Bloomberg TechnologySAP and Carahsoft Get Probed, OpenAI Pitches the White House
Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow break down the US' investigation of SAP and IT solutions provider Carahsoft for potential price fixing. Plus, OpenAI makes a pitch to the White House while France gets ready for its own AI summit, and Wiz mulls a share sale.
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This is Bloomberg Technology coming up. SAP and IT solutions provider Carasoft get probed by the US for potential price fixing.
Open Ai makes a pitch to the White House. This is France gets ready for its own AI summit.
In cybersecurity, startup Whiz is mulling selling shares and a twenty billion dollar valuation.
First, let's get to our top story.
German software giant SAP, product reseller Carasoft and other companies and being probed by the US officials potentially conspiring to overcharge government agencies over the course of a decade SAP shares as you can see currently training lower on the report bloomgs. Jake Bleiberg joins us on the story you broke it? What exactly is being investigated here?
Jake, thank you for having me.
The investigation is into what is a potential scheme to, over the course of ten years, overcharge the US government and primarily the Department of Defense for purchases of SAP technology through a variety of resellers, including Kerosoft, that total up to two billion dollars.
Jake, what a karasof spokesperson told you is important in this story. In the context of a raid that took place at Karasoft. They gave you details, but did not go as far as to confirm that it related to a relationship with SAP. Please explain the reporting absolutely, and that is a very important detail.
Yesterday, FBI and Department of Defense investigators searched Carosoft's offices in Virginia. However, we don't know whether or not that search is related to this separate civil investigation of Carosoft and SAP over the potential price fixing.
Okay, let's dwell a little bit and also some other comments that have been coming. SAP says it's been cooperating with the DOJ in terms of the civil investigation since the beginning. We understand Eccentia is also involved in this in some way. A spokesmerson for that company, a subsidiary of Accentia, that's Accentia Federal Services, is responding to an administration subpoena as cooperating with the DOJ, and the Justice Department didn't respond to requests for comment. What's interesting is, of course the money you say, and the amounts that are involved here. Ultimately, how will this investigation continue and what could be the fine on the back of it.
Well, so it's a great question. We don't ultimately know whether there will be a fine. But what we do know is that federal investigators are continuing their work trying to understand what happened here, and that they're framing this as a potential wrongdoing related to a very large series of purchases, hundreds of contracts totaling as much as two billion dollars over you know, since twenty fourteen. And again I should really emphasize we don't know that anyone will ultimately be accused of any wrongdoing, but this is being investigated under the False Claims Act, and that allows the government to seek or to recover as much as three times it's damages plus a penalty. So we're that to you know, we're litigation to sort of commence there. The government could be looking at a lot of money.
Blomberg's take by Bay, thank you now a key interview with Bloomberg Alphabet CEO sunderpitch Ey says the company's legal battles of antitrust could drag on for many years. He was commenting on the federal anti trust trial, which the Justice Department is alleging Google manipulates the roughly six hundred and seventy five billion dollar display advertising market. Pitch I sat down with David Rubinstein for an upcoming episode of Peer to Peer. Listen to this.
That case is just getting underway, So I expected to take take some time. And you know, but look where we can figure out, you know, constructive solutions. I think we will where we think it really harms our ability to in it on behalf of our users or you know, we are going to be vigorous in defending ourselves and it's going to take time for it.
To play out. And just today Google is in turn ramping up a legal fight with Microsoft over the lucrative cloud market, accusing the US software giant of abusing its market dominant. In a formal complaint to the EU's antitrust watchdog, Google alleges that Microsoft's licensing terms for Azure cloud services restricts customers accessing rival platforms including Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
Caro Let's talk open AI.
It's pitched at the Biden administration on the need for massive data centers that could each use.
As much power as entire cities.
Framing the expansion is necessary to develop more advanced AI models and compete with China.
In MEGS, Seth Feynman joins us.
Now, Seth, the context of how massive, we're talking with each dentist data center as many as three nuclear plants.
As many as five nuclear clients. Now, how do you power that? Where does that power come from? Is it nuclear or other clean andergy resources? Nobody can really say it, but it speaks to the tremendous scope of ambition here that Sam Moltman and have. We've reported for a lot of this year that he's been trying to build up a coalition to support infrastructure development in the US and globally. This is really the clearest, the most explicit indication we have of what he's thinking in the US and abroad.
