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- [00:00]
Caroline Hyde
AI agents are getting pretty impressive. You might not even realize you're listening to one right now. But we don't just talk, we work 247 to solve customer problems. No hold music, just answers and action. Visit Sierra AI to learn more.
- [00:15]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
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- [00:53]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
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- [01:24]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News we.
- [01:29]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Want to go live to the stage in Davos now where Elon Musk is speaking with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
- [01:35]
Larry Fink
It's an important component of who we and what we are. And I'm thrilled to have Elon Musk here. He came all the way from California to be here to see all of you. So thank you Elon.
- [01:49]
Elon Musk
You're most welcome. I mean I heard about about the formation of the peace summit and I was like, is that P iec? You know, little piece of Greenland, a little piece of Venezuela?
- [02:12]
Larry Fink
We got one.
- [02:13]
Elon Musk
All we want is peace.
- [02:14]
Larry Fink
Okay, I want to. As I said, I'm a pretty proud CEO of BlackRock. Since we went public, the compounding return of BlackRock to our shareholders with 21% since Elon took Tesla public, his compounded return is 43%. This is just another advertisement for everybody, especially for Europeans. This is why more citizens should be investing with growth, investing with their countries. Imagine if a lot of pension funds invested with Elon when Tesla went public and how much return with the all the pension funds that invested side by side with Elon and the growth. So a spectacular return. There's very few companies. Well, I don't think there's any other company as large as Tesla today that has that compounded return. So congratulations.
- [03:15]
Elon Musk
Thank you.
- [03:15]
Larry Fink
Good measurement.
- [03:16]
Elon Musk
Well, we have an incredible team at Tesla and that's the reason.
- [03:19]
Larry Fink
So I want to get into the dirt the meaningful component about technology, the possibilities. I want to talk about AI and robotics, energy, space, and the progress ultimately coming down to engineering, engineering discipline, scale, execution. Few people, if not anyone, has the experience and the fortitude to confront these issues head on. Not just the ideas, but the execution across so many different technologies. Elon. And that's why I thought it was. It's important for us to have this dialogue here in Davos. So you're presently building on AI, on robotics, on space, on energy, all at the same time. When you look across those efforts, what do they have in common from an engineering standpoint?
- [04:15]
Elon Musk
Well, they're all very difficult technology challenges. But the overall goal of my companies is to maximize the future of civilization, like basically maximize the probability that civilization has a great future and to expand consciousness beyond Earth. So take SpaceX for example, that SpaceX is about advancing rocket technology to the point where we can extend life and consciousness beyond Earth to the moon, to Mars, eventually to other star systems. And I think we should always view consciousness, life as we know it as precarious and delicate, because to the best of our knowledge, we don't know of life anywhere else. I'm often asked, are there aliens among us? And I'll say that I am one.
- [05:15]
Larry Fink
Or you're from the future.
- [05:16]
Elon Musk
They don't believe me, okay? So I think if anyone would know if there are aliens among us, it would be me. And we have 9,000 satellites up there and not once have we had to maneuver around an alien spaceship. So I'm like, I don't know. Bottom line is, I think we need to assume that life and consciousness is extremely rare and it might only be us. And if that's the case, then we need to do everything possible to ensure that the light of consciousness is not extinguished. Because we're effectively, the way I view it is the measure in my mind is of a tiny candle in a vast darkness, a tiny candle of consciousness that could easily go out. And that's why it's important to make life multi planetary, such that if there is a natural disaster or a man made disaster on Earth, that consciousness continues. That's the purpose of SpaceX. Tesla is obviously about sustainable technology. And also at this point we've sort of added to our mission sustainable abundance. So with robotics and AI, this is really the path to abundance for all. If you say, you know, people often talk about solving global poverty or essentially how do we make. Give everyone a very high standard of living? I think the only way to do this is AI and robotics, which doesn't mean that it is without its issues. I mean, we need to be very careful with AI. We need to be very careful with robotics. We don't want to find ourselves in a James Cameron movie, you know, Terminator, he's got great movies, I love his movies. But we don't want to be in Terminator, obviously. But if you have ubiquitous AI that is essentially free or close to it and ubiquitous robotics, then you will have an explosion in the global economy, an expansion in the global economy that is truly beyond all precedent.
- [07:47]
Larry Fink
Elaine, can that expansion be broad?
- [07:50]
Elon Musk
Yes.
- [07:50]
Larry Fink
Or is it narrow? And how can that be created? How can it broaden the global economy?
- [07:57]
Elon Musk
Yeah, it's, I mean, I mean, the way to think of it is that if you have a large number of humanoid robots, the economic output is the average productivity per robot times the number of robots.
- [08:14]
Larry Fink
Right.
- [08:16]
Elon Musk
And actually my prediction is in the benign scenario of the future that we will, the robots will actually make so many robots in AI that they will actually saturate all human needs. Meaning you won't be able to even think of something to ask the robot for at a certain point, like there will be such an abundance of goods and services. Because my prediction is there'll be more robots than people. So.
- [08:46]
Larry Fink
But how do you then have human purpose in that scenario?
- [08:50]
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean, you know, there are. Nothing's perfect, you know, but I mean, I mean, it is a necessary.
- [09:03]
Larry Fink
Like.
- [09:03]
Elon Musk
You can't have both, you can't have work that has to be done and amazing abundance for all. Because if it's, if it's work that has to be done, then you, and only some people can do it, then you can't have abundance.
- [09:19]
Larry Fink
Then it's narrow.
- [09:20]
Elon Musk
Yes, narrow, exactly. But if you have billions of humanoid robots, and I think there will be, I think everyone on earth is going to have one and going to want one, because who wouldn't want a robot to. Assuming it's very safe. Watch over your kids, take care of your pet. If you have elderly parents, a lot of friends of mine said they have elderly parents, it's very difficult to take care of them.
- [09:52]
Larry Fink
It's expensive.
- [09:53]
Elon Musk
Yeah, it's expensive and it's expensive and there just aren't enough people to Take care of the. There aren't enough young people to take care of the old people.
- [10:00]
Larry Fink
Right.
- [10:02]
Elon Musk
So if you had a robot that could take care of and protect an elderly parent, I think that would be great. That would be an amazing thing to have. And I think we will have those things. So overall, I'm very optimistic about the future. I think we're headed for a future of amazing abundance, which is very cool. And definitely we are in the most interesting time in history. I think there's more interesting time in history.
- [10:38]
Larry Fink
Can we. Can you and I reverse aging in this new history or are we going to see it?
- [10:46]
Elon Musk
You know, I haven't put much time into the aging stuff. I do think it is a very solvable problem. I think when we figure out what causes aging, I think we'll find it's incredibly obvious. It's not a subtle thing. The reason I say it's not a subtle thing is because all the cells in your body pretty much age at the same rate. I've never seen someone with an old left arm and a young right arm ever in my life. So why is that? That means that there must be a clock, a synchronizing clock that is synchronizing across 35 trillion cells in your body.
- [11:30]
Francine Lacqua
And.
- [11:32]
Elon Musk
You know, there is some benefit to death, by the way. There's a reason why we don't actually have a longer lifespan. Because if people do live forever for a very long time, I think there's some risk of an ossification of society, of things just getting kind of locked in place and it just may become stultifying, just not lack vibrancy. But that said, do I think we'll figure out ways to extend life and maybe even reverse aging? I think that's highly likely.
- [12:21]
Larry Fink
I'm looking forward to that. The future that you talk about, the AI models, autonomous machines, rockets, depends on massive increases of compute, massive increases in energy, expensive energy manufacturing scale. What are the bottlenecks to get there? And once again, with all that expenditures, again, how can we make sure that it's broadened? Not narrow.
