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- [00:00]
Caroline Hyde
When your data goes dark, Veeam turns the lights back on. Partner with Veeam to increase your data resilience and get your data back so fast you won't even have time to miss it. With Veeam, it's all good. Keep your business running@veeam.com that's v e.
- [00:16]
Ryan Baselica
E a m.com your next product launch is coming fast. Don't let billing slow you down. Legacy systems can't handle usage based billing. That means your team is stuck gluing code together, piecing through spreadsheets and running ad hoc queries just to figure out what to. With Metronome, you can roll out new pricing in minutes instead of months, whether it's usage based, seat based or a hybrid model. Visit metronome.com to see how companies like OpenAI and Anthropic launch billing as fast as they launch products. That's metronome.com how can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business. From fast free shipping to in depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd. Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to amazonbusiness.com for support.
- [01:16]
Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
- [01:26]
Denise Chisholm
Bloomberg.
- [01:26]
Ryan Baselica
Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and.
- [01:32]
Caroline Hyde
Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
- [01:37]
Ed Ludlow
This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Qualcomm soars as it jumps into the data center market with new chips and computers aiming to challenge Nvidia.
- [01:46]
Caroline Hyde
Plus, a huge week ahead for tech earnings with Microsoft, Google Matter, Amazon and Apple all reporting you, prepare you for.
- [01:53]
Ed Ludlow
The fire hose and we sit down with Crusoe CEO Chase Locke Miller to talk about the company's latest $10 billion valuation.
- [02:01]
Caroline Hyde
From private markets to public markets, we check in what's happening on the Nasdaq today at a new record high for most of the benchmarks we have risk on as we anticipate that meeting between Trump and she. Will we get some sort of positive connotations out of the meetings between us and China. Certainly in the markets anticipating it but also looking under the hood. There are some key movers and I know you're looking at one of them.
- [02:22]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, let's get straight to Qualcomm. Right now the stock is up 15%. At one point in the session it was up 22% and on track for its biggest jump since April of 2019. It has come to the market with an NPU, a datacenter chip for AI and machine learning tasks. And it has a key customer. The stock's paring some of its gain right now, but this is a severe reaction and an important story.
- [02:47]
Caroline Hyde
Car it is. And treading on Nvidia's toes. On a key week for Nvidia with gtc. Let's get to more on Qualcomms and its plans. Bloomberg Chips reporter in King is with you in Washington. And give us the latest. What already are they signaling to the market with Qualcomm?
- [03:02]
Ryan Baselica
Yeah, I mean there's two things going on here. They're saying, look, we've got a chip, we've got it, We've taken our time, we've got it. Right here we are, we've got a follow up chip already. We're going to have one after that and guess what, we've got a customer. So, you know, late to the party, but they're making something of an entry. I think that's the way to look at this.
- [03:21]
Ed Ludlow
An NPU or neural processing unit is just a specifically designed chip for the task. Right. But in that arrangement with Humane, they're saying like 200 megawatt deal. It seems like, you know, this Qualcomm never gets any credit in the stock market when it comes out. But the read here seems to be this is real technology and it's going into a real data center. But I'm assuming they've been working on something like this for a while.
- [03:44]
Ryan Baselica
Yeah, I mean this is a derivative of mobile technology that they had for a while. And what they've done is they scaled it up into the PC world and now they're scaling up into the data center world. You remember they bought Nuvia a few years ago to improve their processing capabilities to essentially to go big. And this is, you know, the latest manifestation of it. And they're going after the biggest market available.
- [04:06]
Caroline Hyde
ARM's doing well because of course underlying technology over at Qualcomm in some way feeds money and royalties over to aam. But there is Humane being mentioned, there is Saudi Arabia. But what after that, Ian?
- [04:17]
Ryan Baselica
I mean what we were told in the conversations we had and we put in the story is that they are speaking with all of the large data center operators, all of the hyperscalers. So what I think people will be now looking for from Qualcomm will be obviously more customers, more large scale deployments, more commitments to show that this is not just an experiment but is real, real deployments and real, you know, with billions of Dollars as we're seeing floating around everywhere else behind that kind of story.
- [04:44]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg. Zane King, thank you very much. It is a pivotal week for technology and markets with five of the magnificent seven tech giants set to report earnings. And investors are looking for clues on whether this tech rally can continue here with more and what investors are expecting. Bloomberg equities reporter Ryan Baselica. You had the task of previewing a monster week. What have been writing about.
- [05:07]
Ryan Baselica
Hey, good morning. Thank you for having me.
- [05:08]
Ed Ludlow
So I would say that the major.
- [05:10]
Ryan Baselica
Takeaway this week or the major theme.
- [05:12]
Ed Ludlow
That investors are going to be focusing on is capital. Hapex people want more clarity on how.
- [05:16]
Ryan Baselica
Sustainable all this air spending is going to be.
- [05:19]
Ed Ludlow
Of course, this week we get results from Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Metta which are together four of the major Nvidia customers right there. So anything they have to say about their spending plans, anything they have to say about what kind of ROI they're seeing from AI, all that is going.
