SoftBank Plans to Develop Homegrown AI Servers
Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.MADE-IN-JAPAN AI SERVERS:SoftBanklooks to develop and produce homegrown AI servers, weighting plans to start designing and assembling components by the end of the decade with the help of major players like Nividaand Foxconn, Nikkei's Natsuki Yamamoto.AI MODEL ACCESS:Googleis in talks with Blackstone, KKR, and EQT to let their portfolio companies access its models, after OpenAI and Anthropic announced joint ventures with private equity firms, The Information's Erin Woo and Julia Hornstein.CLAUDE FOR MICROSOFT 365:Anthropic announced that starting today, Claude for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word are generally available, and Claude for Outlook is now in public beta for all paid plans. "Claude for Outlook brings Claude into your inbox. Ask Claude to triage your inbox and it sorts messages by what needs your response, what it can draft for you, and what's noise. Replies land as drafts in Outlook's compose pane with recipients, subject, and body filled in. Calendar invites check attendee availability and open in Outlook's native event form," the company said. "Claude for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word are now generally available, with the controls IT admins and organizations need. One AppSource listing covers Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and a separate listing adds Outlook in beta. Admins can deploy both from the Microsoft admin center. Enterprise admins can configure OpenTelemetry to stream prompts, tool calls, and document references to their own collector, so security teams see exactly what Claude does across every app. The Analytics API breaks out activity per user, per app, per day. Organizations can access all four add-ins with a Claude account, or route traffic through an existing LLM gateway to Claude models running on AmazonBedrock, GoogleCloud's Vertex AI, or MicrosoftFoundry."ENTERPRISE AI INFRASTRUCTURE:Rackspaceand AMDannounced the signing of a memorandum of understanding establishing a framework for a multiyear strategic partnership to create an Enterprise AI Cloud purpose-built for regulated enterprises and sovereign workloads. The companies said, "Today's dominant model requires enterprises to rent GPU capacity by the hour and carry the operational burden themselves including integration, security and accountability. This collaboration proposes to invert that model by integrating AMD Instinct GPUs and EPYC CPUs into a fully managed, governed stack. Through this understanding, the companies aim to establish a new category of managed enterprise AI infrastructure where dedicated AMD compute is embedded inside a governed managed operating model, with Rackspace owning the stack from silicon to outcomes. The AMD collaboration is intended to position Rackspace to complete its curated enterprise AI stack and introduce four integrated capabilities. Together, these capabilities are designed to form a complete, integrated stack from bare metal compute and developer-ready inference tooling through a fully operated inference runtime with defined SLAs to a governed Enterprise AI Cloud. The aim is to give enterprises a single operator accountable for every layer, calibrated to the sovereignty, performance, and compliance requirements of each workload."
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- Nvidia Processor Launch: Nvidia unveiled its first-ever PC processor at Computex, utilizing the power-efficient Arm instruction set to challenge the dominance of Intel and AMD, indicating a strategic shift towards AI PCs and resulting in a 2% increase in its stock price.
- Arm Benefits: Nvidia's pursuit of PC technology benefits Arm, which licenses its intellectual property for Nvidia's CPUs, collecting royalties per chip; Arm's stock surged 11% in premarket trading and has tripled this year, reflecting strong market optimism about its future.
- Dell Rating Upgrade: Goldman Sachs raised its price target on Dell from $230 to $500 while maintaining a buy rating, highlighting Dell's superior supply chain management, particularly in collaboration with Nvidia on AI servers and new PCs, boosting market confidence in its outlook.
- Berkshire Acquisition Moves: Berkshire Hathaway agreed to acquire Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion, a relatively small deal that indicates interest in undervalued homebuilders, potentially providing new growth opportunities for Berkshire in real estate investments.
- Cloud Computing Standards: The EU plans to propose strict criteria for cloud computing services in highly critical state tenders, potentially excluding Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which could significantly impact their market share and competitiveness in Europe.
- Tech Sovereignty Act: This proposal is part of the European Commission's Cloud and AI Development Act aimed at reducing Europe's dependence on U.S. tech companies, demonstrating the EU's commitment to enhancing its technological sovereignty.
