OpenAI releases Sora, a large-scale model for cultural and educational videos, with a potential valuation of over 80 billion US dollars
On February 16th, OpenAI released its latest Sora model, which allows users to generate videos comparable to Hollywood visuals by simply entering a sentence, with a maximum length of 1 minute. This has shocked the technology industry, as OpenAI's valuation is skyrocketing. The market expects that in the latest round of financing led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital, OpenAI's valuation is expected to exceed $80 billion; Shortly after ChatGPT was released at the beginning of last year, OpenAI's valuation was approximately $29 billion.
Comment: OpenAI has officially joined the competition in the field of AI video generation after Runway, Pika, Google, and Meta. Industry insiders believe that Sora's explosive application of cultural and biological video models will significantly drive the demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. Except for GPU giant Nvidia, OpenAI, SoftBank, and others have been exposed to be laying out the manufacturing of related AI chips.
Nvidia's market value has surpassed Amazon and Google, becoming the third largest company in the US stock market
Last week, Nvidia's market value briefly exceeded $1.8 trillion, continuously surpassing Amazon and Google to become the third largest company in the world by market value. Meanwhile, billionaire Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Fund securities filing shows that the fund increased Nvidia's holdings by 458% to 268489 shares at the end of last year. As of the end of December last year, the value of these stocks was $133 million.
Comment: Nvidia's founder and CEO, Huang Renxun, recently estimated that the cost of building artificial intelligence data centers worldwide will reach $2 trillion by 2029, and Nvidia will provide support for software around the world through these data centers.
OPPO founder Chen Mingyong: 2024 is the first year of AI smartphones
On February 18th, OPPO founder Chen Mingyong released an internal letter stating, "In the next five years, the impact of AI on the mobile phone industry can be comparable to that of smartphones replacing feature phones. From the perspective of industry development stage, AI phones will also become the third stage of the mobile phone industry after feature phones and smartphones."
Chen Mingyong stated that this round of AI technology supported by large models is reconstructing the future of the mobile phone industry. He believes that looking at 2024 in two years will provide a deeper understanding of the significance of this judgment.
Comment: Mobile phone companies are deploying different technological routes in an attempt to gain an advantage in the next period of technological change, and AI has become an important direction of concern for everyone. It remains to be concluded whether AI can bring more growth to the mobile phone industry. Just like technological iteration always requires cycles, entering the era of true AI, opening up disruptive changes, and finding landing scenarios for mobile phones also requires a longer journey.
Wal Mart plans to spend about US $2 billion to acquire Vizio, a TV company
Wal Mart, the global retail leader, plans to spend about 2 billion dollars (about 14387.2 million yuan) to acquire Vizio, the third smart TV brand in North America. Vizio was founded in 2002 and has established a reputation for offering affordable and high-quality televisions. Its television operating system has a market share in North America, second only to Roku and Amazon.
Comment: Wal Mart is the largest sales channel of Vizio. By acquiring Vizio, Wal Mart has the opportunity to control about 20% of the U.S. color TV market and increase the corresponding advertising revenue, which will help Wal Mart and e-commerce leader Amazon compete in advertising business.
Sony achieved double-digit growth in performance in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023
Sony Group announced its performance for the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year (October 1 to December 31, 2023) on February 14, achieving sales revenue of 3747.5 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 22%; Operating profit of 463.3 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 10%; Net profit was 363.9 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 13%. Mainly due to the increase in sales of streaming subscription services for recording and distributing music; The release of multiple films has led to an increase in TV and digital streaming service licensing revenue and home entertainment sales; Increase in sales of image sensors for mobile products; The impact of exchange rates, etc. Sony expects its operating profit to reach 1180 billion yen in the fiscal year 2023.
Comment: Sony's strategy of transforming into a technology based "creative entertainment company" is increasingly being implemented, with entertainment revenue from music, movies, games, and other businesses accounting for about 60% of Sony's total revenue; In terms of hardware revenue, TV sales have decreased while sales of image sensors have increased.
ASML Next Goal: Hyper NA Lithography Machine
Martin van den Brink, Chief Technology Officer of chip production equipment manufacturer ASML, stated in the recently released ASML 2023 annual report that Hyper-NA with NA above 0.7 is undoubtedly an opportunity, and this opportunity will become more apparent from around 2030. "For us, the key is that Hyper-NA is driving our overall EUV capability platform to improve costs and delivery times." This indicates that Hyper-NA will become the company's future focus.
Comment: Currently, ASML's EUV lithography tools mainly use the low NA (low NA) model, which can achieve a 13.5 nm chip process. The industry has raised a demand for optical devices capable of manufacturing 3nm chip processes. ASML is currently focusing on the next generation EUV system, which will enable the implementation of 8nm chip processes, which is very useful for the future implementation of 3nm chip processes.
Cadence and Dassault System Expand Cloud Collaboration
On February 12th local time, EDA manufacturer Cadence announced an expansion of cooperation with industrial simulation software giant Dassault Syst è mes and the first cloud supported solution, which will shorten the design cycle of electronic products such as integrated circuits. It is reported that the collaboration between Cadence and Dassault Systems in cloud integration is expected to significantly shorten the PCB and 3D mechanical design cycle, increasing its efficiency by five times.
Comment: This is the latest response from Cadence after Synopsis announced its acquisition of industrial simulation software giant Ansys for $35 billion last month. Cadence and Synopsis hold half of the global EDA market. Solidworks software under Dassault Systems competes with Ansys, and the integration of design, simulation, and AI is an important focus of Solidworks.