Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) touted “insane” returns for investors willing to bet on the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, seeking to dispel lingering concerns around the big sums spent on AI and its long-term profitability.
The Nvidia cofounder, who has spent much of the week at the Computex Taipei exhibition proselytizing about how AI would revolutionize economies and society, found time on Tuesday evening to address hundreds of representatives from financial institutions and wealthy family offices.
A billionaire himself, Huang said only “crazy” people would question returns from AI, citing the trillions of dollars of value the technology has created.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
“Only for the last six months has the ROI [return on investment] been completely reset. It is now insanely profitable,” Huang said at a closed-door event in Taipei hosted by Jasper Lau’s billionaire-backed investment firm Era and Chailease Holding Co (中租控股), controlled by local financial mogul Andre Koo Sr (辜仲立).
The forum at the Mandarin Oriental attracted more than 300 guests, including Hillhouse Investment, PAG and DBS Group Holdings Ltd.
Huang’s pitch coincides with a persistent debate about whether investors globally are buying into a bubble that is due to burst. On Tuesday, the Nvidia CEO took aim at investors who have called attention to an unprecedented run-up in market valuations and questioned the future monetization potential of AI after trillions of dollars were committed toward data center spending.
“Remember last year when we were together, the rhetoric and the narrative around the investment were, what’s the ROI?” he said. “Give me one example of some crazy person saying that now. They’re going to sound insane.”
Huang touted not just his own company, but gave shoutouts to some of the hundreds of technology firms it partners with, including memory chipmakers Micron Technology Inc and SK Hynix Inc, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). On Tuesday, shares of Marvell Technology Inc surged the most in 26 years in New York after Huang said it would join them in the US$1 trillion valuation club.
In Taipei, companies that serve as crucial suppliers to Nvidia, Microsoft Corp and OpenAI are racing to borrow record amounts of capital, part of a global debt binge.
“You need land, power, you need energy, but you also need financing,” Huang said, pointing to wealthy families as “a whole new sector of the world’s wealth” on top of pension funds and retail investors.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS