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October 3, 2025 • 42 mins

Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow discuss findings that Huawei's Ascend AI processors contain advanced components from TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Plus, Rivian is reworking the manual release on its vehicle doors after employees and customers raised concerns over potential safety issues. And Beijing dangles the promise of investments in the US as it pushes President Trump to reverse national-security restrictions on Chinese deals.

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
live from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New
York and Ev Low in San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. Huaweis of Sundai Processors.
We're found to contain advanced components from TSMC, Samsung and
sk Heinez. This is it works to boost domestic production
of AI chips.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Plus, Rivian is reworking the manual release of its vehicle
doors after employees and customers raise concerns over potential safety issues.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
And Taylor Swift's twelfth studio album, The Life of a
show Girl, was just released at midnight here on the
East Coast. We're going to discuss the swifty effect.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
And we've both listened, but now we're tuning in to
what's happening in the markets because there are new record
high and now's that one hundred up once again. We
are seeing the best week in all weeks or so
at the moment, about one point six percent. Many calling
it a hype bubble at the moment. That's what key
investors in tech have been calling in mad bezos say, look,
it's a bubble, but it's the right kind of bubble,

(01:11):
and we're going to dig into what David Solomon talked
about in terms of the tech industry more broadly, he's
also seeing concerns about some of the valuations.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
But dig into.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Also where we've seen a little bit more risk sentiment
turning to the upside. And it's in crypto of nine
percent over the course of the week, ed when back
near one hundred in excess of one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars. The moon music has changed despite the government
shutdown end.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Look, there's a lot moving right now in Friday's session,
but I want to look at one of the big
movers over the course of the week. It's Samsung, and
it's Korean shares four straight weeks of gains, trading at
its highest level since early twenty twenty one. There has
been a lot of detail reporting about Samsung technology going
into all kinds of infrastructure projects, but the big bloomberg scoop,
as you know, is about what Huawei in China is

(01:53):
doing with Samsung, particularly in the context of high bandwidth memory.
So let's get to that report carect another tear down.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Let's get to how really the global chip supply is
working right now Blue Max Peter Elstrom joins us. So
we get inside the latest greatest chips from Huawei, and
there's a lot of other companies that are within them.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Yeah, that's right, Caroline.

Speaker 6 (02:15):
We've had a number of scoops about Huawei and specifically
what it's doing in AI chips, and the reason is
that they're really the most viable competitor to Nvidia at
this point. They have a lot of backing from the
Chinese government in particular, where the Chinese government is not
just encouraging them to develop these chips, but also encouraging
their customers to actually buy from them and not from

(02:36):
other companies too. So what we found is our reporters
found that in this teardown, inside of the Huawei ND chips,
which are their AI chips, they've been able to use
components from TSMC, Samsung and s K Heinees. As you mentioned, now,
these are components that they're not supposed to have access
to under the sanctions that they are under the Huawei
is under through the US government. They're not supposed to

(02:58):
have access to these components, but they've been able to
get them, so they've been able to use TSMC dies.
They've been able to use the HBM chips from Samsung
and SKA Heinix. These are somewhat older HBM components. It's
the HBM Generation two E, which is not the most
cutting edge at this point. Now there's a possibility. All
the companies that we reached out to said that they've

(03:18):
cut off Huawei at this point, they're not doing business
with Huawei. But in the past while I was able
to buy from them and was able to stockpile from them,
so that maybe where they got some of these components.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
So China's Huawei, we found evidence of other nations technology
inside of their server designs essentially, but the other part
of the reporting and the story speaks to China not
being able to supply these core components themselves from their
own domestic supply chain.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
It's a very good point. Yeah, if Huawei stockpiled.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
These components in the past and is now using them
as they sell into the market, As they sell these
to send nine ten C chips into the market, there
is a suggestion that they can't get those from domestic
supply And if they can't get them from domestic suppliers
right now, that suggests that maybe they're going to run
out at some point, so that's one of the concerns
about whether they'll continue to be able to sell these chips.

(04:16):
As we wrote in another scoop a few days ago,
Huawei is trying to ramp up their production right now.
They would like to meet even more of the domestic demand.
We anticipate that they're going to be able to actually
double production of these nine ten seed chips based on
the commonents that we've seen.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
So Huawei is making some progress.

Speaker 6 (04:33):
They are providing some competition, but many of the companies
within China would preferred by in video chips if they
were able to for political reasons.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
BLOBX Peter Elstrom, who's the executive editor leading our international
coverage attech really appreciate the reporting. Thank you very much
for more and why to tech markets. Anna Rathban, CEO
and founder of wealth management firm Grenadilla Joins Advisory joins US.
Now let's just start with that reporting, right And a
lot of the names that were mentioned were x US

(05:02):
you know, international names, some of them have a d r's,
but these stories keep coming up about global supply chain
and China's reliance on them. I just wonder what you
made of it.