It's based on a document the Bloomberg reviewed, right, But I do think back to February when we reported and I think you edited the story about this idea that Sam Outman also went to the US government and said, well, I kind of want some green light to take money from other investors because we know seth this is going to be really capital intensive. What do we know about that side of the story.
Yes, I think there's two different things happening here. At One is if they go overseas or they work with overseas and Middle Eastern investors, that brings a whole set of complications. But the document that we've seen suggests that in the US they're thinking about probably issues around permitting and streamlining and construction and approval, getting these data centers on the grid, and ultimately trying to get all the stakeholders from grid operators to data center operators to agree on how to build this stuff. And I think what they want to see from the US, in no uncertain terms as more favorable policies. And I will say that some of that seems clear in what the White House has said after a meeting earlier this month with Sam Altman, the CEO, and Vilia and other AI executives. They are putting together task forces and engagement teams and others to help begin thinking about that streamlining process. But will they move as fast as Silicon Valley likes to move. That's very much a question.
Silicon Valley is already moving the Microsoft deal that was done with Constellation, but that.
Is but one nuclear plant that can be refired back up.
How many years is this subultimately going.
To tell you?
I think that's the question everyone has. Even that facility that you're describing could take years to come up online. You know, Altman himself is investing in nuclear fission and other breakthrough technologies that may never actually come to fruition, But it feels like if you can't get it through that, how else are you going to get this much power?
Some Altman's talks about how every other day he meets with a government official. This is the most important AI company in the world. Probably, so we actually have a sense of the people in the White House or in federal agencies that are responsible for interacting with him.
Yeah, I think frun and Center for Altman is probably Gina Raymondo. I think Doug is his key point person that we've heard and seeing him reporting here. But I think he's probably dealing with people across government, and I'm sure that he's thinking about what would meaning if there is a change an administration going forward to continue to kind of really smooth over the path towards these kind of investments.
So Bloomberg Cephoeman, who leads our AI coverage, thank you very much. Now coming up, China is complicating the electric vehicle outlook for Wall Street, with Morgan Stanley changing its tune on the auto sector at large and some analysts anticipating a stellar quarter for Tesla. And later today I'll be heading to Meta Connect where the company is likely to show off some new VR and mixed reality technology. I'm going to sit down with metas CTO Andrew Bosworth or bozz for an exclusive interview. With Metas shares currently trading very near to a fresh record high, there's a lot more to come. This is Bloomberg Technology, All streets changing its tune on US electric car makers. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas cutting his overall auto outlook amid competition in China and concerns around the US consumer. He cut Rivian to equal weight today and also downgraded GM and Ford. On the other side, there's Tesla. At least four analysts have boosted their estimates for Testa's third quarter delivery numbers which are due next week, all points to signs that sales are starting to pick up for Tesla, particularly in China. Caroline, Yeah, and.
We want to discuss China evs and what, of course regulation is happening in Europe with Transporter Environment Senior Director Julia chlis Conover. Julia, we hear of some of the analyst reactions to Tesla, to Rivian, to EV's. More generally, we're also seeing governments react to the worrying from their side that EV's are very cheap when they're coming from China, and it's because they're subsidized. Just set the con text where we's done right now?
Right Well, I think that's a really big debate, and right now in Brussels where I'm based, basically at every minute of the day, this is what politicians and everyone is discussing. I think the bottom line is is that China had a long term vision as well as subsidies for over a decade now to build their expertise not just in electric vehicles but the entire supply chain. They had policies on demand side, on supply side, and on this just entire ecosystem. So today they simply have excellent high quality technology, dominance of the supply chain, as well as problems domestically leading to oversupply that they want to sell across the world. I'll just put one fact for you which I think really underscores why the current ev tariff negotiations in Europe are so important. Almost sixty percent of all Chinese IVY global exports are actually go into day to Europe while the US market is closed to them. That's why the current negotiations in Brussels over the higher tariffs are so tense and really really still just heating up right now.
Those duties, those tariffs can be as high as about thirty five percent on addition to the ten percent tariffs that are already existing.
The breaking news today.
Is that we understand the EU and China will continue negotiations even as the EU looks to perhaps pass through these tariffs as.
Soon as the beginning of next month.
