US Government’s Intel Stake Worth $14B After Nvidia Deal

23:37Well, let's talk a little bit about how yesterday at Zoomtopia, with all of these announcements come growth opportunities, which the analysts really point out, the fact that you can grow wallet share. Who does it put you up against? Because your own story, Samita, is one of having worked at Microsoft and Google. It feels as though you're pitting yourself against some of their offerings. So, if we look at it, it's actually Zoom very much coexists with Microsoft, with Google, because all of our customers use one of these two companies alongside Zoom. But if you look at the number of applications that customers use, They use many, many, many applications, not just Google and Microsoft.

24:19And the number of applications they use has increased a lot. So what we are doing at Zoom is we are providing them great experiences on really core capabilities like meetings, like phone, like contact center, like sales product. So we are providing that and they use that alongside these companies. And we actually go out of a way to integrate them and make it a seamless experience for our users and customers. And I think that's what our customers and users love. So who is your competitor? Is it Salesforce? So when we think about where we stand is that our competitors are the, I mean, you know, so there are many, many companies in every space.

25:02I think where we are seeing customers come to us is they are using us to actually consolidate more of their services onto Zoom. So they may be using an average enterprise uses, I think, 200, 300 applications. So they're bringing more of them to us. Of course, meetings, but also phone. Also, they are bringing in products like Whiteboard or they are thinking about the next version of their contact center. So the spectrum is wide, but it's really about companies who want to modernize their experience and use fewer platforms, as well as a platform that truly is open and integrates so they can continue to make the transitions in the way they want.

25:41And talk about how you price some of this, particularly for the SMB sector, which really seems to be an area that you're growing in briefly. Yeah, so absolutely. So, you know, so core AI companion capabilities we include at no additional charge because we want every customer to benefit from it. But beyond that, you can pay for extra capabilities. You can pay for capabilities like a custom AI companion add-on, which lets you connect to the specific applications you use or data sets you have. And that one is priced at$12 per user per month. We also have our paid products also include our customer support product, our sales products.

26:17and also our webinar and marketing product, which is webinar and events. Samita, it's been great talking to you off the back of Zoomtopia yesterday. Chief Product Officer, Samita Hashim. Thank you very much indeed. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. We're checking on the markets, which are at record highs if you're looking at the NASDAQ 100. Macro tailwinds of a Fed rate cut, but a deal, at least a$5 billion injection into Intel coming from NVIDIA. And it powers the semiconductor industry higher, apart from a couple of names, which we'll dig into. About 3.4 % for NVIDIA, important when it's a$4 trillion juggernaut.

26:51We had a record move for Intel, up 27%. You're adding about$30 billion in market valuation. This on a sign of support coming from NVIDIA. We want to dig into perhaps how much of this is a political statement as much as it is a real innovation statement. We go to our tech editor, Mike Shepard, to do that out in Washington. This is so interesting. Once again, Jensen Huang reading the political room here, understanding that the government has a 10 % stake in intel. They want to see it flourish and succeed. And seemingly it looks like it can do that if they innovate together. And Carol, the timing of this really is uncanny.

27:26President Donald Trump is in London as we speak. And the announcement came just as the president was about to take part in a tech leaders forum with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Jensen Wang in the audience. and for this to emerge right at that moment really signaled that this is a shot in the arm, not only for Intel, the company, but also for President Donald Trump's vision when it comes to AI and also the government's own investment in Intel. Now, remember, the government took that 10 percent stake, and we've already seen it rise in value by$4.9 billion today to$14 billion. But just as importantly, we're seeing the two companies agree to co-develop products, chips together.

28:12We don't have too many details on them. But just the fact that they're going to be working together signals perhaps more than just a financial path forward, but perhaps a tech path forward, too, that would allow Intel to find some more customers, which it desperately needs. Mike, I love that you bring up the timing of all of this, because I think we can go now to, well, a statement that President Trump was making over in the United Kingdom alongside Prime Minister Starmer about the dominance of NVIDIA at the moment. Just take a listen. So we're taking the next logical step with a historic agreement on science and technology partnerships, and this will create new government, academic and private sector cooperation in areas such as AI, which is taking over the world.

