November 10, 2025 • 43 mins
Bloomberg’s Tim Stenovec discusses the rally in tech stocks as risk-on sentiment rises off of hope the US government shutdown could be coming to an end. Plus, tech and media earnings continue, with CoreWeave and Paramount reporting after the closing bell. And San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan talks about the city's growing artificial intelligence infrastructure and its latest data center initiative.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
lie from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New
York and Ed Lovelow in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is a Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, talks continue to
try and end the US government shutdown, sending airline stocks rallying.
We'll discuss how AI could play a role in the
future of travel. Plus, tech and media earnings continue with
corew Even paramount on the docket after the closing bell,
and we'll speak with Matt Mayhan, mayor of San Jose
(00:42):
about the city's growing AI infrastructure and its latest data
center initiative. First, so check on the market, starting with
the bigger picture and look at that. We are seeing
the Nasdaq one hundred surge along with other major indices.
This is the US Senate advanced as a plan to
end the longest ever government shutdown. There has gone bid
lifting tech shares, really driving the rally in equities after
(01:05):
the tech sector had been hit the hardest in recent days.
Also coming up, we're going to discuss what to expect
from tech and media earnings throughout the hour. Core Weaves
results are expected to raise issues about AI spending after
last week's sell off. Coryve up one point two percent
right now, This after a week where was down twenty
two percent. This is also on the heels of others.
(01:27):
Spending by tech companies like Meta and Microsoft also paramounts
guidance down about three tenths of one percent. Ahead of earnings,
they're expected to report higher revenue and profit. Investors also
are going to be on the watch for more details
on the company's reported effort to buy Warner Brothers Discovery
spending a lot of money too buying up those rights
to UFC, and that big deal with the Duffer Brothers.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A group of eight Democrats on Sunday broke the rest
of their party to vote with Republicans to advance a
bill to reopen the government on the shutdown's fortieth day.
Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall joins us out of Washington, DC for more. Tyler,
tell us where we are in the discussion. Where do
things stand with the Senate back today?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
I hey, Tim, So the Senate advanced this legislation on
a key procedural vote, but it still has to go
up to debate and then get a final floor vote
on the Senate floor, and importantly, any one senator could
tie up that process. We have our eyes on Senator
Ran Paul, a Republican from Kentucky. He voted against this
legislation and could ultimately delay it. However, the broad understanding here,
(02:26):
we're expecting this legislation to advance out of the Upper
Chamber and then go to the House later in the week.
Once the past of the Senate, there are thirty six
hours for House lawmakers to get back to Washington and vote.
But we have to look at what's actually in this
legislation to see some of those pressure points that could
be building on how Speaker Mike Johnson. This bill would
fund the government through January thirtieth and then fund some
(02:48):
key agencies through the rest of the fiscal years. Some
hardline conservatives may not be happy with that because they
didn't get the chance to negotiate those longer spending bills.
This also importantly includes a reverse for mass firings federal
workers that started on October first, and shields against future
firings through at least January thirtieth. That of course, goes
against President Trump's key priority when it comes to reducing
(03:10):
the federal WORKFORCET, so that also might face some pushback
when House lawmakers get back to town. I'll say, I'm
keeping my eye on those moderate Democrats in the House,
how they could come over and join Republicans, because that's
what we really saw happen when it came to the Senate.
They were negotiating, of course, for an extension on those
Affordable Care Act premium subsidies. The Senate wasn't able to
get a deal in this legislation, but they were able
(03:32):
to secure a promise on a vote for an extension
down the line. We're expecting that to happen by the
second week of December. See if how Speaker Mike Johnson
puts anything similar on the floor. At this point, we
haven't gotten in any indications, but I'd expect some House
Democrats to push for.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall keeping it on everything happening out of Washington, DC.
Thanks so much for that, Tyler well shares of major
airlines rallying as a potential and to the government shut
down nears. That's despite one hundred have canceled flights over
the weekend due to weather and the lack of air
traffic controllers and President Trump just now weighing in moments
ago on true social saying, quote, all air traffic controllers
(04:11):
must get back to work now. Anyone who doesn't will
be substantially docked. Nancy Shue leads agent for US at Salesforce,
and joins us now to talk about how AI might
actually help and be helping in the travel sector. Nancy,
good to have you with us from our San Francisco studio.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I got to tell you a.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Lot of my colleagues, a lot of friends had their
trips canceled or disrupted over the weekend. It doesn't seem
like anything could actually help right now. Accept actual air
traffic controllers and actual TSA agents showing up to work.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
Tim, thanks so much for having me. We are seeing
with the evolving situation right now at the FAA through
our own agent platform, Agent Force, that it's really important
for companies to have agentic solutions and able in order
to serve their customs daring this very critical time where
we're seeing a surge in the system. As an example,
(05:05):
at Agent Force right now, we work closely with Heathrow.
Heathrow has more than eighty million passengers that walk through
their airports every single year. And at Heathrow, you know
those passengers are walking in a four and four am
in the morning, it could be at noon where they're
looking for lost luggage, regardless of the time and day. No,
(05:25):
we have an agent with them called Haley that's helping
Heathrow passengers right now on the ground, using AI agents
to address their customer queries, really using that ability for
AI agents to surge capacity for these companies to build
more resilient solutions. And this is critical right now with
the FA situation that's breaking. Enabling our customers and all
(05:47):
the companies that are using AI agents to flex film
a bit of capacity and really better serve those travelers
that are on the road today.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, I mentioned the President's post on social media just
in the last hour or so. The post continues to
say that if if you want to leave service in
the near future, these are people who are not showing.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Up to work, he says.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
He says, you will be quickly replaced by true patriots
who will do a better job on the brand new,
state of the art equipment, the best in the world
that we are in the process of ordering that new equipment.
It's come up fairly often in recent months when talking
about the challenges at air traffic control and for air
traffic controllers here in the US, does Salesforce have any
role in the new air traffic control equipment that is
(06:26):
being ordered, whether it's software or something else.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
What I can share, Tim, is that we have a
brand new initiative Mission Force where we're working with national
security as well as the US government as well as
allied governments to best support them, using technology and bringing
them as modern solutions, including RAI to help support national security.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Today, you've got a great view on the capabilities not
just now but in the coming years when it comes
to this technology within our lifetimes. Do you think AI
could replace air traffic controllers?
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Tim, We are very excited about the vision of enabling
our customers to be successful using Agent Force, our AI
agent platform, deploying agents in the travel industry, for example,
with customers like Engine Heathrows, Singapore Airlines, Thin Air. For US,
it's really about enabling those companies to work in a
way where their employees, their humans and AI are partnering
(07:26):
closely together to enable that to happen. I'll give you
a very concrete example, Singapore Airlines works closely with agent force. Today,
with Singapore Airlines, we have over three point five million
AI workflows that are being run today, and those workflows
are not actually directly with their customers, but actually servicing
the humans on the Singapore Airlines team working closely with
(07:48):
them in cases such as when their service representative is
helping a customer with a critical issue on the ground.
Our AI workflows are actually summarizing those cases so that
those companies, those reps can now better service their customers
in real time. We think that the future is very
much AI agents and humans working closely together.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, I certainly understand that from a customer service perspective, Nancy,
But from the perspective of this high stress decision making
that takes place in a control tower, is that something
that could be done by AI and then in the
future we could sidestep issues and avoid issues such as these.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
AI is a critical part of building a resilient business.
And I think we're seeing this right now with this
FAA situation. And it's not just the FAA, right you know,
right now we're seeing volatility in every market and this
is not news to us. But what's really exciting, I
think is that AI agents are actually helping companies become
more resilient in these volatile markets, not only in travel
(08:54):
with the companies that I listed earlier, but also we
have companies like one eight hundred Accountant, right they see
massive surges during peak tax season and the types of
queries their customers are coming with help four and we're
able to, in the case of one eight hundred Accountant,
help them address more than ninety percent of those cases
autonomously and to end really serving their customers and ensuring
(09:16):
that when you do have surges in the system like
that or these black Swan events, AI agents can help
these customers be resilient and help them better serve their
own customers.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You've mentioned partnerships with Singapore Airlines London's Heathrow Airport, but
here in the United States do you have partnerships with
airports that where this technology actually could help in terms
of air traffic controllers, in terms of helping people who
are stranded.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I mean, we have colleagues who they were.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Told over the weekend that they wouldn't even be able
to find a flight until Wednesday. And certainly some of
that is on the airline, but the core of the
issue still has to do with those people not showing
up to work on the airport side and the air
traffic control side.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
TIM, we have customers that we work closely with, like Engine.
Engine is one of the leading platforms right now that
is helping do travel management for companies. So it's across
not just airlines travel flight bookings, but also those hotel
bookings and those car rentals that are being impacted as
a result downstream. With a company like Engine, you know,
(10:22):
they're handling a large volume of customer queries here in
the US today and in those situations, we're today helping
them increase or decrease their average handling time by more
than fifteen percent, and over thirty percent of those complex
bookings that are happening end to end as well as
those case resolutions for their customers are being done autonomously
(10:43):
using agent Force agents, and the impact of that, TIM
is really helping a company like Engine surge their capacity
in this critical period so that they're able to flex
up and down depending on what their customers are needing.