Speaker 7 (05:14):
Good morning.

Speaker 8 (05:15):
You know, that reminds me of what happened like a
year and a half ago with Deep fake in. You know,
they said they were able to produce all of this,
you know, at a fraction of a cost, but it
turned out that it was all in video chips.

Speaker 7 (05:28):
So I mean, in some ways, I'm I surprised.

Speaker 8 (05:31):
No, I don't think, you know, AI chips is something
you can produce, you know, on a dime just because
you want to, and you tell people to use Huawei chips.

Speaker 7 (05:39):
Only, So I am not surprised.

Speaker 8 (05:41):
But it also highlights the urgency of the AI race
and one of the reasons why there's so much support
for it, especially from the US government and also taking
you know, stake in some of our companies Intel for one,
you know, some rare earth minerals as well. The race
is on, it's very hot, and China's going to have

(06:02):
to figure it out if it doesn't have internal supply chains,
because you know, if this gets found out, then some
of their negotiating powers go away because it looks like
they're bluffing Anna.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
It's leading not just to a hot race, but to
hot valuations.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Are they too hot.

Speaker 8 (06:19):
You know, I would say compared to what, right, we
haven't had AI before, We haven't had this kind of
support behind a tech movement before. And it's not just
the US, it's global, right, I mean we just talked
about the race between US and China. So you know, yes,
it feels hot compared to historical standards. But you know,

(06:42):
when money goes into something like this, and this isn't
just a year or two, this has been for a while,
and we have to ask yourself what is the wisdom
of the masses and the markets telling us what is
behind this? And I think there's something to pay attention to,
maybe not compared to the valuation to the historical norms,
but think about what the norm in this new world

(07:02):
might be and it might actually just be a little
bit higher.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, but Ana, that is a lot of hope baked in.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
We had GQG on the show yesterday and they're saying, look,
the level of revenue that an open AI has to
bring in to vindicate the investment, the level of money
that in video has to continue earning, and the worries
that we're seeing of Nvidia writing one hundred billion dollar
equity checks over to an open AI and feeding back
the loop of demand. How are you strategizing and seeing

(07:31):
that becoming a reality?

Speaker 8 (07:33):
No, it's it's actually very difficult if you're looking at
from a company by company standpoint. They're absolutely correct, there's
stuff going on that you know, doesn't really justify those
high valuations.

Speaker 7 (07:45):
But if you look at the it from.

Speaker 8 (07:47):
An investor with an allocator point of view, if you
look at AI as a theme, there are a lot
of things going on that's outside of Nvidia and open AI.

Speaker 7 (07:55):
I mean, we just heard about Hitachi, we.

Speaker 8 (07:57):
Heard about Caterpillar yesterday, you know, fitting from some of
the AI movements.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
This is really talking about industries that are.

Speaker 8 (08:05):
Not only adjacent to AI, but that adjacent cy circle
is growing wider and wider, and so from an investor
point of view, that is what we're really looking at
from an AI movement, not just Nvidia and not just
the chips.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I know, the story and technology markets this week has
been about AI enthusiasm, the infrastructure deals that have come daily,
the open AI private market valuation of five hundred billion dollars.
But I think we really need to acknowledge this government
shutdown because it's also a factor in markets. How are
you looking at that and what are you telling to clients?

Speaker 8 (08:39):
Yeah, you know, if I'm thinking about government shutdown and
the fact that we did not get a labor market
report today, this has implications more for all the economy sectors.

Speaker 7 (08:51):
When it comes to tech, it.

Speaker 8 (08:53):
Really doesn't even matter that the government is shut down.
We saw how many deals that took place today, not
today this week, right, So as far as tech is concerned,
I don't think it matters, which is a.

Speaker 7 (09:04):
Little bit scary.

Speaker 8 (09:05):
But at the same time it's a little comforting because
the government might be shut down for a few more days, right,
maybe weeks, So.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Anna, when we're just looking at techno caring, then that's
that one hundred at a record high.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
It might be added the S and P A is too.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Where do you allocate if you still believe in the
AI trade? But just thinking in video or some of
the other names would just be overplayed.

Speaker 8 (09:27):
So earlier I mentioned some of the adjacent industries, right,
So this actually points to the importance of being diversified
and not too concentrated on certain names, because then you
are exposed to idiosyncratic risks. Now, when you're looking at
the valuations, it is sky high and nosebleed sections.

Speaker 7 (09:45):
It's difficult to allocate cash into it.