- [12:59]
Elon Musk
I just think the natural thing is it's going to be very broad because AI companies will seek as many customers as they possibly can. And the cost of AI will get is already very low and it's plummeting every year. I mean, almost the cost of AI is almost meaningfully changing on a month to month basis.
- [13:19]
Larry Fink
There's open models now everywhere.
- [13:21]
Elon Musk
Yeah. Yes, there's open models and the open models only lag. They're maybe a year behind the Sort of closed models. So I think AI companies will seek as many customers as possible, which means they'll see, they'll provide AI to the world.
- [13:42]
Larry Fink
But the cost of getting to there, the compute, the chips, the fab, the powering that to me, what are the, what are the, you know, those are huge limiting factor.
- [13:56]
Elon Musk
Yeah, I think the limiting factor for AI deployment is fundamentally electrical power.
- [14:02]
Larry Fink
It's just right, it's energy.
- [14:05]
Elon Musk
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're seeing the rate of AI chip production increase exponentially, but the rate of electricity being brought online is.
- [14:16]
Larry Fink
3%, 4% a year, max.
- [14:18]
Elon Musk
Yeah, it's clear that we're very soon, maybe even later this year, we'll be producing more chips than we can turn on. Except for China. China's growth in electricity is tremendous.
- [14:32]
Larry Fink
They're building 100 gigawatts of nuclear as we speak.
- [14:35]
Elon Musk
Actually, solar is the biggest thing in China. So China's, I believe China's production capacity on Solar is 1500 gigawatts a year. And they're deploying over a thousand gigawatts a year of solar. Now, you know, for continuous solar load, you divide that by roughly 4 or 5. That's around 250 gigawatts of steady state power paired with batteries. And that's a very big number. That's half of the average power usage in the U.S. right. So U.S. power usage on average is 500 gigawatts. China, just in solar, just in solar like that can provide steady state power and batteries can do half of the US electricity output per year. Just for solar. Solar is by far the biggest source of energy. And actually when you look beyond, or even on Earth, but certainly beyond Earth, the Sun rounds up to 100% of all energy. This is an important thing to consider. So the sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system, Jupiter is about 0.1%, and everything else is miscellaneous. Now even if you were to burn Jupiter in a thermonuclear reactor, the amount of energy produced by the sun would still round up to 100% because Jupiter is only 0.1%. If you teleported three more Jupiters into our solar system and burnt three more Jupiters and everything else in the solar system, the Sun's energy would still round up to 100%. So it's really all about the sun. And that's why one of the things we'll be doing with SpaceX within a few years is launching solar powered AI satellites, because the space is really the source of immense power and then you don't need to take up any room on earth. There's so much room in space and you can scale to enormous, I mean you can scale to, I think ultimately hundreds, hundreds of terawatts a year.
- [17:13]
Caroline Hyde
Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We work round the clock and have the facts at our fingertips. We're fast and effective, but incredibly patient. And we're built on Sierra, the leading AI powered customer experience platform. No hold music, just answers in action. Visit Sierra AI to learn more. That's Sierra AI.
- [17:40]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming, but with 4imprint it can be easy. They call it 4imprint certainty, which means the process is stress free, straightforward and backed by real peace of mind. Not sure what promo products to order? No problem. You can get free samples, product guidance, even free help with your logo so everything can meet your expectations. Need options? They've got thousands, including branded apparel, drinkware, outdoor and all the tradeshow essentials. And when your order arrives, it's backed by their 360 degree guarantee. That's 4imprint's promise. Your order will be packed with care, show up looking great and right on time. In a rush. 4imprint has quick turnaround options too to help you hit your deadline. Whether you're prepping for an event or just refreshing your promo lineup, 4imprint helps you get it done. Head to forimprint.com to explore. That's 4imprint.com 4imprint for certain. This podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates. But don't be fooled. This can be code for inflated exchange rates. With the Wise account, you can send, spend and receive money in over 40 currencies without ever having to worry about hidden fees. Sending pounds across the pond. Most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. Spending reals in Rio. The wise travel card gives you the mid market rate on every purchase. No costly markups on your bill. Getting paid in dollars for your side gig. Avoid hidden fees and get the real exchange rate every time. With 24. 7 access to live support, your international transactions with WISE are quick, transparent and safe. Plus wise runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud. 15 million people already trust wise to manage their money internationally. Be Smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com terms and conditions apply.
- [19:39]
Larry Fink
You and I have had these conversations before, but why don't you tell the audience? What would it take for the United States and What type of geography would it take to have that solar field to electrify the United States? And then let me ask a question. Why aren't we doing it?
- [19:56]
Elon Musk
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess a rough way to think about it is 100 miles by 100 miles, or call it 160km by 160km of solar is enough to power the entire United States. So 100 mile by 100 mile area is. I mean, you could take basically a small corner of the Utah, Nevada, Nevada, New Mexico, obviously wouldn't want it all in one place, but it is a very small percentage of the area of the US to generate all of the electricity that the US uses. And the same is true, actually. I mean, for Europe, you could take relatively unpopulated areas of say, Spain and Sicily and generate all of the electricity power that Europe needs.
- [20:48]
Larry Fink
So why don't you think that there's a movement towards that here and in the United States?
- [20:53]
Elon Musk
Well, there is, as it is in China. Well, unfortunately in the US the tariff barriers for solar panels are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar so artificially high, because China makes almost all the solar. And what would it take for Europe.
- [21:17]
Larry Fink
Or the US to build it commercially if it's that scale?
- [21:23]
Elon Musk
Yeah, I think. Well, I can tell you what we're going to do at SpaceX and Tesla is we're building up large scale solar.
- [21:33]
Larry Fink
Right.
- [21:34]
Elon Musk
So the SpaceX and Tesla team is both separately are working to build to 100 gigawatts a year of solar power in the US of manufactured solar power. And that'll probably take us, I don't know, about three years or something. But these are pretty big numbers and I'd encourage others to do the same. We obviously don't control that you're a tariff policy. But for other countries I would recommend that China makes solar cells that are incredibly low cost and I think it would be worth doing large scale solar.
- [22:24]
Larry Fink
So I know you are, you're going to be having a couple of big announcements on robotics and what it can do. I mean, when I went to the factory, you showed me those robots, How quickly you talked about the billions of robots, but how quickly and how quickly can they be deployed in a manufacturing setting? How quickly can they be utilized and be functional and create that, that abundance that you talked about?
- [22:59]
Elon Musk
Well, humanoid robotics will advance very quickly. I think. We do have some of the Tesla Optimus robots doing simple tasks in the factory, except probably later this year. By the end of this year, I think they'll be doing more Complex tasks and, and, but still deployed in an industrial environment and, and probably sometime next year. I'd say that by the, by the end of next year I, I think we'd be selling humanoid robots to the public. That that's when we are confident that it's very high reliability, very high safety and the range of functionality is also very high. You can basically ask it to do anything you'd like.
- [23:52]
Larry Fink
You're already seeing that in Tesla cars. The software changes that you're doing and what is it every quarter now a software change that upgrades the ability of the robot within the car.
- [24:04]
Elon Musk
Yes, the Tesla full self driving software. We update it sometimes once a week. And recently some of the insurance companies have said that it is actually so safe, Tesla full self driving so safe that they're offering customers half price insurance if they use Tesla full self driving.
- [24:29]
Larry Fink
In the car and that can be monitored by the insurance company. Is that part of the agreement then? Yeah.
- [24:39]
Elon Musk
I think self driving cars is essentially a solved problem at this point.
- [24:45]
Larry Fink
Right.
- [24:47]
Elon Musk
And Tesla's rolled out sort of robo taxi service in a few cities and will be very, very widespread by the end of this year within the U.S. and then we hope to get supervised full self driving approval in Europe hopefully next month.
- [25:06]
Larry Fink
Really? That quickly?
