Can Apple's (AAPL) "AI" WWDC24 make $250 billion like Nvidia's (NVDA) GTC 2024?
27th March 2024
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world,
Internet sleuths in full force
Nvidia and Dell is a warning shot for Super Micro
Kick flipping R2D2
If that’s enough to deepen the mystery, read on…
AI Collision 💥 how to make $250 billion in a week
Last week was the Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) GTC developers conference.
It’s Nvidia’s big annual event that unleashes all of its new tech for developers and customers to get a look at and, of course, ink billions in deals.
More on one of those mega deals in our AI Gone Wild 🤪 section below…
We did cover the GTC last week, but if you missed it, be sure to catch up on that here (including the great keynote from CEO/founder Jensen Huang).
The impact on Nvidia’s stock price was tangible. While the stock actually sold lower as GTC kicked off, it rebounded hard over the next week.
Take a look for yourself.
That 12% move from the start of GTC to trading this week represents somewhere in the region of $250 billion added to the market cap of Nvidia.
Not exactly chump change.
For that kind of cash you could buy both Dell and Super Micro Computer (discussed below) and still have pocket change to pick a new Ferrari.
Did I say “a new Ferrari”? Sorry, I meant the entire company.
Of course that’s not quite how things work, but you get the severity of a 12% move for a $2.2 trillion company.
Which leads us today to the “other” tech giant that trades in the mid-two-trillions in market cap, Apple (AAPL).
You see if you think Nvidia’s GTC was big – and it was, it packed out San Diego’s football stadium for it – then wait until Apple’s WWDC24 rolls around in June.
This is Apple’s worldwide developer conference. It is basically the same thing Nvidia does and most big tech companies do where they release new stuff for developers to get in a tizz about.
Now, Apple’s WWDC events are always a big deal. They always reveal interesting stuff. And it has become almost like a cult event over the years.
It’s lost a bit of its fanfare of late, because Apple has struggled to change the game in a serious way for probably over the last decade.
Of course when you break the mould so significantly with products like the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, it does get increasingly harder to do it again and again.
Case in point, Apple’s now defunct Apple Car project. Plus there’s its move to look to potentially integrate Google AI into some of its services.
So to say this WWDC is important for Apple is probably an understatement.
But we are already seeing Apple try to build the hype train for it. You get the feeling the company knows there’s a lot on the line for this year’s WWDC. In an environment that’s fast moving around the implementation and development of AI products and services, Apple needs to really deliver something BIG when it comes to AI.
And according to Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, WWDC may very well be all about Apple’s AI ambitions, and progress.
Check out this tweet from “Joz” this week:
You might notice he doesn’t mention AI at all… or does he?
Internet sleuths get your investigation hats on!
What you may have seen from Joz’s tweet is that he put, “It’s going to be Absolutely Incredible” at the end of it.
Note that he capitalised the A and the I in that sentence.
That’s right. AI.
Gimmicky? Yes. Clearly trying to jump onto the AI hype and FOMO train? You bet.
As if you wouldn’t.
Now that he’s dripped that little gem to the world, and social media has lapped it up in spades, Apple actually has just one job to do.
Deliver something game changing in terms of AI at WWDC24.
If Apple does, it might be able to reverse its stock performance in 2024. While the rest of the tech market continues to shoot higher, it’s down around 7% year to date.
Apple’s market cap has also slunk to (just) $2.66 trillion.
If the company can send a rocket under that with a big deal around AI at WWDC24, then we may see Apple back up neck and neck with Microsoft in the $3 trillion range.
But if it doesn’t deliver, that stock could be heading lower – in fact, Apple might even find itself worth less than Nvidia. That would be a serious eyebrow raiser but indicative that maybe Tim Cook’s time at the top is over and some freshness is needed back at the helm of the cult of Apple.
AI Gone Wild 🤪
My love affair with computing goes back decades. I am of that generation that some would refer to as “gamers”. In reality it just means that I grew up with a video game console and/or gaming PC in my life… at every stage of my life.
Thus I’m reasonably familiar (as many are at my age) with the bits and piece that go into high-power gaming computers.
Be it the basics of the motherboard and CPU through to the power supplies, cooling systems and the GPU(s) needed to crank out the performance needed for smooth and fast gameplay.
This also means that for most of my life I’ve lived within touching distance of Nvidia technology.
Be it its early GPUs in a PC or laptop through to its semiconductors in my car, I’m probably surrounded by more Nvidia kit than even I take the time to consider.
Even as I type this edition of AI Collision 💥 I’m able to do so thanks to the nifty tech of Nvidia technology.
I work every day at a computer, but what is a computer if you’ve got nothing to see what it can do on?