And right now, of course, the flex is going up.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Nancy Schue, vice President of AI Product at Salesforce, thanks
so much for joining us. Today on Bloomberg Tech to
appreciate it Well. Coming up, we wait earnings from core
Weave and Paramount, both of these companies set to report
after the closing bell.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We've got a.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Preview what to expect next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Well,
let's take a look at Spotify shares. They've turned lower
(11:32):
amid an announcement out of TikTok, the social platform, teaming
up with iHeartMedia to create a new TikTok podcast network.
The deal will feature up to twenty five new podcasts
hosted by TikTok creators. This is the company looks to
help creators beyond the TikTok platforms. Spotify shares down about
one tenth of one percent, I Heeart Media shares down
about six point three percent. Well, Paramount guidance results do
(11:56):
add after the closing bell, with investors heavily focused on
a potential bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. Here with more
is Bloomberg's Hannah Miller, who covers Media Wow. David Ellison
has been very busy in his first few months over
at Paramount sky Dance. Hannah, I know there are a
lot of questions about the UFC purchase about the Duffer
Brothers deal, about the hiring of Barry Weiss, But is
(12:17):
the big question all about Warner Brothers Discovery and whether
some or all of those assets go to Paramount's guidance.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Yeah, investors want to hear any updates related to Paramounts
multiple bids to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. So far, they've
been bidding too low. So we'll see what David Ellison
says today if he gives any insight into their strategy
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Are investors on board with him spending this much money?
Speaker 7 (12:42):
You know, I think investors are surprised. Some are wondering,
you know, hey, why didn't you go for Warner Brothers
in the first place instead of Paramount? Might have been
less complicated, But you know, they want to see what
David Ellison has in store for Paramount. He has a
really tech forward approach. He's willing to spend lots of money, So,
you know, some in the industry are excited to see
(13:03):
what could happen if these two companies fell under the
same roof and ownership.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Bloomberg's Hannah Miller follow those results on Bloomberg TV and
Radio as soon as they come out. After the bell today. Well,
another company that we are watching, Core We've. Shares, the
cloud computing firm fell twenty two percent last week.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This emit a broader pullback in the AI trade.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Now investors are watching its results closely as concerns grow
over heavy spending by core Weave's customers. Bloomberg's Dina Bass
joins us now with more the twenty two percent decline
and shares last week. The concern about this idea of
some circular financing, the small number of customers that core
We've has that really account for a majority of its revenue.
(13:44):
What's the thing that investors are watching most closely for
with today's results.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Dina, As you said, it's the spending and what they
say about it. It's not just spending by Corewave's customers,
it's spending by corew weave itself and sort of the
debt financing, the debt that they're taking on to do that. Think,
you know, across the board some of these companies, investors
are sort of betwixt in between. They on the one hand,
they want to see spending because it's a solid demand signal.
If companies are spending to expand data centers, it means
(14:10):
that they think that they're getting more AI business in
the door. When they stop spending, investors are going to
worry that that's slowing down. On the other hand, investors
are also worried that all of that spending just costs
a lot of money and what's what's the return? When
do you start making that back? And so I think
for core We, there's going to be a you know,
(14:31):
look at what they're saying about demand signals, what they're
saying about deals that they've signed about you know, remaining
performance obligations, so with deals they've already booked and haven't
been able to fulfill, as well as what's going on
on the profit or in the case of core We,
the loss side, you know, in terms of what they're
spending to get to fulfill those those customer obligations.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Can core We've actually get everything it needs to build
the capacity or invest in the capacity that it thinks
it's customers will need. Can you get the check? Can
you get the electricity? Can it get the infrastructure?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Right now, no one is getting everything they need and
that's you know Corey, you open AI, Microsoft Meta, nobody
is getting as many chips as they want nobody is
getting as much power as they think they need. You know,
it's all coming online rapidly, but not rapidly enough based
on what these companies think the demand picture looks like.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Bloomberg's Dina Bass joins us now and Dina, thanks so
much for that update. A reminder, we will have those
numbers for you as soon as they break after the
bell on Bloomberg TV and a radio as well.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Let's put all of this spending into context of the
broader markets as well. With Hillary Frisch, Senior Research analysts
for Software and IT services at Clearbridge Investments, Healy, good
to have you on the program.
Speaker 8 (15:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
The existential question that Dina was just talking about, when
is this going to pay off? It's not just with
Core Weave, it's not just with Microsoft, it's not just
with meta platforms. This is the existential question that every
investor asking themselves right now.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
When will it pay off?
Speaker 8 (16:02):
It's the next sistential question.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
However, there's a lot of long range planning occurring at present.
The commitments that Opening Eye and these ecosystem partners are
making are stretched out over a very long term horizon,
and as Dina mentioned, I thought she summarized it will
nobody can get what they need yet, so it's going
to be an ongoing process of seeing allocations, seeing revenues,
(16:28):
seeing costs drop, seeing funding, seeing improvement in the across
the ecosystem, which will reinforce investor confidence in this.
Speaker 8 (16:37):
I think there's a strong belief that.
Speaker 9 (16:39):
There is ROI, but investors are paid to evaluate risks
as well as reward, and sometimes that pendulum shifts really
firm one direction. And say, in the case of an
oracle who, similar to core Weave, is supplying a lot
of this capacity, that stock had gotten back on Thursday
or Friday.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
To close to where it had been before the big.
Speaker 9 (16:58):
Announcement, the big announcement with o AI, and I think
investors are viewing what's good as bad until they get.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
Some answers to these questions.
Speaker 9 (17:06):
That said, I think there's more good to come, and
we'll get milestones along the way proving out the thesis
of the ecosystem and the returns.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
That thesis of the ecosystem is really something that I'm
having trouble to visualizing right now. And no matter how
much Mark Zuckerberg tries to explain superintelligence to me, and
to shareholders of the company. I still don't understand what
that ultimate payoff looks like, not just for meta platforms,
but for the industry in general. Is this something that
(17:36):
will only pay off when there's mass unemployment so companies
don't have to actually pay for people because machines in
AI are doing the work.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Is it an increase in productivity?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We all keep our jobs, but we have these little friends,
with these little helpers who help us do it better.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
What is it is?
Speaker 8 (17:52):
Nobody knows.
Speaker 9 (17:53):
I think it's a combination of increased productivity, increased revenue,
increased velocity of activity. At a minimum, AI should really
supercharge the individual today. The adoption has been very methodical
among typical commercial organizations because they have to worry about
security and orchestration and liability and all sorts of things.
(18:14):
And that's going to be the case. But we are
seeing the beginnings of real progress. We're seeing the technologies
in the marketplace start to mature. We're seeing the very
beginnings of commercial deployments in production beyond what Palanteer is doing,
and so I think we're seeing the beginnings of it.
But as we know, technology trends are overestimated in the
(18:35):
short term and underestimating the long term, and things move
very slowly until they start to move quickly.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
And that's just a phenomenon of tech.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
But are you using it at all with your job?
Speaker 8 (18:44):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (18:45):
How Yeah, we're using chat, GPT enterprise, our developers are
using cogend tools. But those things aren't easier because the
finished product doesn't have to be correct.
Speaker 8 (18:55):
I can see what works for me and what doesn't.
Speaker 9 (18:57):
But it's a very different phenomenon when you have something
tam are facing the broadly employee facing where it has
to work out of the box and it can't bring
your organization down in trims of liability.
Speaker 8 (19:06):
So it's going to be a process for sure.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I was talking about this last week with somebody on
our program and they said, they're basically like an intern,
these these llms, you know, eager to help out, but
you really have to check the work to make sure
that it's something that can actually go to print them,
something that is actually accurate. Finally, I just want to
talk about the overall economic effects of this. A lot
(19:29):
of what we talk about when it comes to AI.
The real beneficiarias have been the major companies that we
talk about every day on Bloomberg Tech. But when will
we start to see these advancements actually affect the bottom
lines and the productivity of companies that are not necessarily
tech adjacent.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
So such a great question, And it's funny because people
are attributing layoffs to AI, and I think in part
some of those layoffs may come from the need to
fund AI, but not directly from the productivity benefits from
AI yet.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So in other words, companies spending money on AI rather
than people, and that's why they're making investments there rather
than in human capital.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
Well, they're spending on AI, but there are other things
behind the layoffs, meaning people that over hired during the pandemic,
especially in the realm of technology. Not all those hires
were of the quality that they wanted.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
They had to pay a lot for those folks.
Speaker 9 (20:21):
And also, companies have been been bracing for an economic
town turn. My industry contexts tell me everybody's bracing for
a downturn, concern over tariffs, inflation, etc. So I don't
think it's directly attributable. But to answer your question directly,
I think next year we start to see we're starting
to see production workloads going to production Today I think
companies will have better worked out the kinks by the
(20:44):
second half of next year. As I mentioned, the technologies
are maturing, the costs are plummeting, the rois will rise,
and I think into second half of next year are
really going to be the first signposts of broader benefits
from AI to the average commercial working say.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Hillary Frish, senior research analyst at Clearbridge Investments, thanks so
much for joining.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Us on Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, coming up, GRAB takes the wheel, investing in a
remote driving startup. Speaking of driving, let's take a quick
look at Tesla shares. This shareholder is approving a one
trillion dollar pay package for Elon Musk last week on
the promise that he'll transition the company to focus on
AI and robotics. The company likely benefiting from the wider
risk on sentiment today too. This is Bloomberg Tech sign
(21:40):
out for Talking Tech. First up, Grab investing sixty million
dollars in remote driving service day, with the potential to
reach four hundred and ten million dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Check this out.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
They allows users to order a car, which is then
operated remotely and delivered to the customer.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
The deal is expected to close.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
In the fourth quarter plus, ta MC posted a sixteen
point nine percent rise in sales for the month of October.