- [25:08]
Elon Musk
Yeah. And then maybe a similar timing for China hopefully.
- [25:14]
Larry Fink
I want to move to space because historically space is very capital intensive. It historically been done by governments. Obviously SpaceX changed the whole model, but we've seen it slow to scale and now I'm starting to see it ramping up and what you're doing and other things. Talk to us about the, you know, the automation and AI, how it's changing the economics in building and preparing for us in operating in space. Sure.
- [25:47]
Elon Musk
Well, the key breakthrough that tells the major breakthrough that SpaceX is hoping to achieve this year is full reusability. So no one has ever achieved full reusability of a rocket, which is very important for the cost of access to space. We've achieved partial reusability with Falcon 9 by landing the boost stage. We've now landed the boost stage over 500 times. But we have to throw away the upper stage. The upper stage burns up on reentry for Falcon 9 and the cost of that is equivalent to small to medium sized jet. So but with, with Starship, which is a giant rocket, it's the largest flying machine ever made.
- [26:31]
Larry Fink
That's a rocket that you using for the idea of going to Mars, right?
- [26:35]
Elon Musk
Yeah, Mars and the moon as well as for high volume satellite stuff. So Starship hopefully this year we should prove full reusability for Starship, which will be a profound invention because the cost of access to space will drop by a factor of 100 when you achieve full reusability. It's the same sort of economic difference that you would expect between say a reusable aircraft and a non reusable aircraft. Like if you have to throw your aircraft away after every flight, that would be a very expensive flight. But if you only have to refuel, then it's the cost of the fuel. And so that's really the fundamental breakthrough that gets the cost of access to space, we think below the cost of freight on aircraft. So, you know, under $100 a pound type of thing easily. So it makes putting large satellites into space very low, very cheap. And then when you have solar in space, you get five times more effectiveness, maybe even more than that than solar on the ground. Because it's, it's always sunny, cold and yeah, it's, it's, it's, well, it's always sunny. So you don't have a day, night cycle or seasonality. Right. Or weather. And you get about 30% more power in space because you don't have atmospheric attenuation of the power. The net effect is solar is five times more. Any given solar panel will do five times more energy in space than on the ground.
- [28:35]
Larry Fink
Is there any capacity in doing that and then taking that power and bringing it back to Earth? Is there any way of doing that? Or you're just taking that power and utilizing it for the needs like building AI data centers in the space?
- [28:52]
Elon Musk
I think the case, it's a no brainer for building solar powered AI data centers in space because as you mentioned, it's also very cold in space. If you're in the shadow, then it's very cold in space, just 3 degrees Kelvin. So you just have your solar panels facing the sun and then a radiator that's pointed away from the sun so it has no sun incidents. And then it's just cooling. It's a very efficient cooling system. So net effect is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space. And that'll be true within two years, maybe three, three at the latest.
- [29:35]
Larry Fink
Wow. So looking 10 or 20 years out, how would you describe success with AI or space technology and where do you see it? Are you more certain of what's going to happen in the next three years or five or 10?
- [29:53]
Elon Musk
I don't know what's going to happen in 10 years, but the rate at which AI is progressing, I think we, we're, we might have AI that is smarter than any human by the end of this year, and I would say no later than next year.
- [30:10]
Larry Fink
Wow.
- [30:12]
Elon Musk
And then probably by 2030 or 2031, call it five years from now, AI will be smarter than all of humanity collectively.
- [30:25]
Larry Fink
We only have a number of minutes left, but I want, I want to humanize you for a second so there's no speculation.
- [30:32]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Right.
- [30:33]
Larry Fink
I want to, I mean I would frame this question by. You are the most successful entrepreneur industrialist in the 21st century, maybe beyond. So I want to really get this, you know, what inspired you? Who inspired you? What was the foundation of your curiosity? And importantly, what was the, was there an aha moment epiphany at any time in your life and career?
- [31:04]
Elon Musk
Well, I mean as a kid I read a lot of science fiction, sci fi, fantasy books.
- [31:10]
Larry Fink
Yep.
- [31:11]
Elon Musk
We talked about and comic books and I always liked technology. I didn't expect to be where I am today. Seems incredibly implausible. But yeah, I was, I was inspired by reading about books about the future, about science fiction and, and I guess I want to make science fiction, not fiction forever at some point turn science fiction to science fact. And you know, we want to have like Starfleet and Star Trek. Really for real, like where we actually have giant spaceships traveling through space, going to other planets, traveling to other star systems. I'm just interested.
- [31:55]
Larry Fink
Beamed up to go back to New York. I'd like to just be. Beam back to New York instead of flying.
- [32:03]
Elon Musk
Yeah.
- [32:06]
Larry Fink
Talk about Star Trek.
- [32:08]
Elon Musk
No, I guess my essential, what I would call the philosophy of curiosity. I'd like to understand the meaning of life. Is the standard model of physics correct regarding the beginning of life, beginning of existence and the end of the universe? What questions do we not know to ask that we should ask and AI will help us with these things. So I'm just trying to understand how do we get here, what's going on, what's real? Are there aliens? Maybe there are. And if we've got spaceships that are traveling to other star systems, we may encounter aliens and we may find many long dead alien civilizations. But I just want to know what's going on. I'm curious about the universe and that's my philosophy.
- [33:04]
Larry Fink
Do you see yourself ever going to Mars in your lifetime?
- [33:09]
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean I would say like.
- [33:12]
Larry Fink
That'S a long commitment. I've been asked, isn't that three years each way?
- [33:16]
Elon Musk
It's six months.
- [33:17]
Larry Fink
Six months, that's all it is.
- [33:19]
Elon Musk
Yeah, six months. But the planets only align every two years.
- [33:22]
Larry Fink
Okay.
- [33:23]
Elon Musk
So yeah, I've been asked a few times like, do I want to die on Mars? And I'm like, yes, but just not on impact.
- [33:38]
Larry Fink
That's a good answer. Anyway, we're out of time. Hopefully everybody enjoyed this. I mean, there's so many myths around Elon Musk. I could tell you. He's a great friend and I constantly learn so much from him and I'm totally inspired by what he has done. I've been inspired who he is, and I'm totally inspired by his vision of the future and I don't think it's such a bad future. And I agree with his optimism. So, Elon, thank you. Any last words?
- [34:16]
Elon Musk
Well, I think generally I think my last words would be I would encourage everyone to be optimistic and excited about the future.
- [34:23]
Larry Fink
Good.
- [34:25]
Elon Musk
And generally I think for quality of life it is actually better to err on the side of being an optimist and wrong rather than a pessimist. And right.
- [34:36]
Larry Fink
On that not.
- [34:43]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Finding the right promotional products can feel overwhelming, but with 4imprint, it can be easy. They call it 4imprint certainty, which means the process is stress free, straightforward and backed by real peace of mind. Not sure what promo products to order? No problem. You can get free samples, product guidance, even free help with your logo so everything can meet your expectations. Need options? They've got thousands, including branded apparel, drinkware, outdoor and all the tradeshow essentials. And when your order arrives, it's backed by their 360 degree guarantee. That's 4imprint's promise. Your order will be packed with care, show up looking great and right on time. In a rush. 4imprint has quick turnaround options too to help you hit your deadline. Whether you're prepping for an event or just refreshing your promo lineup, 4imprint helps you get it done. Head to forimprint.com to explore. That's 4imprint.com 4imprint for certain this podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates. But don't be fooled, this can be code for inflated exchange rates. With the Wise account, you can send, spend and receive money in over 40 currencies without ever having to worry about hidden fees. Sending pounds across the pond. Most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. Spending reals in Rio the WISE travel card gives you the mid market rate on every purchase. No costly markups on your bill. Getting paid in dollars for your side gig. Avoid hidden fees and get the real exchange rate every time with 24. 7 access to live support. Your international transactions with WISE are quick, transparent and safe. Plus wise runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud. 15 million people already trust WISE to manage their money internationally. Be smart, get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com Terms and conditions apply so have you heard the story about the prescription plan? With savings automatically built in, it's where a family of any size can feel confident the cost of their medication won't hold them back. Go to CMK Co Stories to learn how CBS Caremark helps members save just by being members that CMK co/t o r I E S this is Bloomberg.
