Electric Vehicles – Unready for Reality

EVs have run out of well-heeled early adopters. While the long-term proposition of electrical vehicles remains unchanged, the realities of delivering on that proposition are really starting to tell as Tesla (and the others) have run out of well-heeled consumers willing to pay big money to be beta testers. This has been apparent for some time but was brought into...

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Artificial Intelligence – The business

Pressure is mounting to generate revenue. The early signs of pressure are appearing in the AI industry which looks like a precursor to price erosion which RFM has predicted will be the pin that bursts the AI bubble. Roughly $50bn has been ploughed into an industry that has generated around $3bn in revenues, but as of today, most participants remain...

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Easter Break – Back Tuesday April 2nd

RFM is taking a short break for the Easter holiday and will return on the 2nd April.   

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Artificial Intelligence – Magic Money Tree

Money grows on trees until it doesn’t. Capital continues to pour into the AI sector with very little attention being paid to company fundamentals in a sure sign that when the music stops there will not be many chairs available. The latest sign of this reckless abandonment is the fact that Cohere is able to raise money at a valuation...

Apple AI – From Zero

Almost anything will be an improvement. The scene is set for WWDC to be the launchpad for Apple’s ambitions in AI and given its history in this area, almost anything will represent a significant improvement. To be fair to Apple, its products already use AI but it’s the sort of AI that runs in the background which makes the user...

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Electric Vehicles – Last man Standing

Lucid likely to be the survivor. The combination of economic pressure on consumers and brutal competition from China makes it very clear that the EV shakeout will continue, and I think that Lucid will be the last man standing but only as a private company. A series of factors including cost, charging and immaturity is causing demand for EVs to...

China vs. USA – Economics is Everything

China blocks the USA with no viable alternative. China has moved to remove Intel and AMD from its data centres but with Huawei and the rest of the semiconductor struggling to come up with a viable alternative, China’s technology sector may take yet another hit from this move. On December 26th China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued...

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USA vs. Apple – Legal Eagle.

There is a case to answer but it will be hard to prove. There is little doubt in my mind that over the years Apple has engaged in some questionable competitive practices, but conclusively proving that Apple has harmed consumers through its practices will be difficult to prove. The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal...

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Google & Apple – Desperate bedfellow

Discussions do not mean a deal. A deal with Google to provide generative AI services for the Apple ecosystem would be a desperate move because Apple would be at risk of ceding more of the value in its ecosystem to Google which will not be easily taken back. The New York Times has added its voice to Bloomberg’s in terms...

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Nvidia GTC 2024 Day 2 – Picks and shovels

An exhibition of where the real money will be made. The exhibition floor of GTC is all about bringing products and services (all powered by Nvidia obviously) to market which is a reflection of Nvidia’s approach to provide the tools to bring whatever works now to market and worry about the rest later. The COVID pandemic conclusively proved that online...

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