- [05:35]
Ryan Baselica
To be very closely monitored. And of course we have the top.
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Ed Ludlow
Three cloud companies and, and Microsoft and Amazon and Alphabet.
- [05:43]
Ryan Baselica
If we get to see more signs of some kind of an acceleration in growth there, I think that will be very warmly received.
- [05:49]
Caroline Hyde
Those hyperscalers, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, not a single sell rating on them. Ryan. And in fact we're getting upgrades going into these earnings. What are you making of the bullishness here?
- [06:01]
Ryan Baselica
It's very universally bullish.
- [06:03]
Ed Ludlow
This morning I wrote about Guggenheim, which.
- [06:05]
Ryan Baselica
Upgraded Microsoft, which I believe there leaves.
- [06:07]
Ed Ludlow
Them with 99% bull or buy ratings.
- [06:10]
Ryan Baselica
And then one person who is a hold.
- [06:12]
Ed Ludlow
So obviously a lot of optimism there.
- [06:14]
Ryan Baselica
I think if you talk to analysts, you know, people still feel valuations are at least reasonable, maybe a little bit elevated. But all of these companies continue to score very highly on quality characteristics in.
- [06:25]
Ed Ludlow
Terms of their cash flow, in terms.
- [06:27]
Ryan Baselica
Of their stability and durability. People are positive on the management teams. They're seen as very well exposed to these major long term growth markets. So there's still a lot of reason for optimism. But certainly it is sort of a startling to see that pretty much everyone.
- [06:40]
Ed Ludlow
Has the same kind of buy rating. And I'd also flag a story we published over the weekend about Nvidia, which.
- [06:45]
Ryan Baselica
Has one bearish analyst, Jay Goldberg at Seaport.
- [06:48]
Ed Ludlow
We profiled him. If you're interested in reading that, I'd highly recommend it.
- [06:52]
Caroline Hyde
We're always interested in reading it, Ron plus Delica, thank you very much indeed. Look, there has been all of this fear and anxiety of an AI bubble. Can earnings push back against Those fears. Joining us to break it all down and the current market signals what it can mean for investors. Denise Chisholm, director of quantitative market strategy at Fidelity Investments. Dennis, what we love about you is you bring the historical context, the research, the data, and push us forward. Are there any alarm bells ringing as we go into this important week?
- [07:19]
Denise Chisholm
Yeah, it's interesting when you look at the data. I mean, everybody highlighted the fact that numbers have been coming up into this earnings season and interestingly enough, technology has now reaccelerated from a sector perspective, back into the top quartile of its history. And as much as we want to be skeptical and say, well, doesn't that usually mean that we have to mean revert that earnings growth typically does prove durable when you study history, the more interesting data comes with the fact that they've actually become more expensive, obviously from that almost discount that we saw during the tariff tantrum. They're also back in the top quartile of their valuation range as well. So, meaning that you have a matched perspective of expensive valuations and really high earnings growth. The interesting part is for the last 20 years, if you had to decide between an environment of expensive valuations but high growth or lower growth but lower valuations, that would actually be. It would be a better situation to be in the high growth, high valuation, which has been much more predictive historically.
- [08:18]
Ed Ludlow
Denise, over the weekend I did a lot of reading and you know, the headline bubble comes up everywhere across the newspapers. But there is interesting kind of points of distinction between a stock bubble and a sector bubble. So in a stock bubble, the argument is while, you know, prices and valuations are being driven up without the fundamentals to support them. But that is different where you have an entire industry saying, we're going to keep investing in this technology, right. And in the future we see a return on that investment. Which side of the bubble debate do you sit on, the stock or the story?
- [08:53]
Denise Chisholm
Well, it's interesting when you look at it compared to what we went through in the tech wreck. I mean, when you look at high growth and high valuations, you say, well, that was exactly what we saw in the prior bubble. So isn't this the first early stages of that? Well, relative valuations were actually 70% higher in 2000 and you ended up with almost negative operating margins. Not only are we not negative in terms of operating margins for technology as a sector sector, but they're actually increasing overall, which is to say that sometimes things are expensive for a reason. And when you look at bubble indicators like capex, if you add up all the capex in the technology sector and you divide it by the sales basis or even free cash flow, you'll see that there's really nothing anomalous. Meaning that as much as some of the nominal numbers are eye popping, some of the free cash flow is also eye popping, as is the sales. So again, it's back to that. High growth is matched with high valuations. A lot of the time, what you almost see is high valuations are being positive predictors of future growth, which is usually more durable than I think investors expect.
- [10:00]
Ed Ludlow
Denise, for you right now, which primary or secondary data sets are you watching most closely for the tech sector?
- [10:07]
Denise Chisholm
So for the tech sector, I do think overall this, this shift between either economically sensitive sectors like technology, communication services, consumer discretionary, and the defensive sectors like consumer staples, health care, utilities, the fact that median earnings is finally starting to recover for the first time in the better part of three years is actually the best setup for those economically sensitive sectors like technology. Even despite the fact that technology has already worked, it usually continues to work as the durability of the earnings story actually broadens out. On top of that broadening out story might say, well, are there any tailwinds that actually are positively predictive, you know, even besides the Fed cuts that we're seeing and about to still see and the tax cuts that we are still seeing or that have seen and will bear fruit into 2026? Remember, of all of the sectors, when you look at lower oil prices, which were kind of a flat form of a tax cut, technology is the number one sector that outperforms after that style of a tax cut as it filters through in terms of cost to margins and potentially lower inflation that increases multiples. So I think that there are a lot of things that highlight the fact that there are more tailwinds for overall earnings growth, which is bullish for economically sensitive sectors like technology.
- [11:27]
Caroline Hyde
And how global does that data set and do those tailwinds tend to be right now?
- [11:32]
Denise Chisholm
Denise So I would say that from a global perspective, you are certainly seeing earnings growth across the globe. But right now you are seeing an interesting, what I would say is a change in trend from the last, let's call it four to six months where international was accelerating and the US was decelerating slightly. You are now seeing that shift, meaning that US earnings, specifically led by technology, is reaccelerating at the same point where Europe, EFA and emerging markets are decelerating. That sets up, in my mind a better risk reward for markets, despite the fact that US Stocks are, are much more expensive. It's interesting when you look at International versus the US and you say, well, these stocks have actually outperformed over the last 10 months, year to date certainly, and they're still cheap. That seems like a compelling proposition. But when you look over the last since 2010, so over the last 15 years you'll see that that's led to 0% odds of outperformance for international, which again highlights the fact that, look, valuation sometimes doesn't say what you think it means. Sometimes stocks are cheap for a reason and sometimes stocks are expensive for a reason. And a lot of times valuation almost correctly predicts whether or not earnings growth is going to be durable or not. So I do think that you are seeing the US be leadership from an earnings perspective.
- [12:50]
Caroline Hyde
Again, briefly, in a historical context, have you ever seen such underpinnings of importance from the private market? Because yes, we worry about bubbles in the public markets, but a lot of them all go back to a few players in the private market like open air.
- [13:06]
Denise Chisholm
Yeah. So I think that the places to look from a data perspective are always in the public credit markets to see what we are discounting in terms of the private credit markets. I don't have any specific insight, but when you see more stress being in high yield credit spreads than there is in the VIX or in equity valuation spreads, that's usually a negative setup. We're not seeing that so far. Credit spreads are well contained and there's still more fear in the equity market. So whenever you see headlines like that, you always have to step back as an investor and say this. This could be a situation where yet again the market can climb the wall of worry.
- [13:41]
Ed Ludlow
Denise Chisholm of Fidelity, it's great to have you back on Bloomberg Tech. Thank you very much. Let's get to shares of AMD and some breaking news crossing the Bloomberg. The U.S. department of Energy is said to have formed a $1 billion AI pact or partnership with AMD. That's according to a report from Reuters. AMD said to be constructing two supercomputers for the department as part of that pack. The stock was in negative territory. It swung to a gain of about 2%. It's paired that now up 910 of 1%. But we'll try and confirm that story and bring you some more car.
- [14:12]
Caroline Hyde
And coming up, more Crusoe CEO Chase Lockmiller is joining us to talk about the company's latest fundraise, a $10 billion valuation. We'll talk compute. This is Bloomberg Tech. When your data goes dark. Veeam turns the lights back on. Partner with Veeam to increase your data resilience and get the right data recovery options for any kind of disruption so you can undo the unpredictable and get your data back so fast you won't even have time to miss it. With Veeam, it's all good. Keep your business running@veeam.com that's v e.
- [14:50]
Ryan Baselica
E a m.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is, you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that. That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there plus an industry leading 3.8% APY high yield cash account. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.com and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto trading provided by Backed Crypto Solutions LLC. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures how can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business. From fast free shipping to in depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd. Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to amazonbusiness.com for support.
- [16:20]
Ed Ludlow
A datacenter startup, Crusoe's raised a new $1.37 billion funding round to put the company's valuation over $10 billion. Crusoe's partnered in developing the first installation of Open Air and Oracle Stargate project in Abilene, Texas. Let's bring in Crusoe CEO Chase Lockmother, who's in town for Nvidia's GTC dc. See and you're going to be speaking the investors in this round are important. It kind of signals maybe where some of your next activity will be. But I think in the context of the valuation like I understand Crusoe to be a critical piece of the build out here, it seems almost a bit modest that valuation.
- [17:00]
Ryan Baselica
Yeah I you Know, we feel like it's a great valuation for investors to get in and we feel like we have a lot of room to grow from, from, from here. Just a lot of momentum kind of happening across the space and you know, we're well captured, we're well positioned to capture a meaningful amount of it. So, you know, we're thrilled to bring on.
- [17:18]
Ed Ludlow
You're very busy in America, right, But what is your ambition for the Gulf and the Middle east and what projects you might want to build out over there?
- [17:27]
Ryan Baselica
You know, we're looking at a number of different things in the, in the gcc. You know, obviously having mobile as a capital partner gives us a very strong partnership in, in the uae. We are also sort of, you know, evaluating some of the things that are going on with the uae, Stargate and some of the ambitions in Saudi. But you know, we haven't announced anything quite yet.