- [37:06]
Francine Lacqua
Tech and that was Elon Musk, the world's richest man CEO of Tesla, CEO of Space X alongside BlackRock CEO Larry Fink there in Davos. And Caroline a lot of this is is Elon Musk talking book things we've heard before and I was trying to discern like what's new and what's news. We sent the headline on the Bloomberg Talk terminal that Tesla could be selling Optimus to the public the humanoid robot at the end of next year. That seemed to move the shares for Tesla. What else caught your ear? Because there was a lot.
- [37:35]
Caroline Hyde
Yeah And I think the idea of how much more improved Optimus will be, how sophisticated it become and how many billions will be out there in the world. But more broadly he also talked about where he is in terms of starship, where he aims in terms of space and the idea that they want to be prepared improving full reusability for starship this year. And of course then the favorite Talk of most CEOs at the moment, if you're in the world of AI, is putting AI data centers in space and what that means in terms of solar energy. There was a lot talked about in terms of energy. Did that take your interest? Because really that seems to be the bottleneck of choice at the moment.
- [38:11]
Francine Lacqua
Yeah. You know Tesla has an energy division right. And so it was obvious that he would kind of talk about that part up. But this is something in the consciousness of the administration the rest of supply chain China dominates supply of solar energy and whatever Space X's long term ambitions are for data centers in space. Clearly Larry think tried to get Elon Musk to say hey the US and Europe should be doing more. Musk didn't really bite but he did go as far to say well look this is what Tesla and Space X are doing over the next two to three years. No brainer to have solar powered compute in Space, but also ramp up the output of cells because if you don't sell them into markets like Europe, China does.
- [38:52]
Caroline Hyde
Precisely. Also talking about how cheaper I could become. We're all thinking about the cost of compute, the cost of energy. If you put those data centers in the next two to three years. He's saying more broadly, space is the cheapest place to put AI in two to three years. It's interesting. The FT has just been sending a headline talking about Elon Musk, SpaceX lining up for banks for an IPO. So we are all in on the space story right now.
- [39:14]
Francine Lacqua
And he was asked what inspires you? And he said when he was a kid he read science fiction books. So if you're a kid out there watching and you want to be the next Elon Musk, that's what you've got to do. We're also tracking and looking at live images of Blue Origin's new shepherd, NS38. Latest mission. We're on a hold right now. The window had been due to open 11am Eastern Time, 8am here on the West coast for NS38. By this point, 90 people have gone up on Blue Origin, but they're on a hold, a technical hold. We'll keep tracking it, but you can watch the launch on live. Go on the Bloomberg terminal. Carrie, There is a lot going on in financial markets too.
- [39:50]
Caroline Hyde
There are. And more broadly, we're seeing a bit more optimism come to life in the markets. Look, the geopolitical angst put to one side and the optimism returning about all things. I want one point. We're thinking the narrative is all around Nvidia and Jensen Huang being bullish once again on the trillion dollars of spending that's going to be going into the idea of AI data centers, the need for chips. But we've also got earnings on deck later today. That's something you're going to be digging into at the moment. Nasdaq's up 610 of a percent. But look, we're in the green across the board when you're looking at every benchmark across the entire world.
- [40:21]
Francine Lacqua
I'm taking a look at intel because intel posts after market and even though the chip maker is still, still embattled, the stock has been on a hell of a run of late, you know, on the week, up almost 15%. On track for its best week, I think, in quite a long time. But right now we're treading water. Of course we are. Why? Because we'll wait and see. Actually, the meat of what comes out of that earnings print Again, which is after the market close, around 4:00pm Eastern time. Carrie, there are many news stories as well.
- [40:51]
Caroline Hyde
There are in the private markets too. And guess what? Open Air is fundraising. We knew that. But the CEO, Sam Altman, he's been really busy traveling in the Middle East. He's been meeting with top investors in an effort really to secure funding for an investment round that could total get this $50 billion according to sources. Fari joining us to cover the story. I mean, the valuations are gargantuan. We're Thinking up to $830 billion is where it could be. But the focus on the Middle east, perhaps uncertainty, surprising for these foundation labs.
- [41:23]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
That's right. When you think about the pools of capital that are required for this, these kinds of mega fundraising rounds, you're tapping beyond the usual network of Silicon Valley VCs or even new York finance firms. Right. And so that's why you see CEOs like Sam Altman traveling to places like Abu Dhabi to court investors.
- [41:42]
Francine Lacqua
Shereen, you know, we have tried to track this as closely as possible. I think one of the things reading the report is the detail of what we know about how Sam Altman operates, the travel, who he meets with, the specific names behind the sovereign wealth funds in the jurisdictions. He's going to give us all the detail. You can give us a good insight in what he's trying to pull off.
- [42:06]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
I mean, if you think about it, this is a time when there is great interest in the Middle east and other regions and tapping into the AI boom. There are also other companies fundraising. We know Anthropic is also, you know, set to finalize around very soon as we've reported. You know, Space X may be going ipo, but in the past they've also been fundraising. So we have, you know, a limited Even when you get to these larger pools of capital that extend beyond the US's ability in terms of VC firms, there's still a limit to how much these sovereign wealth funds can keep give. So it requires travel, it requires relationships. Right. It requires going out and actually meeting people, shaking hands and hopefully securing a deal.
- [42:46]
Francine Lacqua
This is a big deal. What we're hearing, right? Just to recap, $50 billion target raise, 750 billion to $830 billion valuation. A lot of eyes on it. Bloomberg, Shereen Ghafari leading the team that's been reporting and tracking it.
- [43:00]
Caroline Hyde
Apple, it's set to revamp Siri later this year, turning the digital assistant into the company's first chatbot. The feature is set to be integrated into Apple's lineup of iPhones, iPads, Mac operating systems. Consumer tech editor Mark Gurman broke the details. You join us now, Mark. It's interesting how much they're depending on Google technology, potentially on their servers as well. But this is quite a move to be going to the chatbot form.
- [43:23]
Francine Lacqua
This is a blockbuster move for Apple for the last several months. Even in light of the new Siri being delayed and not launching on time a year and a half ago, even in light of the botched launch and the delays to Apple Intelligence, Apple was steadfast in saying that it doesn't believe in the chat bot route that OpenAI is taking with you, that Google's taking with Gemini, that Microsoft is taking with Copilot. But everyone who's used these chat bots know that this is at the very center of the generative AI battleground. Chat GPT is nearing a billion monthly active users. Right. It's clearly resonating and so Apple knows it to be needs, needs to go in this direction. And it's doing exactly what it needs to do to make its consumers happy and to keep selling its devices and keeping its operating system in line with the future. So at the end of this year, they're going to revamp Siri into a chat bot and it's going to be far more capable than what you're seeing from chat bots today, having those features, having web search, but also having deep ties into Apple's devices, allowing you to control specific apps and features. It's interesting to see the shares up about 9, 10 of a percent off after the reporting. And when I read the report, it's clear Siri will be fundamentally different. But is this a direct result, Mark, of that agreement that Apple reached with Google for Gemini to underpin this next gen of series? That kind of what the unlock has been, that has been the unlock for them to bring this to market. This is a concept that they've had for a while now using their internal market models that they built for Siri and Apple Intelligence a couple of years ago. But based on all the delays and based on all the issues the company has had, it would have been impossible to launch that with their internal models because it just wouldn't work well. It would be subpar and they would have crisis round two for their AI strategy. So yes, as you said, partnering with Google for Gemini has been the unlock to actually bring this to market. Now, there are some important details here. There is a new version of Siri launching in the coming months. In the first half of this year likely around March of April. That brings to market features they announced two years ago in 2024 at their developer conference. The assistant being able to tap into personal data, being able to know what's on your screen, precise control of applications and the operating system. And to do that they're using a custom Gemini model that mixes with their internal models, runs in the cloud on Apple servers.
