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Data threats don't knock. They sneak in quietly, make themselves right at home. But when you partner with Veeam, you can spot threats before they're a threat to your business. Whatever the world throws at your data, it's all good. Get data resilient@veeam.com that's ve.
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Com Every business starts with an idea. How can you go from daydreamer to industry leader? Amazon Business accelerates your journey retail with smart business buying. Get everything you need to grow in one familiar place. From office supplies to IT essentials and maintenance tools. Amazon Business takes the buying experience you know and love from Amazon plus tools that help you save costs and make insights based decisions ready to bring your visions to life. Learn how at amazonbusiness.com@GSK we believe that.
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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
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Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's have a quick check in on these markets because we are continuing to see pressure on the tech stocks only by about 2.10of a percent, the NASDAQ 100 coming off of what was a 5, 10% increase the previous day. A lot of macro, a lot of digestion this week as we anticipate of course the inflation readings and a lot of Fed speak. We're just questioning though perhaps some of the valuations in the AI space. Let's move on to see what's happening on this day with Micron get earnings after the Bell were up more than 2%. This is a stock that has increased 40% in the month of September alone. But can it live up to the hopes for revenue increases to also be up some 40% in their fiscal quarter on which they're reporting? Of course key is the demand for high bandwidth memory and the use within accelerators. Talking about accelerators, check out Nvidia by 1.8% after yesterday's rally. Remember that 00 billion investment commitment into OpenAI if open air in return commits to buying GPUs the future from Nvidia. The merry go round of money continues. Let's break that all down with Bloomberg Semiconductors reporter Ian King. Just going back to that extraordinary $100 billion commitment getting equity from OpenAI. But only as they bring on AI accelerators, GPUs from Nvidia and 10 gigawatts eventually in the next few years. Ian, are we questioning the way in which money is floating right now?
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And that's a large number and it.
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Seems excessive even for Nvidia.
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C
But then you sort of take a step back and you realize that this.
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Is going to happen in an incremental basis and it's going to be put to work only when the actual hardware is put in place and the actual.
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C
Capacity is put in place.
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A
So yes, it's a massive headline. Yes, even for Nvidia that seems huge. But if you take it over a number of years, then maybe it isn't that excessive. Maybe it's just what is needed for this market. And Nvidia continues to be a deeply strategic investor, often putting money to work in the likes of Core Weaver, N scale or long term demand for their GPUs. And talking of demand, we're going to get a bit of a fundamental check on it, right, With Micron's earnings after the bell. Yeah. The Micron story is everybody is focused, as you mentioned, on hbm High Bandwidth.
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Memory, one of Ed Ludlow's favorite topics.
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Everybody wants to see this company converting what they know is strong demand into very rapid growth. Everybody wants to see Micron really having a say in the world. And that's what people be focused on.
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C
Because the market overall for other types.
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A
Of memory maybe isn't that strong, maybe isn't recovering as quickly as some had hoped. $11.15 billion is a consensus, up 44% in terms of revenue for fiscal fourth quarter. Bloomberg's in King, as always, a very busy man. We thank him. Look, as we await earnings, interestingly, anxiety around funding just continues to be intensifying. The industry, we understand, will need $2 trillion in combined annual revenue to fund the computing power that's needed by 2030. But their revenue is likely to fall short by a tune of $800 billion. So according to Bain's annual global technology report, it was released today. Tuesday. Let's bring in Jay Jacobs for more. U.S. head of Equity ETFs over at BlackRock, who just. You really get an analysis of the insatiable demand of investors into the data center story. But are they starting to question ultimately whether we can meet that insatiable demand, whether funding is there in the longer term?
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D
No, I think it's quite the opposite. Investor enthusiasm is only growing. If you look at one of our ETFs B, it's an actively managed ETF. It's brought in over $5 billion this year and is now the largest ETF in the United States. And, and a lot of the exposure that it is providing to investors is around that digital infrastructure layer, the hardware producers in the semiconductor space, the digital infrastructure owners, some of the data owners that are becoming really valuable in this explosion of AI models. And so there's a ton of investor enthusiasm and I think there's a lot of expectations that revenues will match the expenditures, if not exceed them in the next several years.
