Dubai Telegraph - Tech giants jockey for position at dawn of AI age

EUR -
AED 3.84909
AFN 70.983076
ALL 98.168084
AMD 408.033489
ANG 1.877746
AOA 956.772304
ARS 1045.934567
AUD 1.608014
AWG 1.888917
AZN 1.780997
BAM 1.956142
BBD 2.103608
BDT 124.501747
BGN 1.96788
BHD 0.392672
BIF 3077.56693
BMD 1.047943
BND 1.404259
BOB 7.239401
BRL 6.098928
BSD 1.041892
BTN 88.430422
BWP 14.233758
BYN 3.409661
BYR 20539.683689
BZD 2.100107
CAD 1.461529
CDF 3008.644792
CHF 0.933707
CLF 0.036935
CLP 1019.137039
CNY 7.592031
CNH 7.595984
COP 4600.207983
CRC 530.697762
CUC 1.047943
CUP 27.770491
CVE 110.899218
CZK 25.334232
DJF 185.535949
DKK 7.457456
DOP 62.791567
DZD 139.877767
EGP 51.749446
ERN 15.719146
ETB 127.546696
FJD 2.385066
FKP 0.827159
GBP 0.83215
GEL 2.871065
GGP 0.827159
GHS 16.552662
GIP 0.827159
GMD 74.404001
GNF 8980.654359
GTQ 8.08725
GYD 219.183481
HKD 8.154967
HNL 26.32885
HRK 7.475249
HTG 136.765194
HUF 411.595345
IDR 16624.306486
ILS 3.879155
IMP 0.827159
INR 88.307488
IQD 1364.864451
IRR 44092.203499
ISK 146.344923
JEP 0.827159
JMD 165.980576
JOD 0.743093
JPY 161.794551
KES 135.676997
KGS 90.649326
KHR 4194.772734
KMF 495.143365
KPW 943.148344
KRW 1467.769713
KWD 0.322609
KYD 0.868268
KZT 520.220796
LAK 22885.434193
LBP 93300.07746
LKR 303.238754
LRD 189.101446
LSL 18.801143
LTL 3.094303
LVL 0.63389
LYD 5.087986
MAD 10.539574
MDL 19.003682
MGA 4862.942225
MKD 61.540749
MMK 3403.678134
MNT 3560.910412
MOP 8.353519
MRU 41.455637
MUR 49.074871
MVR 16.201526
MWK 1806.650049
MXN 21.359806
MYR 4.668554
MZN 66.973635
NAD 18.801143
NGN 1769.410365
NIO 38.337062
NOK 11.559514
NPR 140.70592
NZD 1.790636
OMR 0.401068
PAB 1.047692
PEN 3.95069
PGK 4.194773
PHP 61.7584
PKR 289.326398
PLN 4.334357
PYG 8133.57593
QAR 3.820851
RON 4.978251
RSD 117.724856
RUB 108.694151
RWF 1422.262
SAR 3.934395
SBD 8.785488
SCR 14.270629
SDG 630.340687
SEK 11.508746
SGD 1.410154
SHP 0.827159
SLE 23.819809
SLL 21974.846653
SOS 595.409683
SRD 37.195668
STD 21690.30525
SVC 9.116766
SYP 2632.988191
SZL 18.794642
THB 36.22582
TJS 11.157609
TMT 3.667801
TND 3.328435
TOP 2.454385
TRY 36.218374
TTD 7.076236
TWD 34.002924
TZS 2777.049042
UAH 43.103352
UGX 3871.138521
USD 1.047943
UYU 44.554803
UZS 13366.334712
VES 48.817231
VND 26630.85264
VUV 124.413904
WST 2.925428
XAF 656.077858
XAG 0.034259
XAU 0.000393
XCD 2.832119
XDR 0.792554
XOF 656.077858
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.90718
ZAR 18.9268
ZMK 9432.745885
ZMW 28.781577
ZWL 337.437233
  • CMSC