- [45:41]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
But this chat bot is so powerful.
- [45:43]
Francine Lacqua
It needs to to have as much functionality as possible to really compete with OpenAI and what Google Microsoft offer today. So what they're discussing doing is actually running this Gemini model on Google's cloud platform services as well as on Google TPU's which is a big sea change for what Apple's doing currently with Gemini. Yeah, we've talked about the TPU unlock as well. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman back strong with a big scoop. Thank you very much. Let's look. Take a turn to chips that power AI. Alibaba is preparing to IPO its chip making arm. T head Bloomberg's executive editor for tech leading the Asia team, Peter Elstrom joins us now. This is interesting. It's kind of a 2fa. We know from our reporting they're planning to IPO this unit but in the interim they're also going to restructure it. What do we need to know?
- [46:32]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Yeah, that's right. It's a two step process that Alibaba is looking, looking at here. They're going to begin by restructuring the ownership of the company, allowing employees to own some of the shares here and then later on they plan on taking it public. Now this is an interesting move by Alibaba. Alibaba of course is an e commerce company. At its core it's been diversifying into a number of different areas including AI. They have one of the leading AI models in China with its Gwen platform and they've been working on this chip effort too. It's a bit like Amazon's partner push into being able to develop their own AI chips and Google's. You talked about the TPU's. It's an interesting strategic move by Alibaba because they're deciding that they do want to go ahead and spin off that chip unit, see if they can give it some independence, give it some, give some ownership to the employees so that they have a motivation to be able to competitive.
- [47:20]
Francine Lacqua
But then they have a very big.
- [47:21]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Market to address here and they have some very significant competitors in China and.
- [47:25]
Caroline Hyde
Of course beyond China, more threats technologies. Just listing invested cameracon technologies briefly Peter, the context of the support from China on this.
- [47:33]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Well, this is national policy as we've talked about a number of times before. The US has cut off in video from selling its most advanced chips into China in Beijing. That's seen as a very serious threat. They want to have some domestic alternatives to that. So they have a number of domestic players that are coming on strong, always leading the way. Camera Khan is probably second. Camera Con is unknown in the west really, but it's $80 billion company. They're doing quite well. And so companies like Alibaba and more Threads and some of the other small players see a golden opportunity here. If they can develop the technology for these AI chips, they're going to have a very vibrant domestic market.
- [48:08]
Caroline Hyde
Baidu also looking at doing something similar. Peter Ahlstrom, great breakdown. We thank you.
- [48:15]
Francine Lacqua
The idea that China is behind in AI is a fairy tale. Those are the words from Martha Mensch, CEO of Mistro AI, Europe's only large language model player. He spoke with Bloomberg's Jomana Versace in Davos and he also weighed in on whether European companies stand to benefit from enterprises looking to move away from US providers for geopolitical reasons. Listen to this.
- [48:41]
Elon Musk
It certainly is a growing topic top of mind in the CEO's mind of enterprises that their dependency to single providers when it comes to digital services might become a problem and is not a great answer to the volatility that we observe in the world. So it's true in Europe, but it's also true outside of Europe. It's true in the US with certain accounts. It's true in Canada. It's true in the Southeast Asian region where we operate a lot as well. So we do see that the technology we've built and the differentiation of it, which is that you can customize and deploy wherever you want, is something that does resonate with the geopolitical events.
- [49:19]
Caroline Hyde
Well, staying with the geopolitics, one of my, my colleagues spoke to the anthropic.
- [49:24]
Francine Lacqua
CEO earlier this week and on China.
- [49:28]
Caroline Hyde
He thought that the idea of sending advanced chips there, and this is a quote, is crazy and said it's a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.
- [49:36]
Elon Musk
What's your view? Well, I think the, I don't think this is true. It turns out that China does very well without chips. We, we've seen China rise on the open source front and we have been at Mistral, basically the, the spearhead of open source in the west outside of China.
- [49:59]
Caroline Hyde
Is China behind though the West?
- [50:01]
Elon Musk
China is not behind the West. I think this is a, this is A fairy tale in the eye. They are very much at piety and, and the year ahead is going to be extremely interesting in that respect. We care about Europe maintaining its position, Europe maintaining its ability to train models because we don't think that we should rely on open source Chinese models in very critical applications. So we need to be able to, to create our own models and to sell them to enterprises. So we'll, it's going to be very interesting, but it's a very different that China is behind.
- [50:35]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Let's talk about your own business.
- [50:36]
Elon Musk
Do you have a revenue goal for this year? Yeah, we do. We should cross a billion by the end of the year.
- [50:41]
Caroline Hyde
Okay. And in terms of CapEx spending, what.
- [50:43]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Are you factoring in?
- [50:45]
Elon Musk
We are about to do around a billion in capex spending this year on our endeavor, Mistral Compute, which is a. What we've done last year is to start and build our clusters and to fill some of the data sensors we're renting with these clusters. The idea being that because we have.
- [51:02]
Francine Lacqua
The hardware, the software platform, because we.
- [51:04]
Elon Musk
Know how to build the models and the applications on top, combining them with the GPUs is a way to get.
- [51:10]
Francine Lacqua
To vertically integrated stack cloud services that.
- [51:13]
Elon Musk
Are competing with some of the other fully integrated providers.
- [51:17]
Caroline Hyde
Mr. CEO Arthur Mensch there, along with Bloomberg's Jomana Versace. But as we just heard that the status of China's AI process progress has come up repeatedly at Davos. Yesterday we heard Google DeepMind CEO Dennis Hassle say that China was a mere six months behind the West. These comments come as politicians have been more focused, of course, on tensions between the US and Europe, perhaps rather than the race with China. Let's discuss the race for China. Eliza Tobin, Managing director at Garner Global, your expertise is so important. You're at the Special Competitive Studies Project. You are also helping with national security security at the government level and the China director there. Liza. So are you on the idea that it's a fairytale that they're behind that? Actually they are in lockstep with the United States in terms of agility and compute power.
- [52:04]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Well, good morning, Caroline. It's great to be on with you. Yeah. So a couple of things can be true at the same time. China is absolutely going gangbusters in innovation at several layers of the stack. You know, they're doing amazing things in open source models and applications. And of course at the energy level, where America's number one advantage still lies is in computing power at scale. I think that's widely agreed upon. You know, Jensen Huang, in his interview at Davos on Fox, was acknowledging this when he was talking about the demand constraints that he's facing and how these, this, you know, this growing demand for a limited supply of these AI chips is actually growing right now. And so that's why it's somewhat ironic and unfortunate.
- [52:58]
Francine Lacqua
Let me, let me just jump in here. Let me jump in. Jensen Huang may have said that in that interview, but Jensen Huang has got a vested interest to drive the sales of what is the world's most valuable company in a market. Market, he said, is a potential $50 billion market. Right. What he doesn't address is the concern of those that basically don't think the balance is right. Exporting some deprecated technology, still being a national security risk, in part because it allows China to catch up, which is the debate of Davos we've having had. They got that balance right to your mind?
- [53:33]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
No, the current policy in the United States doesn't. They are. The Policy to license H200 chips to China is giving them a lifeline right where they need it most. You know, the compute advantage that the United States has was poised to grow exponentially if the controls stay in place. But President Trump and Jensen Huang, for the reasons he suggest in video, wants a foothold in the China market. What's ironic, of course, is that now Xi Jinping is waffling about whether he's even going to let his companies buy many of these H200 chips because he wants to make sure that much of the demand is going to the domestic chip makers.