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A
But how much should we get comfortable with companies like in video basically plowing their own revenues of today into hopes of revenue of tomorrow, basically funding their end clients?
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D
I think it's beyond comfort. This is a necessity for some of the leading technology companies. They have a tremendous moat because they have low cost of capital, they have tremendous access to dollars and they're able to really kind of leverage their own strengths, which is if you look at a semiconductor company owning GPUs, owning this manufacturing process is really valuable in the semiconductor space. That's the short, that's the shortfall that's needed by large language model developers. So this investment across the industry makes a ton of sense.
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A
So going back to your iShares, innovation and tech, actively managed ETF, how much our clients begging you for more diversification when it comes to the trade. Because we have put so much stock into a few names, there's a lot.
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D
Of ask to go beyond the Mag 7. I think people understand the Mag 7 story. They understand why these companies are so successful in the AI space and why they're leading it. But they do want to know what's beyond that. What are the other semiconductor companies where some of the data owners, what are some of the companies that aren't necessarily a consensus view as an AI company but are involved in the space? And so that's where an actively managed fund I think could provide a lot of value to investors is by yes, it's going to have max 7 exposure, but you know, beyond two thirds of it is going to look beyond it and provide kind of the next names that are going to rise in this ecosystem.
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A
And on those names rising in the United States, we've also just seen President Trump alongside Jensen Huang and many others go to the United Kingdom to talk up an investment there. Are we seeing more, more names being added to the ETFs are coming from Europe, coming from Asia.
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D
It's a global theme, but predominantly it is being led out of the United States today. And that's where we've seen some of these kind of, kind of new up and coming risers largely coming from. We still have a really robust startup environment and venture capital environment around AI. So the US is very much at the center of this ecosystem, but it is a global theme.
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A
So the members of the etf, a larger US Are the investors in that ETF getting ever more global or is it predominantly US investors that want to stay with this theme?
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D
It's both. We certainly have seen a ton of global appetite, but some of the biggest investors today are coming from the United States. I think it's not surprising anyone. Everyone knows globally this is the biggest area right now. They want to have access to the best investment tools to get exposure to it. Our ETF has really risen as the number one tool in the US for AI exposure.
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A
What about other parts like the energy side of the equation, other areas that eventually will do well? We're always talk about health care predominantly being a user of generative AI and therefore more productive.
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D
I would say the energy space is coming up more and more with clients as they look to the AI trade beyond technology, kind of what's the next shoe to drop? What's the area of opportunity? We've seen a ton of interest around different energy sources to be able to power the AI trade, whether that's nuclear, whether it's fossil fuels, whether it's renewables. Really looking across the entire energy ecosystem, it's a, it's a way of looking at utilities from a more forward looking lens. If you take the utility sector but say who's really going to grow here? Who really has this great 10 year trajectory because of AI? It's a more thematic kind of that space.
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A
We've just been coming out of the United Nations General Assembly. It does feel as though fossil fuels are very much have to be put back on the map by President Trump at least. Is that something you're seeing echoed by investors? They want to be recommitting once again after years of perhaps rebalancing, moving towards renewables, looking at cleaner forms of energy.
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D
It's across the entire energy value chain. I think you have to look at there are going to be energy fuels that are going to be really necessary, there's going to be energy producers that are really necessary and there's energy distribution that's going to be really necessary in this theme. And so I think people are looking very broadly at where is this going to come from.
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A
Every now and then the market goes through moments of anxiety, whether it's about the fact that maybe we've got this revenue mismatch when it comes to compute funding, whether it's about actual productivity gains. With the MIT report that came out last month, are you seeing any anxiety pull back in actual fund flows wanting to go into AI more broadly?