That’s why when I rock up to my office, I’m greeted by an Alienware 38-inch curved widescreen monitor.
It is a thing of beauty…
I’m not sure Alienware makes the 38 anymore. But it’s comfortably the best monitor I’ve ever had. It’s also worth noting that Alienware is actually owned by $81 billion tech giant Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL).
Anyway, my Alienware monitor is (as you would expect) packed with some great tech. You probably wouldn’t expect a monitor to be packed with tech, you just want the panel to be top notch, and this one is – it’s an LG panel by the way.
Side note: you’ll find that most display panels for things like monitors, laptops, TVs, etc, are made by a handful of panel manufacturers – LG and Samsung being the two biggest. Even Apple’s high-end displays use LG-manufactured panels.
But inside this Alienware (Dell) monitor is actually tech from Nvidia. It’s packing Nvidia’s GeForce G-SYNC ULTIMATE processors which (as Nvidia puts it) provides, “… the very best gaming experience, including lifelike HDR, stunning contrast, cinematic color, and ultra-low latency gameplay.”
I bring this up because when you think of Nvidia, you need to think bigger to understand just how impactful its technology is.
Dell and Nvidia’s partnerships and collaborations go back a long way. Nvidia tech in Dell products, like monitors, has been something of a staple in Dell tech for years now. And thanks to a new AI collaboration, this relationship is only going to get stronger in the future.
When you think of Dell you won’t just be thinking monitors and mid-range PCs anymore. You’ll be thinking AI for business.
One of the big announcements from last week’s GTC conference was a pioneering collaboration between Nvidia and Dell for an “Nvidia powered AI Factory.”
As per the announcement from Dell:
Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA is the industry’s first end-to-end AI enterprise solution integrating Dell’s compute, storage, client device, software and services capabilities with NVIDIA’s advanced AI infrastructure and software suite, all underpinned by a high-speed networking fabric.
Translated into normal-folk speak, Dell is going to provide the factory and Nvidia is going to provide the brains.
It’s that simple. They’re also going to roll it out to businesses to quickly capitalise on the demand for AI technologies and Dell’s experience in networking and connecting to those businesses.
When people ask just how far ahead of the competition Nvidia is, it’s announcements like these that show you how far.
Nvidia has figured out that what it has is a head start of such length that it can come to dominate underlying AI infrastructure, it just needs to pick the right partners to do it with.
Dell is an interesting choice. It is a good outcome for the company, and it also makes for an interesting discussion for another day about Super Micro Computer (SMCI).
While Nvidia is not necessarily a competitor to either SMCI or Dell, those two are. And with Nvidia’s choice to run with Dell for its AI Factory, it is a shot across the bow for SMCI.
All three have seen a stellar stock price run in the last year. The question is, will this move from Dell and Nvidia make that forward forecast for SMCI a little shakier than it was perhaps a few weeks ago?
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Veritone (NASDAQ:VERI) up 45%
Lantern Pharma (NASDAQ:LTRN) up 11%
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 2%
Bust 📉
Global X Robotics & AI ETF (NASDAQ:BOTZ) down 1%
C3.ai (NYSE:AI) down 4%
Guardforce AI (NASDAQ:GFAI) down 12%
From the hive mind 🧠
I was playing around with AI avatars of myself last year. And it was good, but also clearly AI. Less than a year later I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s real, what’s not. And frankly it’s hard to get around to the idea that it’s nearly impossible to tell anymore. This is a perfect example of AI deepfakery at its best (for now).
I’m good at Mario Kart. Really good. But I trained on every iteration of it from the Super Nintendo through the N64 and to the Switch. However, I want to teach my boys to play, and I will, but maybe when they’re older they won’t need a controller. Just a Neuralink!
Amazon likes Anthropic…a lot. After tipping over $1 billion into the company not all that long ago, they’re now adding $2.75 billion more to the creators of the increasingly popular Claude generative AI technology. Google has Gemini (and maybe Apple), Microsoft has Copilot (and ChatGPT) and now it seems Amazon has Claude. Racers…start your engines!
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️
Dell has an $81 billion market cap with a stock price of $114.
Super Micro Computer has a $61 billion market cap with a stock price of $1,046.
If you were thinking about investing in one, which would you choose?
Weirdest AI image of the day
Live to skate – r/Weirddalle
ChatGPT quote of the day
“In the future, artificial intelligence will not just be about crunching numbers and optimizing; it will be about how to make a machine that can understand the smell of rain.” – Unknown Tech Philosopher
Thanks for reading, see you next week (and don’t forget to leave your comments below)
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
It will be interesting to see how this unravels 📉