- [54:16]
Caroline Hyde
What's interesting is many would say we need all of technology across the world built on underlying US Chips, and that's the argument to keep them going into China. Lizard you have much credence to. To that. Are you more looking at Representative Brian Master saying basically that Jensen Huang, his as you and your paid minions, he says, are fighting to sell millions of advanced AI chips to Chinese military companies like Alibaba and Tencent.
- [54:41]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Yeah, it's interesting that Jensen Huang is trying to shift the narrative away from the military aspects of AI of course, these chips are inherently dual use, and China has a military civil fusion system in place where you can't guarantee that once these chips get into China that they won't make them available for military use. That's just a fantasy that we can sort of control that. And so. But you see that that that narrative of these things potentially being used for military or intelligence uses is inconvenient. So Huang is trying to kind of pivot away from that.
- [55:21]
Francine Lacqua
Liza Tobin of Ghana Global. Thank you. These are live pictures. West Texas, Van Horn and Blue Origin's launchpad. New Shepherd 38, let's listen in with brace for liftoff.
- [55:32]
Larry Fink
6, 5, 4.
- [55:35]
Elon Musk
Commander start two one zero.
- [56:10]
Larry Fink
5,000Ft. Who can.
- [56:15]
Elon Musk
Capsule passing 11,000ft.
- [56:21]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
All right, new shepherd has take a look on your screen. On the left hand side of the screen you'll be able to follow along with our telemetry, giving you altitude and speed.
- [56:30]
Elon Musk
And then on the bottom right hand.
- [56:31]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Side of the screen, you'll be able to see how far we are in S38's flight.
- [56:45]
Francine Lacqua
Okay, you are watching live images of Blue Origins NS38 New shepherd mission carrying the six latest astronauts, Commercial passengers to just above the common line out of Van Horn, West Texas. We've just hit max Q, the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure or stress on that vehicle. The Blue Origin New shepherd design relies on its own B3pm engine where the propellant is a mix of hydrogen and oxygen, the byproduct of which is water. For those chemistry nerds of you that are out there. And Caro, you know, we cover this because it is the evidence of the development of commercial space. You have six people on board. Some of them have paid for the privilege. We don't know how much because they don't disclose it. Just for 60 seconds of weightlessness in space in what Blue Origin says are the biggest windows to ever go into space.
- [57:42]
Caroline Hyde
And by now this is almost becoming regular. And 90 humans above the common line have been flown by Blue Origin thus far, right? So we're starting to see the cadence build up and where does that push Blue Origin in terms of its next steps in commercialization?
- [57:59]
Francine Lacqua
Again, Blue Origin is a multifaceted business. What you're watching on your screen now as the, as the combined vehicle makes its way up to that common line, you have the first stage booster and then the capsule on top. This is space tourism essentially, right? They will also argue that it provides a zero gravity environment even for 60 seconds to do scientific experimentation. But the news last night, Blue, Blue Origin is also working on a Starlink competitor, right? Satellite based and Constellation based connectivity. Then they have a more powerful rocket, New Glenn, which is used for a wide range of commercial applications. But putting, you know, satellite deployment into low Earth orbit, we're about three minutes into this mission. We expect that the, the separation to happen imminently. And then what you have is that 3 minute 30 seconds mark, Caro, those six passengers goes to the common line, which is the kind of recognized boundary of space where they'll get out, undo their seatbelts and float around looking out of the window. And again, some of them paid hundreds of thousands. We'd have a specific number for the privilege of doing that.
- [59:03]
Caroline Hyde
Yeah, and some of the names might be known to many. Tim Drexler, for example. But a lot of entrepreneurial names, some obstetricians are in there. But we've got Tim Drexler, Linda Edwards, Elaine Fernandez, for example, among the six that are currently in that capsule. And there was a slight delay to it. We understand that there was sort of unknown unauthorized personnel in the line of the rocket as to why it was pushed back that little bit on the day. But talk us through the risks, if any, of what has become standardized practice.
- [59:32]
Francine Lacqua
Every launch that involves human payload, humans on board is a risk. The hold on this case, the delay, if you like, was because of unauthorized personnel on range. But that is a very wide radius. You have to control both the airspace and on the ground, subject to itar restrictions. Because it's a rocket. At the end of the day, the view that you're looking at is just switch, right. So you can see those two white dots if you squint and you look very closely. One is the capsule and one is the, the booster that is kind of rapidly coming back down to Earth. And what will happen very, very soon, because we're at the 4 minutes 30 second mark, is those inside the capsule. The six of them will get a 1 minute warning where they've been through this training process, where they'll buckle themselves back in. And then it's good old fashioned rocket science where the flat bottom of the capsule and Earth's gravitational pull brings it back down into Earth's atmosphere. And we can kind of go from.
- [60:31]
Caroline Hyde
That and we can continue. This is like a 10 minute process. And we're already, as you say, at the halfway point. Ad we go to Lauren Grosch, who helps cover all things space across our network and platforms for us. And Lauren, this seems to be going all according to plan, as we think. But space very much in line of sight of investors at the moment, but also of the market more broadly. We're thinking about Elon Musk, who's just come off stage over at Davos talking about how his reusable giant rocket might be there by the end of this year. In terms of reusability, yes, that is.
- [61:00]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
The ultimate goal of Starship, which they've been pursuing for some time. Full reusability. You know, actually the New Shepard is a fully reusable system, but it obviously does not go to orbit. And so Starship is really trying to accomplish a feat that no one has been able to before. And Elon just said that they hope to get to full reusability sometime this year. That would be a major accomplishment if they can make it happen. And we'll obviously be keeping an eye out on those Starship test flights which are always so fun. But yeah, that will be a big moment if they can make it happen.
- [61:34]
Francine Lacqua
We got Bloomberg's Lauren Grass. She leads our coverage on space. And on the left hand side of your screen we've got the downward camera on the new shepherd booster as it returns down to Earth. We're about six minutes in Lauren Booster descending and then the capsule any second will start descending by the way, peaking at like 4-5g on the way around. Karen, I were talking about how we carry this from right because it's an expensive endeavor for space tourism. But Blue Origin's business as we see that that booster coming down is multifaceted. What's the big priority for Blue right now?
- [62:07]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Well it actually comes at a really interesting time. They just announced the third upcoming flight for their new Glenn rocket. That's their much larger orbital rocket that they've launched twice now and successfully landed on a barge on that second flight. Now New Glenn is not fully reusable. The the second stage, the upper portion of the rocket does not come back but they were able to achieve that partial reusability with the second flight. So they're really getting into full swing with their launch business. And so hopefully just as these New Shepard flights are becoming routine, New Glenn flights will become routine as well.
- [62:42]
Caroline Hyde
And we have at this moment the booster landing. We'll see if they note it successfully at 7 minute 10 second mark. It's going to make for a beautiful picture and just talk us through the complex nature of a booster landing.
- [62:55]
Francine Lacqua
Well, Booster Falls 3 fall through the air using air resistance physics. Then it ignites that B3 and smoothly touches down. A little needle in the haystack landing a pin in the middle of the West Texas desert kind of moment car, isn't it just?
- [63:12]
Caroline Hyde
So there we are. Booster touchdown is hit at the moment with T +7 3940. Let's call it capsule reacquired comes at eight minutes. Lauren. And all of this is being remind us financed how people are obviously paying their way to a certain extent. We don't know exactly who but this is still VC backed, very much the endeavor of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
- [63:35]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Right. I mean as you mentioned before passengers pay some undisclosed sum to fly on these, these flights. But yes, I mean, Blue Origin is by far very big passion of Jeff Bezos and he has been primarily the funder of the endeavor for some time now. Obviously the goal is to move away from that system, to have more and more customers and to eventually become a profitable business. You know that either that's through satellite contracts, launch contracts, things like that. And then also Blue Origin just announced a new mega constellation to be a competitor to Starlink. So they have a lot of different revenue streams coming in, hopefully soon.