Speaker 8 (09:48):
Right, So if you're an investor and you're actually you know,
boots on the ground, where do you put cash becomes
the problem, and that's where the diversification helps you.

Speaker 7 (09:56):
This idea of adjacencies helps you.

Speaker 8 (09:59):
If you already own tech, it's difficult to sell.

Speaker 7 (10:02):
I mean, it's difficult to sell because of the momentum.

Speaker 8 (10:05):
And in that case, sometimes it's not about selling off
all positions. It's just about being prudent and taking some
of the gains, rebalancing your portfolio. So you're taking the
gains and reallocating it to some of the other sectors
that may benefit from in the future. The idea of
a diversified portfolio becomes much much more important.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
And Rafan, I've grenna did our advisory, wishing you a
very happy weekend. Meanwhile, we're watching shares of applied materials.
We broaden out the story on chips a little bit
more here and indeed the geopolitical context we're off by
two point four percent. Why largest US make of machinery
used to manufacture selling conductions semiconductors, But basically they're warning
there's going to be a six hundred million dollar revenue

(10:45):
hit because of the rules that the government is setting.
The restrictions end to exporting their products to China.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yes, six hundred million hit to net revenue. When you
send a chip through a fab to the first thing
the way for touches is applied materials and the last
thing it touches is an applied materials machine. That's why
we care. Coming up, Rivian's looking to rework its doors
over potential safety concerns. We bring you to Bloomberg breaking
story next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Rivian while it's reworking a key element of the doors
in its next generation EV after employees and customers for
its concerns over latch design in the vehicles it's already selling.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
That's according to sources.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Now the move comes just weeks after Tesla face scrutiny
over their powered handle doors.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Guests who broke that story my.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Co host ed Ludlow alongside Bloomberg's Emily Chang. This is
a deep dive into the regulation and some of the
regulatory pushback there is to some of the building of
these ultimately door handles. But take us inside the car
what's happening.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, the specifics are really important. So the R two
is the next generation ev that Rivian will start building
next year. It has decided to make the emergency manual
release in the event that the power electronics fail that
the doors and the vehicle lose power more intuitive simply
by positioning positioning it in a more obvious place, making

(12:11):
the design in the front seats and the rear seats
the same. But what sources tell us is that in
June of twenty twenty four, Rivin did a refresh on
the car. Had already sells the R one generation, both
the sub and pickup, and as part of that, in
lowering component count and to bring the cost down, they
revised the rear door release latch, in particular, making it

(12:32):
less intuitive. It's difficult to find it's under a cover
and what is recognized by both employees. But also we
found some anonymous complaints and then it's a database. Is
it presents a potential safety risk?

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Talk through the safety risk and some of the incidents
we've already seen.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yes, So this is on the back of Tesla and
a Bloomberg broke the story that Tesla is revising the
design of its doors because of actual cases where there
is an accident and the passengers in that testa vehicle
found it difficult to operate the MANU override and power
had been lost. What we are not reporting about Rivian
is there is no investigation into Rivian and Rivian not

(13:10):
that we have found, and Rivian has never disclosed any
kind of accident where this has been a factor. But
it is an acknowledgment from within Rivian that it is
a potential safety risk and they've decided for their next
car they have to do something different with the design.
We do not know if with R one they will
do another redesign to account for what they admit is
based on sourcing a mistake. But this is an industry

(13:34):
wide thing.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Go read the story and there is the Rivian spokesperson
talking about safety being at the center of everything that
we do.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
It's a breaking story. Meanwhile, open Ai competitor, let's call
it Perplexity.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's made us AI browser Comet available for free to
use as worldwide. The company launched Commet for top tier
subscribers in July.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Expanding access to Commet.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Takes aim maybe the dominance and Google's Chrome, which Perplexity
of course, made a thirty four and a half billion
dollar bid for earlier in the year. Dmitriy chevel Enco's
with us in Perplexity's chief business officer, and look, we
start by introducing you as an open Ai competitor, but
really this is a Google Chrome competitor.

Speaker 9 (14:13):
We're focused on building a better Internet. On Comment, you know,
the browser is due for a major refresh. We want
to serve and satisfy the world's curiosity and do a
great job answering people's questions, and Comment is putting us
on the path there and super excited to get to
share with everyone this week, Demitrio.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
It also makes people ask different kinds of questions and
far more questions. As you've said from the reaction of
users already, can you give us some statistics because we
knew that there were millions of people lining up to
use this the ux people are really complimenting you.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
How many people are using it now?

Speaker 9 (14:51):
Yeah, so we had millions of people on our wait
lists and they're all getting onboarded this week.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
How many minutes.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
You know?