That's the slowest pace for the chip makers ince February
of twenty twenty four. Still, the company on track to
meet average analyst estimates of sixteen percent sales in the
current quarter and in videas, Jensen Wong remains optimistic about
(22:17):
the AI demand, asking TSMC for more chip supplies. Speaking
to reporters in Taiwan, Wong said, quote, the business is
very strong and it's growing months by month, stronger and stronger.
(22:39):
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Power constraints are slowing parts
of Silicon Valley's AI expansion, with two proposed data centers
in Santa Clara facing potential delays due to limited utility capacity.
But just south in San Jose, Prolagis has won approval
to develop new data centers and manufacturing facilities with a
vision that includes five electric substations for power for more.
(23:02):
We're joined by San Jose or Matt Mayhem. Matt, good
to have you on the program today. The first question
I have is really about why San Jose is a
good place for facility like this. This is some of
the most expensive real estates, the most expensive housing in
the entire United States.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Why San Jose.
Speaker 10 (23:20):
Well, we're in a really fortunate position in San Jose
to have two gigawatts of new power coming online over
the next four years.
Speaker 11 (23:28):
We're the only city in California.
Speaker 10 (23:30):
With that kind of new load capacity, and this particular
location is really unique. It's up in North San Jose
next to two thirty seven, a large freeway here right
next to our wastewater treatment facility, which means access to
ample recycled water at a reasonable rate, as well as
(23:51):
one of those new transmission lines coming into the city
of San Jose. So, as you mentioned, while the rest
of Silicon Valley, which was largely built out, is having
to turn data on our projects away, we've just said
yes to prologe Is in this proposal to put four
hundred megawatts worth of data centers right here in the
heart of Silicon Valley. We think it's a really exciting
opportunity in terms of economic competitiveness, job growth, tax base,
(24:16):
and those infrastructure pieces are right there in place to
facilitate it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
You mentioned it's right by a wastewater treatment facility. It
makes me think that perhaps this wouldn't be the best
place to build affordable housing. Is it fair to say
that this is not a site that is zoned for that.
Speaker 10 (24:30):
That's part of the benefit here is that in much
of the city we're trying to enable housing, mixed juice development, retail,
more transit oriented development. This particular site is up next
to the bay. You've got wastewater treatment, there's a landfill nearby. Fortunately,
servers don't complain about odors, and.
Speaker 11 (24:50):
So we think it's the perfect location.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
There's also just nowhere else in Silicon Valley with access
to recycled water that's so easy. Plus the availability of
power that's the biggest barrier. As you know, we've got
a thousand megawatts of new power coming online over the
next four years in this exact location.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, explain where that power is coming from, where it's
coming online. As I mentioned, one of the most read
stories on the Bloomberg Terminal today is about data centers
that are just sitting there idle because they cannot get
capacity actually hooked up to them to energize them.
Speaker 10 (25:24):
That's right, and sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
San Jose is a beneficiary of a decision made by
kaisso the independent system operator here in California. Many years
ago before we were talking much about AI, they were
just looking at general economic growth trends and decided that
San Jose had some of the highest growth potential in
(25:46):
the entire state, and they approved new transmission lines. There's
one line coming up from the south, one from the north,
but they both come into San Jose.
Speaker 11 (25:55):
Each is a thousand megawatts. So here's a city that
has a million people.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
Twelve large city in the country already consumes about one
point one gigawatts of power. We have two gigawatts coming
online over the next four years. That means we can
triple our energy use in the city of San Jose.
There's no other city in California, maybe the country, that
is set up to triple its energy consumption over the
(26:20):
next four to five years. That's a really unique position
to be in. We're just blessed with this infrastructure coming online.
We've of course said yes to it, helped facilitate it,
been very supportive of it. But we're really optimistic that
this means more jobs, not just data centers, advanced manufacturing
R and D labs.
Speaker 11 (26:39):
We're in a really strong.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
Position to capture this technological wave that we're.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In, the power that it will be used by these
data centers, the power that's coming online, how is it
being generated? I know you have that one nuclear power
plant down South Diablo Canyon on the central coast, and
some renewables certainly too, wind and solar. How's this energy
are you going to be generated?
Speaker 10 (27:01):
So the City of San Jose a few years ago
set up something called a community Choice aggregator. Essentially that's
a mouthful, but essentially the city purchases power on behalf
of the users within our city limits. We have used
this policy tool to sign twenty year power purchase agreements
that enable us to fund new generation capacity. And because
(27:25):
we have a commitment to cleaner energy, what we're essentially
doing is buying solar and wind compared with storage, and
that's the key. The intermittency issue is real, but when
you build enough storage capacity, you can smooth that curve
out and actually make it work. And so Santose already
(27:46):
has one of the cleanest renewable mixes in the country.
But it's largely because we're using that collective purchasing power
to invest in cleaner power, invest in innovation, in the
energy sector, and it's it's taken us a long way,
and we're going to continue to go down that path
because grid scale storage is the way to clean up
(28:07):
the grid. You mentioned nuclear. I think that also has
to be part of the mix here if we want
to really get down our emissions. But I'm proud of
the work we've done in San Jose, and there's a
lot of runway left.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So is it fair to say that none of the
power that will be used to energize these data centers
will be you know, quote unquote dirty, non renewable power,
carbon based stuff.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
Well, I can't guarantee none of it will, because the
power is coming off the grid, And so what we're
doing is using this projected increase in demand to sign
new power purchase agreements that are mostly, if not entirely
quote unquote clean. But then that gets added to the
grid and moves up the overall mix of renewable on
(28:51):
the grid. So I can't promise you that there aren't
electrons coming off the grid that are coming from nuclear.
Speaker 11 (28:57):
Or a gas plant somewhere.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Certainly, natural gas nuclear are still very much part of
the foundation California. Isn't isn't using coal we're using. Geothermal
is growing, but it's really been solar paired with storage.
Speaker 11 (29:12):
That's where most of the growth is coming from.
Speaker 10 (29:15):
And the great thing about growth is you can invest
in an innovation, and that's what we're doing, is we're
explicitly purchasing solar paired with storage so that we can
increase the renewable mix on the grid. Overall, that benefits
us and the entire state.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Mayor man any interest yet from some of the large
hyperscalers or large tech companies in Silicon Valley for using
this capacity, what can you tell us?
Speaker 11 (29:39):
We have a very robust pipeline.
Speaker 10 (29:41):
PGAE did a cluster study last year that's already outdated
because there's so much more demand. I suspect most of
those two gigawatts of new power coming online will be
spoken for over the next eighteen months. We've got a
long pipeline of interested parties, the usual suspects, hyperscalers and
the big data center developers, some advanced manufacturing uses. So
(30:05):
PGEN will be updating their cluster study, will get a
better look at how much demand there is in the
city of San Jose, but last year showed over eight
hundred megawatts worth of demand. I suspect it's quite a
bit higher now this year, especially with this news. As
you know, for this particular site, Prologist builds for the
world's largest companies, the Hyperscalers, the most innovative companies on Earth,
(30:28):
and this particular location is a real win win because
it doesn't displace housing or retail or any other uses.
It's underutilized land next to a waste of our treatment
facility that just happens to have a lot of new
power capacity and recycled water just adjacent to the site.
Speaker 11 (30:44):
So it's kind of the perfect place to do this.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Matt Mahon, the mayor of San Jose, California, thanks so
much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
May Or Mahnon, do appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, Let's stick with the AI theme and take a
look at some movers right now in that space. The
Nasdaq and the Philadelphia Semi Index. The socks both up
now a ZAK one hundred up one point three percent.
The socks up two percent, this as talks are underway
to potentially end the month long government shutdown. Chip stocks
two on the move in Nvidio more than three percent.
(31:14):
Also as investors responding to strong sector fundamentals, accelerating AI spending.
A rally started with TSMC's solid results. All eyes too
on core Weave that is slated to report after the
closing bell today. Coryve up seven tens of one percent
right now, kind of those masks. What happened last week?
Sticking with core Weave, let's bring in Bloomberg Equities reporter
(31:35):
Carmen Ryanicky Sheet joins us now. Carmen Corewave tough week
last week, but the stock has absolutely been on a
tear since it went public. What's the backdrop that the
company is facing when it reports results after the bell.
Speaker 12 (31:48):
Yeah, so investors are really going to be watching for
sort of this balance between revenue growth for Coreve, which
is just flying it's expected to double to more than
one point three billion, but also the sort of massive
spending that it also has while it builds out more
and more capacity for its large hyper scale clients. As
you mentioned, Coreeve shares are up more than double still
(32:09):
since their IPO, but they are also more than thirty
percent below a record high hit a few months ago,
and they fell pretty significantly after last earnings on concerns
about spending. So that's something we're going to be watching
very closely after the bell today. Stock fell a lot
last week when we sort of had this broader AI
sell off, but a little bit of a rebound today
ahead of those results.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
As you note in a recent piece for Bloomberg News,
most of Corewave's sales come from Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Are there questions about diversifying that at all.