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D
Like I said, our fund flows have been accelerating recently, so we're not seeing a lot of anxiety. Look, this is a long term theme. This is a bet for the next five, ten and beyond years. I'm sure within that timeframe there will be bouts of anxiety, there will be questions around what the valuation should be. But if you take a long term view of artificial intelligence, we believe this is going to be one of the most powerful drivers of the markets for the next decade and beyond.
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A
Okay, and more broadly, when we're thinking about fundamentals, how much do earnings matter for your portfolio managers, but more broadly for the investor sentiment?
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D
So they matter, but when you're looking over the long term, it's more about what is the earnings say about the direction of travel rather than what's happening today. There's not a ton of concern about what is your revenue today. If you're a large language model developer, what we prefer to see is have you gotten more paying subscribers? Have you developed the best model? Are you starting to see more penetration in the corporate world where you're going to have more, you know, more ability to spend on these technologies? The direction of travel is what we're really looking at in the earnings.
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A
Jay Jacobs, it's always great to have you here. Thanks for coming in the studio. BlackRock's Jacobs there, meanwhile, want to talk other areas of AI now. The application of it Snowflake, alongside industry leaders and key partners just unveiled a new initiative aiming to set a new industry standard for AI interoperability. They call it the Open Semantic Interchange and it will be open sourced in an effort to remove what they call data islands and accelerate AI for all. Shirt Ramaswamy, I'm pleased to say, is with our Snowflake CEO set the context of the problem here, Shira. How difficult is it to get access to all data out there at the moment to make generative AI become this reality?
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E
Well, great to be here. Caroline has a lot of promise for making data very broadly available to everyone in the enterprise, including business users, using natural language which they which all of us like doing? Well, the problem often is that the meaning behind the data is in multiple places. It can be in databases, it can be in business intelligence tools. This just makes developing AI solutions on top of this data very hard. And what we announced today with a consortium of industry folks is an open standard for exchanging this semantic information. And what that means is this is going to enhance interoperability between different folks, between Salesforce, DBT Labs, BlackRock that we would like to see happen. It can help accelerate value that is going to be gotten from AI. It also just simplifies things for everybody that's involved and that's why we are super excited about working with these giant industry players to announce this new interchange format.
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A
Yeah, a universal translator is kind of a nice way about, of talking about it with Snowflake, the Salesforce, DBT Labs BlackRock thought spot Wiggy here on this program. Can you tell us about how difficult the technology exchange is going to be here? What actually you need to do beneath the surface?
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E
Yeah, it's a standard. What this means is that people that want to be part of the standard or want to conform to the standard just are going to make it easy to send and receive this semantic information. This is, you know, this is business stuff. Stuff like how is revenue defined, how is profit defined, how is EBITDA defined and so on. So, so we intentionally wanted it to be a light lift for each of these players. But what happens collectively is that all of a sudden this semantic information is free to move about. It just makes value creation, especially with AI, just a whole lot faster. And it's a big step forward for the industry and we expect more and more folks in the data industry to be a part of this standard.
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A
Interesting. So that's for the data industry going to the large language model industry in and of itself anthropic, seem to have seen this issue with data and interoperability as well. They've been seeing silos. They introduced something called model Context Protocol that's again, open standard shooter. How is that different?
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E
Well, this is one layer below that. What a model context protocol does is it creates a standard way, for example, to talk to an AI agent. But on the other hand, even to create the agent, you need to make sense of the underlying data. It can be the case that you have data sitting in one place while the definition for what the data means is in a different place. This makes it easier to create agents which can then take advantage of protocols like Model Control Protocol, MCP that you mentioned to make agent interoperability work a whole lot better. So you need all of these layers for AI value to get created and.
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A
We need the agents to get better for the productivity to really result. Should I ask you, like, after months of worry perhaps about MIT Reports saying that ultimately the productivity gains aren't being seen yet. What are you seeing with your clients using your own offerings and products?
