversation about it. But yes, AI is very much a contention between the US and China. And I know that the US is, you know, US first would like to develop it and sell it to the rest of the world, but so would China. So there's going to be tension over the world of AI.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Kim Forrest, CIO Capital Partners it's always great to check in with you. Thanks. The expertise now coming up, the largest US derivatives exchange, that's the cme, is planning to create a futures market for computing power. Details Next, this is Bloomberg Tech.
- [14:53]
Deloitte Representative
The right technology can strengthen human judgment. That's why Deloitte brings together AI and data analytics with multidisciplinary teams. People with deep industry experience, experience who can challenge assumptions and help you connect the dots across your enterprise from risk signals to operational pressure points, to shifting customer needs. Deloitte helps you see what's coming sooner so opportunities don't slip by and surprises don't spread. It's not just dashboards. It's real clarity in the moments your decisions are made. When models reveal patterns, people can ask better questions. When data and people are connected, leaders can move faster with confidence. And when your teams are aligned, smart choices can scale from the frontline to the C suite. Because the smarter your systems, the sharper your instincts. That's how technology makes people better at what they do best. Deloitte together makes progress. Learn more@deloitte.com TogetherMakesProgress so there's a lot
- [15:54]
IBM Representative
of noise about AI. But time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.
- [16:23]
Adobe Representative / Advertiser
IBM Everyone has been there. Your team's feedback is scattered across emails, chats and sticky notes. It's a mess, but PDF spaces in Adobe Acrobat gives you one collaborative workspace to streamline every file and comment. So if you need six departments to finally agree on a proposal, do that with Acrobat. Need to turn a mountain of feedback into one plan of action? Do that with Acrobat. Want to stop searching for files and finally get everyone on the same page. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn more@adobe.com do that with Acrobat.
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Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
The United States is short power. We're short compute, we're short chips and
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Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
there are going to be shortages in all three memory. Four things I actually believe a new
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Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
asset class will be buying futures of compute.
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Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
We just don't have enough compute power right now.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
That was BlackRock CEO Larry Fink a week ago at Milken, foretelling what is big news out today. CME and Silicon Data are teaming up to create a futures market for computing power, one of the pillars of the AI boom. Bloomberg's finance reporter Doherty has actually been following what Silicon Data has been doing around this for a while and now the CME brings it because according to Terry Duffy at the CME computes the new oil.
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Catherine Doherty, Bloomberg Finance Reporter
That's right. It's just another commodity that is going to be able to not Just be traded tracked versus that's really what was the first pillar was the index that was created, Silicon Data bringing that to investors so they could at least start to have more transparency around putting a number to what people were valuing as the price of compute technology. And now we have the ability to hedge, to hedge against price moves and some of the risks that are out there, as it would you tracking oil or other commodity prices. This is really bringing this into the institutional space and you're going to have both the tech firms and investors that are going to jump into this and build the market and grow it so that it has the actual liquidity to back it.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Catherine I go even more basic than that. You know, futures contracts are just an agreement to buy or sell something at a later date at a fixed price. So you're either locking in that cost or you're betting in a price change in either direction. But like with compute, like I think we're talking about GPUs or GPU hours, something like that. You know, have they worked out how this would work in the real world?
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Madeline Meckleburg, Bloomberg Reporter
World?
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Catherine Doherty, Bloomberg Finance Reporter
That's right. So the index is where you're getting into that detail about GPUs and the processing power that was kind of the first step. Now with the futures contracts, as you are pointing out, this is the ability to hedge for future moves, putting a price to or really the bet of where these contracts are going to be traded in the future. So it's both looking at where is the price of these GPU processing power trading today and where do we see it in the few weeks, months. And as it builds out, it's really going to be, it has to develop. And I think that it's something that also needs the blessing of regulators. But that is the intent is to to be able to put a price on not just where this power is trading at the very moment, but in the future.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Silicon Data commonly, who's the founder of all this, previously a trader was her idea to bring transparency to those who were going and trying to buy compute and just understand what one offering was like to another. Or she really thinking that this could become a fully fledged asset class that the retail investors want to get in. And more broadly, we want to sort of build up an ecosystem around.