Speaker 12 (32:37):
Yeah, that's something that investors are definitely looking forward to
hear if they've added any new clients in this quarter
to kind of shift away from the dependence on those
few companies. Though I've also heard from sources that it's
not the biggest concern because there's just so much demand
in this space that even if one of their big
clients were to drop them or move on or something,
there are going to be others to rush it. So
(33:00):
definitely investors are looking for, you know, are they signing
new clients, new customers, But it might not be the
biggest concern.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Bloomberg's Carmen Ryana Key check out her reporting and more
on the Bloomberg Terminal, and a reminder for instant earnings
results and analysis, tune into Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
At the close today.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well coming up Isaiah Taylor, CEO valor Atomics, joins us
fresh off of the back of the company's one hundred
and thirty million dollar funding round. We're going to talk
about the startups plants to remake the US nuclear sector. Next,
this is Bloomberg Tech. Power demand, driven in part by
(33:54):
AI and the US push to secure key initiatives and
key industries has led to efforts to revive America's nuclear
power abilities. Startup valor Atomics is seeking to do that
with the next generation reactor. It's just raised a one
hundred and thirty million dollars Series A funding round. We're
joined by the founder and CEO, Isaiah Taylor. Joins us
(34:14):
right now on Bloomberg Tech. Isaiah, good to have you
on the program. Congratulations on the rays. When we talk
about small modular reactors, you're not alone Nano nuclear, Aklo,
new scale, just a handful of the companies working on
this technology. What makes Valors different?
Speaker 13 (34:30):
Yeah, Tim, It's a huge pleasure to be on with
you today and it's a really exciting day for Valor.
Speaker 11 (34:34):
It's a great question.
Speaker 13 (34:35):
There are a lot of people tackling this very very
difficult problem of how do we make all of the
energy needs that America has in the future. You know,
the thing that sets Valor apart is two things. One
is that we're building very quickly. You know, when we
started this company, we realized that there was a gap
in the physical hardware. We wanted to actually build reactors
and test them out very rapidly. I started this company
(34:56):
about two years ago, and earlier this year we unveiled
our full, complete thermal prototype of our reactor. That's just
incredible speed. We haven't seen that kind of speed in
nuclear in a long time. The other thing that sets
us apart is that we want to build these to
be manufacturable. We're sort of moving away from this era
of nuclear that's driven by construction and more into mass manufacturing.
We want to pump these things out like they are
(35:17):
a car, like they're a bus, and that's what's going
to drive the cost down and also add a lot
to safety as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Before you pump these things out, though, you've got to
build one single example of one that actually works, and
here in the United States there is still no example
of a small modular reactor that is up and running,
that is online, taking your company out of the mix.
Just when do you think there will be an example
of that in the US.
Speaker 11 (35:43):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 13 (35:44):
We don't have any small modular reactors running in the
US today. And in fact, even though there have been
many nuclear startups who have sort of attempted this, there's
never been a nuclear startup which has yet split the atom.
So I think the next twelve months are going to
be extremely exciting. In May of this year, the President
signed in executive order ordering three American nuclear companies to
(36:05):
turn on SMRs by July fourth of next year. Our
company was one of those companies selected, So I think
I can confidently say before July fourth, there will be
at least one, we hope three SMRs running in the
United States, and we definitely think that Valor will have
one of those.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
How much do they cost? How much will it cost?
What's the ultimate goal?
Speaker 11 (36:24):
So the initial goal is to beat natural gas.
Speaker 13 (36:27):
I think nuclear absolutely has to compete with natural gas
on price, on timeline, on all of these things that
developers care about. So that's the initial goal. And that
gas plant's going, you know, somewhere between one thousand and
two thousand bucks a kilowat, so we want to be
at least with parity. Now we're also cleaner, right, So
it's not just that we're the same prices, that we're
cleaner as well. But the thing that's interesting about nuclear
is that it's actually fairly new and there's a lot
(36:49):
to go down the tech tree, right. There's a lot
of technological innovation that can happen in the future, so
we expect that price to continue dropping. You know, I
think about SpaceX when we talk about this, where dockets
used to cost fifty thousand dollars a kilogram into orbit
and SpaceX pushing them down to two thousand. I think
we're going to look at that level of drop. There's
going to be a massive, massive drop in the price
(37:10):
as Valor gets really good at making these reactors and
makes many of them.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You announced earlier this year that you're suing the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the NRCA.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Why are you doing that?
Speaker 13 (37:22):
Yeah, you know, I think the thing that is really
important in nuclear today is allowing innovation to happen.
Speaker 11 (37:27):
Right.
Speaker 13 (37:27):
If you think about the role of a regulator, they're
trying to figure out how to make sure that we
have safety and security across thousands of reactors deployed all
over the place. But what was missing in American nuclear
was the innovation layer. We need to be able to
turn on test units and make sure that they work well,
and that's sort of the layer that's missing. So our
lawsuit really addresses a gap in how the CODA federal
(37:49):
regulations has been written versus how the law is written.
And so, you know, we're excited about that. We're also
very excited about the Department of Energy. These executive orders
signed earlier this year have also opened up incredible power
ways to be able to move quickly, turn our reactors on, safely,
test them before we go and scale.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You know, Palmer, we were showing an image there of
different investors in the company, Palmer Lucky of Anderil among
those investors certainly thinking about the defense space and his
involvement there. What are the applications of your technology when
it comes to defense for the United States.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
You know, American military bases all around the world are
generally dependent on their local grid for power. This has
become a massive vulnerability as grids have become vulnerable to
cyber attack, you know, by our competitors, and so this
is a way for us to actually secure American military
bases abroad. We want to see these reactors deployed on bases.
A couple of months ago, the Janis program was announced
(38:48):
under the US Army to do exactly this, to actually
put power on military bases that's fully within American control.
We think these reactors are perfect for that. This is
a nice small form factor that's very easy to construct,
powerful enough to power a base if you put a
couple of them together. So this is a really exciting
opportunity and we're willing to help our country in that way.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
We've seen American military basis come under attack in recent
years in different parts of the world. How would you
guarantee the safety of this technology if it were to
come under attack and not lead.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
To some sort of meltdown.
Speaker 13 (39:21):
Yeah, you know, this is where this particular technology shines.
Our reactor is built around a very safe form of
nuclear fuel called TRESO fuel. TRESO fuel is very small
beads of uranium encased in very heart ceramic layers, and
it turns out that these ceramic layers are extremely impervious
to many different types of attacks. So if you look
at the spectrum of how you build energy around the world,
(39:43):
we believe this is actually the safest.
Speaker 11 (39:44):
Form of energy generation in the world.
Speaker 13 (39:46):
So we're really excited to put it out not on
the edge, not only on the edge, but also for
data center's heavy industrial power and eventually synthetic hydrocarbon production.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Isaiah, before we let you go, is your company going
to be the first US company to successfully deploy and
bring online a small modular reactor.
Speaker 13 (40:06):
You know, it's a hot race, and there are a
lot of awesome people working on the problem. But where
I sit today, I do believe that valor Atomics will
be the first.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That is absolutely our goal.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Isaiah Taylor, founder and CEO of valor Atomics, joining us
from Delaware today. Well, chatbots have become a go to
source for millions of people looking for information, amusement, and
emotional support. But evidence is mounting that for some people,
chatbot interactions can lead to dark places. That's the focus
(40:37):
of a big take from Bloomberg's Ellen Hewitt and Rachel Metz.
Rachel joins us Now, Rachel, this is a really powerful piece,
really scary piece.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
For it, I think a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You and the team spoke to eighteen different individuals who've
either experienced delusions themselves or.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Have a loved one who has what did you find?
Speaker 14 (40:55):
We found that this is happening and has happened to
all kinds of people. I mean, most of the people
that we spoke with were based in the US, but
we found through talking to people that there are men
and women in all different parts of the US, in
different countries, Canada, in the UK, and many other countries besides,
(41:16):
who are dealing with this. And it gave us a
sense that and it wasn't just people that have a
history of mental health issues in their past. It can
be all kinds of people, people that do, people that don't.
And it just was really shocking to us how many
different types of people had been dealing with this experience.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
How do the lllms, how do these chatbots draw people
in and keep them there?
Speaker 14 (41:44):
I think for a lot of the people that we
spoke to, I mean, in every single situation, it started
out extremely normally. They were using it for Lennie how
to play the banjo, or getting help with real estate
things like that. Like these are examples, you know, like
very normal things that people would be using this sort
of technology for. And then over time, over like a
(42:06):
period of weeks, often it would kind of get maybe
more philosophical.
Speaker 11 (42:11):
It would sort of.
Speaker 14 (42:12):
Depend on the user's interests. I mean, these chatboss have
become increasingly personalized, so people that are more interested in
things like math, for instance, it might sort of move
in that direction, or it might tell people slowly over
time you have awoken the AI, and people would say really,
and it would say yes. And they would say really
(42:32):
and it would say yes. So it was very reinforcing
and would sort of isolate them from other people in
their lives slowly and systematically.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And just in the last thirty seconds that we have
with you, the companies their response, how have they responded
to this reporting.
Speaker 14 (42:46):
I mean we've seen a range of responses, both to
us specifically and also generally to a growing number of
lawsuits related to these sources of issues. Open AI. I mean,
it's made a lot of changes in recent months, especially
like adding parental controls, and it's also trying to make
it better, make its chat about better at noting these
(43:08):
kinds of issues and getting people help.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
That's Rachel Metz, who along with Ellen Hewitt, reported on
these delusions for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It was a recent big take.