- [17:51]
Caroline Hyde
Chase, I want to give context to our viewers who know you for what you're doing with Stargate. You're also actioning in Europe too, maybe Middle East. But coming down to it, you're a cloud provider, data center provider, manufacturing. You've got an edge when it comes to energy. That was kind of the winning formula when you first ever founded more to service Bitcoin mining. And I'm interested as to what sets you apart from a core weave and other Neo clouds out there.
- [18:16]
Ryan Baselica
I think there's a number of things. I mean we, we've, we've, we've taken this vertically integrated energy first approach kind of from the start and the founding of the business, you know, we, you know, I think a lot of the value that was unlocked from, you know, this first Stargate campus in Abilene was the fact that we had access to 1.2 gigawatts of power that could energize this very large cluster of Nvidia GPUs. Building it very, very fast required us to have creative designs and flexibility with a lot of modular components that went into constructing this phase. Very large campus with, you know, a lot of those modular components being manufactured off site. And you know, I think we've built a very high performance software stack to enable these AI factories to work very effectively and at scale, integrating a lot of great managed services like our managed file systems and managed kubernetes that enable innovators to do their life's work on incredibly reliable and high performance infrastructure.
- [19:19]
Caroline Hyde
Those innovators, we know Open Air is one of them, but you're busy building elsewhere in Wyoming, not just in Texas, who Are you building for that? Can you tell us a little bit about where the appetite is coming from?
- [19:32]
Ryan Baselica
We can't speak about who we're working with directly in, in Wyoming quite yet, but we have a, we have a, we have a great partner there, and we'll be thrilled to come back and tell you all about it when we're ready to announce it publicly. But it is a exciting campus, just from both energy perspective and the scale it presents. What we've announced initially is 1.8 gigawatts, but there is a plan to take it to 10 gigawatts. So it will be a very, very large campus for, you know, AI computing infrastructure, and we're thrilled to have a wonderful partner there.
- [20:07]
Ed Ludlow
Last week, the Trump administration made some announcements about how they want to speed up the electrical hookups for data centers. That's, like, at the core of the President's strategy. Cut red tape, deregulate. Just your reaction to what the administration's doing about speed matching supply of power to infrastructure?
- [20:27]
Ryan Baselica
Yeah, you know, we're, you know, I think we're, we're, we're excited to have the support of the administration for some of the critical blockers to moving faster. You know, one of our core values as a business is to make, move fast and make things. So speed is really at the essence of, and at the core of a lot of what we do. One of the more frustrating things to be slowed down by is, you know, waiting for a permit to be approved, waiting for, you know, some sort of application that's, that's in the hands of a government agency. And, you know, seeing the urgency from this administration, that saying, like, hey, we need to support the public private sector to go out and build this infrastructure so that America can lead in artificial intelligence is just a great, you know, great indicator of what's to come. And, you know, we're, we're really excited to have that public private partnership. We think it's a very healthy dynamic that's at play right now. And, you know, we very big supporters of Secretary Wright and, you know, what he's doing to, you know, help make this happen faster.
- [21:31]
Caroline Hyde
The key part of the infrastructure that you're building is the chips that go in the data centers you're building. Strong within video we've just had at the lead of our show that Qualcomm is trying to get in on AI Accelerator Marketplace. What do you think about an offering from a Qualcomm? What's your read on other competitors coming forward?
- [21:51]
Ryan Baselica
Well, I mean, I think everybody's sort of taking a slightly different angle on this and, you know, big support borders of there being more competition in the marketplace. I think that's very healthy when you have a market as big as AI and AI computing infrastructure. In the case of Qualcomm, I think their flavor that, you know, I think fits them a little bit better is more, you know, AI inference closer to the edge, you know, closer to, you know, these, these on device or near the endpoints where users will be interacting with infrastructure. So, you know, I, you know, I think that fits very well with kind of the Qualcomm dynamic and, you know, their strengths and what they can bring to the market. As AI gets embedded in all aspects of, you know, the economy and everything that, you know, people are doing on a day to day basis, we're a big believer that we will need infrastructure everywhere to help support intelligence everywhere.
- [22:50]
Caroline Hyde
Chase Long Manor it's so great to have some time with you as you're in town in D.C. for GTC. Nvidia's big event. Co founder CEO of Crusoe. Thank you for joining. Now, coming up, Apple's future iPad Pros, well, they're going to borrow some key features from the latest iPhones we'll describe next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Apple, well, it may be porting over one of the iPhone Pro's latest innovations to the iPad pro the company is said to be eyeing. Putting a vapor chamber into future iterations of the tablets is the subject of this week's Power on newsletter from Bloomberg's managing editor for consumer tech, Mark Gurman. And talk us through, Mark, why this is such a big thing for the iPad and what innovation is really at stake here.
- [23:36]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, let's just take a step back and talk about what is a vapor chamber. It's a liquid cooling system. So there is actually special scientifically developed liquid inside of the iPhone 17 Pro today. And the reason they did that is that they noticed their chips can run so powerfully, like they're in a laptop.