28:56I'm looking at you guys. You're taking over the world, Jensen. and I don't know what you're doing here. I hope you're right. All I can say is we both hope you're right. But it's pretty amazing. NVIDIA wants to take over the world a little bit more in certain areas it can't. Like China, of course, it's limited in access there, largely because the Chinese government is pushing back on it. Talk about what we learned from Huawei just overnight and what this sort of competitive threat looks like for Jensen. Well, it's a great question, Carol, because, as you say, timing is everything. And Huawei, earlier today, outlined its vision for what's coming next when it comes to their product line.

29:37They unveiled new versions of its Ascend chip that will be released next year and in subsequent years that will feature more high-bandwidth memory. That's critical, of course, to powering the inference learning of artificial intelligence. More importantly, though, they also talked about a vision for how to string all those chips together. You see, Carol, those individual Huawei chips, when you match chip for chip against the likes of NVIDIA, the Chinese products aren't measuring up. And yet when you put them all together in large clusters, that's where they gain ground. And this was what Huawei executives outlined.

30:15And it's important also because Huawei is sending a message to the world. This is how we are going to compete with NVIDIA. And for China, this is how China will compete with the United States for supremacy in artificial intelligence and really challenge Donald Trump in saying that we are dominating the world in AI. The Chinese have an answer of their own. And of course, Carol, tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern time, President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are going to have that crucial call that we've been waiting all week for to hear how the leaders will sort all of these tech issues.

30:50Not just TikTok, but of course the fate of NVIDIA and its desire to get back into the Chinese market. Mike Shepard, perfect wrap-up. We thank you. Let's get the analysis on what this means for Intel and NVIDIA from their own fundamental growth now. Kunjun Sabani is with us, semiconductor analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's written a note already saying$5 billion equity investment into Intel and co-development of the x86 CPUs marks a strategic development and a win for both. And I'm interested as to what the win is from Intel's perspective, because they're not going to be manufacturing yet NVIDIA's chips.

31:25They're just going to be innovating together. Yes, I mean, Intel is the biggest beneficiary of this deal. So in the data center AI server market, especially the high-end AI server market, this is a much-needed lifeline as Intel has had almost negligible AI server revenue. So this puts them on the ground floor where now NVIDIA servers would be able to ship with an x86 cpu which is what the majority of the server cpus are based on so significantly expands their revenue could expand their revenue base for ai server revenues for nvidia it's more of a strategy hedge on on this side and coming to the ai pcs now again remember nvidia has a stronghold in the discrete gpu market in gaming and crypto but now this nvidia can leverage the scale when it comes to AI PCs with Intel.

32:14And Intel now gets access to the world's best-in-class GPU that it can put in its chip and compete better with AMD. Kunjan, briefly, this is not good for AMD, it feels like. No, this definitely is a lot of competitive pressure for AMD and to some extent could be potentially also not good for ARM. Kunjan Sabani, keeping it short for us, we've got to go and read more of your note from Blue Meg Intelligence. We so appreciate it. Now, coming up, I'm going to be talking to Meta's chief product officer about the company's new wearables and its AI push. That's next. This is Blue Meg Tech. Support for the show comes from public.com.

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34:05At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone.

34:43That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a healthcare company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together. Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills.

35:21Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optim.com to see how. Take superintelligence seriously. This is going to be the most important technology in our lifetimes. AI should serve people, not just be something that sits in a data center automating large parts of society. So we design our glasses to be able to empower people with new capabilities as soon as they become possible. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg there at Meta Connect last night unveiling a host of new AI-powered wearables and features for its Metaverse platform, including glasses. Mark a reaction?

36:06Well, we're up at about a percentage point on the day. We're about to hear from Meta's Chris Cox in a moment. But first, I want to bring in Bloomberg's Riley Griffin. And the market reaction is Bank of America saying, look, this is still an$800 AR glasses, still early for mass adoption. But then you've got Citi saying these are a must-have and a clear extension of the superintelligence buy. Riley, how do you assess it? Caroline, it's a great question. And I'm eager to hear from Chris Cox about how he's used the market reaction as well.