Julia, how likely do you think it is that these tariffs will go into place?
And need to go into place?
So, first of all, whether or not they will go into place.
As we see the situation today, it still seems likely that there is no blocking majority of Member states against the tariffs. So the vote can take place any day now until the end of October, and as of today it seems that the additional tariffs would go through. However, what we do understand is that there might be a clause put into that agreement that the European Commission and the Chinese officials can continue negotiating and if they reach some sort of deal, either on prices or volumes of inputs, this might be reversed. Now that's number one, but number two is also important. Do we need those tariffs? And when we talk about tariffs on Chinese evs in Europe, I think we always forget the other big part.
Of the picture.
What is missing is the affordable supply of electric vehicles in Europe by European manufacturers. Some of this is planned, so about twelve models cheaper models are planned for next year that coincide with the next set of European clean car regulations, the so called CARCO two standards. So as part of the package EV tariffs make sense. If you have standards, you have locallyvs and then you have higher tariffs if you don't have.
Supply, let me jump in. Let's talk about that. Package tariffs is one factor Earlier today, Bloomberg spoke to the ACA Director general basically said there's a perfect storm for the EV industry in Europe right now. Just listen to what was said.
I mean, it's all coming together at the same time. We sometimes call it the almost perfect storm happening together, and we need to deal with that. And I think now also with the green transition moving from paper to reality, reality starts to hit and we see how difficult it is to not just have mandates, regulatory mandates and models on the market manufacturers making cars, but also needing a market to pull. And that's what we are missing at the moment in Europe.
That's the chief of Europe's biggest autos lobby group saying things are very hard right now for our industry. A perfect storm. Do you see a perfect storm?
I do agree that things are really hard. What I think we miss in Europe is a comprehensive green automotive strategy that would have the vision industrial policy to support it, be it investment support, bit trade policy. That is not happening. And that's what we're now discussing. Following the famous drug report, so that the senior report that was presented in Europe on competitiveness. But I do have to say that all of this didn't just arrive as a complete surprise. Carmakers knew about the EVY targets for years, and we always expected the market to stagnate in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, then to pick up in twenty twenty five.
Okay, So, Julia, what is the consumer's attitude to electric vehicles in Europe?
When the vehicles are brought at right prices, consumers are flocking to buy them. The French social leasing model, where smaller affordable evs were made available, was all but subscribed. So the demand is there, but it's there at the rightly priced vehicles, and that's what we're missing. We are missing affordable models. As I said, their planned for next year. So we just need to get those models, ramp those up, bring them to consumers, and actually see how the market reacts. It's too early to judge that today in twenty twenty four, when those models are not there.
Transport Environment Senior Director, Julia Poliskanova, thank you very much. The global market for AI related products will hit as much as nine hundred and ninety billion dollars in twenty twenty seven. That's according to Bain's latest Global Technology Report, saying the market will grow forty to fifty five percent annually from one hundred and eighty five billion dollars last year. The consulting firm says growth will be fueled by bigger AI systems and larger data centers to train and run them, driven by companies and governments using the technology to boost efficiency.
Caract, how are they using the technology?
We're going to discuss that today's AI in action. We're speaking with Accelerant. So Global risk Exchange platform for speciality insurance market is booked one than four hundred million dollars in revenue over the last twelve months. So let's talk about that growth. CEO Jeff Redkey is with us. What exactly are you doing? You're trying to seek out inefficiencies in the insurance market.
Just explain for us.
I think that's right.
So Accelerant is trying to replatform that specialty insurance market for the benefit of everyone. Let me unpack that a little. Inside that gigantic insurance industry, there are millions of policies that aren't quite standard. Something makes them unique. That's the specialty insurance market and what we do is unlike the traditional insurance industry tech, which is so inflexible that it doesn't make sense to sort of adjust and to modernize for these specialty products. We are nimble enough that with data and technology, we provide the infrastructure that replatforms the specialty insurance onto a more modern, efficient platform.
Jeff. The proof is in the numbers, it always is, right. So how does the infusia as for the technology and use of the technology translate into sales for you? The proof that people are willing to pay for it?
Well, we mentioned the revenue four hundred and forty four million over the trailing twelve months, and that's up over sixty percent, So certainly we're pleased with the growth. The growth of the business through the platform has been very, very strong, as both specialty underwriters as well as the risk capital partners adopt the platform and find it incredibly helpful. So I think that would be the proof.