- [23:55]
Ryan Baselica
Where it can get the device pretty hot.
- [23:57]
Ed Ludlow
And in something as thin and light as an iPhone, you can't put a fan in there to cool it down.
- [24:02]
Ryan Baselica
Like you would in a MacBook Pro or a desktop or what have you.
- [24:05]
Ed Ludlow
So this offsets that. But the iPad Pro is even thinner than the iPhone.
- [24:10]
Ryan Baselica
And even though the thermal constraints aren't.
- [24:12]
Ed Ludlow
As constrained because you have that larger surface area, the chips are getting more performant. They just put the M5 processor from the MacBook Pro and the new Vision Pro and the iPad Pro. But you can see as they continue to add more performance to the iPad.
- [24:25]
Ryan Baselica
Pro and those designs continue to get thinner and lighter, something's going to give, especially when you can't put in a fan.
- [24:31]
Ed Ludlow
So the solution is bringing that vapor chamber from the latest pro iPhones to the next generation Pro iPads in 2027. Mark, real quick, take us inside Apple and how Apple works. Why is it they try the tech first on iPhone and then later roll it to a future generation iPad? It really all depends. You know, there have been so many features. They put in the iPad first before they put in the iPhone or put in the Mac before they brought to another product. So there's really no consistency there. I think it comes down to the.
- [25:01]
Ryan Baselica
To the performance needs for that particular.
- [25:03]
Ed Ludlow
Product and the importance, much more important to get the vapor chamber in the iPhone Sooner. Remember the iPhone 15 Pro came out a few years ago super hot. They needed to do something to address.
- [25:15]
Ryan Baselica
That and that was their solution. The iPad pros today, they don't really.
- [25:19]
Ed Ludlow
Overheat, but there's going to be a time where the performance gets so high.
- [25:22]
Ryan Baselica
That if they didn't have the vapor.
- [25:24]
Ed Ludlow
Chamber, maybe you would have that overheating issue. So it's all dependent. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and the latest power on from Sunday. It's an absolute must read. Thank you very much. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Look, this is what's going on and it's largely semiconductor related starting with Nvidia. Right. We are here in Washington D.C. because they are doing their GTC DC edition conference this week. There will be news. There always is when it comes to Jensen Huang and his company. The dynamic though is that the President of the United States is on a tour of Asia and we don't yet know where semiconductors and Nvidia fit within that dynamic in terms of news flow. Qualcomm's up 12% at one point in the session it was up 22% and on track for its biggest jump since April of last year. Sorry, April of 2019. The story, they have an NPU, an accelerator card, it will ship next year. And it goes to Humane in Saudi Arabia. First severe reaction to them entering the datacenter market. Also go back to a story that we covered earlier in the program. Reuters is reporting the AMD has a pact with the Department of Energy to build two supercomputers. And that is a report from Reuters that's at the, in that moment sent the stock up 2%. It's kind of given up some of that game up 0.5%. But we started the day, as you can see on the left, that a chart in negative territory. Goodness, that's a lot, Carrie.
- [26:50]
Caroline Hyde
What a semiconductor roundup. But let's head over to Asia. You just mentioned it, Ed, because President Trump is in Batuu backed summits ahead of the highly anticipated meeting with President Xi Jinping later this week. Chinese and US Trade negotiators have actually lined up a few easy diplomatic wins ahead of that meeting, but they've left deeper conflicts unresolved. For one, Treasury Secretary Bessant said that he believed China would delay its latest rare earth restrictions after the latest talks, but friction over the export controls does remain. So we go out to Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall, who joins us very late from Tokyo. Tyler, talk us through where we stand in terms of wins for a tech perspective here.
- [27:32]
Denise Chisholm
Yeah. Hey, Caroline. Well, as you were mentioning, the US Is one of their chief wins that they wanted to see this week was China delaying the implementation of its recently announced export curbs related to critical and rare earth minerals. But the US treasury secretary maintains that the US Is not going to loosen its export controls related to advanced semiconductors. And that could potentially mark a setback for Nvidia's bid to rejoin the Chinese market. Now, I'm looking forward to your coverage this week of Jensen Huang being in Washington, D.C. and once he wraps up his time in the nation's capital, he's actually headed over here to Asia, where he's going to attend the APEC CEO summit in South Korea. That's going to be President Trump's next stop after he wraps up the his time here in Tokyo, because that is where he's going to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. So we're going to be watching this very closely as it unfolds for the rest of the week. Now, even as the US Maintains it's not going to loosen its current restrictions in place, our analysts at Bloomberg Economics say that they expect the US to take off the table the threatened but not yet imposed restrictions, including those related to critical software and cloud computing. There's a lot to look out for here, but really the top line so far has been that there is this simmering intentions that is appearing to allow for a broader conversation about a broader trade deal down the line. But at this moment, we are really just looking at these key diplomatic wins, these top line wins instead of a fuller, more comprehensive pack.