Do check it out on the Bloomberg Terminal and at
bloomberg dot Com slash Big Take. That is going to
do it for this edition of Bloomberg Chech Tech. Don't
forget to check out our podcast. You can find another
Terminal as well as online at Apple, Spotify, or iHeart.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
This is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
lie from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New
York and Ed Lovelow in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is a Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, talks continue to
try and end the US government shutdown, sending airline stocks rallying.
We'll discuss how AI could play a role in the
future of travel. Plus, tech and media earnings continue with
corew Even paramount on the docket after the closing bell,
and we'll speak with Matt Mayhan, mayor of San Jose
(00:42):
about the city's growing AI infrastructure and its latest data
center initiative. First, so check on the market, starting with
the bigger picture and look at that. We are seeing
the Nasdaq one hundred surge along with other major indices.
This is the US Senate advanced as a plan to
end the longest ever government shutdown. There has gone bid
lifting tech shares, really driving the rally in equities after
(01:05):
the tech sector had been hit the hardest in recent days.
Also coming up, we're going to discuss what to expect
from tech and media earnings throughout the hour. Core Weaves
results are expected to raise issues about AI spending after
last week's sell off. Coryve up one point two percent
right now, This after a week where was down twenty
two percent. This is also on the heels of others.
(01:27):
Spending by tech companies like Meta and Microsoft also paramounts
guidance down about three tenths of one percent. Ahead of earnings,
they're expected to report higher revenue and profit. Investors also
are going to be on the watch for more details
on the company's reported effort to buy Warner Brothers Discovery
spending a lot of money too buying up those rights
to UFC, and that big deal with the Duffer Brothers.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A group of eight Democrats on Sunday broke the rest
of their party to vote with Republicans to advance a
bill to reopen the government on the shutdown's fortieth day.
Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall joins us out of Washington, DC for more. Tyler,
tell us where we are in the discussion. Where do
things stand with the Senate back today?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
I hey, Tim, So the Senate advanced this legislation on
a key procedural vote, but it still has to go
up to debate and then get a final floor vote
on the Senate floor, and importantly, any one senator could
tie up that process. We have our eyes on Senator
Ran Paul, a Republican from Kentucky. He voted against this
legislation and could ultimately delay it. However, the broad understanding here,
(02:26):
we're expecting this legislation to advance out of the Upper
Chamber and then go to the House later in the week.
Once the past of the Senate, there are thirty six
hours for House lawmakers to get back to Washington and vote.
But we have to look at what's actually in this
legislation to see some of those pressure points that could
be building on how Speaker Mike Johnson. This bill would
fund the government through January thirtieth and then fund some
(02:48):
key agencies through the rest of the fiscal years. Some
hardline conservatives may not be happy with that because they
didn't get the chance to negotiate those longer spending bills.
This also importantly includes a reverse for mass firings federal
workers that started on October first, and shields against future
firings through at least January thirtieth. That of course, goes
against President Trump's key priority when it comes to reducing
(03:10):
the federal WORKFORCET, so that also might face some pushback
when House lawmakers get back to town. I'll say, I'm
keeping my eye on those moderate Democrats in the House,
how they could come over and join Republicans, because that's
what we really saw happen when it came to the Senate.
They were negotiating, of course, for an extension on those
Affordable Care Act premium subsidies. The Senate wasn't able to
get a deal in this legislation, but they were able
(03:32):
to secure a promise on a vote for an extension
down the line. We're expecting that to happen by the
second week of December. See if how Speaker Mike Johnson
puts anything similar on the floor. At this point, we
haven't gotten in any indications, but I'd expect some House
Democrats to push for.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It, all right.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall keeping it on everything happening out of Washington, DC.
Thanks so much for that, Tyler well shares of major
airlines rallying as a potential and to the government shut
down nears. That's despite one hundred have canceled flights over
the weekend due to weather and the lack of air
traffic controllers and President Trump just now weighing in moments
ago on true social saying, quote, all air traffic controllers
(04:11):
must get back to work now. Anyone who doesn't will
be substantially docked. Nancy Shue leads agent for US at Salesforce,
and joins us now to talk about how AI might
actually help and be helping in the travel sector. Nancy,
good to have you with us from our San Francisco studio.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I got to tell you a.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Lot of my colleagues, a lot of friends had their
trips canceled or disrupted over the weekend. It doesn't seem
like anything could actually help right now. Accept actual air
traffic controllers and actual TSA agents showing up to work.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
Tim, thanks so much for having me. We are seeing
with the evolving situation right now at the FAA through
our own agent platform, Agent Force, that it's really important
for companies to have agentic solutions and able in order
to serve their customs daring this very critical time where
we're seeing a surge in the system. As an example,
(05:05):
at Agent Force right now, we work closely with Heathrow.
Heathrow has more than eighty million passengers that walk through
their airports every single year. And at Heathrow, you know
those passengers are walking in a four and four am
in the morning, it could be at noon where they're
looking for lost luggage, regardless of the time and day. No,
(05:25):
we have an agent with them called Haley that's helping
Heathrow passengers right now on the ground, using AI agents
to address their customer queries, really using that ability for
AI agents to surge capacity for these companies to build
more resilient solutions. And this is critical right now with
the FA situation that's breaking. Enabling our customers and all
(05:47):
the companies that are using AI agents to flex film
a bit of capacity and really better serve those travelers
that are on the road today.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, I mentioned the President's post on social media just
in the last hour or so. The post continues to
say that if if you want to leave service in
the near future, these are people who are not showing.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Up to work, he says.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
He says, you will be quickly replaced by true patriots
who will do a better job on the brand new,
state of the art equipment, the best in the world
that we are in the process of ordering that new equipment.
It's come up fairly often in recent months when talking
about the challenges at air traffic control and for air
traffic controllers here in the US, does Salesforce have any
role in the new air traffic control equipment that is
(06:26):
being ordered, whether it's software or something else.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
What I can share, Tim, is that we have a
brand new initiative Mission Force where we're working with national
security as well as the US government as well as
allied governments to best support them, using technology and bringing
them as modern solutions, including RAI to help support national security.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Today, you've got a great view on the capabilities not
just now but in the coming years when it comes
to this technology within our lifetimes. Do you think AI
could replace air traffic controllers?
Speaker 6 (07:02):
Tim, We are very excited about the vision of enabling
our customers to be successful using Agent Force, our AI
agent platform, deploying agents in the travel industry, for example,
with customers like Engine Heathrows, Singapore Airlines, Thin Air. For US,
it's really about enabling those companies to work in a
way where their employees, their humans and AI are partnering
(07:26):
closely together to enable that to happen. I'll give you
a very concrete example, Singapore Airlines works closely with agent force. Today,
with Singapore Airlines, we have over three point five million
AI workflows that are being run today, and those workflows
are not actually directly with their customers, but actually servicing
the humans on the Singapore Airlines team working closely with
(07:48):
them in cases such as when their service representative is
helping a customer with a critical issue on the ground.
Our AI workflows are actually summarizing those cases so that
those companies, those reps can now better service their customers
in real time. We think that the future is very
much AI agents and humans working closely together.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, I certainly understand that from a customer service perspective, Nancy,
But from the perspective of this high stress decision making
that takes place in a control tower, is that something
that could be done by AI and then in the
future we could sidestep issues and avoid issues such as these.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
AI is a critical part of building a resilient business.
And I think we're seeing this right now with this
FAA situation. And it's not just the FAA, right you know,
right now we're seeing volatility in every market and this
is not news to us. But what's really exciting, I
think is that AI agents are actually helping companies become
more resilient in these volatile markets, not only in travel
(08:54):
with the companies that I listed earlier, but also we
have companies like one eight hundred Accountant, right they see
massive surges during peak tax season and the types of
queries their customers are coming with help four and we're
able to, in the case of one eight hundred Accountant,
help them address more than ninety percent of those cases
autonomously and to end really serving their customers and ensuring
(09:16):
that when you do have surges in the system like
that or these black Swan events, AI agents can help
these customers be resilient and help them better serve their
own customers.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You've mentioned partnerships with Singapore Airlines London's Heathrow Airport, but
here in the United States do you have partnerships with
airports that where this technology actually could help in terms
of air traffic controllers, in terms of helping people who
are stranded.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I mean, we have colleagues who they were.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Told over the weekend that they wouldn't even be able
to find a flight until Wednesday. And certainly some of
that is on the airline, but the core of the
issue still has to do with those people not showing
up to work on the airport side and the air
traffic control side.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
TIM, we have customers that we work closely with, like Engine.
Engine is one of the leading platforms right now that
is helping do travel management for companies. So it's across
not just airlines travel flight bookings, but also those hotel
bookings and those car rentals that are being impacted as
a result downstream. With a company like Engine, you know,
(10:22):
they're handling a large volume of customer queries here in
the US today and in those situations, we're today helping
them increase or decrease their average handling time by more
than fifteen percent, and over thirty percent of those complex
bookings that are happening end to end as well as
those case resolutions for their customers are being done autonomously
(10:43):
using agent Force agents, and the impact of that, TIM
is really helping a company like Engine surge their capacity
in this critical period so that they're able to flex
up and down depending on what their customers are needing.
And right now, of course, the flex is going up.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Nancy Schue, vice President of AI Product at Salesforce, thanks
so much for joining us. Today on Bloomberg Tech to
appreciate it Well. Coming up, we wait earnings from core
Weave and Paramount, both of these companies set to report
after the closing bell.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
We've got a.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Preview what to expect next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Well,
let's take a look at Spotify shares. They've turned lower
(11:32):
amid an announcement out of TikTok, the social platform, teaming
up with iHeartMedia to create a new TikTok podcast network.