Speaker 9 (14:59):
You is your job to ask those questions, and it's
my job to compete against a three trillion dollar monopoly,
so we're not going to be able to share everything today.
But some of the really fascinating stats we're seeing in
terms of user engagement is when a user starts being
on Commet, they asked six to eighteen times more questions
than they were before. And that's really you know, for us,

(15:22):
that and retention are the key markers of success, and
that's why we felt very comfortable and excited to open
this up.

Speaker 7 (15:31):
To me.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
True, we're a technology show and you're in the technology industry,
and I think one thing that's true of technology is
that just being first to something new doesn't guarantee that
you capture that market, right, you know, Apple and the
smartphone versus BlackBerry. That's a good example. I'm just at
the root of my question is what is stopping Google

(15:53):
now from looking at what you've done with Commet and saying, oh,
we can do that too.

Speaker 9 (15:58):
Yeah, well, actually, not new to We're not the first
of browsers, right. Google's been doing this for over twenty years,
and their approach to AI is bolted onto their existing browser.
We've built a AI native browser from the ground up,
and our biggest advantage, you know, when competing against trillion

(16:19):
dollar companies is execution velocity. It's the clock speed of
iterating and improving the product. You know, if you know
it sounds like you guys were using it back in July,
you've probably noticed how much it's gotten better. You've noticed
that we've launched for our Max users background assistance and
the email assistant, and so it's that rate of improvement,

(16:40):
particularly an AI where you new foundation model capabilities advance
not every six months but literally every three to four weeks,
and so having the clock cycle around incorporating and finding
the useful applications of those new capabilities, that's where the
alpha is.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Demitri, the chief business officer, what's the monetization pathway? For comment?
How are you going to make money from this platform
in the end.

Speaker 9 (17:07):
Yeah, we're fortunate to have a variety of subscription products,
our Perplexity pro offering Perplexity Max and our only expense
is inference, and so we're able to tailor to a
given user's needs the.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
Rate subscription product.

Speaker 9 (17:25):
And so that's led to explosive air R growth for
us just this year, and we're excited about subscriptions as
a path forward.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Looking at your media partners, this is where subscriptions comes
in five dollars for direct access to basically comet plus,
which you call is a groundbreaking business model for premium journalism.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
How does that expand.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Meet because all these publishers need paying too.

Speaker 5 (17:51):
Yeah, well, I'm so glad you asked about comment Plus.

Speaker 9 (17:55):
The Internet deserves not just a better browser, but a
better business model. I think we're all exhausted with the
traffic and clickbait, you know, dynamics that have really, you know,
led to a race to the bottom on the Internet.
And what we're doing with comment Plus is actually aligning
economics with you know, the AI h where publishers get

(18:17):
compensated when users directly access their content, when their AI
accesses the content, and when search index is access the content.
And this is really taking you know a lot of
what publishers loved about the Apple News plus.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
Model and expanding it to the full power of the browser.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Talking of Apple the AI partnership strategy, it's going to
broaden out from Open AI.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Are you going to be joining?

Speaker 9 (18:43):
Briefly, we want to be wherever our users are, and
our users certainly are on Apple devices, and we're confident
that the best OEMs will want the best ais integrated
deeply into their products, and you know, we're excited for
the path the head there.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Dmitri Schevalenko, chief business officer for Perplexity great heavy back
on the program. Open ai has rolled out and you
social media like app Sora, powered by the latest version
of its Ai video generator. Already, the toll has raised
concerns about how easily it can be used to create

(19:25):
misleading videos. Bloomberg's AI reporter Rachel Metz has been using it,
experiencing it, and then writing about it. The idea is
that it presents a risk of more misinformation, more content
out there that is potentially misleading, and then there's the
social element. Just reflect on your experience so far with it.

Speaker 10 (19:48):
Sure, I mean, I think we've seen a lot of
concerns over the past several years about how making it
easier and easier for people to make videos that show
things that didn't actually happen but appear to show those
things in a realistic fashion. That can make it easier
to spread things that are not true and hurt people potentially.
And with this tool, open ai has made it extremely

(20:11):
easy to do that kind of thing. I made several
incriminating looking videos of my boss, and I mean stealing
kittens from a pet store, keying cars, stealing a car,
you know, all kind of all manner of mischief, and
it was really easy. One thing that was also doable,
at least until yesterday, is you could take these clips

(20:34):
and you could in the draft form without publishing them.
You could screen record them on your phone, and they
didn't have watermarks in that format. Open ai told me
that they have since fixed that, but that made it
even easier to share any kind of video without making
it clear that it was coming from Soro or that

(20:54):
it was a I generated.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
This, I mean almost is the playbook of open ai.
Actually get it into the world, get people stress testling it,
pushing it to the brink, and then they learn from it.
How has their response been to your SEMMI, your concerns.