- [28:57]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall, who's traveling with the president currently in Tokyo, thank you very much. So Nvidia chips have been at the center of this trade impasse between between the US And China, the company losing billions of dollars in revenue with its AI chips out of the Chinese market. The same week President Trump plans to meet Xi Jinping, Nvidia is holding one of its biggest conferences at a massive convention hall just a few blocks from the White House. And it's a pretty clear sign of the growing stakes in Washington for the world's most valuable company. Bloomberg senior tech editor Mike Shepard joins us to discuss. The calculus from, like Jensen Huang's point of view is very simple. Where once they had 80% of a critical market, they now basically have zero. And it's something he wants to reverse through the president and this administration.
- [29:40]
Ryan Baselica
He has been making great efforts to do that, as we have seen all year. And it's not just in the many appearances that he has had with Donald Trump. Remember, he was present, of course, for the unveiling of the action plan. He was also with the president on his trip to the Middle east earlier in the year, and he joined Donald Trump and on the visit to the UK In August, where they unveiled more chip deals. But there is more to it than that. The company is also investing in its lobbying operation here in Washington. It's not just this come and go big event at the convention center just a few blocks from here. They are also hiring more lobbyists and spending more to try to make sure that their influence operation is here to stay.
- [30:23]
Caroline Hyde
And that influence, Mike, more broadly, is there an inbuilt confidence that they will have the access that's necessary for China? Because there's been this ongoing narrative in the Republican Party itself torn a little bit about the hawkishness that they should have for China and the access to deep technology that should be allowed or not in the case.
- [30:44]
Ryan Baselica
Well, Carol, you hit the nail on the head right there with the tension here in Washington over whether and how much to allow in this video to return to the China market. And really, it centers on national security concerns many in both parties here in Washington. Lawmakers and policymakers from the prior administration and even some in the current administration have some misgivings about allowing China to have access to the sophisticated artificial intelligence chips that Nvidia produces. One of the big concerns is that granting that technology to Beijing opens the door somehow to the Communist Party. They're somehow employing it for military and intelligence gathering purposes. And that would be across purposes, of course, with what the national security apparatus here in Washington wants to see. China is still seen as the top geopolitical rival with the US and they don't want to hand any sensitive technology in that direction, citing those national security concerned. So we will see how that comes up in the conversations here during the Nvidia conference. We'll be looking to see what Jensen Huang says not only during his keynote, but also in other aside moments with the media and other folks, if this comes up in any way. And we'll also be interested in seeing how lawmakers who are in attendance tomorrow may actually be reacting to that. To his sales pitch of a return.
- [32:06]
Ed Ludlow
To China, Bloomberg's Mike shepherd, thank you very much. Very much. So a meeting between US and Chinese reps are drawing close attention from the defense technology sector and its investors. Many see new opportunities emerging under the Trump administration, particularly in areas like space defense, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing sectors increasingly viewed as arenas of competition between Washington and Beijing. Joining us now is Mina Foltest. He's the founder and chief investment officer of Washington Harper Partners. Welcome to Bloomberg Tech. I mean, that is the dynamic. There is tension economically and otherwise between the United States and China. But if you're a venture capitalist or private growth equity player, you see an opportunity.
- [32:48]
Ryan Baselica
Thank you so much both for having me here today at Washington Harbor Partners, we're running our daily ground game. We're meeting with the Department of War, we're meeting with the national security community, with the White House, with Congress, to listen and to engage and to understand what are the greatest mission needs, what are the market gaps, and where can we find the best founders with the best leadership, with the best technologies and capabilities to meet those needs and to fill those market gaps?
- [33:15]
Ed Ludlow
You just mentioned the Department of War. Last week I was in Los Angeles with many space technology leaders and they very much say that space is the next war fighting domain. Their point, which I wrote about for the Tech in Depth newsletter, is that Space Force as a government agency is a real player here. Do you agree with that argument? And do you see yourself doing business with Space Force?
- [33:38]
Ryan Baselica
That's a great question. And space is a critical war fighting domain that we're very interested in. We're very bullish on the Space Force. We're very excited about their leadership, their talent, their focus, the resources they're dedicating to this, this very critical war fighting domain. We're making active investments in the space domain. So for example, we recently invested in a company called Turion Space, which is a space domain awareness company. They identify potential threats in space, they analyze them, and they potentially help to react to those emerging threats and emerging technologies. We also have investments in Companies like Stokespace, Apex Space and Quindar to meet these mission gaps and need needs in space and we're on the lookout to be much more active in the space domain.
- [34:25]
Caroline Hyde
Stokes Base just had some interesting news in and of itself about its own fundraise. I'm interested Mina. More broadly then, what is your ask when you're thinking about later this week, the meeting between Xi and Trump? How worried are you about rare earth metals? How worried are you about access at the moment when so much of this is integral to some of the startups that you back?