36:36Chris Cox:This is a first-of-its-kind glass for Meta. This is an AI-powered display on the glasses that should bring a lot of the functionality of your phone. But importantly, it still requires the phone itself and a neural wristband. So whether or not this becomes a mass consumer product, we'll still have to see. But it, as an innovation, is certainly a big unveiling by the company. Let's get to the company. Bloomberg's Riley Griffin, thank you so much for that analysis. We've got to get out to Meta's headquarters in Menlo Park now where our own Ed Ludlow is standing by.

37:14Yeah, thanks, Cara. A year ago today, almost, I was sat here having spent six hours with the engineering team that were working on Orion. of fully augmented glasses that was being dogfooded internally, right? This was about testing. Fast forward to today, and we have a halfway, the Meta Ray-Ban display, smart glasses with a display in the lens. And the reaction has been, this is a consumer technology innovation worth talking about. So delighted to do so with Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer. I think that context is really important, right? the evolution from Orion to this halfway point.

37:52But my question to start is, who is this targeted at? You have generations of prior-generation Meta Ray-Ban wearers, or is this a new entry, people starting from scratch? I think it'll probably be some combination of both. So just because we're talking about it here, these are the Meta Ray-Ban displays. You can see we've worked with Ray-Ban to get them into the form factor that people are comfortable wearing. This is the most worn design for a pair of sunglasses or glasses. And so we're starting with something. We didn't want to put something onto the market that was clunky. We're starting with something that's really, really nice.

38:27And I'll also just mention there's a waveguide in here. Okay, a waveguide being? Basically, it's light that's being projected through a series of mirrors into a small display that appears just below your right eye. And you can actually change where that is. It's$800, right? That's right. But the emphasis over and over again is like, this is a consumer product. It's not for engineers. That's right. What is the one killer feature in it then that you think is going to appeal? Messaging. Just messaging. So Mark Zuckerberg was talking about that's how he uses it. Yeah, messaging, I'd say, is going to be the most useful to start.

39:00It comes with this wristband, which is an EMG wristband. You wear it around your wrist. It detects very subtle muscular and nervous system sort of activity so that you can just use a tiny gesture with your fingertips to control essentially a cursor that controls the display. So we've worked to get into something that means that you can use a display in glasses without needing to wave your hands around in the world or carry around a mouse or something like that. And this is why evolution is important. The neural band is directly from the Orion project. I remember experimenting with the technology one year ago.

39:34So the R &D here is you have the North Star, which you've seen, which is Orion, like you said, and then you're also working forwards from what we know people are comfortable wearing, which is the Ray-Bans. I think we're going to see early adopters pick it up to your question. Yes. I think we're going to see enthusiasts. Like you were mentioning to me before, you wear the meta Ray-Bans a fair amount. Ah, but I wear them when I'm driving. Well, that's a thing. Because the display in the Ray-Ban display, obviously if you're driving, not the best use case. Yeah, not intended for driving. Last night you did live demos.

40:08Some of them didn't go very well, but you're getting a lot of credit for doing live demos. Just very simply and for transparency, what did go wrong in those demos? I haven't looked into them. I believe it was the Wi-Fi. But we're trying to have these events where we're not canning them. We know people don't want something that's canned, so we're erring on the side of trying to do it live. I've got a question from our audience. Yep. Ray-Ban display, will it be available for prescription lenses? Yes. And why was that important? This is a question that's come up a lot with Ray-Bans. Well, just we know around one to two billion people on Earth wear glasses.

40:44A bunch of them are wearing them as sunglasses, and then a whole bunch of folks are wearing them with prescriptions. Chris, where are these going to be manufactured? I'm not 100 % sure. You're chief product officer, and you don't know where? Yeah, I think it's in a handful of places. The parts are assembled in a bunch of different places. Not China? Or is there a sensitivity around supply chain hardware in China? I believe there's some work being done in China, but I'm not 100 % sure. What I'm always trying to understand with Meta is where the company stands today. At times, and presently, I think about the family of apps.