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E
Yeah, we are seeing a lot of productivity gain in specific areas. And I can speak even personally to examples like my sales data is just a whole lot easier for me to get to. With Snowflake Intelligence, BlackRock, one of the customers in the OSI standard, also is using our products to create what's called a customer360. So when you call BlackRock, the person on the other side has access to all of the relevant information about you. It's things like that that are creating value. And what's unique about Snowflake is we let our customers create AI products without a ton of investment on their part. We make it much easier to iterate and create these products and use them and see for themselves what's creating value before turning on the spigot and having these products exposed more and more. And in areas like coding agents, the productivity gains that we are seeing is truly remarkable. And I think that's an area that you will continue to see a ton of adoption across the board in enterprises. You know, funnily or strangely, turns out that coding think is one of the most interesting and important applications of language models.
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A
Should we see the adoption of your products? It's shown up in your earnings. People have seen really the growth that you're talking about. For that, you need sales and marketing people to go out and sell your products. But that's why your talent addition has been. But I go to the news of the Day, for example, around H1B visas. How much is that becoming an issue for you with talent? Is that something that you're worried about, access to the right people here in the United States?
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E
Yeah, it is. It is an issue. Roughly less than 10% of our workforce is on H1B visas. You know, I'm an immigrant and I think there are a ton of folks like me that come in, create massive amounts of value, and then become, and then become proud citizens. We don't see it as an immediate problem, but we do think that tech workers from around the world have a lot to add to the tech industry. We are watching and work, you know, working as closely with the administration as we can to make sure that this is more of a win win for everybody involved.
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Sridhar Ramaswamy. So thank you for that answer and talking us through your announcement today on interoperability. We appreciate it. The CEO, Snowflake. Coming up, Michelle Guider of Purdue's Crack Institute for Tech Diplomacy we're going to break down state of US China relations. This is Bloomberg Tech Cybercriminals Count on chaos. Count on Veeam to stop them fast. Partner with them and get 24. 7 ransomware support from the first red flag to full recovery. Whatever the world throws at your data, it's all good. Learn more@veeam.com that's V E E A.
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M.com how can you free your team from time consuming office tasks? Amazon Business empowers leaders to not only streamline purchasing, but better support their teams. Smart business buying tools enable buyers to find and purchase items fast so they can focus on strategy and growth. It's time to free up your teams and focus on your future. Learn more about the technology insights and Support available@AmazonBusiness.com what does being financially invested sound like?
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A retiree on a cross country drive? Someone with new long term goals? A student getting their start with over 450 ETFs iShares gives you access to countless market opportunities. IShares by BlackRock the market is yours. Visit www.ishares.com to view perspectives, which includes investment objectives, risk, expenses and other information you should read and consider carefully before investing. Risk includes principal loss prepared by BlackRock Investments LLC member Finra.
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A
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech A quick check on these markets which pretty sanguine at the moment as we have a big week ahead in terms of inflation data and Fed speak. NASDAQ 100 just down about 2.10of a percent, having been on a record high streak across most of the benchmarks. We pause for breath on equities more broadly in video in the red which of course tugs down in large part the rest of the index. But we want to set a global context here because the movements being made geopolitically and what's in the eye of the investor right now. We've just had the United Nations General assembly speech by the United States President really big claims and blasting the United nations more broadly. But all of this in a context of geopolitical relationships. Perhaps the US and China, for example, we have been understanding, are nearing an agreement to hive off the US Operations and social media platform TikTok to a consortium that includes software giant Oracle. We want to just give you the global context right now. Bloomberg Senior Tech Editor Mike shepherd standing by. You've just been sat tuned in to President Trump where he talked about a whole wealth of issues that he sees right now. Any of them catch your attention?
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C
And certainly for our context, Carol, on this program, what really caught my ear was what he was talking about in terms of investment and what he's been trying to attract to the US when you think about all the announcements that we've seen related to artificial intelligence. And more recently, as you just alluded to this push to try to reach a deal with China on TikTok, the president was talking about 17, 17 trillion dollars in announced investment pledges so far this year. That number bears some skepticism, but there is some kernel of truth in it. Of course, when you tote up the pledges that we have seen from in video, from Open Air, from Softbank and others to build plants here in the US and tsmc, we can't leave them out either. And all that fits into the picture that the President is trying to portray of the US on the move during the this address to the UN General Assembly. He talked about this golden age of America and he defended his tariff program as well and some of the trade agreements that he's reached with the uk, the EU and other nations. And he even talked about trying to meet with Brazil's leader next week to try to sort out some of the trade and other differences with with that trading partner as well. So there's a lot happening here on the international trade and deal making front.