- [34:47]
Ryan Baselica
Thank you Caroline. So the whole world is watching, everyone's following the headlines and at Washington harbor we just have our heads down and we're running, running our daily ground game. Rare Earths. The US supply chain we think is a very high priority where investors in a company called Vulcan Elements, which we think can help create that domestic supply chain and ensure that we have access to the most important materials for both robotics and drones and other very important mission needs. Production at scale we think is an increasingly important pain point where investors in companies like Anduril Industries, which brings hardware and sensors and munitions to the mission edge. Beyond just things, we think data is incredibly valuable and part and valuable and powerful. We think bringing data to the edge and empowering the warfighter and the operator with AI and AI enabled capabilities is also of incredible importance. So we're invested in a company called Raft which brings that decision making capability using AI to the mission edge and finally power and energy, resilient, mobile, safe power and energy anywhere in the world for the war fighter we also think is incredibly important and very critical to the supply chain.
- [36:05]
Caroline Hyde
Just remind us of like your thesis. At this moment we've Suddenly felt like 2025 has been the year that we are all talking about defense tech. But the LPs that are in Washington harbor partners, the likes of the corporate pension funds, the endowments, the foundations, have they always been there backing this thesis? How much we suddenly heard of this, this wall of demand coming from those who want to access this VC focus that you have.
- [36:30]
Ryan Baselica
We are very fortunate to have very focused LPs who have been very passionate about bringing the best technologies to not only the warfighter and but also the civil servant. They see it as having been unfair that those who are making the greatest sacrifice and taking the most courage haven't had the best technologies and have critically been eight to 10 years behind the Fortune 500. Today they're all universally excited that you know, in an area where we haven't had the US Military modernize in nearly a generation. All the stars are aligning now to change things now more than ever. Congress has appropriated real dollars to acquiring capability and next generation technologies. Both sides of the aisle are in agreement today that things have to change, that there needs to be acquisition reform, and that they're trying to enable the Pentagon to acquire modern technologies and capabilities very quickly.
- [37:32]
Ed Ludlow
The timeline that all of the apparatus, fence apparatus, nation runs to is conflict of some form. 2027 US and China. Do you model for that same timeline?
- [37:42]
Ryan Baselica
You know we model for asap. We model for the urgent needs and not not knowing what when there could be conflict. And so the critical thing here is that both military leaders, civilian leaders, entrepreneurs, investors are scaling up and they're all acting with a sense of urgency to make sure that the war fighter has what they need in the next two weeks and doesn't have to wait two years to get what they deserve and need to fight this this battle.
- [38:11]
Caroline Hyde
Mina Faltas of Washington Harbor Partners it's great to have some time with you today. Come back soon. Meanwhile, coming up on as Big Tech get set to report results, a bubble fears they're lingering. We're going to discuss that next. Is it real? This is Bloomberg Tech.
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Caroline Hyde
Could the AI boom be headed for a bust? Bloomberg Intelligence's Brian Doherty says not yet. Calling AI quote the backbone of a modernized industrial economy not its next speculative tale, please say Brian joins us now, working with Jessica Lynn as well. Just give us the fundamental underpinnings that gives you confidence that this isn't some tech wreck rewritten.
- [41:40]
Denise Chisholm
So I think what's really interesting is we actually look at the equities landscape a little bit different than everybody else. So everything we do is through a thematic lens or a thesis driven. So we actually carve up the equities landscape into AI, decentralized energy, grid tech, space Ed, you guys were talking about this few minutes ago. Space quantum computing. So when we think about tech or we think about energy, we're actually looking much more discreet. And right now what we're looking at right now is that we've seen an incredible rise in correlations between AI and decentralized energy transition metals, metals which again rare earths and other metals critical to the transition. So those correlations have been rising over the last year. What's also very interesting though is we're seeing that those names or those themes have much higher beta to AI than they used to. And more specifically it means they're getting hit a little bit harder on the downdraft, right? So when you get AI pullback, you're seeing those decentralized energy grid, tech transition, metal names actually feel some pain on that. But when we look at how these sectors secular trends are actually progressing, there is just such huge underlying opportunity in the bottlenecks, in the retrofits, in the fact that, let's be honest, the power grid itself was already aging. There's a lot of investment opportunities there.
- [42:51]
Ed Ludlow
If you are a Bloomberg terminal client and you're listening to the show, first of all, look up at the screen and really focus here on what Brianne's about to say and then check out her research on the terminal. Seriously, you're doing a comparison with 2021. Why? Why look at 2021 and then you're saying this is what we think will happen in 2026. Answer those two, please.
- [43:13]
Denise Chisholm
So we're looking to 2021 because that's the most recent correction, if you will, that we saw. And a lot of people refer back to 2021 where we see a lot of that, particularly US technology, really dive down into 2022. So that's a really good reference point for us, something that we are flagging. Though it's pretty hard to make contact comps. Right? When you go back to the dot com era, we're not in the dot com era. We're looking at when we look at the 18 biggest, most powerful names in our theme universe, for instance, we're talking about 24 trillion of market cap in the dot com area. That was more like a $7 trillion type number in today's dollars. So what we're looking at is 2021 is the most recent comp where we saw a massive market correction, naturally. And when we look to 2026 though we, we don't expect that to happen. We've got rate cuts come when we've talked about that a lot in the last few weeks as well. So rate cuts are coming, they're not on the rise, which was also a big part of that time period. And then more importantly though, we are very much flagging some tension. So while we do think that we're very much in a boom, this isn't a bust. It's not to say that it's not going to be without tension. And the biggest tension we're watching for is the fact that we've now seen tech investors, tech dollars, flock towards inflation. Industrial materials, energy names, well guess what, those tend to be longer build cycles. So the tension on quarter to quarter earnings, tech investors maybe aren't used to the patience that are sometimes required in there and so we do expect some volatility because of that.