- [20:19]
Catherine Doherty, Bloomberg Finance Reporter
I do think it was all about the ecosystem. What Silicon Data and what Carmen was building from the very start was again one pillar to something that was much larger. And when we talk about transparency before today, there really wasn't a big player like CME that was able to bring compute as an asset class to the market in this way CME as a derivatives exchange, they already had have the traders and so you might not have just the tech firms and the AI providers, the super scalers that are going to be using this to hedge their own costs, but you're bringing an entire new institutional base that is going to look at this asset class in the same way that they would oil, metals and other things that they trade. So it's going to be kind of a mix of many different worlds that to is going going to build this ecosystem, this new market.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
That was my next question really is like put CME in the context of the broader derivatives markets. A next step would be I guess other players would make similar proposals for futures contracts on computes in other jurisdictions.
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Catherine Doherty, Bloomberg Finance Reporter
Yes, you already have seen some exchanges, some upstarts, but no one to the size of cme, which is the largest US derivatives exchange, come into to this space. It's very likely that we'll see other large exchange operators that will jump into this and build their own marketplace. Because it's all about the more liquidity, the more trading and the more interest that you can build, the better it is for the market as a whole. It doesn't need to be just one exchange.
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Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Bloomberg's Catherine Doherty on a big breaking news story this morning. Thank you very much. Sam Altman is expected to take the stand today in the closely watched trial over the charitable status of Open Air. Elon Musk has accused the startup and his fellow co founders and Microsoft of betraying Open Air's founding mission for their own benefit. Yesterday we learned more about the financial gains during Testimony from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. Bloomberg's Madeline Meckleburg is covering the case and has been there every single day. Let's start with the what's to come. Sam Altman, you know, this is the testimony probably that the world's waiting for. What do we know at this stage?
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Madeline Meckleburg, Bloomberg Reporter
That's right. This is definitely the high profile witness that we've been waiting to hear from. We've heard from at this point all of the other major players in this Open air battle with Elon Musk. That includes Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Elias, that's cover Satya, Nicole Adela, as you said. And so we don't know much about Altman. We don't even know what time we're expecting him to take the stand today. But there's just a few days left at trial and he really has a lot of questions that he's going to have to answer for before the jury. I think we're going to hear him grilled on a lot of the subjects that we've covered already at trial, mainly about his relationship with Elon Musk, but also chiefly about his ouster. That's something that Musk, Musk's legal team has been making a really big issue of. This is back in the 2020-2023 time period. And they're going through a lot of concerns that employees voiced at that time, or members of the board rather, voiced at that time about his leadership style. So I think this is going to be an opportunity for him to kind of respond to a lot of the allegations and descriptions that we've heard so far and tell his side of the story, which is an essential one in this case.
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
And the essential element of the story is what to convince that it wasn't just out of greed, that they were turning into a for profit business. What is it that through Sam's leadership style that they're looking to prove one way or other?
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Madeline Meckleburg, Bloomberg Reporter
That's right. So that's the central argument from Musk here, is that they've betrayed the founding mission in an effort to try to enrich themselves. That's why we've heard so much about how much stake some of these leaders have in OpenAI, how much money was being thrown around and made here since they've made this conversion to a for profit. I know your viewers know that the value of OpenAI has skyrocketed, especially in recent years. And so all these folks who had equity in the very early days of making it a for profit have made significant returns since then. Their stake has grown so much. And so I think what we've seen from Musk's lawyers is an attempt to show that Altman has maybe not been truthful to the board in the past. His motives have not always been clear. So while he may be saying one thing about his commitment to the mission, I think they're trying to have the jury ask some questions about whether he's telling the truth there and whether that's really where his motivation is.
- [24:57]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Bloomberg's Madeleine mclebbard will let you get back to that courtroom. We appreciate you checking in on eBay and GameStop shares. Well, apparently the 50, $56 billion takeover offer from GameStop is deeply non credible nor attractive according to ebay itself. And we have clearly something that now could become some sort of proxy battle. It could become hostile takeover where Ryan Cohen goes directly to shareholders of ebay. But thus far a company that is worth a quarter of the company it's trying to bid for hasn't managed to convince the board.
- [25:32]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Yeah, the offer was $125 a share, 50% cash, 50% GameStop stock. EBay is at 107. And there were concerns about actually how GameStop would come up with the financing of that offer. What happens next?
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Yeah, and question of course all about whether or not this could remain an investment grade company if combined and that seems to be a key issue that our reporting shows the resources showing that that TD offering not enough if it's not investment graded.