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And it had a market reaction sending in the Brazilian real gaining in the session. Mike, what's interesting is he did go on to chastise China when it comes to the Russian relationship that they hold anything that could put at risk any sort of ultimate deal around TikTok.
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C
Well, it's a great question because you know, for the President, the TikTok deal is of paramount importance. He's talked about it for more than a year. It was something that came up on the campaign trail. It's something that he credits with helping him in his comeback victory to the White House. And yet it has been a very difficult victory for him to bring home, in part because China is reluctant to sell this precious asset From Beijing based ByteDance Ltd. China is reluctant also to see ByteDance let go of in any way, shape or form the algorithm that powers Tick Tock. And that has really been the secret sauce to the app and its appeal to young users. Now the question in this deal that is taking shape is perhaps there could be a way for a copy to be handed to the new US venture that would be led by American investors and have six of seven board seats occupied by Americans. Now, would China go along with that? Oracle would have a role with the new version venture in retraining this new model. But will China go along. We have not heard enough from China yet about whether they will approve this deal in full. On Friday, we heard Donald Trump talk about how Xi Jinping, his counterpart hours earlier in a conversation they had had on Friday, really blessing the deal. But China's foreign Ministry was far more circumspect in its statement. So we'll have to see where this goes and whether some of that leverage on Russian oil purchases may factor in into the conversation here.
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Remarks Mike shepherd, thorough wrap up. Thank you very much indeed. Now let's discuss this more broadly with Michelle Geiner. She is the CEO of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, used to serve as assistant secretary of state for global public affairs under the first Trump administration. Wonderful to have you here in New York, Michelle. Taking a step back, the fact that tick tock is becoming so central to the future discussions between the two leaders of the United States and China, does that surprise you at all?
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F
You know, it's a really interesting reflection of the importance of technology today when it comes to national security, when it comes to economic prosperity. But when you talk about taking a step back, whether it's TikTok, whether it's export controls on semiconductor chips, whether it's tariffs, bans on TikTok, bans on Huawei, all of these things are really important defensive tactical tools that the US Government can use to ensure that that we're trying to keep our competitive edge. But when you think about what's really happening with the US China relationship, the fundamentals are still the same right now as they have been for years. And we're in this sort of grinding, incremental struggle on tick tock, on tariffs, on this and on that. And the only way that America actually breaks away is if we build an event like crazy. We have to go on offense in addition to the defensive measures that are happening. We have to build chips, we have to build ships, we have to build data centers, we have to build rare earth magnets, we have to design new frontier models. We have to do all of these things and, by the way, export them around the globe to all of our allies and partners. And so going on offense is what's going to change the fundamental nature of this relationship. And that ultimately comes down to the private sector. The government can do all of these really important defensive tactics, but when it comes to breaking away and unleashing the full force, the United States, that's a private sector.
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It feels like the private sector got the memo. Nvidia $100 billion going to open AI we've got just 5 billion going to intel, which seems tiny in comparison, but was an important move and signal for Intel. But should there be more done by the government? Because there's actually been a pulling away from the chips act from support from a financial perspective. Instead they're taking equity stakes in intel, for example.
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F
Well, I think the Trump administration has really motivated the private sector in this direction. If you think about the action plan, which is about unleashing our exporting American AI around the globe. If you think about unleashing American energy and the National Energy Dominance Council. Right. All of these things are to enable the private sector to go run and to do their thing. And so I think we're headed in the right direction. But to your point, that's why these deals like the US UK Prosperity Partnership on technology are really interesting. All of the deals on semiconductor sector and AI and energy coming out of the Middle east trip that President Trump took a few months ago, that's really interesting. You mentioned in video and all of these investments, there's also this $550 billion fund that the Japanese government has built, part of our trade agreement with them that now the administration is taking a look at to say can we use that to spur manufacturing? Those are really interesting because that's what's going to give us, not only allow us to go on offense, but really be a full force multiplier in working with our allies.