How is AI and machine learning the key to all of.
This though, Well, it all starts with the data, I think, and so week by week over the past six years, the Risk Exchange has been squirreling away data, proprietary data on policies on claims on exposure and over the course of six years that's turned into tens of millions of rows of data with over eleven thousand unique attributes. And when you point the state of the art, and that's always changing. But as you point the state of the art models, whether they're machine learning or artificial intelligence models at that data, really exciting things start to happen. You know where to grow the portfolio of insurance policies, you know where to shrink the portfolio of insurance policies, You adjust the claims much more effectively. In total, we figure that twenty percent, we're picking up a twenty percent improvement in the gross margin of the business that transfers through the risk exchange because of the machine learning and AI.
That's significant.
The funny thing is everyone gets so caught up with generative AI, but actually you're just you're not needing that. But will that be interwoven in some way? How will you see your model progress?
Do you think the generative piece, if you use that as the classic definition, I think that usually has its best use in improving other people's the customer experience, Right, I'm not sure it'll be about insight for the portfolio. So I think it'll be instead of running a query about how your portfolio is performing, you just get to ask it in natural language, and that should speed things up and probably be more enjoyable.
For the users.
Jeff, we talked a lot about the AI side of the story. I'm kind of actually curious about the specialty insurance side of this story, and what does that mean. Where I am in California, issues like wildfire or like mob theft in the city of San Francisco. Believe it or not, is that what we're talking about.
Here, among other things. So I guess specialty insurance means that there's a risk or an insured that in some way does not fit into a standard category where a standard product with standard rates doesn't fit. So maybe that's wildfire exposure. That's a great example, but there are many others. Maybe it's a business that's too new, or maybe it's a business that's suffered a loss in the past three to five years. There are many things which can take and insured and put it into the specialty marketplace. The underlying notion of the specialty marketplace is you need incredibly tailored data sets, and there aren't millions and millions and millions of data points about each product. There are many fewer, so you have to work harder to make the data give up those insights.
Does that help? Just very quick? Are more things now ensurable? Because of this?
I think more things are insurable, But more importantly, products are becoming tailored to the specific needs of various insurance so it's much less of a one size fits all market.
Acceleranc CEO Jeff Radke. Great to have you on the show. Thank you. Okay, more news, It's time for talking tech and first. Reddit is hiring former Google ad executive Rit Roumoff to take on the role of chief revenue Officer. This is the social media company looks to push for a wider range of ad clients. Reddit it's been investing heavily in its ad tech as it looks to compete with the likes of Alphabet and Meta Plus. Japanese memory chipmaker Kiyoshia is delaying its IPO amid a slide in semiconductor stocks. According to sources, the company is now targeting in IPO in November or December instead of October and could raise about five hundred million dollars. And Uber expands its Robotaxi fleet. The ride sharing company will partner with Chinese autonomous car company we Ride to offer robotaxis in the United Arab emorates. Uber says users in Abadabi will be able to book rides later this year.
Welcome back to Blue Meg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York.
And Amed Ludlow in San Francisco. All Right, a super super well read story on Bloomberg Banking Group NG is starting to use AI to price currencies, replacing jobs traditionally performed by traders and adding to its global head of electronic trading. It performed beyond their expectations. Bloomberg's Alice Watkins joins us now and has the story and the details interesting because the AI outperforms, it replaces jobs, but there's still an element of human oversight. What do you learn about what ing is actually doing well.
For the FX traders at ing, adjusting currency prices for volatility was a very time consuming task, so that's why they've built this AI model to make things easier for them, and it's actually performed a lot better than they were expecting.
So they were looking at getting.
Grads on the desk to perform this role, but now they're going to use the model instead. It uses reinforcement learning, so it pretty much mimics how a human would use a trial and error process.
And so it will get better over time.
And they're now looking at deploying this technology across other asset classes too.
This is a seven and a half trillion dollar day market.
How are we seeing other banks leap in on this.
Because I mean being able to reduce costs, reduce people music to the management zieres at least.