- [25:59]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Not the end the of of that story. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Generally speaking we're seeing technology stocks down and quite significantly the NASDAQ 100 off by almost 2% now. And actually semiconductors and chips are the mainstay of that decline. There's two parts to it. We saw an astonishing rally in particular in chip stocks as of Yesterday's close relative 70% year to date. So we're taking a timeout a breather. But the Philadelphia Semiconductor index down almost 6% and on track for its biggest drop since the last week of March. We did get a pretty hot inflation print this morning and our equities desk is saying in the global markets wrap that that's part of it. The holt in rally in the rally we see in stocks carry now intel is an interesting case study, one of those taking a breather. It been driven by buy reports of a potential deal with Apple and a strategic pivot into AI. Intel was staging a comeback and in a blazing rally added over $400 billion in market value in just six weeks. But short interest is near a 52 week high suggesting that for some today might be the day to bet against some momentum. Ryan Vlastelica joins us with for once some good timing on the piece he put out this morning. I joke, I joke. Explain the short interest piece to me. How does that work? Why would it drive the stock like this?
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Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
Sure.
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Ryan Vlastelica, Bloomberg Reporter
So as you mentioned, intel has seen some really tremendous momentum in the stock price over the past few weeks. I think it's up more than 200% since late March. So that's a very attractive opportunity for a lot of short sellers who are expecting that this momentum will not only reverse but reverse in a pretty dramatic fashion because in addition to how much the stock has moved up, the multiple is at an all time high over 100 times estimated earnings. So you have a high valuation stock that's already Seen some pretty significant gains. It's not really a surprise that people are betting on a reversal, even though a lot of short sellers are saying when you have a company like this with so much positive momentum, so much fundamental momentum, it's very difficult to pick a top and really ride the move down. So a lot of confusion here, but certainly some people are betting on a
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
reversal and they're looking pretty clever today, at least as we're currently trading off by more than 10%. What's interesting though, is that the analyst community still think one should be buying this stock. What is it, 17 buys, only 3 sells. Even though the price target is a little out of whack with where it currently is.
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Ryan Vlastelica, Bloomberg Reporter
Ryan, I would say the consensus is a little bit more muted on intel relative to some other big tech names. I think there's far more hold ratings than there are buys. But I do think people are warming up to this story. There was a lot of skepticism for years about will they be able to get their foundry business, you know, back at the top of the line, the industry standard. And there's been a lot of optimism that they are showing some progress on this turnaround. It was a very ambitious move. It's cost them a lot of money. There's been a lot of skepticism, but lately we are seeing, you know, very strong results. Results. We had this report about potentially working with Apple on chipmaking, which would be a huge validation for the chipmaking business. So there are some very positive signs here. Like I said, the multiple is very high. There's a lot of questions out there and the stock has already seen a
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
pretty significant move and that's benefited the US Government for one. Bloomberg's Run for Stella. Thanks so much. Always great reporting. Now let's talk about a growing number of venture firms who are pumping ever larger of sums into leading startups. OpenAI anthropic. But our next guest is taking a different approach. Bennett Siegel, co founder of A Star which targets seed stage startups. Checks 3,5 million dollars. It's just closed its third fund, $450 million in total. That's a large seed round and fund, but. But perhaps small versus multistage VC fundraises that we've seen of late. So, Bennett, I'm pleased to welcome you here into the New York studio. Seeds round have become astronomically large in many ways. So are you doing what you've always done? Are you having to change with the times? How is your VC model looking?
- [30:02]
Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
Well, first off, thank you for having me. I think we right now live In a world of giants, both on the venture capital side and the company side. And we've really stuck to our craft, which is early stage investing, backing founders with an idea of raising a few million dollars and looking to build a giant of tomorrow. And we wanted a fund size that allowed us to execute on this strategy where we could be a close partner to these founders. As funds get larger, incentive shift and they increasingly put larger amounts of capital into later stage rounds. And you see that with anthropic and open air raising many billions of dollars, we tend to start more at the ground floor and have crafted our fund and our team to be a partner to founders when it's not obvious and before the technology is clear and before the market opportunities present.
- [30:47]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
But the size of the seed rounds, even when a product hasn't developed, I mean, you're thinking what was it reporting? Around 2 billion being raised by thinking machines Lab. You're thinking about SAFER superintelligence. Again, a 2 billion seed round, I know it's going to come in with the avocados and the mangoes, but. But how do you stick to your knitting or you just, you ignore those sorts of companies?