The deal will feature up to twenty five new podcasts
hosted by TikTok creators. This is the company looks to
help creators beyond the TikTok platforms. Spotify shares down about
one tenth of one percent, I Heeart Media shares down
about six point three percent. Well, Paramount guidance results do
(11:56):
add after the closing bell, with investors heavily focused on
a potential bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. Here with more
is Bloomberg's Hannah Miller, who covers Media Wow. David Ellison
has been very busy in his first few months over
at Paramount sky Dance. Hannah, I know there are a
lot of questions about the UFC purchase about the Duffer
Brothers deal, about the hiring of Barry Weiss, But is
(12:17):
the big question all about Warner Brothers Discovery and whether
some or all of those assets go to Paramount's guidance.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Yeah, investors want to hear any updates related to Paramounts
multiple bids to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. So far, they've
been bidding too low. So we'll see what David Ellison
says today if he gives any insight into their strategy
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Are investors on board with him spending this much money?
Speaker 7 (12:42):
You know, I think investors are surprised. Some are wondering,
you know, hey, why didn't you go for Warner Brothers
in the first place instead of Paramount? Might have been
less complicated, But you know, they want to see what
David Ellison has in store for Paramount. He has a
really tech forward approach. He's willing to spend lots of money, So,
you know, some in the industry are excited to see
(13:03):
what could happen if these two companies fell under the
same roof and ownership.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Bloomberg's Hannah Miller follow those results on Bloomberg TV and
Radio as soon as they come out. After the bell today. Well,
another company that we are watching, Core We've. Shares, the
cloud computing firm fell twenty two percent last week.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
This emit a broader pullback in the AI trade.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Now investors are watching its results closely as concerns grow
over heavy spending by core Weave's customers. Bloomberg's Dina Bass
joins us now with more the twenty two percent decline
and shares last week. The concern about this idea of
some circular financing, the small number of customers that core
We've has that really account for a majority of its revenue.
(13:44):
What's the thing that investors are watching most closely for
with today's results.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Dina, As you said, it's the spending and what they
say about it. It's not just spending by Corewave's customers,
it's spending by corew weave itself and sort of the
debt financing, the debt that they're taking on to do that. Think,
you know, across the board some of these companies, investors
are sort of betwixt in between. They on the one hand,
they want to see spending because it's a solid demand signal.
If companies are spending to expand data centers, it means
(14:10):
that they think that they're getting more AI business in
the door. When they stop spending, investors are going to
worry that that's slowing down. On the other hand, investors
are also worried that all of that spending just costs
a lot of money and what's what's the return? When
do you start making that back? And so I think
for core We, there's going to be a you know,
(14:31):
look at what they're saying about demand signals, what they're
saying about deals that they've signed about you know, remaining
performance obligations, so with deals they've already booked and haven't
been able to fulfill, as well as what's going on
on the profit or in the case of core We,
the loss side, you know, in terms of what they're
spending to get to fulfill those those customer obligations.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Can core We've actually get everything it needs to build
the capacity or invest in the capacity that it thinks
it's customers will need. Can you get the check? Can
you get the electricity? Can it get the infrastructure?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Right now, no one is getting everything they need and
that's you know Corey, you open AI, Microsoft Meta, nobody
is getting as many chips as they want nobody is
getting as much power as they think they need. You know,
it's all coming online rapidly, but not rapidly enough based
on what these companies think the demand picture looks like.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Bloomberg's Dina Bass joins us now and Dina, thanks so
much for that update. A reminder, we will have those
numbers for you as soon as they break after the
bell on Bloomberg TV and a radio as well.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Let's put all of this spending into context of the
broader markets as well. With Hillary Frisch, Senior Research analysts
for Software and IT services at Clearbridge Investments, Healy, good
to have you on the program.
Speaker 8 (15:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
The existential question that Dina was just talking about, when
is this going to pay off? It's not just with
Core Weave, it's not just with Microsoft, it's not just
with meta platforms. This is the existential question that every
investor asking themselves right now.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
When will it pay off?
Speaker 8 (16:02):
It's the next sistential question.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
However, there's a lot of long range planning occurring at present.
The commitments that Opening Eye and these ecosystem partners are
making are stretched out over a very long term horizon,
and as Dina mentioned, I thought she summarized it will
nobody can get what they need yet, so it's going
to be an ongoing process of seeing allocations, seeing revenues,
(16:28):
seeing costs drop, seeing funding, seeing improvement in the across
the ecosystem, which will reinforce investor confidence in this.
Speaker 8 (16:37):
I think there's a strong belief that.
Speaker 9 (16:39):
There is ROI, but investors are paid to evaluate risks
as well as reward, and sometimes that pendulum shifts really
firm one direction. And say, in the case of an
oracle who, similar to core Weave, is supplying a lot
of this capacity, that stock had gotten back on Thursday
or Friday.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
To close to where it had been before the big.
Speaker 9 (16:58):
Announcement, the big announcement with o AI, and I think
investors are viewing what's good as bad until they get.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
Some answers to these questions.
Speaker 9 (17:06):
That said, I think there's more good to come, and
we'll get milestones along the way proving out the thesis
of the ecosystem and the returns.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
That thesis of the ecosystem is really something that I'm
having trouble to visualizing right now. And no matter how
much Mark Zuckerberg tries to explain superintelligence to me, and
to shareholders of the company. I still don't understand what
that ultimate payoff looks like, not just for meta platforms,
but for the industry in general. Is this something that
(17:36):
will only pay off when there's mass unemployment so companies
don't have to actually pay for people because machines in
AI are doing the work.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Is it an increase in productivity?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We all keep our jobs, but we have these little friends,
with these little helpers who help us do it better.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
What is it is?
Speaker 8 (17:52):
Nobody knows.
Speaker 9 (17:53):
I think it's a combination of increased productivity, increased revenue,
increased velocity of activity. At a minimum, AI should really
supercharge the individual today. The adoption has been very methodical
among typical commercial organizations because they have to worry about
security and orchestration and liability and all sorts of things.
(18:14):
And that's going to be the case. But we are
seeing the beginnings of real progress. We're seeing the technologies
in the marketplace start to mature. We're seeing the very
beginnings of commercial deployments in production beyond what Palanteer is doing,
and so I think we're seeing the beginnings of it.
But as we know, technology trends are overestimated in the
(18:35):
short term and underestimating the long term, and things move
very slowly until they start to move quickly.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
And that's just a phenomenon of tech.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
But are you using it at all with your job?
Speaker 8 (18:44):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (18:45):
How Yeah, we're using chat, GPT enterprise, our developers are
using cogend tools. But those things aren't easier because the
finished product doesn't have to be correct.
Speaker 8 (18:55):
I can see what works for me and what doesn't.
Speaker 9 (18:57):
But it's a very different phenomenon when you have something
tam are facing the broadly employee facing where it has
to work out of the box and it can't bring
your organization down in trims of liability.
Speaker 8 (19:06):
So it's going to be a process for sure.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I was talking about this last week with somebody on
our program and they said, they're basically like an intern,
these these llms, you know, eager to help out, but
you really have to check the work to make sure
that it's something that can actually go to print them,
something that is actually accurate. Finally, I just want to
talk about the overall economic effects of this. A lot
(19:29):
of what we talk about when it comes to AI.
The real beneficiarias have been the major companies that we
talk about every day on Bloomberg Tech. But when will
we start to see these advancements actually affect the bottom
lines and the productivity of companies that are not necessarily
tech adjacent.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
So such a great question, And it's funny because people
are attributing layoffs to AI, and I think in part
some of those layoffs may come from the need to
fund AI, but not directly from the productivity benefits from
AI yet.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So in other words, companies spending money on AI rather
than people, and that's why they're making investments there rather
than in human capital.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
Well, they're spending on AI, but there are other things
behind the layoffs, meaning people that over hired during the pandemic,
especially in the realm of technology. Not all those hires
were of the quality that they wanted.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
They had to pay a lot for those folks.
Speaker 9 (20:21):
And also, companies have been been bracing for an economic
town turn. My industry contexts tell me everybody's bracing for
a downturn, concern over tariffs, inflation, etc. So I don't
think it's directly attributable. But to answer your question directly,
I think next year we start to see we're starting
to see production workloads going to production Today I think
companies will have better worked out the kinks by the
(20:44):
second half of next year. As I mentioned, the technologies
are maturing, the costs are plummeting, the rois will rise,
and I think into second half of next year are
really going to be the first signposts of broader benefits
from AI to the average commercial working say.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Hillary Frish, senior research analyst at Clearbridge Investments, thanks so
much for joining.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Us on Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, coming up, GRAB takes the wheel, investing in a
remote driving startup. Speaking of driving, let's take a quick
look at Tesla shares. This shareholder is approving a one
trillion dollar pay package for Elon Musk last week on
the promise that he'll transition the company to focus on
AI and robotics. The company likely benefiting from the wider
risk on sentiment today too. This is Bloomberg Tech sign
(21:40):
out for Talking Tech. First up, Grab investing sixty million
dollars in remote driving service day, with the potential to
reach four hundred and ten million dollars.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Check this out.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
They allows users to order a car, which is then
operated remotely and delivered to the customer.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
The deal is expected to close.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
In the fourth quarter plus, ta MC posted a sixteen
point nine percent rise in sales for the month of October.