41:14You ran Facebook. Those people that are religious users of Facebook or WhatsApp, what is their relationship to this new generation of hardware? So you'll be able to use WhatsApp on the device. We're trying to make sure that we're starting with communication, which is where the company comes from, making sure those products work well on the device. You're also able to view Instagram Reels, which we know people love. We're trying to just get a handful of first-party experiences right, and then eventually we'll be able to open that up. Mark was talking about this as the vehicle for super intelligence, but you also have a background in software.

41:49So this is the interface. This is how I interact with it. But what other AI features can we expect to come through this mechanism and the family of apps as well? We mentioned yesterday, live translation, Yes. Including the ability to caption somebody you're speaking to in a different language. We also mentioned the ability to focus a conversation. We're calling it conversation focus. So if you're in a crowded room, if you're at a party, if you're at a concert, you're able to focus in on the person who's speaking to you and get a clearer audio of that. And so all of those things involve applications of AI to bring these things to life in ways that are practical.

42:27I got a lot of questions from Meta users and the audience about what the developer community needs to know, but also your role in AI at Meta. What is it that you are focused on right now? Because we've reported a lot on the team changes, the superintelligence team. From a product perspective, I think people really want to understand, like, what is your focus? And where are you going to bring more functionality to that? Well, so there's the wearables, but there's also creative tools. So the ways that people are creating video, creating content, making that's really, really easy. AI is going to make it a lot easier for folks to do that.

43:00And a huge part of what Facebook and Instagram are is just viewing the content that we create for each other. So that's where we're expecting to land a lot of the newest technology. Okay, so September 30th, it's very close. And you will soon be able to, if you wish to, Caro, get meta ray band displays. But the market 1 % gain, I think you said, the reaction is that this is a genuine innovation in consumer technology. And so it'll be interesting to see out the gate who goes for it. Back to you in New York. Fascinating conversation with Chris Copps. We appreciate it, Ed. Meanwhile, we've had some breaking news and we understand that President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to let him oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while the legal fight over her firing proceeds.

43:42It's really pulling the justices into the battle over the central bank's independence at the moment. The Justice Department asked the court on Thursday to at least temporarily pause a federal judge's ruling that has allowed Cook to remain in her position for now. Now, of course, she was there in the decision room on Tuesday and Wednesday for the Fed. And it was a divided federal appeals court that on Monday night ruled that could keep her job in the interim, turning aside an appeal by the Trump administration. That's sort of far ahead of that central bank meeting. Now coming up, VIA and Waymo.

44:15They launch autonomous rides for public transit in Arizona. We'll discuss with the VIA CEO. That's next. This is Bluebeg Tech.

44:29We've discussed how U.S. auto safety regulators are probing whether Tesla door handles are effective following Bloomberg reporting into the issue. Now, Tesla chief designer, Franz van Holsensen, spoke with Bloomberg's Matt Miller and Hannah Elliott. For Hot Pursuit podcast, here's what he had to say. We actually have a mechanical release that's, you know, basically right at the electronic one, two, and we're combining the two. So, you know, in the moment that you're in a panic situation, the muscle memory to go to, you know, what you know is right there. So you just pull a little bit further on the lever and you have the mechanical release.

45:07So that's something that we're working on. Yeah. And it's in the cars. The sign change is coming. Let's shift gears a little bit, pardon the pun, via transportation. Let's enter a strategic partnership with Waymo to launch autonomous rise for public transit. Starting in Chandler, Arizona this fall, operating hours and pricing for the Waymo ride will be the same as human-driven rides under the city of Chandler's on-demand paid transportation program, which charges just$2 for a single ride. Daniel Ramon is with us, co-founder and CEO of VIA. You are all about city mobility. You're all about the pricing being right for everyone in modern transit.