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What seems to be a more difficult square to circle is whether or not Nvidia or other powerhouses in the United States should be able to export their technology into China to be able to ensure that they win the tech stack race to a certain extent. David Sachs has been outspoken about this. How are you seeing that very sensitive discussion percolate through the government and the administration?
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F
Well, that's a really important point because there's an underlying assumption on both sides of the aisle about or two camps really about whether or not China actually wants American tech in the long run.
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Yes.
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F
And you see some project, if you just look at chips, for example, they are on a mission to be self sufficient when it comes to semiconductor technology. There's some estimates now they'll be 80% self sufficient in domestic chips within two to three years and that's up from one third last year. And so they want Chinese chips, they want the Chinese tech stuff stack. And so really it's a question of how are we going to go on offense and get global market share with all of our friendly allies who share the same values and make China less of an issue when it comes to market share.
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A
So you more on the camp that, yes, restrained from selling into China, but just win everywhere else, ensure that we're supplying to Africa, Middle east and 100%. That makes sense. What's interesting more broadly about the China US Context is we do keep feeling as though there is is this ultimate race. Is there what? Can you remind the audience what's at stake if America, quote unquote, doesn't win it?
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F
Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting. We're talking right now on the sidelines of the UN General assembly, and it's been 80 years. And if you look at the past 80 years in the backbone of the free world, it's been institutions that the United States has built and led. Right. Whether it's it's the United States itself or the UN or the G7 or the OECD, all of these important institutions have helped in the 20th century. They're not as relevant heading into the 21st century. The new backbone of the free world is going to be technology. And it's going to be all the businesses we build off the back of the technology, all the values that that technology propagates. And so we have to re earn our leadership in the 21st century by inventing a new framework for freedom and prosperity. And the backbone of that is going to be technology. And so the really good news is, is America is good at this stuff. This is our superpower innovation and enterprise. And so if we lean into that, we can lead the 21st.
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A
Are we good at governance of it?
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F
Yes, I think we, I mean, look at what we did in the 20th, 20th century. But it's not going to be the status quo. We're going to have to think and operate in really different ways. That's what tech diplomacy is all about, right? It's about bringing tech companies in the private sector together with government officials to have a conversation around how do you unleash innovation and also make sure that it accelerates our values of freedom and prosperity and human rights and data privacy and things like that. That conversation needs to happen where it traditionally doesn't.
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A
And one you're probably having here, right here in New York, Michelle Guyda, making time for us. We so appreciate it. Purdue's Crux Institute for Tech Diplomacy now we're going to have an update now in the world of entertainment. Jimmy Kimmel Live. It's set to return to the airwaves tonight, ending a suspension imposed by Disney for following remarks made by the host about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile, nextstar alongside Sinclair Broadcast Group announced it will continue to preempt the airing of the late night program across its stations. According to sources. Kimmel is set to address the controversy.
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During his show Every business starts with an Idea how can you go from daydreamer to industry leader? Amazon Business accelerates your journey with smart business buying. Get everything you need to grow in one familiar place, from office supplies to IT essentials and maintenance tools. Amazon Business takes the buying experience you know and love from Amazon plus tools that help you save costs and make insights based decisions ready to bring your visions to life. Learn how@AmazonBusiness.com this is what the market.
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E
Used to sound like. Pretty complex. But today with iShares by BlackRock, investing is easier. With over 450 ETFs, iShares gives you easy access to countless market opportunities. IShares by BlackRock the market is yours. Visit www.ishares.com to view your perspectives, which includes investment objectives, risks, fees, expenses and other information you should read and consider carefully before investing. Risk includes principal laws prepared by BlackRock Investments LLC.