So it really depends on the approval process within a bank as to how readily they're going to deploy these technologies, and that will vary from firm to firm. So at an industry conference at ours app recently, there was quite a lot of anxiety about who will ultimately be responsible for this AI technology. You know, is it the person who built the model, is it compliance? Is it the trading team? So sort of sorting that out within the firms, it is often seen as the first step before you could embrace the technology.
IMG.
They said it was a relatively quick process. They built the model within three months, tested it for six weeks, and then because they've got such strict governance process around it that's how they got the approval. So they assured me they's still going to be a big red button they can press if anything is to go wrong, and that there's still be that element of human oversight.
Bloomberg's Alice Atkins in London, thank you very much. Back in the US, AI regulation is top of mind for big tech executives, Ruth Porat, president and CIO of Google parent Alphabet, spoke to Bloomberg's Eric Shatska about her hope to see bipartisan AI policies emerging in the US. She spoke at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum yesterday. Listen to this.
Right now. In the Senate, there's a bipartisan approach around an AI framework that Senator Schumern around and others have.
Proposed, and again it looks at.
All elements of how do we invest to be competitive, how do we prevent working on the downside. So I would hope it's a continuation of this and that it continues to be bipartisan because it's such a critical issue.
It's not just corporate leaders. AI is key for world leaders. At the United Nations General Assembly as well, President Biden issuing a warning on AI risks during his final speech and calling for global standard, Biden saying quote, we must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI are used to uplift and empower everyday people, not to give dictators more powerful shackles on the human spirit.
We want to talk about this more.
France is special Envoy for AI, and Bouvrel joins US.
Now and you are talking with Macron his.
Special Envoy to discuss AI governance regulation. You've got a summit coming up in February where you want not just nice to have, but actions to have. Is it governable from a world perspective?
Well, that's a great question. Thanks for having me. We're at early stages of AI, and I think this is now is the time where we need to put all our efforts into this, into looking at how we want to govern it, how concrete action can be taken, can be skilled, can be catalyzed to get AI to be developed in the interest of people. I mean, I very much agree with a lot of what has just been said recently.
We need to redouble our.
Efforts and get heads of states but also civil society, startups, large companies, researchers very importantly together to best address those subjects.
What's the number one concern?
Well, there's been lots of discussions around AI safety at previous summits like at Bleedgsday Park and Saul. We want to take a broader approach because we do think those are important topics, but we also think we need to discuss things like future of work. You had an example on that just before, Innovation and culture.
Of very important topics.
But most of all, it is what can we do to make sure we put into perspective the potential harms of misuse and then the benefits and opportunities and help steer things in the direction of these very concrete opportunities. And when I say very concrete, you can say AI is going to benefit help for example, Yeah, but not everything in health very specific cases for example orientations, speeding up taking care of patients or speeding up drug development, but not everything, not replacing doctors or nurses on everything.
And good morning, miss Strau in France is the private sector leader in AI. How closely are you working with me Strau in your efforts?
So first of all, this is a global summit that we're preparing, so I'm really keen to work with all AI companies and startups like Missprau, but also the ones in the US which you know super well, the ones like Saka and I in AI in Japan, or alif Alfa in Germany. And yes, we work very closely with Mistrial, but I'm also very pleased that we have other great startups in France like Poolside or h just to name a few, So yes, we're working with them.
I'd like to know about mccorn's attitude towards leadership. How important is it for a global leader, a Western world leader, to have a firm grasp on artificial intelligence, the technicalities of it, the implications of it, and how does he feel about that?
So it's really a subject that he's been deeply interested in for years. France had a first report and set of recommendations on AI in twenty eighteen, led by Cedric villani Are, a field medalist. I just recently co shared the second report with economist Philipeagyon. We delivered our recommendations in March. This is really something that the French President Macron is very interested in and following on quickly, I mean strongly and regularly. He's speaking at a number of events on the topic. He's listening to people as much as he can. Yes, he strongly believes this is important.
It's all very well for a Western leader, as Ed says, to be on top of AI. But what the United Nations has been trying to say is there's a whole load of other countries who are impacted.
By this have no seat to the table.
We look towards your summit, which yet again involves a lot of the people who've been in the UK and Seoul, and there's a lot of the same G seven countries. What about involving Africa, the Global South.
This is super important.