- [44:33]
Ed Ludlow
Brian Doherty of Bloomberg Intelligence we just showed it but it's must read research on the Bloomberg Terminal with Jessica Lynn. Thank you very much. Now coming up we're going to discuss how Warner Brothers Discovery is looking for help blocking the Ellison's. That's a dynamic. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [45:04]
Caroline Hyde
It is time now for talking tech. And first up ahead of a meeting between President Trump and the South Korean President Lee Jae Young, the South Korean leader is saying that the country's remains stuck on all the major details of $350 billion investment pledge. Take a listen to.
- [45:20]
Ed Ludlow
The method of.
- [45:21]
Ryan Baselica
Investment, the amount of investment, the timeline and how we will share the losses and divide the dividends. All of these remain sticking points. The US will of course try to maximize its interests but it must not be to the extent that causes catastrophic consequences. Finances for South Korea, Trump and Lee.
- [45:40]
Caroline Hyde
Well they are set to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit. Plus Nelson Peltz's Try and Fund management is teaming up with tech VC General Catalyst to buy the rest of Janus Henderson. The two firms plan to use AI to drive the asset manager's next phase of growth. To try and help bring the CEO Ali Debaj and Janice Henderson posted five straight quarters of positive in inflows and GameStop shares. They jumped pretty seismically in the pre market. Now a little bit off that but they're trading after a White House X account reposted the company's statement declaring the console wars over. GameStop was reacting to Microsoft's plan to release a Halo Combat Evolved remake for rival PlayStation 5 in 2026. More on Entertainment now as Warner Brothers Discovery announced a strategic review, media giants they have been encircling the company for a potential takeover, the most aggressive of which has been Paramount Skydance led by David Ellison offering merger prospects no less than three times already. Bloomberg's media and entertainment managing editor Luca Shaw, you've been writing about it over the course of the weekend. And why has David Sussler been pushing back on Paramount Skydance?
- [46:49]
Ryan Baselica
Well, several reasons. The first of which is they think they can get more money. I think there are concerns about David Ellison and Paramount guidance as a buyer that we can get to. But David Ellison has has increased his offer three times in a row. All of the chatter around potential deals has led to a huge spike in the Warner Brothers Discovery share price. And so you know they're trying to start something of a bidding war because while there are other parties who may be interested in parts of the business. So far, David Ellison is the only one who's come out and said I want the whole thing. Thing.
- [47:19]
Caroline Hyde
He wants the whole thing. How are employees reacting? How is just the company surviving with what is a big question mark?
- [47:26]
Ryan Baselica
Well, look, employees at Warner Brothers Discovery are unfortunately used to this type of uncertainty around deals. You know, Warner Brothers and HBO and there have been various names of the kind of the corporate entity, Time Warner, WarnerMedia. But Time Warner got sold at and T many years ago. Then it got merged with Discovery. So it I think a lot of them feel like they've been in one never ending integration meeting with lots of layoffs and you know, David Zaslav's a divisive figure internally at the company. So some people are very excited about the prospect, some people are dreading it.
- [47:57]
Caroline Hyde
Talking of excitement and where excitement is at the moment in the world of entertainment. Talk me through bts. Talk me through the sheer scale of desire to get into these pop bands from Korea.
- [48:07]
Ryan Baselica
Yeah, so BTS is I'd say the ban most for the responsible for popularizing K pop around the world. Certainly outside of South Korea. The best selling artists in the world for a couple of years. I think in 2020 and 2021 they've been on hiatus essentially because the various members of the military are. Excuse me, various members of the group have been serving in the military. They are coming back with a new album in March and then going to go on their biggest tour ever. According to my sources, about 65 dates including more than 30 in North North America. And there was a huge fight between the two biggest concert promoters in the world to get to be the company to promote it.
- [48:42]
Caroline Hyde
Meanwhile all the fights at home for costumes for K pop demon hunters. So clearly it's a theme. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, thank you very much indeed. It's a great read. Go get to it and his newsletters from all of his team. Meanwhile, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Quick check on Qualcomm in particular. That was the breaking news at the top of the hour. The fact that Qualcomm. Com has indeed decided it's going to be unveiling a competitor to Nvidia wants a bit more of the AI slice of the pie and boy of shares we've off the back of it are up more than 12% coming off of what was a 20% move at 1 point. But we are risk on across the tech world as we prepare ourselves for a meeting between us and China. Don't forget to check out our podcast, you can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and Iheart. We've got a thick and fast earnings week. Stick with us for it. This is Bloomberg.
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Denise Chisholm
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Ryan Baselica
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