- [29:45]
A
Memberfine row at GSK our focus is on doing the right thing for patients. We believe they should be free to focus on doing what they love, especially when they're living with a disease like cancer. That's why we focus where we can make the biggest difference, matching the right treatment with the right patient. At GSK, we're pioneering advanced technologies like antibody drug conjugates that precisely target and attack cancer cells. By uniting science, technology and talent, we work tirelessly to stay ahead of cancer together. Visit gsk.com to discover more defence tech stu startup or Terry has raised $130 million in new funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The drone software maker says its platform has individual drones into coordinated combat forces and it's already deploying AI strike kits to Ukraine. Let's speak with Or Terry on CEO Lorenz Meyer and it's great to have you on. You're not building the hardware, you're all in on the software. Why is that the right strategy?
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G
Thank you for having me. Yes, it is a very unique strategy, surprisingly given that software is such a force in every other industry. But what we're building is a common operating system. You can think of it as the Windows or Android of drones along with the App Store for it. And right now the most urgent need for our technology is on the battlefield. In Ukraine. We're delivering tens of thousands of strike kits, which is software pre installed on a small computer to improve the combat effectiveness of Ukrainian forces, and we are already supplying US forces, NATO forces. So the learnings that we're making on the battlefield of on Ukraine are coming back quickly to all of our allies and partners.
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A
And talk about your partners, because many would say, okay, I can see here in the US perhaps the, the hardware competition of Andrea, along with its full vertical integration, but actually working with those sorts of companies too.
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G
So we are happy to work with everybody. So we're not, we're not discriminative on that. But our focus is the warfighter. We, our mission is to give warfighters the unified swarm of different drones, different sizes, different purposes, and to allow them to choose the right tool for the mission. And that's only possible if you run them all with one operating system which enables them to speak a single language. And a single language is necessary for them to move and swarm together and fight together. And in the future, what we're expecting more and more are robot wars where drones are fighting not just today tanks, but actually other drones. And so it is important, it is imperative that we achieve supremacy in that autonomy field to defend our freedoms.
- [32:53]
A
And so when you say we, you're selling to the Western world and allies at the moment. I understand you've just won a contract with Taiwan. You've also been winning contracts in Europe and the United States. Where is the largest amount of demand coming from, Lawrence, for you?
- [33:08]
G
I would say medium term, definitely from the Department of War. And we're super excited about the fact that we've been supplying back then DoD for the past eight years. But short term, definitely on the battlefield in Ukraine, because with the additional AI on board, these drones are a lot easier to operate and more precise. And so we're helping Ukrainian units to be a lot more effective in combat with the same amount of drones.
- [33:38]
A
This money, $130 million. What does that help you do then? Lorenz, Is it about being able to negotiate and navigate big government entities? Is it more about scaling and bringing in demand, making acquisitions?
- [33:54]
G
So we're already cash flow positive. So this is all about non organic growth in terms of growing our international footprint. We've entered the Nordics, we have entered the British market, we are in Asia. You've mentioned the partnership with Taiwan. And we're expanding our product line. So a year ago we did the operating system for individual drones with terminal guidance. Recently we announced as the first software company in aerospace swarming at a very large number of drones. And so we are expanding our product portfolio continuously. And because we are software centric, that is as simple As a, as a software update, as an app install and.
- [34:42]
A
Then the money, you've got Bessemer leading the series B. But where is the interest been coming from a venture capital perspective, you're based out in Europe. Europe, you were born in Switzerland. But has it been US investors not knocking on your door? Where do you think the pools of capital are for you?
- [34:58]
G
Well, we actually plan to fundraise later in the year. So Bessemer preempted the round which shows how excited they are about what we're building. The, the technology has a lot of, I would say European heritage. We have fantastic developers. But where we're pushing forward is the American market, which is the largest market.