- Non-Price Evaluation Criteria: The new standards will introduce mandatory non-price award criteria, including requirements for software and hardware to be developed within the EU, which will disadvantage U.S. big tech firms and may lead to a decline in their competitive edge in the European market.
- Competitiveness and Security: The EU has stated that its tech sovereignty package is crucial for strengthening Europe's own technological capacities, enhancing competitiveness, and ensuring security, reflecting strategic considerations in the global tech landscape.
- Corporate AI Usage Scrutiny: An increasing number of companies are scrutinizing the return on investment for AI tools, leading to the decline of 'tokenmaxxing', particularly as Amazon shut down its AI leadership board due to employees generating meaningless AI workloads, indicating a reassessment of AI usage.
- Economic Model Vulnerabilities: AI researcher Gary Marcus highlighted that as AI models become more commoditized, OpenAI and Anthropic may face greater economic pressures, with many companies that invested heavily struggling to recoup their investments, reflecting the current market's fragility.
- Cost Control Pressures: Uber confirmed it burned through its AI budget for 2026 in just four months, indicating severe challenges in corporate AI spending that could slow demand for AI hardware from companies like Nvidia, impacting their growth prospects.
- Intensifying Market Competition: As enterprises shift towards cheaper AI models and systems, OpenAI and Anthropic may lose market share, especially as Microsoft begins canceling Claude Code licenses in favor of in-house solutions, demonstrating resistance to high-cost AI services.
- AI Adoption Scores: A new study from the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute reveals that Nvidia, Meta, and Schlumberger lead S&P 500 companies with perfect scores of 100, showcasing their exceptional performance in AI technology implementation and solidifying their market leadership in their respective industries.
- Industry Impact: Nvidia, as the world's largest chipmaker, drives technological advancements across the industry through its pivotal role in AI model and service development, while Meta and Amazon demonstrate strong AI application capabilities in communication services and consumer goods, enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.
- Data-Driven Assessment: The study employs publicly available data such as earnings calls, job openings, and patent applications to objectively evaluate executives' understanding and prioritization of AI, aiding companies in better risk management and investment decisions to enhance overall competitiveness.
- Room for Improvement: Despite the strong performance of leading companies, AIDE's CEO Paul Cheek emphasizes that there is significant room for improvement in AI literacy among board members and executives, highlighting the importance of understanding AI's role in creating value for informed strategic investments in the future.
- Valuation Decline: According to PitchBook, nearly half of the 857 U.S. unicorns have not raised fresh funding in the last three years, leading to stale valuations, with companies last funded in 2021 seeing an average drop of 68% and those from 2022 down 52%, indicating a significant loss of market confidence.
- AI Disruption: The emergence of ChatGPT has left many startups, particularly enterprise software firms like Calendly, at risk of being outpaced by AI-native companies, forcing investors to reassess their valuations and business models that are no longer relevant.
- Deteriorating Funding Environment: Many companies that last raised funds in 2021 and 2022 are struggling to secure new financing, with PitchBook analysts noting that those unable to raise funds typically exhibit tepid or negative growth, increasing the likelihood of acquisitions at reduced valuations.
- Market Reset Signals: Startups like Stash and Step have been acquired, but at prices significantly below their historical funding amounts, reflecting a drastic compression in market valuations and prompting investors to reevaluate the worth and future potential of these companies.
- AI Adoption Scores: The new index from the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute reveals that Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, and Schlumberger lead S&P 500 companies with perfect scores of 100, indicating their forefront position in AI application and implementation, which may further solidify their market dominance.
- Transparent Research Methodology: The index utilizes publicly available data such as earnings call transcripts, job openings, and patent applications, providing an objective comparison tool that allows companies to assess their AI strategies against peers, thereby facilitating more effective decision-making.
- Significant Industry Disparities: While tech companies excel, the study highlights that many firms have considerable room for improvement in AI literacy and implementation, underscoring the necessity for boards and executives to better understand and manage AI-related risks and strategic investments.
- Top 20 Companies: The top 20 companies based on orientation and implementation scores include Nvidia, Schlumberger, Amazon, and Meta, showcasing their leadership positions within their respective sectors, which may attract increased investor interest in their future growth potential.