We have a bit more time, luckily to prepare our summit. The UK and South Korea had to really do things quite quickly because we have more time. We really want to be as inclusive as possible. We've already sent save the dates to more than sixty world leaders. We're really opening this up to as many countries as want to come, as well as startups, enterprises, civil society organizations. We hold the webinar recently with more than two hundred and fifty of them from around the world researchers. Of course, France has this at heart to really take into account the perspectives and interests of countries around the globe. I completely agree with you. If AI is only being developed by a few actors in a few.
Countries, we will have failed.
We really need to involve and everyone and make sure we steered it towards towards peoples and the society.
And look forward. What are the objectives that you're setting for yourselves as a result of the summit.
So we're at the same time very ambitious and also very humble and pragmatic. We want to use the dates of the Stommach to catalyze to scale, to take specific actions that are as pragmatic and concrete as possible. We want to have examples of specific use cases in specific countries versus a general discussion on science fiction or potential impacts. And we also want to have concrete actions on standards on introperability, on specific initiatives involving a number of countries and private actors and public actors. You'll have to wait a little bit until February, but I very much hope that you can be there and that we can have these concrete actions and results be presented there.
Please, and you must come back on Bloomberg Technology and review the results of that summit. France Special Envoy for Ai and Bouvaureaut, thank you very much. Now coming up, Wiz is in discussions to sell existing shares at a very high evaluation. We're gonna have those details on the Bloomberg exclusive.
Next.
This is Bloomberg Technology cybersecurity startup Whiz is in discussions to sell existing shares and evaluation as high as twenty billion dollars. That's all according to sources and Bloombas Katie Roof broke the story joins us. Now let's do the basics. This is a tender offer. What do we know about the terms and the numbers involved?
Yes, so we can't wind of it really early, so it's still being sorted out. But it should be between fifteen and twenty billion valuation, which would be a premium to the twelve billion that they raised that earlier this year, but less than the twenty three billion that they notoriously turned down from Google. But you know, that's what's being sorted out right now for a tender offer.
Who's involved?
The names Katie, so it would be led by g squared and then also light Speed and Thrive might be involved in this as well, and then potentially some of the other existing investors.
So this is in and of itself particularly curious because, as was reported, Google did try to buy Wiz and we said no, thank you. We're okay as an independent company and a but the broader environment's been difficult. I feel like the cadence of deals might be heating up a little bit. That's a part of it.
Yeah, I mean, there's still plenty of capital available in Silicon Valley to invest in these things, and they need to put their money to work because the last few years there haven't been a lot of late stage growth rounds to invest in, and so you know, all the money is getting poured into either big AI rounds or other hot companies that are doing really well, and so this is one of those companies, and.
It feels as though there must be pressure from well employees, early investors.
This is a liquidity event.
Katie, Yeah, so yeah, it would be a tender offer or secondary where existing shareholders could sell some of their shares. We think there also might be a primary round that's still being decided, and so that would mean the company would also be able to add money to its balance sheet.
Katie roof. We thank you.
Now, let's discuss Netflix co CEO Ted Surroundos has been considering the use of AI in the creative process. He sat down with David Rubinstein to discuss this and the company's evolution future of entertainments.
Take a listen.
I really mostly think of AI as a create tours tool, not a creative tool. So I think creators will use it to make to tell better stories. We're not using it to tell stories instead of them. And I don't think and I don't think we'd be very effective at it, or AI would be very effective at doing that instead of people.
You can catch the full interview of Ted Sarandos on Peer to Peer Conversations tonight at nine pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Television. Plus in two weeks, tune in for David Rubinstein's full interview with Google CEO Cinder Pitch Eye. That's on Wednesday, October ninth on Bloomberg Television. We played a little bit of that earlier on This is the PS five Pro and side Note PS five Pro thirtieth Anniversary Edition retro badge. We got hands on with the new console, which is PlayStation's most expensive ever six hundred and ninety nine dollars ninety nine cents in the US. The main update is inside a supercharge GPU with juiced up RAM and faster rendering. It boosts the gaming experience in four K and offers more gameplay at sixty frames per second for the tech officionado or the premium buyer. Those are great selling points. Let's see how it compares to a standard PS five with games I already own on Hogwarts, Legacy ray tracing offers amazing reflections, shadows, and crisp distance shots around the castle. The last of US Part two was more detailed. You could see further into the game's environment. But one big point. I played on four K even eight K TVs, and you really need that ultra high definition resolution to see any difference at all. For the experienced gamer or the average person, it will be hard to tell the difference. No doubt, these are top top high fidelity vivid graphics, but they kind of already were on the PS five and even the PS four for some titles. The size of the console is interesting. There's more power packed in it, but it's not that much different to the prior generation PS five, So gamers, could you tell the difference a lot of fun. Micron is set to release earnings after the closing bell. Here with what to expect on a serious and important technology story bloomberg'sy and King. Micron is important, and what's weird about it is it has a central role in the AI story. When we think about data centers, we obsess over in Nvidia and the GPU part, but it's almost proportionate, and so that's kind of what we want to hear about. Right when is that part going to take off?