- [31:08]
Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
It's a great question. I think there's a bifurcation in the market. I think there's traditional seed rounds, which increasingly companies started by younger founders, graduates from Harvard, mit, Stanford, they're raising what we call a more traditional seed round of between 3 to 5 million dollars. In many cases, they're building on top of foundational model companies. So they're leveraging the, the technology and the capital invested in open anthropic. And we've backed a number of those companies and they build on what we call the application layer. On the flip side is exactly the types of rounds you're talking about. It's typically researchers that are spinning out of established model companies. They're raising, in many cases it could be hundreds of millions, could be billions of dollars out of the gate to go and do research and perhaps commercialize a future technology. We've largely avoided those rounds. And those rounds have been led by companies like Andreessen, Horowitz and others. We will pick our spots, but in many cases, founders don't really need $500 million out of the gate, though in this capital markets environment, they're able to get it and there are funds that will back them to do so.
- [32:04]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Bennett, before co founding a star, you did four years at CO2 and I imagine focus on slightly different scale and domains. But would you just reflect a little bit on the Difference in your experience what that was like investing out of CO2 versus the seed stage at these check sizes and round sizes?
- [32:25]
Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
Yeah, it's a great question. I think incentives do matter and there's a reason that funds increasingly rage, raise larger amounts of money over time and when they raise larger quantum of capital, they tend to invest at the later stages and they tend to focus on large dollar deployment. You know, CO2 is a multi stage fund. They invest venture through public markets. Most of the focus tends to be on the growth stages when there's already clear winners and you could invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a company and look to earn a multiple on that. You know, where we play at the seed stage, we're investing, typically it starts out at a couple of million dollars. We're backing a founder before there's an idea, before there's consensus around, around a market and we're working with them to build their business. The beauty of our model is we can actually make venture type returns and we can make 100, 200, 300 times our money. But we have to go and find these incredible opportunities early and it takes many years for the companies to sort of grow and mature. The other aspect of our model, which is different from coaches, will continue to invest, which we've done in our best companies over time, and be one of the largest shareholders in the cap table. So be much more concentrated with a handful of companies that we hope will go from inception stage the public markets over a decade or longer.
- [33:34]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
What Caroline was referring to about coconut rounds, avocado rounds, mango seed rounds is I wrote a column a few months ago that it's pointless saying seed because in some cases the entry level is so high. But you're committed to this 2 to $5 million level. You know, that's, that would counter that that the seed market is alive and well and true to its definition.
- [33:57]
Bennett Siegel, Co-founder of A*
Look, we're going to play the game in the field. We've modestly grown fund size. We started out with a $300 million fund. We're now in fund three or 450 million. So we see inflation in round size. And you know, our goal is to partner with the best founders in Silicon Valley. So we will do what we need to do to accomplish that. That said, it's still rare for founders to raise $100 million billion out of the gate with no product or prior track record. That is a rare, I would say circumstance of particularly researchers coming out of labs. Well, we sit in other cases, for instance, with a company called Decagon, which is one of the leaders in AI customer support. It's a one of the killer use cases that I we could replace a lot of folks in the in the call center functions, you know. We co led a seed round at a $22.5 million valuation in less than three years. The company is valued at nearly a $5 billion and we've invested in every single round and worked with them to build the business. I think there are a number of examples like that where you can do a lot with less capital and in fact it forces discipline on the teams and the companies.
- [34:58]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Decagon founded by Jesse Jiang and Ashwin Srinivas I think have been on this program. Bennett Siegel, a star co founder. Not enough time but really interesting look at that earlier stage of investing. Thank you very much. Now coming up we're going to speak with SAP CEO Christian Klein as the company debuts its autonomous enterprise platform. This conversation is next.
- [35:19]
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- [36:24]
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Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
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Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
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- [37:33]
Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
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- [37:38]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
SAP has unveiled a new autonomous enterprise platform at this year's SAP Sapphire conference, expanding its push into AI agents across business operations. Joining us now is SAP CEO Christian Clarke. Let's start by stripping away the jargon. What is an automatic autonomous enterprise platform and what is it that your customers can now do, Christian, that they couldn't do before?
- [38:02]
Christian Klein, SAP CEO
Yeah, thanks a lot first of all for having me. Yesterday we launched the autonomous enterprise and we have record attendance here at Sapphire. And I see only thousands of customers very excited about the autonomous enterprise because we showed our customers today that while the large language models are getting better and better, they don't know anything about your business data and your business processes. And as part of the autonomous enterprise, there's our new AI platform. And here we are infusing the brain of every company, which is the erp, into the platform so that the agents also not only have the large language models, but also that they have the context of how a company wants. And then on top we had customers like AT&M, JP Morgan Chase who have proven that, you know, with these agents you can really deliver accurate, compliant and reliable results.
