More money, more new models for AI, while weak guidance plagues enterprise earnings

This week saw even more money pouring into artificial intelligence-related companies, including some perhaps lesser-known ones such as Lambda and Together that are providing much-needed and very lucrative access to data centers full of Nvidia’s graphics processing units critical to AI training.

Speaking of Nvidia, its market cap passed both Amazon’s and Alphabet’s this week in a stunning signal of how key it is to the AI boom. And that boom is only continuing to echo across Silicon Valley and beyond, with new AI models Google, OpenAI, Cohere, Meta and Amazon. Not least, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is now eyeing search for the company’s next target — now that should be interesting, especially to Google.

On the earnings front, it was a decidedly mixed bag, often in the same company’s report. Some enterprise software companies such as Informatica, JFrog and Pegasystems got plenty of investor love, but others such as Cisco and Dropbox that beat forecasts issued disappointing guidance, knocking their shares down. It may be an economic soft landing, but it’s still touching ground in some areas.

Check out theCUBE Pod, out today a day early, for analysis of some of this news and more from John Furrier and Dave Vellante. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly Breaking Analysis, out this weekend.

Watch this space next week for Intel’s big reveals on its foundry business and its chip process technology, plus earnings from Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Digital Ocean and more.

Here’s a sampling of more of this week’s news:

AI boom keeps booming

This says it all: Nvidia on Tuesday passed Amazon in market cap, then blew past Alphabet the next day. And TSMC is benefiting from the same trend, passing Visa as the world’s 12th most valuable company thanks to AI chip demand.

Late-breaking Friday: Along with Sam Altman’s nascent megaventure, Nvidia could have some big competition before long: Masayoshi Son seeks to build a $100 billion AI chip venture, Bloomberg reported.

Also late-breaking Friday: OpenAI completes deal that values the company at $80 billion, according to the New York Times. Venture capital may be in the doldrums in other areas of tech, but AI doesn’t seem to care about interest rates or profits.

The second wave of AI is coming, says Gartner’s Pablo Chavez: The rising tide of sovereign AI

AI cloud compute startup Lambda raises $320M at $1.5B valuation

GPU cloud operator Together reportedly seeking $100M+ in new funding

Crowd in San Francisco destroys driverless Waymo car by setting it ablaze

AI deepfakes of mass shooting victims used to lobby Congress for gun control

Unless a company such as Clarity stops them…

Anthropic to roll out new features for combating election misinformation

Now Sam Altman’s taking on search, with Microsoft’s help: OpenAI develops web search product in challenge to Google, according to The Information

OpenAI’s Sora joins text-to-video AI content generation race

Google announces Gemini 1.5 for developers to experiment on

Meta unveils V-JEPA AI model that improves training by learning from video

Amazon researchers develop cutting-edge Base TTS text-to-speech model

Cohere for AI unveils Aya, a multilingual open-source AI with 101 languages

With Nvidia’s Chat with RTX, users can create personalized chatbots that run locally on PCs

Bret Taylor’s and Clay Bavor’s new company, worth watching closely: Sierra announces launch of conversational AI platform for customer service

OpenAI gives ChatGPT ability to remember past interactions with users

Kong targets democratization of multi-LLM usage through open-source AI Gateway

Pegasystems debuts generative AI-powered application design tool

Slack Enterprise users gain generative AI-based search and summarization capabilities

Conversational AI startup Rasa Technologies raises $30M to combine LLMs with traditional chatbots

Data exploration startup Motif Analytics closes $5.7M seed round

Artie nabs $3.3M in seed funding for its real-time data replication platform

In the enterprise: ‘Earnings beat, weak guidance’

Some enterprise software companies got a lot of investor love this week for good results, but for many others whose shares that went south, it was basically “earnings beat, weak guidance.”

Cisco to lay off 5% of its global workforce as stock slides on weak guidance And Zeus’ analysis: Unpacking Cisco’s mixed quarter

Weak guidance weighs on Datadog’s stock after strong quarter

Strong earnings, positive guidance sends Informatica’s stock sky-high in extended trading And Paul Gillin talked to CEO Amit Walia for more details and what’s coming next.

GlobalFoundries tops quarterly expectations amid lower chip shipments

Applied Materials crushes earnings forecasts and revenue targets on rising demand for AI chips

Weak revenue growth, soft guidance send Dropbox’s shares lower — way lower, down 23% on Friday

Arista delivers earnings in line with forecasts, but stock dips after-hours

Teradata’s stock tumbles on flat revenue and soft guidance

Akamai boosts profitability but misses earnings forecasts and offers light guidance, sending stock lower

Twilio shares dip amid lower revenue forecast for next quarter

No apparent hit from generative AI yet: Pegasystems shares soar on earnings beat and robust revenue growth

Shares of JFrog jump on solid earnings beat, accelerated revenue growth and bullish outlook

Appian shares surge 12% on strong quarterly earnings and revenue beat

Riding bitcoin’s recent rise: Rising bitcoin prices lead to surge in Coinbase’s quarterly profit

Oops: Lyft shares pull way back after CFO corrects major earnings release error — but stock ends up rising (from CNBC)