    0.0320

    24.672

    +0.13%

  • BCC

    3.4200

    143.78

    +2.38%

  • BCE

    0.0900

    26.77

    +0.34%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    33.96

    +0.77%

  • NGG

    1.0296

    63.11

    +1.63%

  • AZN

    1.3700

    65.63

    +2.09%

  • RIO

    -0.2200

    62.35

    -0.35%

  • BP

    0.2000

    29.72

    +0.67%

  • BTI

    0.4000

    37.38

    +1.07%

  • SCS

    0.2300

    13.27

    +1.73%

  • RBGPF

    59.2400

    59.24

    +100%

  • CMSD

    0.0150

    24.46

    +0.06%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    6.79

    -0.15%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    13.21

    -0.15%

  • RELX

    0.9900

    46.75

    +2.12%

  • VOD

    0.1323

    8.73

    +1.52%

Tech giants jockey for position at dawn of AI age
Tech giants jockey for position at dawn of AI age / Photo: Noah Berger - AFP/File

Tech giants jockey for position at dawn of AI age

Whether they sell smartphones, ads or computer chips, the heavyweights of Silicon Valley have everything to prove to investors looking to see who is best placed in the race to dominate the generative artificial intelligence market.

Text size:

"If you're a company, and you don't have an AI message, you're not going to be in business very long," says independent industry analyst Jack Gold.

"Everyone is focused on AI right now. And everyone's trying to outmarket and out-hype everybody else. And there's room for a whole lot of players."

Over the past two weeks, tech's top companies released their corporate earnings reports for the July-September quarter.

Most of them beat analyst expectations, but on Wall Street, all eyes were on plans for generative AI, popularized by the ChatGPT chatbot, OpenAI's interface that was launched a year ago and dazzled the world.

The parent company of Google, the world leader in online advertising, saw its profit jump 42 percent in the third quarter to nearly $20 billion -- well above market estimates.

Shares in Alphabet however dropped more than 10 percent over two sessions because Google Cloud, though expanding, was seen as disappointing.

For Max Willens, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, while the division's credibility among AI startups could "bear fruit in the long run, it is not currently helping Google Cloud enough to satisfy investors."

- 'How fast it's changing' -

The cloud is where most generative AI systems -- which can deliver content as complex as a poem or scholarly essay in just seconds -- will be unfurled.

Generative AI, considered by many observers to be a seismic change similar to the advent of the internet age, is based on AI systems called large language models.

These models compile mountains of data that are the building blocks for "creating" content.

Microsoft -- a major investor in OpenAI -- along with Google and Meta have trained their own models.

Companies specializing in cloud services -- led by Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud -- are beginning to monetize AI, though the costs remain high for now, says Yory Wurmser, another analyst for Insider Intelligence.

"The excitement is on what's possible, and how fast it's changing," Wurmser told AFP.

The main cost comes from the microprocessors needed to churn through the data.

Chipmaker Nvidia hit the jackpot by betting years ago on developing graphics processing units (GPUs), now a crucial pillar in the rapid development of generative AI.

But for Gold, one must understand "how AI is ultimately going to be used."

He says "probably 80 or 90 percent of all workloads will be inference workloads," meaning the usual functioning of AI models once they've been created.

US chip giant Intel has been working to catch up with its rivals, especially Nvidia, when it comes to powerful chips needed to handle AI's processing demands.

"The inferencing use of those models is what we believe is truly spectacular for the future," said Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger.

"A huge amount of that is going to run right on Xeons," he said, referring to the company's processors.

- 'Nobody's late' -

Amazon, which plans to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI, is insisting on the importance of Bedrock, its service for building generative AI applications.

"It's still complicated to actually figure out which models you want to use ... and trying to make sure you have the right results" while keeping costs in check, said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

"Bedrock just takes so much of the difficulty out of those decisions in those variables, that people are very excited about Bedrock," he said.

Even Apple, which is loathe to allow trends to dictate its agenda, was unable to escape questions about its AI plans.

"In terms of generative AI, obviously we have work going on," said Apple chief Tim Cook. "I'm not going to get into details... but you can bet that we're investing quite a bit."

Observers are expecting big things from Apple with respect to its digital assistant Siri, which has not evolved all that much in recent years. Amazon recently announced it would gradually add AI capability to its Siri equivalent, Alexa.

For Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, no one is behind -- yet.

"Nobody's late in a market that is just getting started and that will require investment and commitments," Milanesi told AFP.

"It starts first from an enterprise perspective before it starts from a consumer perspective."

K.Al-Zaabi--DT