- [35:21]
A
Lorenz Meyer, founder and CEO of Orion Keep coming back as you build out here in the United States to look. Now let's pivot and take a look at Firefly's first earning results as a public company. Of course this is a space company in many ways. Some would see it as defense falling short of expectations. The rocket maker's revenue missed Wall street expectations, coming off by 12% in the market after we digest those numbers. Interestingly similar thing happened to Figma, of course, after its first earnings as a public company. Now coming up, we will be taking a look at Kindbody, once one of the fastest growing fertility chains in the United States. And it's spiraling into crisis. It's the latest Bloomberg big tech podcast that's next. This is Bloomberg Tech. US fertility chain Kind Body. It was once booming. The venture backed company cultivated a modern millennial friendly esthetic that did help it attract more than $300 million in investments, including backing some celebrity investors like Gwyneth Paltrow, Chelsea Clinton. But Kind Body has been riddled with clinical problems, embryos being mislabeled, lost, accidentally destroyed and has spiraled into crisis as more people seek fertility treatment than ever. The startup story illustrates the dangers are moving, moving fast in a largely unregulated industry. Bloomberg's Jackie Devolos took a deep dive into this for Bloomberg's latest podcast, IVF Disrupted. It's such an important deep investigation you've done, one that just highlights turmoil and real pain points for individuals. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you first understood that this was a spiral occurring?
- [37:01]
H
Absolutely. Well of course I'm a venture capital and startups reporter and like with any story I look into, I was trying to identify whether these one off occurrences I was hearing about from employees and patients was a pattern of mistakes or if it really was just that a one off and two years of investigating, I was able to uncover multiple incidents across several Kind Body clinics. That really came down to the high turnover that led to understaffing as well as inconsistently applied protocols in the embryology lab. This is the place where embryos are made and have to be carefully handled. And because of how quickly the company was growing, a lot of those protocols were going by the wayside in some cases. Now, the company does dispute at least some of these incidents, but it did acknowledge that accidents did occur. But it also said that these issues are not unique to Kind Body, but illustrative of the broader industry as well.
- [37:59]
A
Okay, so that's a worry for people who are out there seeking fertility help, that the fact that this is an industry wide issue. Are there instances where femtech in particular has done good things, managed to keep the balance of growth versus security and safety, and where has it dropped by the wayside?
- [38:14]
H
Well, this is one of the areas in which I found Kind Body was unique. It was one of the only venture backed and private equity backed startups that was building brick and mortar clinics. This is a really difficult thing to do because like I said, the embryology lab has to be very carefully put together. It's very expensive to put together. And they were going out and putting these clinics in areas where there's a lot of foot traffic and that can potentially open it up to other issues like flooding or other things that come along with being next to a Barry's boot camp, for example. You do have other femtech providers in the fertility space like a maven, but they don't open open up brick and mortar clinics. And experts have told me that that's for a reason. So of course investors got very excited about the prospect of a new company disrupting the way fertility had been done. But of course, as I found, there were real human costs and consequences to that.
- [39:05]
A
This is an enormous industry. And what's the takeaway here ultimately? Is it that it shouldn't be venture backed or what things that can be learned from this? That means a company is able to scale, but at the pace that it needs to to have security for those that it's serving.
- [39:21]
H
I think this reporting can really be helpful for not just patients, but also investors looking at these companies. For families of people going through some of these procedures, you get to hear in this five part podcast from patients themselves who went through these, these treatments which are incredibly taxing on the human body. There's a lot of what they would describe, kind of dismissing of symptoms and doubts and you get to hear more about where some of those pressures inside the company were coming from. A worry about the bottom line. And so while there is no prospect for regulation for the industry, at least people who listen can come out better equipped with more information about what they should know when they're walking through an IVF clinic.
- [40:07]
A
Stories Listen to the podcast. Read your print stories on it. It has been a two year thorough investigation and phenomenal work from Jackie Devotos. We so thank her. Meanwhile, you can see, as I say, the IVF Disrupted series from the Big Take podcast. Get it on the terminal, online on Apple, Spotify and Iheart. You can get us there too. But that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech how can you free.
- [40:30]
B
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