- [38:52]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Christian, how are you showing that productivity, what sort of data, what sort of statistics you're able to show your clients?
- [39:00]
Christian Klein, SAP CEO
Actually, we, we showed together with jpmong Chase that they can close the books faster now by 30%. We have shown with H and M that the turnover in their commerce shop is now better because of our personalized agent. We have shown that inventory got reduced by 10% because actually our agents work with each other and the demand agent actually signaled the inventory agent. Hey, how to optimize and how to, how to optimize procurement. So we really could also connect the story very well from the front office into the fulfillment functions, which is the power of SAP.
- [39:35]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
I very recently spoke to CEO Matt Garman and aws us a partner of SAP is, but they are also moving into this exact domain. How much pressure are you feeling, Christian, to offer this sort of all encompassing agentic platform? Because if you don't, someone else will.
- [39:55]
Christian Klein, SAP CEO
Yeah, for sure. But look, take us, they're actually a great partner. I mean Matt and I talk regularly and because you know, as a matter of fact, not all data of the world sits in SAP systems. And with aws we are now partnering to also build a harmonized data layer because of course still agents, they can't compensate for prone data modules. And as part of our new SAP business AI platform, we also now harmonize data SAP, non SAP data and then we infuse it into the agents. So we see Microsoft, we had in Vita here on stage we have databricks, snowflakes, they are all now joining our platform to harmonize business data. And these are the partnerships we need to deliver highly accurate AI.
- [40:36]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Is it the accuracy that you think wins people over from worrying that you're going to lose out competition? That's the heart of where it's going. Everyone's a frenemy, but also the labs serious competition. How do you fend off the software anxiety?
- [40:50]
Christian Klein, SAP CEO
Caroline Exactly. I guess the heart of the new platform is clearly our contacts layer because the brain of every company is the ERP. I mean we have over 7.5 million data fields in there. We have thousands of business processes, processes and that knowledge sits in our platform. And this is clearly how the platform also can differentiate. You can use any commodity LLM you want, people can bring their own modules what they would like to use. But then on the platform these agents immediately get the context what only SAP has and that's our why to win. And that's how ACP will differentiate.
- [41:24]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Christian Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong's formula or equation is very simple. More compute, more tokens, more revenues. Do you have any case studies with customers where you can say there's actual real revenues through the agentic work they've done with SAP?
- [41:41]
Christian Klein, SAP CEO
Yeah, I had Jensen actually with me on the keynote today and he clearly said he of course wishes us best luck first of all as a customer to S and P. But in second, obviously in order to get higher consumption of computer food and chips, I mean you need consumption at the top where the real value creation happens. And that's why when we actually now can build an autonomous supply chain for Nvidia, I mean they see this immediately also in the hardware consumption and this is where also in media and SAP are partnering up to build the autonomous enterprise.
- [42:11]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Christian Klein of SAP Sapphire Event, we very much appreciate you joining from Florida.
- [42:16]
Bloomberg Chip and AI Reporter Maggie Eastland
Thank you.
- [42:22]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
Ford. It's set to open a nearly $3 billion battery plant in Marshall, Michigan, bringing new manufacturing jobs and investment to the United States. The facility will use technology though license from China's Seattle supplying lithium ion phosphate battery chemistry, an arrangement drawing some scrutiny amid US China tensions. This comes of course, as President Trump heads to China this week for talks of President Xi Jinping. So joining us, we've got a roundtable, Newburgh's auto reporter Keith Norton and senior tech editor Mike Shepherd. And Keith, I start with you because what is the relationship like between Ford and Seattle? Has it been rosy throughout the ability to build out this manufacturing site?
- [42:58]
Keith Norton, Bloomberg Auto Reporter
Yes, Seattle is in Marshall, Michigan right now training workers helping get this plant off the ground. It's due to open this year. It is Ford takes great pains to say it is fully open, owned by Ford and the workers are employed by Ford. It is just a licensing deal, but they've had a good relationship to develop these lower cost LFP batteries that are central to Ford's efforts to overhaul its EV strategy and and deploy more affordable EVs in 2027.