Robinhood posts surprise profit on interest income boost, trading rebound, stock rises (from Reuters)

In other enterprise and cloud news

Paul Gillin digs into the controversy: VMware moves to quell concern over rapid series of recent license changes

Nvidia unveils first look at Eos, its latest data center-scale supercomputer

Nvidia debuts powerful RTX 2000 Ada Generation GPU for AI-accelerated design workloads

EU finds iMessage, three Microsoft products don’t qualify as core platform services

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and investor Lachy Groom lead $35M round for Meter

Some data on a key question in the cloud business: Microsoft’s AI growth is helping its cloud business weaken Amazon’s lead (from CNBC)

Zeus takes a close look at the unique way Zoho does business: Rethinking the business of software at ZohoDay 2024

How the NFL and Las Vegas worked with Extreme Networks to prepare for the Super Bowl

Akamai’s Gecko initiative deploys compute at the edge to create world’s most distributed cloud platform

Quantum computing startup Diraq raises $15M to build qubits using traditional silicon chips

Oracle adds logistics modeling and trade incentive optimization to its supply chain suite

Google releases first Android 15 preview with new cryptographic, chip management features

The cyber danger in AI

Shelly Kramer’s latest research: The role of data loss prevention tools in protecting against AI data exfiltration And as if on cue: BigID introduces enhanced access governance capabilities for improve data security

Human rights court rules against backdoored end-to-end encryption

Microsoft, OpenAI release new research on state-backed hackers’ use of AI models

New report finds sensitive information at risk in 55% of generative AI inputs

Bugcrowd secures $102M in funding to enhance crowdsourced cybersecurity platform

FoundationDB team’s new venture, Antithesis, raises $47M to enhance software testing

Israeli cybersecurity startup Seal Security raises $7.4M to expand operations

Akto unveils ‘GenAI Security Testing’ to enhance AI and LLM security

ReversingLabs launches Spectra Assist for enhanced software supply chain security

New Legit Security AI discovery capabilities help safeguard software development

Full-stack authorization startup Permit.io raises $8M to scale up its platform

Proofpoint uncovers account takeover campaign targeting Azure users

Cyberhaven launches ‘Linea AI’ to enhance data security against insider risks

Analysis: With SOC Insights, Infoblox brings DNS-based AI to the security operations center

Google announces AI Cyber Defense Initiative to enhance global cybersecurity

Google’s latest startup growth academy aims to boost AI in cybersecurity

Elsewhere around tech

That’s an eon in today’s tech world: US judge sets October 2026 trial date for FTC suit against Amazon (from Reuters)

Mark Zuckerberg tried Apple’s Vision Pro and shared his thoughts

LeoLabs raises $29M to help companies safely operate in space

Intel backs $40M+ round for miniature actuator startup Cambridge Mechatronics

Meta will test a trending-topics feature on its Threads platform

Modular blockchain data protocol startup Lava raises $15M

Comings and goings

Layoff watch

Cisco to lay off 5% of its global workforce as stock slides on weak guidance

Mozilla lays off 60 of its workforce, will now concentrate on AI for Firefox

Instacart lays off 250 employees, 7% of its workforce.

Restaurant software firm Toast to cut 550 workers

TheCUBE Research, SiliconANGLE Media’s market research firm, has hired longtime industry analyst David Linthicum from Deloitte.

Former Google Cloud exec Shailesh Shukla is new CEO at Aryaka, the cloud networking and security firm whose board he joined last September.

Sophos named President Joe Levy acting CEO after Kris Hagerman stepped down following a decade in the top job. No reason was given for the change.

OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy is leaving — again (from The Information)

Bit of a mess in SAP management: Punit Renjen, who was set to replace co-founder and longtime former CEO Hasso Plattner as chairman, instead will step down after a “difference in perspective.” Pekka Ala-Pietilä is the new candidate. Meanwhile, Philipp Herzig takes a newly created role of chief artificial intelligence officer.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Arnold Ventures co-founder and co-chair John Arnold are joining Meta’s board.

Longtime Apple designer Bart Andre is retiring from Apple.

Intel named U.S. channel chief Jason Kimrey to vice president of a newly created North American commercial and partner sales organization within its Sales, Marketing and Communications Group.

Unusual, if not unknown, perhaps a sign of venture capital getting out over its skis: Foundry Group is shutting down and won’t raise another fund, reports TechCrunch.

What’s next

Intel will provide updates on its foundry business and its chip process roadmap at its IFS Direct Connect event Feb. 21.

Our Supercloud 6 editorial event — AI’s Next Frontier: Data — is set for March 12. TheCUBE Research analysts will talk with industry executives, innovators, technologists, investors and thought leaders about data’s vital role as the driving force propelling AI’s pervasive integration into businesses and everyday existence. They’ll also assess where supercloud, the new cloud layer we’ve defined, fits in. Register here for the free online event.

Earnings next week

Tuesday, Feb. 20: Palo Alto Networks, RingCentral and Amplitude

Wednesday, Feb. 21: Nvidia, Digital Ocean, Five9 and Rivian

Thursday, Feb. 22: Block

Image: SiliconANGLE/Google Gemini