o A significant portion of the recent profit increase of big tech companies has come from unrealized gains in the value of their stakes in AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX, rather than operating performance.
-> Directly comparing the current performance of tech companies could overestimate the actual profitability of the AI investment boom.
o This valuation gain* is different from operating profit, where cash actually comes in.
* Increase in the corporate value of AI startups → increase in the value of stakes held by big tech companies → increase in accounting profits
o When the stock prices and corporate values of AI-related companies continue to rise, profits increase significantly. Conversely, if AI valuations fall, there is a possibility that profits will decrease sharply or turn into losses.
The lesson of this article is,
AI infrastructure(SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, etc.)providers are much more important leading indicators than the revaluation of AI companies. These indicators include data center CAPEX and HBM/DRAM orders.
▶ Source: https://www.ft.com/content/a5a0081f-e998-4c80-b967-cc535cbc4933?syn-25a6b1a6=1