- [64:17]
Francine Lacqua
Lauren, we just saw the drogue shoots and then the main shoots deploy on, on the new shepherd capsule on its way down. Now it's chill. You're just floating by the time you boost a landing speed like 6 miles per hour. So we will wait for that over the course, course of the next two minutes to ensure that the capsule lands safely. You just talked about the business of Constellation based satellite. We talked earlier in the conversation about Blue Origin's efforts that news last night. We also are trying to keep on top of Elon Musk's appearance at Davos, which you and I were both tuned in for. Right. He did talk about Starship and some of the broader kind of academic questions around space based data center as best you can. Just give us a summary of that while we await the Blue Origin capsule touching down.
- [65:04]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Sure. So, as Elon indicated, he's a very big fan of solar power. One of the justifications for moving data centers into space is depending on where you put them, you can have this constant access to solar power, which as people who know much about AI and the data center industry here on Earth, power constraints can actually be a huge limiting factor. So moving to space, the likes of Elon and other billionaires, even Jeff Bezos have talked about perhaps, you know, tapping into that solar power to get near constant access to sunlight that can then power these data centers that do all this complex computing. Yeah.
- [65:43]
Caroline Hyde
We heard Musk saying, really in the next two to three years, space is going to be the cheapest place to put AI. And then look, we have the landing touchdown chill edge, as you called it. It looks like quite a lot of dust being blown up.
- [65:57]
Francine Lacqua
No, no, if you, if you're going up at 3Gs and you're coming down at 4 to 5Gs, but the moment you touch the ground, it's just like a little then, then that's what I meant by chill. But again, we talked about this being routine and sorry to interrupt car. You know, we'll Wait for confirmation from Blue. But as it stands, you know, another successful mission.
- [66:17]
Caroline Hyde
It is seemingly successful. We're checking on those successful astronauts, as they're known, and what the common line touching and the zero gravity feel was like for each individual. Lauren, we always come back on Bloomberg to the financing of this and we await potentially 2026, an enormous IPO of Space X as well. That must be something you're tuned in for.
- [66:38]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Oh, absolutely. I think the entire space industry is kind of on pins and needles awaiting how this IPO will play out. And obviously, as we mentioned, one of the big fueling the things fueling the IPO is this concept of raising capital, capital for space data centers. So I think it'll have a, you know, a very sizable impact on the entire space industry, not just Space X. I've spoken to a number of experts who think that this will open the door for even more investment in the space industry, which is sometimes considered very niche. So I think even the competitors of Space X are probably pretty excited to see how this plays out.
- [67:18]
Francine Lacqua
We're going to move away from West Texas and when Blue Origin confirms all as well, we'll bring it to the audience. And go back to Elon Musk at Davos and let's listen to some of what he had to say on stage.
- [67:28]
Elon Musk
Probably sometime next year. I'd say by the end of next year, I think we'd be selling humanoid robots to the public. But that's when we are confident that it's very high reliability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is, is also very high. You can basically ask it to do anything you'd like.
- [67:54]
Francine Lacqua
Well, that was the timeline prediction that moved markets. Tesla shares rose when Musk said that. Musk often misses his own deadlines in the space context. Lauren, that's your domain. Just real quick, what were the kind of timelines that he gave, if any, on that part of his business?
- [68:11]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Right. So he said the things that I took note of are the fact that he thinks that space will be the cheapest place for AI data centers to be in the next two to three years. Obviously, I think that might be a very ambitious timeline as well. Jeff Bezos has given a timeline of 10 years in order for it to be economically feasible. And I spoke to another expert who mentioned that makes a little bit more sense. And then on the Starship front, as we mentioned, he talked about getting to full reusability sometime this year. Again, that's going to be a very big feat if and when they pull it off. I can't speak to whether or not they will do it this year, but they've obviously been doing these periodic test flights of starship in order to reach that goal. And so either way, it should be very exciting to watch as they incrementally get closer to that development.
- [69:00]
Francine Lacqua
Development.
- [69:01]
Caroline Hyde
And Lauren, you'll be along the way for us as always guiding.
- [69:04]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Absolutely.
- [69:05]
Caroline Hyde
And across platform. Thank you so much. Bloomberg's Lauren Grass on all things space. Look, we're just talking about Elon Musk at Davos, what he said. Others have been there too. Funnily enough. Darktrace CEO Jill Popelka and she says that AI has quote, democratized cyber attacks and there needs to be a shift towards sophisticated defenses to protect businesses. She spoke with Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua on the sidelines of 2026 World Economic Forum. Take a listen.
- [69:30]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
The threats are becoming more sophisticated, they're becoming more complex. And whereas before we might have thought about being attacker centric and trying to predict what the attacker is going to do next, that's not what darktrace has ever done and it's definitely not what we can do moving forward because we can't predict this high velocity, high threat landscape. We know that countries like Japan, for example, they used to have a natural barrier because their language was, was more complex and people couldn't quite get there. You know, the cyber attackers couldn't get their heads around creating an attack in Japanese. But now I can create those complex, highly sophisticated threats in any language around the world. And so, right, we are looking at a much higher velocity threat landscape. So is AI and cybersecurity much more.
- [70:09]
Caroline Hyde
Sophisticated than even 12 months ago?
- [70:11]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
Oh, of course, it's becoming more and more sophisticated. We have the most amazing minds in Cambridge, people who are linguistic see majors, people who have majored in the classics. But now looking at how is this a challenge for us? How do we protect the world against it? So after a darktrace's acquisition by Thomas Bravo and the shift to operating privately, how has that changed your focus and investment strategy? You know, Darktrace was already changing and so the transition into private equity ownership really wasn't that big a deal for us. We were continuing on our path of innovating and creating the latest in greatest products. We were also working on scaling our business so we had become really a $700 million startup. And then we needed to ensure that our systems and our processes and our talent acquisition and all the different things that big companies do that we were doing those really well also. Are the cyber threats coming from government agents or like, you know, government entities or what can you tell us about where the biggest threat is coming from? You know what's interesting is AI has been democratized cyber attacks just like it's democratized so many other things.
- [71:12]
Caroline Hyde
It's a good line.
- [71:13]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
It does. It doesn't really matter where it's coming from. From a darktrace perspective, we're going to protect you from a nation state actor just like we're going to protect you from a western teenager in his garage. You know, having a heyday with AI that day. So it's not, it's not so much about being attacker centric. What we do want to think about though is how we get every anomaly and how we ensure that we are protecting from this.
- [71:35]
Francine Lacqua
That was darktrace CEO Jill Papelco along with Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua. Now coming up, a startup aiming to outperform today's accelerators has attracted $110 million in series aid funding. Neurofast CEO Patrick Bowen and M12 managing partner Michael Stewart join us next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [71:56]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
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- [74:21]
Francine Lacqua
AI chip startup Neurophos has closed a $110 million Series A fund funding round. The company makes an optical processing unit with over a million micron scale optical elements on a single chip. They rely on light to transmit data. It claims this OPU delivers up to 100x the performance and energy efficiency of current leading GPUs and accelerator cards. Let's get to it. Patrick Byron, your first co founder and CEO and Michael Stewart, managing partner at M12, formerly known as Microsoft's venture fund. Patrick, the devil is in the detail here. The use of light to transmit data instead of electrons. And again, I'm not an engineer but. But what is this op you design that you're developing?
- [75:01]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
It's essentially designed to be a drop in replacement for a GPU, but actually runs 50 to 100 times both faster.