Speaker 10 (21:10):
I mean, they obviously do not want people to be
disseminating false information, and they essentially said they take that
very seriously, and they're doing They're making a bunch of
moves to make that difficult for users. However, people are
going to still be able to get around those rules
if they want to, and even with watermarks, it's not

(21:30):
clear to me that that would actually make people always say,
oh wait, that's.

Speaker 5 (21:36):
An AI generated video, especially if they're not that.

Speaker 10 (21:38):
Familiar with Sora itself, they might just think that that's
just some other kind of watermark on the video.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
The videos that we've just been looking at are of
course AI generated, and they are from open Ai themselves.
And funnily enough, the cat is not actually riding an
ice skater.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
On while she performs, but removed.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Rachel mets, we so appreciate send us to Seth Eighmuan
ones that you've made yourself. We're back with Bloomberg Tech
and we have some breaking news regarding China pushing the
Trump administration to roll back national security restrictions of course
on Chinese deals in the United States.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
What do they say they'll get in return? They're dangling
the prospect of a massive investment package. Let's get to
all the details.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Bloomberg's State Department reporter Eric Martin is one of those
that help break this story, and it really fits in
the whole context that Hijinping is pushing hard on the
US to lift various restrictions and change some of the
ways in which it views China.

Speaker 11 (22:33):
Absolutely, Caroline, this is what we're hearing about seems to
be China appealing to Trump's reputation as a deal maker
and his idea, his focus the Art of the Deal,
of course being his most famous writing, and just basically
looking at how can China get a treatment in the
US more similar to some of the other countries who

(22:56):
have announced big investment packages in the US, including Japan
a commitment to a looser commitment, but from the European
Union as well, and so looking at how China can
invest in the US, can explore more of its product
to the US, given that one issue for China and
its economy has been weakness of the Chinese consumer, and

(23:17):
just overall looking at this would be a huge change
from what we've seen in the past decade. Remember it
was just a few years ago we saw this Congressional
committee set up to scrutinize Chinese involvement in the US
economy and the US China national security relationship economic relationship.
So this would be a huge reversal of a decade
of US policy bipartisan if this comes to be eric.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
One of our sources is saying that earlier this year,
China floated or dangled the figure of one trillion dollars,
Could you just explain that reporting to us.

Speaker 11 (23:53):
Well, when we're talking about the economies, the size of
the US economy and the size of China, what we're
hearing from or says is that this one trillion dollar
figure was mentioned earlier this year, but it could potentially
be down the line even larger in terms of the
economic size of the two countries, and what would be
big enough to really move the dial in the economic relationship.

(24:16):
And remember, China has seen a series of proposed deals
involving Chinese companies rejected by Syphius, the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States led by the Treasury Department.
So this national security concern has loomed large for many
years in the US China relationship, and this would be

(24:37):
a huge change. It's really hard to overstate how big
a change this would be if this deal is reached
and if investment in the US has opened in a
much bigger way to China and two Chinese companies.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Bloombergs Eric Martin part of the team that broke it.
I don't see carry any immediate market reaction. I would
say that thousands of terminal readers are flocking to the story,
and we need to discussed a bit more. Let's bring
in Ted Mortenson, bed tech strategist who joins US. Now, Ted,
this story just broke and I sympathized with you sitting
in the chair there in that sense. But the idea

(25:11):
is basic. After a decade or more of China not
being able to put money into this economy here in
the United States, Bloomberg's reporting that its tactic is now
to say to the US government, reduce technology restrictions in particular,
and that's what might happen as somebody covering the sector,
your reaction.

Speaker 12 (25:32):
I think this goes back to a decision by the
Biden administration of restricting SEMIICAP equipment below fourteen animeters almost
a year a year and a half ago. And if
you really look through that report and how it's transitioning
to the Chinese government, they can't manufacture and this is
am Lamb Clack, et cetera. In ASML, they can't manage

(25:56):
manufacturer next generation AI if they can't get to that
three and two nanimeter node. At the two nanimeter node
where TSM is going right now, the architectures are changing
to gate all around and backside power. I think that's
really important as you relate to next generation AI architectures.

Speaker 5 (26:20):
They can't get there.

Speaker 12 (26:21):
So if they're willing to bargain away that technology transfer
and in return open up the spicketts of investment not
only agriculturally potentially, but also manufacturing. It really is a
huge game changer of have how we have been positioned
in the last two years.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Ted therefore positioning just from an investor perspective, do we
get even higher valuations because there's money coming in and
then in video and all the others KLA, for example,
Anadeed aim At, which we're seeing under pressure today because
the six hundred million dollar revenue hit they're going to
be feeling by yet more restrictions on their equipment.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Going to China does that in flight ever further.

