'The Tech Industry was Deflating. Then Came ChatGPT' - Slashdot

Posted by EditorDavid

on Monday June 05, 2023 @03:18AM from the bust-to-boom dept.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:

A year ago, the mood in Silicon Valley was dour. Big Tech stocks were falling, the cryptocurrency bubble had popped, and a wave of layoffs was beginning to sweep through the industry.

Then the artificial intelligence boom hit.

Since then, venture capitalists have been throwing money at AI start-ups, investing over $11 billion in May alone, according to data firm PitchBook, an increase of 86 percent over the same month last year. Companies from Moderna to Heinz have mentioned AI initiatives on recent earnings calls... AI is one of the only fields here still hiring, and firms are paying huge salaries for the expertise. Workers here are retraining to specialize in the field...

Tech stocks have rallied across the board, a whiplash return to growth after analysts declared the 10-year bull market was finally over. In 2022, the Nasdaq 100, a stock market index dominated by the biggest tech companies, lost an entire third of its value, falling 33 percent in a massive erasure of wealth that had been built up over the past decade. So far in 2023, the Nasdaq 100 is already up 31 percent... The start-up ecosystem is rebounding back to optimism as well, at least for those focused on AI...

"VC firms compete for access to hot AI deals while eschewing unprofitable conventional software companies," said Brendan Burke, an analyst with PitchBook. "AI start-ups experience founder-friendly conditions not extended to the rest of the tech ecosystem." Around $12.5 billion in investments have gone into generative AI start-ups this year so far, compared with only $4.5 billion invested in the field in all of 2022, Burke said.
Calling NVIDIA an "AI chipmaker," the article points out that Friday NVIDIA's valuation on the stock market was $971.4 billion, "within spitting range of Amazon, which is worth $1.26 trillion."

NVIDIA is now "one of only a handful of companies in the world to hit $1 trillion in value."