- [75:08]
Francine Lacqua
And with 50 to 100 times higher raw energy efficiency in the inference use case.
- [75:13]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Not for training.
- [75:14]
Francine Lacqua
That's right. You an engineer by trade, by background ground. But then you go to the dark side of venture capital. Why back this project? You know, you're going to tell me that there's a gap, there's a problem being solved for here. There are lots of inference solutions out there, different technological underpinning. But why this one?
- [75:32]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Yeah, certainly you know our investment focus is on the data center of the future and by and large the industry has committed massive amounts of capital to scaling the table. Technology that we know and understand and from our investment thesis, our investment aims, we're really looking for what is far beyond the state of the art to disrupt that, particularly toward the end of the decade. And what Patrick and his team have developed is really it's not just a.
- [76:00]
Francine Lacqua
New technique that's cool because it uses.
- [76:02]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Light, but it really delivers demonstrable benefits to the energy needed for the computer and In a way that we think could change the game. So that's, that's something we can underwrite as the fund and we think it could impact Microsoft, but also the industry at large.
- [76:18]
Caroline Hyde
Okay, I'm interested, Patrick, on, you know, the next set of data centers are meant to be being built in space. If you're listening to Elon Musk over at Davos today, I'm interested as to whether that is something that you think is applicable to your technology and how you think you're going to be beating what are quite a lot of competitors out there. There's like Matter Labs, Renovas for example.
- [76:38]
Francine Lacqua
Yeah, absolutely. I think the thing is, wherever you.
- [76:41]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Go, whether it's in space or it's on earth, AI is fundamentally hardware limited and the hardware is fundamentally power limited.
- [76:49]
Francine Lacqua
Right.
- [76:49]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
And the move to space is an.
- [76:50]
Francine Lacqua
Attempt to try to solve the power.
- [76:52]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Consumption part of the problem.
- [76:54]
Francine Lacqua
But wherever you go, even in space, power is still going to be limited.
- [76:58]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
And we're solving that problem at the fundamental physics level.
- [77:02]
Caroline Hyde
Are you, Michael, seeing the adoption by, well, those out there at the moment building the data centers for such new interesting technology because as you say, this could just be replacing, dropped in instead of a gpu. How are you seeing that revenue process as you back it with this sort of Series A funding?
- [77:22]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Well, in the last couple of weeks.
- [77:24]
Francine Lacqua
The last couple of months actually, we've.
- [77:26]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Seen a complete and total breakthrough in the acceptance by the, by the leaders in the industry, the chip industry, to, to use new hardware to, to address different parts of the inference workload. And you know, that's the last couple of, of of large licensing and hiring deals that we've seen. And I believe that's the beginning.
- [77:47]
Bloomberg Reporter/Correspondent
That's, that's kind of like, it's like.
- [77:49]
Francine Lacqua
Breaking the sound barrier.
- [77:50]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
You need, you need those steps to happen on the part of obviously the leaders to pave the way for even more disruptive technology like what neurofast is developing.
- [78:00]
Francine Lacqua
You know, this is an industry that is still dominated by the GPU in video. Right. But with the specialist inference platforms. You know, the argument that Nvidia makes is that we give five year visibility on our product roadmap and that's why each generation of silicon that comes out, you just drop it in. How is this more than a lab experiment right now with neurofoss and you can convince that that data center that's not yet planned for, let alone built, that that's the best viable option. Right.
- [78:30]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
The key is that right now we already have silicon. We have verified so we, it is real.
- [78:36]
Francine Lacqua
We have taped out these chips.
- [78:37]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
We've de risked the fundamental physics. So from here, unlike quantum computing, where.
- [78:41]
Francine Lacqua
You still still need some more physics.
- [78:42]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Miracles to make it happen, there are.
- [78:44]
Elon Musk
No more physics miracles in our roadmap.
- [78:46]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
From here. It is hard engineering, but it is just engineering to get to market.
- [78:50]
Francine Lacqua
And so we can build a timeline and an engineering schedule that is tractable.
- [78:55]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
And actually can deliver on time.
- [78:56]
Francine Lacqua
You know, I'm just trying to understand how difficult this is going to be. Michael Cerberus is doing interesting things. Different technology.
- [79:02]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Sure. Grok.
- [79:04]
Francine Lacqua
You know, when Nvidia took Grok, they were like, well, they didn't have a place in the world world. You seem to think that actually the underlying technology, OPU does have a place in the world. What evidence would you provide for that?
- [79:15]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
My background is from the semiconductor industry. I, I got to say, I wasn't sold until I visited the lab and Patrick and their team open kimono, showed me the oscilloscopes, showed me the test beds. This is something that can not only work on its own, but it could.
- [79:31]
Francine Lacqua
Be integrated with other conventional products that.
- [79:33]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Are in the server bill of materials. And again, that's, that's the piece I can underwrite.
- [79:38]
Francine Lacqua
We're not really here in this case.
- [79:40]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
To look to invest in science. Although I am a scientist, I at least think we should stand behind the technologies that could change the game for the energy needed for inference compute.
- [79:51]
Caroline Hyde
Why underwrite Europe force versus, as I said, light matter labs.
- [79:58]
Francine Lacqua
I don't want to comment on the.
- [80:00]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Other companies other than I've known them. And I looked at this, I looked.
- [80:04]
Francine Lacqua
At optical compute very seriously five years.
- [80:07]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
Ago or so for my prior fund. In fact, I met Patrick at that time. And you know, the concept for Nerf US was a little bit early, but I think the market conditions, the demand, the need for new approaches, combined with, like I said, the signals of leaders to be willing to, willing to integrate and use this technology in their platforms.
- [80:28]
Francine Lacqua
That are already commercially successful.
- [80:30]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
This is a moving train toward heterogeneous compute and true disruptive technologies making it to market what Neurofos has that again helped us move forward is something I could see with my eyes that shows it could work. Now I'm going to still put the pressure on Patrick to deliver the product on time, which is definitely, you know.
- [80:50]
Larry Fink
The job of an entrepreneur.
- [80:52]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
But to his point, it's not a science risk question as much anymore as engineering and capital. So once again, that's where we can bring our fund in.
- [81:01]
Caroline Hyde
And boy, Is there a need for an unlock on the energy side? Patrick Bowen, we thank you so much. CEO of Neurofoss and Michael Stewart, managing partner at M12. Great to have you both on on this funding round.
- [81:13]
Francine Lacqua
Intel's down half percentage point, but in reality, Carol, it's just treading water ahead of earnings after the bell. It's up 15% in a short US week because of the holiday and it's up like 46% year to date. And whatever it tells us about AI, the reality is right now its bread and butter business CPUs is in demand and that's really helping it.
- [81:33]
Caroline Hyde
And the PC side of the business, many feeling that that's been a growth trajectory for them once again. And we had of course, the discussion on Panther Lake and what they've been doing in terms of innovation. The key question is going to be Foundry. Where is that actually going in terms of clear direction? Revenues are likely to fall for this fiscal quarter that they're reporting on it by 6% is only growth come the second half of 2026. Right?
- [81:55]
Francine Lacqua
Yeah. And probably some updates on Lipputan, the CEO and like, what's his relationship like with the President, one of his shareholders now? The United States of America. All right, and these are all good topics of conversation, but we have had a hell of a run up before the earnings actually hit.
- [82:10]
Caroline Hyde
Yeah. So maybe a bit of digestion just before they come out, but digest more of this edition of Bloomberg Tech. It's over for now, but at the podcast.
- [82:18]
Francine Lacqua
Yeah, check out the pod. Astonishing episode, to be frank. I mean, lots of recap. You know where to find it. IHeart, Spotify, and on Apple and all the Bloomberg platforms. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [82:32]
Bloomberg Announcer/Host
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Elon Musk
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