Speaker 12 (27:02):
It throws a bunch of gasoline on the fire because
if you look at China, they're probably one of the
largest wealth there's second largest economy in the world, and
next to the US on AI they're probably the number
two position. If you don't transition to this next JENNYI architecture,

(27:24):
whether it be a Gentic or where we're going, you know,
just take open eye as a benchmark, you risk not
only your sovereign economy, but more importantly your sovereign defense
ability because we are pivoting in the US so quickly
on the defense side to AI. It's a dual discussion.

(27:44):
I think the other issue is one of geo exposures.
Right now, the street has really shied, it's shied itself
away from anything with I would say over ten percent
China exposures because looking at AM at last night, everybody's
gotten bid. Right that would totally the open up the

(28:06):
investment angle for all those China exposures, and right now
the largest are probably lamb aim At and Claque at
about thirty percent exposures they would have that would take
away the Bear argument.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Ted whether you meant it or not, you are talking
about the three biggest stories of the day. Bloomberg reporting
that if you take a part Huawei's as send, it
has Sam Summon s k Heinitz in it, the disclosure
about applied materials. Do you see a change of US
policy coming or not?

Speaker 12 (28:36):
I just you know, I go back and look what
the Trump administration did to the Middle East. You know,
who would have thought that we would open up all
the AI technology to Saudi Arabian others. I think in
reply to lower oil prices. This is the art of
the deal, and right now we're playing chess on four

(28:57):
levels and it's very hard for at least the tech
investors to decipher. But it would pour a lot of
gasoline on the bonfire.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Ted Mortenston of bed Brilliant Reaction, thank you very much.
Talking of the bonfire and valuations and M and A,
black Rocks Global Infrastructure Partners is said to be in
advanced talks to buy Aligned data centers, a forty billion
dollar transaction, according to sources in agreement could be announced
in days and more. Greenberg Us Deals Managing Entity Leanna Baker,
who helped break that stories with us. Leanna, this is

(29:29):
yet more AI euphoria, right it is.

Speaker 13 (29:32):
And I'm sure on your show, you know you've been
following AI almost every day, but on my team covering
M and A, we actually haven't seen a blockbuster M
and A deal. We've seen massive investments in the space,
but nothing like a full takeover. So that's why we're
so excited about the scoop that Black Rocks GIP is
going to be buying Aligned data centers. Potentially within days

(29:55):
for about forty billion dollars, And we're curious if this
will lead to more deal making in the space. All
the big private equity names, sovereign wealth funds, are you know,
involved in this in this deal?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
What does the line do, Leana? Do we know that?

Speaker 5 (30:12):
Sure?

Speaker 13 (30:13):
Well, they have data centers around Phoenix and just around
the US, and it's part of that trend of you know,
building out the power necessary to sort of just fuel
this AI revolution. So maybe not a household name likes
you know, Stargate or as splashy as in video putting

(30:35):
out one hundred billion into open AI, but it definitely
already has some big backers and more to come, mostly.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Anna Baker, who leads the deal's team. Thank you so much.
Italian Tech Week is wrapping up in Turin, and Bloomberg
Text Tom McKenzie caught up with Goldman Sachs chairman and
CEO David Solomon, who says he expects the US economy
to accelerate into twenty twenty six. You also weighed in
on the challenges of building significant tech businesses out of Europe.

Speaker 14 (31:00):
Savings in Europe and capital in Europe needs to come
into the risk economy in Europe. You just don't have
the scale and scope of the available savings here are
getting deployed into the tech risk ecosystem at the pace
that it should when you compare and you look to
the way things are deployed in the United States. And
in fact, one of the things that happens here is

(31:22):
capital from here looks over there, and so there are
enormously smart, talented people. Here, are lots of great ideas,
capital formation, and a real focus on risk taking. Stuff's
going to go right, Stuff's going to go wrong, but
you've got to take risk, You've got to deploy capital.
This really has to become a bigger center of capital deployment.

(31:42):
And also, the more we can get the European Union
to be operating as an economic union and taking advantage
of the four hundred plus million people that are here
as opposed to the individual states for lack of a
better term, the more we can get the tech economy
working that way, I think, the better chance we have
of reaching your goal, which I think would be a

(32:03):
very noble goal for the world. So I mean, the
more the more innovation over here, the better for the world.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
So us live on the line will be here.

Speaker 6 (32:10):
So your one message to the European Commission President would
be centralizing or capital most certainly the urgency.