- [43:30]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
But Mike, this relationship, though, Rosie, hasn't been particularly well loved by some people in Michigan, but even on the halls of Congress. Right. How has this been sitting, the sharing of technology between China and US Giants?
- [43:45]
Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
Well, in general, there has been a lot of reluctance to allow this kind of a partnership. Anything that remotely touches on advanced technology immediately draws concerns from lawmakers here in Washington who really fear the leakage of technology to China for but also the potential leakage of data and other information that could jeopardize U.S. national security. And we have seen that, of course, in the battle over TikTok. And then more recently we have seen this in terms of legislation at the state level and even introduced here at the national level this week in Washington aimed at restricting Chinese purchases of land and also investments in business is here for those various security reasons. And it's important to know, Caro, that Seattle itself is the focus of some of those concerns. The company in 2025 was added to this Pentagon list of companies that the US Government believes support China's military.
- [44:45]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Keith, do you not have a great sense of deja vu? Didn't you and I write about a Seattle licensing deal in 20233 that sections of the Republican party then said was a Trojan horse? What's different?
- [44:59]
Keith Norton, Bloomberg Auto Reporter
Yeah, so there continues to be these concerns, as Mike is saying, about ties to the Chinese Communist Party with Seattle. But here's the reality. You cannot pursue an EV strategy without dealing with the Chinese. The Chinese control 80% of the world's capacity for battery batteries and that is the most costly component of an electric vehicle. Seattle has half of that. So they're the battery giant that you must deal with if you want to have an electric vehicle strategy.
- [45:31]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
What that story at the time showed, Shep, and became true in the, in the first few months of this administration was there is a scale of China hawkishness, right, Ranging from we need complete access and work with China to let's not do any business with China. And when the president goes with that entourage of CEOs in the next 24 hours, that spectrum of hawkishness will also be a part of the political story.
- [45:58]
Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO
Well, it certainly will. And we will see that follow the delegation with the President. And these are the concerns that surround the ability of China, for example, to purchase advanced against AI chips from Nvidia. And a notable absence, of course, as noted earlier in the program, is Nvidia's Jensen Huang. And also the Iran conflict itself will barge into these talks and really perhaps restrain the ability of unfettered deal making by some of these companies. They'll be looking for smaller wins, perhaps in the Chinese market. And then we'll come up the question, of course, of what can China do for the US which is what Donald Trump has tried with other trading partners like Japan, South Korea, the European Union, encouraging them to invest here in the US as part of trade negotiations. The challenge is, though, reaching some sort of a grand bargain with the US Would require much more complex talks on issues ranging from tariffs to market access in China. And then also the even more sensitive question of rare earths and whether China would relax its position in terms of handling the choke point that it hold, the chokehold that it holds over those elements that are critical to manufacturing so many in so many areas, including autos. But across the economy, I mean, rare
- [47:18]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
earth is where it's at when it comes to battery technology. Keith and I go back in many ways to market access, because with one breath you'll hear the Ford CEO working on this relationship with Seattle, and in the second breath saying, but we don't want Chinese made cars or autos coming to the United States. So that's something that's got to be balanced.
- [47:36]
Keith Norton, Bloomberg Auto Reporter
Exactly right. Because the United States is still well behind the Chinese and EV technology, maybe a decade behind. And of course, the Chinese auto industry is supported by its government, so they have lower costs. So Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, says keep the Chinese out, but we also value our partnerships with the Chinese and we want to do more of them. So, yeah, it's a very fine line that they're treading here. And they do need Chinese tech if they want to have EVs, but they also would be swamped by Chinese competition if Chinese EVs were allowed in America.
- [48:13]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Bloomberg's Keith Norton and Bloomberg's Mike shepherd, thank you very much. Okay, before before we go, let's take a look at today's big number. $135 billion. That's how much Netflix says it has spent over the past decade making films and TV shows in more than 50 countries. The stats are part of a new website called the Netflix Effect that the company is using to show how it boosts local economies. Netflix says the impact goes beyond direct employment, for instance, highlighting how South Korea caro saw a 25% spike in airlines in bookings.
- [48:45]
Bloomberg Tech Anchor (likely Caroline Hyde)
And just think new film Nani and the Magician's Nephew actually going to having a long run in theaters. How Netflix is changing the game that does it though, for this edition of
- [48:55]
Bloomberg Tech Reporter / Host (likely Ed Ludlow)
Bloomberg Tech Big show ahead of a big remainder of the week, don't forget to check out the pod. That's where you can find it. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [49:05]
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