That's the slowest pace for the chip makers ince February
of twenty twenty four. Still, the company on track to
meet average analyst estimates of sixteen percent sales in the
current quarter and in videas, Jensen Wong remains optimistic about
(22:17):
the AI demand, asking TSMC for more chip supplies. Speaking
to reporters in Taiwan, Wong said, quote, the business is
very strong and it's growing months by month, stronger and stronger.
(22:39):
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Power constraints are slowing parts
of Silicon Valley's AI expansion, with two proposed data centers
in Santa Clara facing potential delays due to limited utility capacity.
But just south in San Jose, Prolagis has won approval
to develop new data centers and manufacturing facilities with a
vision that includes five electric substations for power for more.
(23:02):
We're joined by San Jose or Matt Mayhem. Matt, good
to have you on the program today. The first question
I have is really about why San Jose is a
good place for facility like this. This is some of
the most expensive real estates, the most expensive housing in
the entire United States.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Why San Jose.
Speaker 10 (23:20):
Well, we're in a really fortunate position in San Jose
to have two gigawatts of new power coming online over
the next four years.
Speaker 11 (23:28):
We're the only city in California.
Speaker 10 (23:30):
With that kind of new load capacity, and this particular
location is really unique. It's up in North San Jose
next to two thirty seven, a large freeway here right
next to our wastewater treatment facility, which means access to
ample recycled water at a reasonable rate, as well as
(23:51):
one of those new transmission lines coming into the city
of San Jose. So, as you mentioned, while the rest
of Silicon Valley, which was largely built out, is having
to turn data on our projects away, we've just said
yes to prologe Is in this proposal to put four
hundred megawatts worth of data centers right here in the
heart of Silicon Valley. We think it's a really exciting
opportunity in terms of economic competitiveness, job growth, tax base,
(24:16):
and those infrastructure pieces are right there in place to
facilitate it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
You mentioned it's right by a wastewater treatment facility. It
makes me think that perhaps this wouldn't be the best
place to build affordable housing. Is it fair to say
that this is not a site that is zoned for that.
Speaker 10 (24:30):
That's part of the benefit here is that in much
of the city we're trying to enable housing, mixed juice development, retail,
more transit oriented development. This particular site is up next
to the bay. You've got wastewater treatment, there's a landfill nearby. Fortunately,
servers don't complain about odors, and.
Speaker 11 (24:50):
So we think it's the perfect location.
Speaker 10 (24:52):
There's also just nowhere else in Silicon Valley with access
to recycled water that's so easy. Plus the availability of
power that's the biggest barrier. As you know, we've got
a thousand megawatts of new power coming online over the
next four years in this exact location.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, explain where that power is coming from, where it's
coming online. As I mentioned, one of the most read
stories on the Bloomberg Terminal today is about data centers
that are just sitting there idle because they cannot get
capacity actually hooked up to them to energize them.
Speaker 10 (25:24):
That's right, and sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
San Jose is a beneficiary of a decision made by
kaisso the independent system operator here in California. Many years
ago before we were talking much about AI, they were
just looking at general economic growth trends and decided that
San Jose had some of the highest growth potential in
(25:46):
the entire state, and they approved new transmission lines. There's
one line coming up from the south, one from the north,
but they both come into San Jose.
Speaker 11 (25:55):
Each is a thousand megawatts. So here's a city that
has a million people.
Speaker 10 (25:59):
Twelve large city in the country already consumes about one
point one gigawatts of power. We have two gigawatts coming
online over the next four years. That means we can
triple our energy use in the city of San Jose.
There's no other city in California, maybe the country, that
is set up to triple its energy consumption over the
(26:20):
next four to five years. That's a really unique position
to be in. We're just blessed with this infrastructure coming online.
We've of course said yes to it, helped facilitate it,
been very supportive of it. But we're really optimistic that
this means more jobs, not just data centers, advanced manufacturing
R and D labs.
Speaker 11 (26:39):
We're in a really strong.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
Position to capture this technological wave that we're.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In, the power that it will be used by these
data centers, the power that's coming online, how is it
being generated? I know you have that one nuclear power
plant down South Diablo Canyon on the central coast, and
some renewables certainly too, wind and solar. How's this energy
are you going to be generated?
Speaker 10 (27:01):
So the City of San Jose a few years ago
set up something called a community Choice aggregator. Essentially that's
a mouthful, but essentially the city purchases power on behalf
of the users within our city limits. We have used
this policy tool to sign twenty year power purchase agreements
that enable us to fund new generation capacity. And because
(27:25):
we have a commitment to cleaner energy, what we're essentially
doing is buying solar and wind compared with storage, and
that's the key. The intermittency issue is real, but when
you build enough storage capacity, you can smooth that curve
out and actually make it work. And so Santose already
(27:46):
has one of the cleanest renewable mixes in the country.
But it's largely because we're using that collective purchasing power
to invest in cleaner power, invest in innovation, in the
energy sector, and it's it's taken us a long way,
and we're going to continue to go down that path
because grid scale storage is the way to clean up
(28:07):
the grid. You mentioned nuclear. I think that also has
to be part of the mix here if we want
to really get down our emissions. But I'm proud of
the work we've done in San Jose, and there's a
lot of runway left.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So is it fair to say that none of the
power that will be used to energize these data centers
will be you know, quote unquote dirty, non renewable power,
carbon based stuff.
Speaker 10 (28:30):
Well, I can't guarantee none of it will, because the
power is coming off the grid, And so what we're
doing is using this projected increase in demand to sign
new power purchase agreements that are mostly, if not entirely
quote unquote clean. But then that gets added to the
grid and moves up the overall mix of renewable on
(28:51):
the grid. So I can't promise you that there aren't
electrons coming off the grid that are coming from nuclear.
Speaker 11 (28:57):
Or a gas plant somewhere.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Certainly, natural gas nuclear are still very much part of
the foundation California. Isn't isn't using coal we're using. Geothermal
is growing, but it's really been solar paired with storage.
Speaker 11 (29:12):
That's where most of the growth is coming from.
Speaker 10 (29:15):
And the great thing about growth is you can invest
in an innovation, and that's what we're doing, is we're
explicitly purchasing solar paired with storage so that we can
increase the renewable mix on the grid. Overall, that benefits
us and the entire state.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Mayor man any interest yet from some of the large
hyperscalers or large tech companies in Silicon Valley for using
this capacity, what can you tell us?
Speaker 11 (29:39):
We have a very robust pipeline.
Speaker 10 (29:41):
PGAE did a cluster study last year that's already outdated
because there's so much more demand. I suspect most of
those two gigawatts of new power coming online will be
spoken for over the next eighteen months. We've got a
long pipeline of interested parties, the usual suspects, hyperscalers and
the big data center developers, some advanced manufacturing uses. So
(30:05):
PGEN will be updating their cluster study, will get a
better look at how much demand there is in the
city of San Jose, but last year showed over eight
hundred megawatts worth of demand. I suspect it's quite a
bit higher now this year, especially with this news. As
you know, for this particular site, Prologist builds for the
world's largest companies, the Hyperscalers, the most innovative companies on Earth,
(30:28):
and this particular location is a real win win because
it doesn't displace housing or retail or any other uses.
It's underutilized land next to a waste of our treatment
facility that just happens to have a lot of new
power capacity and recycled water just adjacent to the site.
Speaker 11 (30:44):
So it's kind of the perfect place to do this.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Matt Mahon, the mayor of San Jose, California, thanks so
much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
May Or Mahnon, do appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, Let's stick with the AI theme and take a
look at some movers right now in that space. The
Nasdaq and the Philadelphia Semi Index. The socks both up
now a ZAK one hundred up one point three percent.
The socks up two percent, this as talks are underway
to potentially end the month long government shutdown. Chip stocks
two on the move in Nvidio more than three percent.
(31:14):
Also as investors responding to strong sector fundamentals, accelerating AI spending.
A rally started with TSMC's solid results. All eyes too
on core Weave that is slated to report after the
closing bell today. Coryve up seven tens of one percent
right now, kind of those masks. What happened last week?
Sticking with core Weave, let's bring in Bloomberg Equities reporter
(31:35):
Carmen Ryanicky Sheet joins us now. Carmen Corewave tough week
last week, but the stock has absolutely been on a
tear since it went public. What's the backdrop that the
company is facing when it reports results after the bell.
Speaker 12 (31:48):
Yeah, so investors are really going to be watching for
sort of this balance between revenue growth for Coreve, which
is just flying it's expected to double to more than
one point three billion, but also the sort of massive
spending that it also has while it builds out more
and more capacity for its large hyper scale clients. As
you mentioned, Coreeve shares are up more than double still
(32:09):
since their IPO, but they are also more than thirty
percent below a record high hit a few months ago,
and they fell pretty significantly after last earnings on concerns
about spending. So that's something we're going to be watching
very closely after the bell today. Stock fell a lot
last week when we sort of had this broader AI
sell off, but a little bit of a rebound today
ahead of those results.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
As you note in a recent piece for Bloomberg News,
most of Corewave's sales come from Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Are there questions about diversifying that at all.
