Good morning. A brief housekeeping note: We led yesterday’s edition with an item about Google’s likely acquisition of Wiz, the cybersecurity startup it had previously tried to acquire last summer.
As you no doubt know by now, Google confirmed the deal shortly after we sent the newsletter, with one key difference: The purchase price was $32 billion, not the $30 billion that had been earlier reported.
Just wanted to clear that up. (And hey: Don’t spend it all in one place, Assaf.)
Today’s news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Nvidia announces Blackwell Ultra AI chips, Vera Rubin GPUs
Nvidia took the wraps off new AI chips on Tuesday during its annual GTC conference for software developers in San Jose, Calif.
In a sprawling keynote speech, CEO Jensen Huang announced Blackwell Ultra, a family of AI chips that will ship during the second half of this year and enhance the existing architecture of Blackwell, currently in production.
The Ultra variant promises the same 20 petaflops as the original Blackwell, but with more memory, principally targeting customers who have yet to upgrade from its wildly popular H100 chips from 2022.
Huang also debuted Vera Rubin, the company’s next-generation graphics processing unit, or GPU. Named after the pioneering American astronomer, it promises more than three times the performance of a Blackwell Ultra chip and is expected to ship in 2026.
“AI is able to solve more interesting problems for more industries and more companies,” Huang said, adding that the next wave of AI after “agentic”—so-called physical AI, applied to vehicles and robotics—would require new approaches to computing.
The announcement was largely expected. Nvidia releases new chip architectures every two years, but since last year, it has promised to release new chips annually.
Whatever the case, the entire tech industry is watching. Developers, investors, and rivals keep close tabs on GTC news to see if Nvidia’s AI chips will remain sufficiently powerful and efficient enough to compel large customers—Amazon, Asus, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Google, Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, et cetera—to spend billions of dollars to fill their data centers with them.
Nvidia is estimated to control the vast majority—somewhere between 70% and 95%—of the market share for AI accelerators. —AN
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun’s automotive bet drives a 280% share rally
Xiaomi has only been a carmaker for a year—and it’s already selling more vehicles than EV startups that have been in the business for years.
In its 2024 earnings report, the Beijing-based company reported 365.9 billion Chinese yuan ($50.6 billion) in annual revenue, a 35% jump. Xiaomi reported strong growth on the top line, too, with 27.2 billion Chinese yuan ($3.8 billion) in adjusted net profit, a 41% increase.
The vast majority of the company’s revenue was generated from its traditional business of selling smartphones and home appliances. The remainder—about 10% or 32.7 billion yuan ($4.5 billion)—came from Xiaomi’s new EV division.
Xiaomi reported 136,000 EV deliveries for 2024, and lifted its 2025 delivery target for EVs to 350,000, up from an earlier figure of 300,000.
Xiaomi has been on a roll, even compared to a broader rally in China’s tech sector. Shares in the company are up by more than 280% over the past 12 months, ahead of just about every other stock in Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index.
The company released its first EV, the SU7, in March 2024, and high demand led to a months-long waitlist. Xiaomi plans to release the YU7, an electric SUV, in the summer. The model will compete against Tesla’s recently-refreshed Model Y. —Nicholas Gordon
Pebble is dead, long live Pebble
Pebble is back! Pretty much.
The actual Pebble smartwatch has been discontinued for the best part of a decade. But the black-and-white e-paper device is now coming back to life under the (apparently not Intel-referencing) name of Core 2 Duo, made by Core Devices, which is the new vehicle for Pebble papa Eric Migicovsky.
Same display and frame as before, but the battery life will now be 30 rather than seven days, and a speaker has been added, along with barometer and compass sensors. The hackable Core 2 Duo will come in at $149 and ship in July.
And then there’s the Core Time 2, with a slightly larger color touchscreen, again a 30-day battery life, and extra goodies like a heart monitor. That’s shipping in December at a cost of $225. Migicovsky: “This is my dream watch. It’s everything Pebble Time 2 was going to be and more!”
Pebble hit the skids in 2016, selling up to Fitbit, which Google then bought. Google open-sourced the Pebble OS a couple months back, and that is indeed what is powering the new Pe… Core watches.
“The really fun part is that most of the existing 10,000+ PebbleOS watchfaces and apps will immediately work on these new watches, though some may try to access web services that no longer exist,” wrote Migicovsky in a blog post. —David Meyer
More data
—Mercedes-Benz takes on Tesla. The fully electric version of its new entry-level CLA sedan touts a 492-mile range.
—Oracle weighs TikTok proposal. Security assurances and a small stake, but an algorithm in Chinese hands.
—Roku tests autoplay ads before the home screen, to the sheer delight (kidding!) of users.
—Meta stock turns negative YTD. It’s the final “Magnificent 7” stock to do so this year.
—China leads Asia in VC deals. More than 700 in 2024 totaling $7.3 billion, according to PitchBook. South Korea and India trail with about 300 deals totaling almost $2 billion each.
—Intel CEO’s steep pay targets. Lip-Bu Tan could make more than $400 million if he manages to triple the company’s stock price.
—Sequoia Capital exits Washington. Cuts to the VC firm’s policy team and closing of its D.C. office.
—Taboola ads come to Microsoft 365 products. Struggling with ear wax or hearing loss? Try this at-home device!
—Autodesk proxy fight brewing. Activist investor Starboard Value reportedly plans to nominate a minority slate of directors ahead of the software company’s annual meeting.
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