45:40How does Waymo change the game for Chandler? Thanks for having me back. The idea is to use the most advanced technology, this is part of our mission, and bring it to local governments and make their systems, especially transit systems, more efficient. In this case, we can leverage the autonomous vehicles that Waymo already has to support service during peak hours where we may have more demand than we are able to serve with our existing vans. And we can refer some of that demand to the autonomous vehicles. What does Waymo get out of it? Because in many ways they're having to sum up a much lower price point.

46:09I think for Waymo, it's an opportunity to expand their reach, to serve some of those riders who have real needs. Who are the riders that use the Chandler Flex service, the service that we operate? Low-income folks, seniors, students, sometimes people with disabilities. So this is a great opportunity, I think, to expand autonomous vehicles and provide some of this advanced technology to folks who typically may not have access to it. Let's talk about that expansion because Arizona has been leading from the front in terms of adoption of robo-taxis. Where do you see this going in terms of the other areas that you serve with mobility?

46:39I think there's enormous opportunity to use autonomous vehicles as one of these advanced technologies to reduce the cost of public transportation, make it more efficient, make it available to more people. And I think this reinforces the role that VIA has to play, this key role that we play in bringing all these technologies together and making them available to these local governments and municipalities. Yeah, let's remind ourselves. I mean, investors just got a good reminder because you went public just last week. But the underlying technology you provide, Because originally I could get into a via car, but now that went and really you're about servicing cities, about states in mobility.

47:15That's right. We're about partnering with cities, with states, with transit agencies, these government organizations, typically very local, and giving them access to the most advanced algorithms, to AI, to autonomous vehicles, things that typically they may be way behind in adopting. and we're really trying to make it possible for them to adopt them very quickly. And in return, you know, get much better service out to their residents, to folks who otherwise are dependent on very antiquated services that they may wait for an hour. We're trying to change that in a really meaningful way. Change it when states and cities are cash-strapped.

47:47So how are you trying to serve them on the idea that this saves them money as well as helps their residents? That's a really good point, Caroline, because I think they're exactly, they're pressured for budget. You know, we haven't seen these budgets necessarily drop, but there is a feeling that there may be budget pressure. And the ability to use software to run their services more efficiently, even if the budgets come down, they're able to provide equivalent service, maybe even greater service than they were before at these lower budgets. So I think it's just getting more and more important for our governments to get more efficient.

48:15What's interesting is yesterday it was unveiled that Lyft is partnering with Waymo. These relationships keep on building, frenemies keep on making themselves more clear as Waymo aligns with Uber as well. Your shares haven't popped in the way that, say, Lyfts did on the day of the announcement. What do you think you need to convince investors then that RoboTaxi's AVs is an area that VIA should be pushing towards? I think this is part of our story. It's really about driving durable growth here, building out, partnering with more and more cities over time, and giving them access to autonomous vehicles is one way in which we can help them expand the service.

48:50And I think this will grow over time. I expect that there's maybe partnerships we can have in hundreds of cities around the world together with Waymo and other autonomous providers. This is about education of consumers as well, though, because we can all see first and doctors rushing out to want to get in a Waymo. But if you're from an underserved community that perhaps hasn't had the money to be able to order an Uber and a Lyft whenever you want, certainly a robo-taxi version, how are you thinking about marketing it to that new consumer? I think that would be really interesting to see how that evolves.

49:20Because we have riders who are students who are probably going to be jumping all over them. And then we have riders who are seniors who may feel, I don't know, maybe that's something quite new. So it'll be interesting to see how we can communicate these innovations to them, make them feel comfortable about adopting them. And hopefully if these systems are, as reported, safer than other systems, that can just help drive safety in public transportation. Also very important. Your conversations with Tesla, anyone else? We're in several conversations. I'll probably keep it there. Okay, come on and tell us when there's more than just a conversation.

49:51Daniel Ramot is with us, co-founder and CEO of VIA. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Check out the podcast, but check out the market moves of the key story today. It is about NVIDIA and Intel. It's about NVIDIA putting$5 billion in Intel, a commitment to innovate for AI PCs, for AI data centers. The market move is significant. This is Bloomberg Tech. Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else.

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