I mean, that was certainly what we were looking at three months ago. Is AI? Are they another AI beneficiary? This time? I think things are a little bit more nuanced. We were kind of disappointed that we didn't have this massive explosion in AI, even though the projection was good. This time around, it's like, oh, okay, how much is enough? And it really depends on the kind of expectation level that you're bringing towards it. So, yes, there'll be a lot of talk about AI, but smartphones PCs where those market are really important as well.
Just giving us the context of sheer scale of growth in because we almost become numb to trillions of dollars and almost triple digit growth.
We're expecting what ninety one.
Percent increase in revenue here, and that is largely driven by the AI focus.
That's an absolutely perfect point, I think, which illustrates what we were just talking about. Sounds amazing. I mean, if my salary went up ninety one percent, I'd be very happy. But if the other way to look at this, and perhaps the more kind of glum Lancashire viewpoint here, is that things were down. Things were down a lot last year, So being up ninety one percent from where we were last year sounds fantastic. Well, maybe that's because we were at such a low point. So is ninety one percent enough might be the other way to look at it.
Some basics for our Bloombay Technology audience. Micron makes memory chips. Lancashire is a county in England notorious for raining all the time, which accounts for Ian's attitude. The important point is that Micron has historically been a little bit of a crystal ball about the world of electronics and technology. Is it still a crystal ball in that respect?
I mean it is, but there are some dynamics within its own market that are also kind of distorting things. And typically, as you say, in the past, this was a company that's products are essentially commodities. If the price is going applical, great, If the prices are going down, bad sign right for everybody. This time, though, that is more of a technology play, right, who's ahead in a specific type of product that goes into these AI systems. In the past, Samsung was a massive leader here, somebody like Micron or esque Hennix will get squashed. Samsung arguably isn't in the lead this time. Micron has a technology play, maybe a value play too in how much.
We're going to want to hear about their own investment use of money. We think about Micron, you know, fabricating more manufacturing places here in the United States, and there'll be questions.
On that.
One hundred percent. I mean, everybody has had their CHIPSAC award announced from the Biden administration, but nobody's actually received a check yet. So this is a big thing, right, you don't want How hard do you commit to new plants? How hard do you commit to filling out new plants?
Oh?
Yes, that will definitely crop up on the call today in King we.
Thank you and the Glum Lancashire attitude.
We love ed.
Meanwhile, you're not feeling too glum.
You're about to.
Head out to Meta Connect and it's an important interview.
Yeah, we're going to speak to Andrew Bossworth, the CTO, right, and all the things you'd expect them to talk about will happen progressing in Lama model on the AI side, ray bands and mixed reality headsets. But I just say one thing real quick, carry tune in later, because sometimes I think we forget these are technology companies and they're trying to push the limits of hardware and software, and that's where i'd focus today.
We focus also on basically, as share price that is near a record high, Meta has become the AI play for many.
It's so weird because like six years ago, this was a social media company, then it was a metaverse company, then it was an AI company, but everyone was mad about all the money they were spending. Now they're not mad, and you look at the share price and the chart on your screen. They're being rewarded for this commitment to it. I guess the question, without giving it away, is what is Meta now? Is it all of those things or has it a more narrow focus.
We wait for that question to be posed to BIZ a little bit later. Meanwhile, that does it for this addition of Bluemoy Technology.
ED and I will speak to Andrew Bosworth metas CTO later today. Tune in four pm New York time, one pm here in San Francisco. A cracking show today. Check out and recap on the podcast. You know where to find it from the team out in New York and the team here in San Francisco. Thank you. This is bloombay Technology.
