Focus on the Hong Kong and US stock earnings season

In this tech earnings season, artificial intelligence is everywhere

巴倫週刊 · Apr 29 07:45

科技公司最新季报陆续发布，它们都指向了同一个主题——人工智能。

自从OpenAI在2022年11月推出ChatGPT以来，科技投资者、高管和企业家在过去18个月基本不再谈论AI之外的其他话题。这些公司不止是空谈，而是真正将大笔真金白银投向AI，并且削减了其他项目投资，这可能是电力发现以来最重要的技术趋势。

在过去的一周内，$Meta Platforms (META.US)$、$微软 (MSFT.US)$、$英特尔 (INTC.US)$、$谷歌-A (GOOGL.US)$、$IBM Corp (IBM.US)$和$ServiceNow (NOW.US)$等公司发布了最新季报，就是上述观点的佐证。

云业务投入增长

目前，云业务巨头正在花费巨额资金建设人工智能数据中心，而且似乎正在获得回报。微软季报显示，Azure增长了31%，比华尔街预期高出约3 %，其中7%增长来自AI相关工作。该公司预计，Azure在6月季度的增长率将在30%-31%之间，高于此前预期。谷歌云本季度则增长了28%，比华尔街预期高出2%。

这些增长离不开微软和谷歌的资金投入。微软最新季度资本支出为140亿美元，这一数字还将继续上升。也就是说，微软截至2025年6月财年的资本支出将突破500亿美元。FactSet数据显示，有望在2024年达到如此规模资本支出的美国上市公司还有$亚马逊 (AMZN.US)$，该公司将于下周公布业绩。谷歌也不甘示弱，最新季度支出高达120亿美元，预计今年剩下季度的数字都会达到这个水平或者更高——一年投入500亿美元以上。

Meta表示，2024年资本支出可能高达400亿美元，这些支出或许需要几年时间才能带来可观的相关收入——导致财报发布后Meta股票单日下跌约10%。不同于微软和谷歌，Meta没有公有云业务，高额资本支出看起来并不明智。不过，押注AI好于虚拟宇宙，人工智能计算是大公司才有能力重点布局的方向。

或许可以将人工智能发展与世界上资本最密集的行业——石油行业进行比较。行业巨头沙特阿美预计，今年资本支出将达到500亿美元，约与微软持平。Meta的资本支出预算约等于$埃克森美孚 (XOM.US)$和$雪佛龙 (CVX.US)$的总和。

硬件正在“吞噬”世界

还记得马克·安德森 (Marc Andreessen) 的“软件正在吞噬世界”的宣言吗？如今情况已经发生逆转。资本支出正在用于购买由人工智能芯片、相关存储和网络基础设施，以及需要冷却和电力驱动的人工智能服务器。

四大云厂商明年将投入约2000亿美元，资金将流入$英伟达 (NVDA.US)$、$美国超微公司 (AMD.US)$、$美光科技 (MU.US)$和$博通 (AVGO.US)$等芯片公司；还有$Arista Networks (ANET.US)$、$Ciena (CIEN.US)$、$思科 (CSCO.US)$等网络公司；以及$戴尔科技 (DELL.US)$、$惠普 (HPQ.US)$、$超微电脑 (SMCI.US)$和$联想集团 (00992.HK)$等服务器公司。

此外，$Snowflake (SNOW.US)$、$MongoDB (MDB.US)$、$Datadog (DDOG.US)$和$Rubrik (RBRK.US)$这些管理和保护数据的公司同样收益。人工智能硬件行业是一个卖方市场，就连微软也表示，人工智能需求超出了其基础设施所能支持的范围。

软件投资仍在等待回报

未来几个季度，市场需要关注的问题是，软件公司何时能利用AI推动收入增长。ServiceNow CEO比尔·迈克德马特（Bill McDermott）告诉《巴伦周刊》，每个业务工作流程都将基于Gen AI（生成式AI）重新设计。IBM CEO阿尔温德·克里希纳（Arvind Krishna）则表示，公司人工智能软件业务规模已超过10亿美元。

但是到目前为止，即使是微软也只是展示了人工智能对云需求的巨大推动作用——而应用程序端如何以及何时受益还不清楚。

其他科技公司都表现一般

IBM股价因咨询业务疲软而下跌。克里希纳表示，公司正在犹豫是否要在长期高利率环境下推出灵活的项目计划。英特尔 CEO帕特·葛辛格 (Pat Gelsinger) 谈到，近期芯片前景疲软，客户对不涉及人工智能的事情都持谨慎态度。

不过，葛辛格对下半年持乐观态度，届时公司开始推出用于AI个人电脑的新处理器，以及AI服务器芯片与英伟达抗衡。葛辛格对英特尔的愿景很简单：“人工智能无处不在”。

编辑/Jeffrey

Technology companies' latest quarterly reports are being released one after another, and they all point to the same topic — artificial intelligence.

Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, tech investors, executives, and entrepreneurs have largely stopped talking about topics other than AI for the past 18 months. More than just empty talk, these companies are actually investing big sums of real money into AI and cutting investment in other projects. This is probably the most important technology trend since the discovery of electricity.

In the past week,$Meta Platforms (META.US)$,$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$,$Intel (INTC.US)$,$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$,$IBM Corp (IBM.US)$und$ServiceNow (NOW.US)$Waiting for the company to release its latest quarterly report is proof of this point of view.

Growth in cloud business investment

Currently, cloud business giants are spending huge sums of money to build artificial intelligence data centers, and it seems to be paying off. According to Microsoft's quarterly report, Azure grew 31%, about 3% higher than Wall Street expectations, with 7% of the increase coming from AI-related jobs. The company expects Azure's growth rate in the June quarter to be between 30% and 31%, higher than previously anticipated. Google Cloud grew 28% this quarter, 2% higher than Wall Street expectations.

This growth is inseparable from capital investment from Microsoft and Google. Microsoft's capital expenditure for the latest quarter was $14 billion, and this figure will continue to rise. In other words, Microsoft's capital expenditure for the fiscal year ending June 2025 will exceed $50 billion. According to FactSet data, there are still US listed companies that are expected to reach this scale of capital expenditure in 2024$Amazon (AMZN.US)$The company will announce results next week. Google is no slouch either. The latest quarterly expenditure was as high as 12 billion US dollars. The figures for the rest of this year are expected to reach this level or higher — investing more than 50 billion US dollars a year.

Meta said capital expenditure could be as high as $40 billion in 2024, and these expenses may take several years to bring in significant related revenue — causing Meta shares to fall by about 10% in a single day after the earnings report was released. Unlike Microsoft and Google, Meta doesn't have a public cloud business, and high capital expenses don't seem wise. However, betting on AI is better than the virtual universe, and artificial intelligence computing is a direction that only large companies can focus on.

Perhaps the development of artificial intelligence can be compared to the petroleum industry, which is the most capital-intensive industry in the world. Industry giant Saudi Aramco expects capital expenditure to reach 50 billion US dollars this year, about the same as Microsoft. Meta's capital expenditure budget is approximately equal to$Exxon Mobil (XOM.US)$und$Chevron (CVX.US)$The sum of.

Hardware is “eating up” the world

Remember Marc Andreessen's (Marc Andreessen) declaration that “software is eating up the world”? The situation has now been reversed. Capital expenditure is being used to buy artificial intelligence chips, associated storage and networking infrastructure, and artificial intelligence servers that require cooling and electricity.

The four major cloud vendors will invest about 200 billion US dollars next year, and capital will flow in$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$,$Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$,$Micron Technology (MU.US)$und$Broadcom (AVGO.US)$Wait for chip companies; and$Arista Networks (ANET.US)$,$Ciena (CIEN.US)$,$Cisco (CSCO.US)$Internet companies, etc.; and$Dell Technologies (DELL.US)$,$HP Inc (HPQ.US)$,$Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US)$und$LENOVO GROUP (00992.HK)$Wait for the server company.

Furthermore,$Snowflake (SNOW.US)$,$MongoDB (MDB.US)$,$Datadog (DDOG.US)$und$Rubrik (RBRK.US)$These companies that manage and protect data benefit equally. The AI hardware industry is a sellers' market, and even Microsoft says the demand for artificial intelligence is beyond what its infrastructure can support.

Software investments are still waiting to pay off

The question the market needs to focus on in the next few quarters is when software companies can use AI to drive revenue growth. ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott (Bill McDermott) told Barron's that every business workflow will be redesigned based on Gen AI (generative AI). IBM CEO Arvind Krishna (Arvind Krishna) said that the company's artificial intelligence software business has exceeded 1 billion US dollars.

But so far, even Microsoft has only shown the huge impact of artificial intelligence on cloud demand — and it's unclear how and when the application side will benefit.

Other tech companies are performing mediocre

IBM stock fell due to weakness in the consulting business. Krishna said the company is hesitating whether to launch a flexible project plan in a long-term high interest rate environment. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (Pat Gelsinger) mentioned that the chip outlook is weak recently, and customers are wary of matters not involving artificial intelligence.

However, Gersinger is optimistic about the second half of the year. At that time, the company will launch new processors for AI PCs and AI server chips to compete with Nvidia. Gersinger's vision for Intel is simple: “Artificial intelligence is everywhere.”

Editor/Jeffrey

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