Speaker 14 (32:19):
I you know, I'm feeling more urgency when I'm over here,
but still, you know, the regulatory process in Europe is slow.
Capital markets union for sure, you know, more encouragement of
risk taking in capital markets, trying to bring it all together.
Consolidation in the banking system instead of national champions in
every market, consolidation in the exchange system instead of champions

(32:41):
in every market. You know, those are all things that
will make capital formation easier, risk capital formation better, and
will allow the acceleration of great companies here in these markets.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
A spinning Goldman Sachs here David Solomon along with Bloomberg
text Tom McKenzie was a great interview.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
Go read more about it.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to talk about another mega
AI funding round, this time start up Versell reaching nine
point three billion dollar valuation.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
We're gonna speak with the CEO. This is BlueBag Tech.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin
Netnyahoo met with tech industry leaders in New York ahead
of his White House meeting with President Trump. Attendees included
Lux Capitals, Josh wolf Ramp CEO IC Glyman, and Vercell
CEO GMO Rush, according to sources who say the conversation's
focused on AI and its impact on Israel's economy and military.

(33:35):
After the story, ran Versales Roush posted a photo with
Netnyahu to X, which has since draw more than thirty
two million views and some criticism, raising concerns from both
employees and customers. The company's also just done a big
raise at a high valuation, delighted to say that GMO
Rush joins us now, GMO, let's just start with the

(33:56):
post on X and the meeting Sunday. In the comments,
there appear to be employees of Versaell and customers who
are reacting. Are you able to quantify for us you
know what that reaction has been and sort of what
your response is to it.

Speaker 15 (34:14):
So thanks for having me, of course, and maybe just
to get you know, all of the noise out of
the way. And I want to clearly acknowledge that the
post did cause quite a bit of pain. I want
to obviously say sorry to the well meaning people, you know,
people that really care about this topic, people that are
hurt by the tension that exists in the world today,

(34:37):
but obviously not sorry to the people that are just
spewing hate and anti Semitism and the people that have
come after our team. So to your point, this has
been a special time for our team and obviously our customers.
It's a very special time for the world. And maybe
I'll give you a little bit of context for the
meeting itself, right, As versall a leader in developer AI,

(34:58):
of course, we you know, get invited to speak with
world leaders about topics relevant to education, cybersecurity, AI I
would play a huge, huge part of the of the
of the future, right and so I always welcome the
opportunity to speak with world leaders. Obviously, you know, the

(35:18):
reaction to it and the optics matter a lot to us,
and we're here for our team, We're here for our customers.
There hasn't been material changes to the business. A lot
of it is noise, you know. There there was an
ex post with five million views from someone that allegedly
quit the company, but I guess what we looked upside
down and that person didn't work for over sale. So

(35:39):
it kind of also highlights a little bit of the
challenges that we see with social media today.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Yam, I'm grateful that you would come on the show.
I think it's important to be honest with the audience.
You were going to come on the show earlier in
the week. Anyway, there was a lot of breaking news
and we moved things around. But just to be definitive,
you haven't had any employee resignations and you've not lost
any business at all as a result. It has hosts.

Speaker 15 (36:01):
Yeah, there hasn't been any material to change to the business.
There has been impact to our community, by the way,
and you know, I feel bad about that and our
ethos of our sell and you know, maybe to tell
you a bit more contents about our company. We're all
about open source. The reason that I'm here today is
because I built a gigantic open source project. We work

(36:23):
in public, We engage with the community. We're always listening
to feedback. We use that feedback to grow, We use
that feedback to contribute directly to source code and make
our products better. And this is the kind of things
that you know, world leaders are interested in, and this
is why they reach out to us. And I welcome that.
I don't endorse politicians. I do engage with world leaders
and excited to continue our work and continue to support

(36:45):
our community, our customers, and most importantly our team.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
We appreciate how open you've been about all of that
what must have been an anxious time.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
And I'm interested.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Therefore about the story of Versell more broadly, because you
come on this show around the context that you have
raised money, you are building this business, and I'm interested
in particular of how many people wanted to be putting
extra money to work in your business and what growth
story you're telling them.

Speaker 15 (37:11):
Yeah, we've been around for a while building what we
call the front end cloud. It's the best way to
deploy websites and applications, and it's in the world of
what I called pixels. You know, most applications had some
kind of human centric user interface, but ever since I
will call it like CHATBT the dominant type of application

(37:31):
that enterprises and individuals want to create is what we
call the AI agent, which is kind of like a
digital coworker. So we announced that we're building the AI
cloud for people listening. This is sort of like the
aws of AI. And one of the goals of this
cloud is that when when you're a developer or a
company of any size, you can deploy this agents make