Speaker 12 (32:37):
Yeah, that's something that investors are definitely looking forward to
hear if they've added any new clients in this quarter
to kind of shift away from the dependence on those
few companies. Though I've also heard from sources that it's
not the biggest concern because there's just so much demand
in this space that even if one of their big
clients were to drop them or move on or something,
there are going to be others to rush it. So
(33:00):
definitely investors are looking for, you know, are they signing
new clients, new customers, But it might not be the
biggest concern.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Bloomberg's Carmen Ryana Key check out her reporting and more
on the Bloomberg Terminal, and a reminder for instant earnings
results and analysis, tune into Bloomberg TV and Radio.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
At the close today.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well coming up Isaiah Taylor, CEO valor Atomics, joins us
fresh off of the back of the company's one hundred
and thirty million dollar funding round. We're going to talk
about the startups plants to remake the US nuclear sector. Next,
this is Bloomberg Tech. Power demand, driven in part by
(33:54):
AI and the US push to secure key initiatives and
key industries has led to efforts to revive America's nuclear
power abilities. Startup valor Atomics is seeking to do that
with the next generation reactor. It's just raised a one
hundred and thirty million dollars Series A funding round. We're
joined by the founder and CEO, Isaiah Taylor. Joins us
(34:14):
right now on Bloomberg Tech. Isaiah, good to have you
on the program. Congratulations on the rays. When we talk
about small modular reactors, you're not alone Nano nuclear, Aklo,
new scale, just a handful of the companies working on
this technology. What makes Valors different?
Speaker 13 (34:30):
Yeah, Tim, It's a huge pleasure to be on with
you today and it's a really exciting day for Valor.
Speaker 11 (34:34):
It's a great question.
Speaker 13 (34:35):
There are a lot of people tackling this very very
difficult problem of how do we make all of the
energy needs that America has in the future. You know,
the thing that sets Valor apart is two things. One
is that we're building very quickly. You know, when we
started this company, we realized that there was a gap
in the physical hardware. We wanted to actually build reactors
and test them out very rapidly. I started this company
(34:56):
about two years ago, and earlier this year we unveiled
our full, complete thermal prototype of our reactor. That's just
incredible speed. We haven't seen that kind of speed in
nuclear in a long time. The other thing that sets
us apart is that we want to build these to
be manufacturable. We're sort of moving away from this era
of nuclear that's driven by construction and more into mass manufacturing.
We want to pump these things out like they are
(35:17):
a car, like they're a bus, and that's what's going
to drive the cost down and also add a lot
to safety as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Before you pump these things out, though, you've got to
build one single example of one that actually works, and
here in the United States there is still no example
of a small modular reactor that is up and running,
that is online, taking your company out of the mix.
Just when do you think there will be an example
of that in the US.
Speaker 11 (35:43):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 13 (35:44):
We don't have any small modular reactors running in the
US today. And in fact, even though there have been
many nuclear startups who have sort of attempted this, there's
never been a nuclear startup which has yet split the atom.
So I think the next twelve months are going to
be extremely exciting. In May of this year, the President
signed in executive order ordering three American nuclear companies to
(36:05):
turn on SMRs by July fourth of next year. Our
company was one of those companies selected, So I think
I can confidently say before July fourth, there will be
at least one, we hope three SMRs running in the
United States, and we definitely think that Valor will have
one of those.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
How much do they cost? How much will it cost?
What's the ultimate goal?
Speaker 11 (36:24):
So the initial goal is to beat natural gas.
Speaker 13 (36:27):
I think nuclear absolutely has to compete with natural gas
on price, on timeline, on all of these things that
developers care about. So that's the initial goal. And that
gas plant's going, you know, somewhere between one thousand and
two thousand bucks a kilowat, so we want to be
at least with parity. Now we're also cleaner, right, So
it's not just that we're the same prices, that we're
cleaner as well. But the thing that's interesting about nuclear
is that it's actually fairly new and there's a lot
(36:49):
to go down the tech tree, right. There's a lot
of technological innovation that can happen in the future, so
we expect that price to continue dropping. You know, I
think about SpaceX when we talk about this, where dockets
used to cost fifty thousand dollars a kilogram into orbit
and SpaceX pushing them down to two thousand. I think
we're going to look at that level of drop. There's
going to be a massive, massive drop in the price
(37:10):
as Valor gets really good at making these reactors and
makes many of them.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You announced earlier this year that you're suing the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the NRCA.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Why are you doing that?
Speaker 13 (37:22):
Yeah, you know, I think the thing that is really
important in nuclear today is allowing innovation to happen.
Speaker 11 (37:27):
Right.
Speaker 13 (37:27):
If you think about the role of a regulator, they're
trying to figure out how to make sure that we
have safety and security across thousands of reactors deployed all
over the place. But what was missing in American nuclear
was the innovation layer. We need to be able to
turn on test units and make sure that they work well,
and that's sort of the layer that's missing. So our
lawsuit really addresses a gap in how the CODA federal
(37:49):
regulations has been written versus how the law is written.
And so, you know, we're excited about that. We're also
very excited about the Department of Energy. These executive orders
signed earlier this year have also opened up incredible power
ways to be able to move quickly, turn our reactors on, safely,
test them before we go and scale.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You know, Palmer, we were showing an image there of
different investors in the company, Palmer Lucky of Anderil among
those investors certainly thinking about the defense space and his
involvement there. What are the applications of your technology when
it comes to defense for the United States.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
You know, American military bases all around the world are
generally dependent on their local grid for power. This has
become a massive vulnerability as grids have become vulnerable to
cyber attack, you know, by our competitors, and so this
is a way for us to actually secure American military
bases abroad. We want to see these reactors deployed on bases.
A couple of months ago, the Janis program was announced
(38:48):
under the US Army to do exactly this, to actually
put power on military bases that's fully within American control.
We think these reactors are perfect for that. This is
a nice small form factor that's very easy to construct,
powerful enough to power a base if you put a
couple of them together. So this is a really exciting
opportunity and we're willing to help our country in that way.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
We've seen American military basis come under attack in recent
years in different parts of the world. How would you
guarantee the safety of this technology if it were to
come under attack and not lead.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
To some sort of meltdown.
Speaker 13 (39:21):
Yeah, you know, this is where this particular technology shines.
Our reactor is built around a very safe form of
nuclear fuel called TRESO fuel. TRESO fuel is very small
beads of uranium encased in very heart ceramic layers, and
it turns out that these ceramic layers are extremely impervious
to many different types of attacks. So if you look
at the spectrum of how you build energy around the world,
(39:43):
we believe this is actually the safest.
Speaker 11 (39:44):
Form of energy generation in the world.
Speaker 13 (39:46):
So we're really excited to put it out not on
the edge, not only on the edge, but also for
data center's heavy industrial power and eventually synthetic hydrocarbon production.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Isaiah, before we let you go, is your company going
to be the first US company to successfully deploy and
bring online a small modular reactor.
Speaker 13 (40:06):
You know, it's a hot race, and there are a
lot of awesome people working on the problem. But where
I sit today, I do believe that valor Atomics will
be the first.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That is absolutely our goal.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Isaiah Taylor, founder and CEO of valor Atomics, joining us
from Delaware today. Well, chatbots have become a go to
source for millions of people looking for information, amusement, and
emotional support. But evidence is mounting that for some people,
chatbot interactions can lead to dark places. That's the focus
(40:37):
of a big take from Bloomberg's Ellen Hewitt and Rachel Metz.
Rachel joins us Now, Rachel, this is a really powerful piece,
really scary piece.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
For it, I think a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You and the team spoke to eighteen different individuals who've
either experienced delusions themselves or.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Have a loved one who has what did you find?
Speaker 14 (40:55):
We found that this is happening and has happened to
all kinds of people. I mean, most of the people
that we spoke with were based in the US, but
we found through talking to people that there are men
and women in all different parts of the US, in
different countries, Canada, in the UK, and many other countries besides,
(41:16):
who are dealing with this. And it gave us a
sense that and it wasn't just people that have a
history of mental health issues in their past. It can
be all kinds of people, people that do, people that don't.
And it just was really shocking to us how many
different types of people had been dealing with this experience.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
How do the lllms, how do these chatbots draw people
in and keep them there?
Speaker 14 (41:44):
I think for a lot of the people that we
spoke to, I mean, in every single situation, it started
out extremely normally. They were using it for Lennie how
to play the banjo, or getting help with real estate
things like that. Like these are examples, you know, like
very normal things that people would be using this sort
of technology for. And then over time, over like a
(42:06):
period of weeks, often it would kind of get maybe
more philosophical.
Speaker 11 (42:11):
It would sort of.
Speaker 14 (42:12):
Depend on the user's interests. I mean, these chatboss have
become increasingly personalized, so people that are more interested in
things like math, for instance, it might sort of move
in that direction, or it might tell people slowly over
time you have awoken the AI, and people would say really,
and it would say yes. And they would say really
(42:32):
and it would say yes. So it was very reinforcing
and would sort of isolate them from other people in
their lives slowly and systematically.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And just in the last thirty seconds that we have
with you, the companies their response, how have they responded
to this reporting.
Speaker 14 (42:46):
I mean we've seen a range of responses, both to
us specifically and also generally to a growing number of
lawsuits related to these sources of issues. Open AI. I mean,
it's made a lot of changes in recent months, especially
like adding parental controls, and it's also trying to make
it better, make its chat about better at noting these
(43:08):
kinds of issues and getting people help.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
That's Rachel Metz, who along with Ellen Hewitt, reported on
these delusions for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. It was a recent big take.
Do check it out on the Bloomberg Terminal and at
bloomberg dot Com slash Big Take. That is going to
do it for this edition of Bloomberg Chech Tech. Don't
forget to check out our podcast. You can find another
Terminal as well as online at Apple, Spotify, or iHeart.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
This is Bloomberg
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