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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang interviews Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the 2024 SIGGRAPH conference in Denver, CO on July 29, 2024.
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Nvidia enhances partnership with social media giant Meta to deploy “millions” of its GPUs

Winners: Nvidia, Arm. Losers: AMD, Broadcom, Intel, Arista.

Luke Kawa

Meta is laying it out in no uncertain terms: its AI build-out will be brought to you by Nvidia.

In pair of press releases after the close on Tuesday, the social media giant and chip designer detailed a “multi-year, multi-generational strategic partnership” that “will enable the large-scale deployment of NVIDIA CPUs and millions of NVIDIA Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, as well as the integration of NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet switches for Meta’s Facebook Open Switching System platform.”

There’s also a deeper integration with a very commonly used communications tool at play. “Meta has adopted NVIDIA Confidential Computing for WhatsApp private processing, enabling AI-powered capabilities across the messaging platform,” per the press release, with plans to add these capabilities to other use cases at the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm.

One obvious winner, of course, is Nvidia, as investors may now have a clearer line of sight to millions of GPU sales that include not only this generation, but future editions, as well. The inclusion of CPUs in this pact, and with an expanded role in data center environments, also appears to be boon for Arm Holdings, whose IP was utilized to develop these products.

Shares of Nvidia, Arm, and Meta rose in after-hours trading, albeit fairly modestly.

The losers?

Nvidia’s competitors in...

AI chips: Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom, as the dominant incumbent’s big, long-term deal with a hyperscaler seemingly reduces their ability to gain market share.

CPUs: Intel (and AMD again!).

And an established Meta networking client: Arista Networks, which is seeing Nvidia muscle in on this territory.

Intel was roughly flat in after-hours trading on Tuesday, while the other three stocks fell.

“Metas partnership with Nvidia — spending tens of billions of dollars on its new family of GPUs and, more importantly, making the first major deployment of Nvidias stand-alone CPUs for backend CPU servers — suggests rising market share and associated average selling price gains for Arm,” wrote Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Oscar Hernandez Tejada. “Increasing server CPU share gains for Nvidia stand to aid Arms share growth against x86, posing a clear headwind for Intel.”

The press release did not spell out any contractual purchase obligations on Meta’s behalf, but is more of a statement of intent on how aligned the parties plan to be in attempting to deliver on the promise of the AI boom.

Ian Buck, vice president of accelerated computing at Nvidia, said the companies haven’t assigned a dollar value or timeline to this expanded partnership yet.

“While specifics of the deal are still unknown (value, power, etc), we view this announcement as another positive catalyst for NVDA into 2026 and beyond, reaffirming that hyperscaler propensity to spend on AI infrastructure remains strong and NVIDIA will be a primary beneficiary,” Needham & Co. analyst Quinn Bolton wrote.

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SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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