(37:52):
your business more efficient. It obviously caught the interest of investors.
We weren't planning to raise additional funds. We had just raised.
The business is doing incredibly where we just passed two
hundred and fifty million dollars in revenue, growing at north
of eighty percent year over a year, supporting customers like
under Armor, Nintendo Portie, and some of the hottest startups
in the AI space like Brex and Ramp and Notion

(38:16):
in all of the up and comers, so as you
could imagine, the enterprises are thinking, well, I have all
this up and commercial these startups, these even individual developers
coming after me with AI native solutions, what do I
need to do AI transformation myself? And that's the AI
cloud and the versail is filling a massive void in
the market. Today.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
We've talked about the reaction of some of those of
your employees potentially and those that actually weren't current employees,
but talk to us about how you're keeping them engaged
in building with versall. Part of this raise was indeed
a secondary tender offer. Is that about giving them a
liquidity moment? Is that about ensuring you can get the
right talent through the door.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (38:54):
I think employees and community have been super engaged behind
our mission. Everyone is sort of galvanized behind the idea
of building.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
For the web.

Speaker 15 (39:01):
One of our core values at Versells what we call
ford the Web. Anythink the spirit of the web and
openness is sort of the things that we want to represent,
whether it's talking to world leaders, so whether it's engaging
with the products that we create and putting them in
the hands of developers to build a better future.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
A gailmo very quick thirty seconds. Can you share any
ar R or other financial metrics on how it's going.

Speaker 15 (39:22):
Yeah, As I mentioned, you know, we've publicized that we're
at north of two hundred and fifty million dollars in
AR growing north of eighty percent year of ear, which
is world class metrics, possibly unsen metrics for our cloud
infrastructure business that spreads a huge array of customers from
small startups to the largest enterprises, healthcare, fintech, SaaS, marketing,

(39:44):
you name it, and we'll continued to build from here.
We're taking the feedback obviously, we're learning from it. We're growing,
and we're excited about what the future.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Holds appreciate your transparency Today Kmo Ralph CEO and founder
of their.

Speaker 7 (39:58):
Cell Breaking News.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Taylor Swift's twelve studio album, The Life of a Show
Girl was just released at midnight here on the East Coast.
This on the back of a single podcast appearance. We're
going to talk about the album's reception. We're going to
do so with Bloombo's entertainment reporter Hannah Miller. Let me
level with you. We did the story on the podcast announcement.
I've not yet listened to the album. I've done some

(40:27):
original data journalism trending number one on Google trends, Oprahlite,
the word trending number two, Taylor Swift data take it
from there. Yeah.

Speaker 16 (40:38):
Yeah, She's been dominating the charts on Apple Music and Spotify.
Everyone is talking about her on social media. She is
the story right now. And you know we saw her
do this promotion ahead of the album. She did you know,
the podcast with Travis Kelce, her fiance. She is very
much banked on her fame. You know, she's been picked
and chosen what she's done. She has not overstretched her

(41:00):
self with promotion. Everyone knows who she is.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
I saw an ad with Target, So there was a
little bit of cashing in there, but just compared to
what Cardie Bee has been out there doing, heavily pregnant
on going into various stores in New York City, working
it on stage, she just doesn't have to do that.

Speaker 16 (41:18):
She cuts through the noise. Everyone knows who she is,
everyone wants to tune in. You know, this is the
topic of conversation that everyone is going on about right now.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'm not being funny one, two, three, four, five, and
six on Google trends. Is Taylor Swift a song or
whatever we're business? Is there some kind of commercial reporting here,
some kind of dollar figure that we.

Speaker 16 (41:37):
Have or you know, we're still waiting on the data
and we're going to get, you know, the data on
how it's performing on the charts, whether it's going to
break records today as the you know, most listen to album.
It's already broken records for pre saves on Spotify. Over
five million people saved the album before it came out.
And there's also a movie out this weekend about the
life of a show girl, so that'll inject some life

(42:00):
into movie theaters.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
So cross platform. Bloomberg's Hannah Miller, we so appreciate it.
Thank you now.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech Busy
week ahead. While you're also maybe listening to the new album.
We are going to be live from Bloomberg screen Time
in Los Angeles on Thursday, speaking to the best of
the entertainment and Instagram.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
We're going on the road because then on Friday we
switch gears and we're going to go all in on
defense tech. We're going to be like from Anderill's headquarters
in Coasta Mesa, California. This is who we're going to
be speaking to. You do not want to miss it.
It's been an astonishing week in New York City. Caro
like AI is again driving markets but geopolitical news flow.
It's great to be back with you. I don't really

(42:39):
know us to say other than gear up. Next week
is Big two.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
I'm going to say say flight and good luck with
all the breaking news while you're on that plane, because
he's a machine and I.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Have something to listen to. Right This is Bloomberg Tech
Season
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