Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Netflix posted a 15 per cent rise in revenues in the third quarter to $9.8bn, slightly ahead of expectations, while subscriber figures rose despite the numbers of global smash hits being squeezed by last year’s Hollywood strikes.The US streaming service added 5.1mn subscribers in the three months, beating estimates and belying fears that it had not produced many “must-see” new programmes to lure fresh customers. The shares rose 5 per cent in after-hours trading.Though tightening the use of passwords has boosted subscriber…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Investors in Uber and Expedia seem to think a merger of the two, talks over which were reported by the Financial Times this week, is unlikely for now. Yet there is much to recommend a combination. Each aims to get customers from A to B. Teaming up could get them further — if only to C.A tie-up would be a family reunion of sorts. Dara Khosrowshahi, hired to be Uber’s presiding adult in 2017 after co-founder Travis Kalanick resigned, previously ran the…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US & Canadian companies myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.You, a rube, might think that Nvidia is a big fat bubble, given that it’s worth almost as much as the entire UK stock market, trades at over 40 times next year’s forecasted earnings and even has its own earnings parties, spivvy support act and a monstrous options ecosystem. However, FT Alphaville has been huffing some sellside commentary, and can now confidently say that Nvidia is actually cheap. Super cheap! It’s basically a deep value stock now. Indeed, it represents…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Private equity myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Two of the world’s biggest private equity firms, KKR and Bain, have entered an all-out fight over a $4bn Japanese software company, as Tokyo’s M&A markets step into uncharted territory. The battle, which has been brewing for more than a year, entered a new phase on Friday after Fuji Soft’s board decided to maintain its backing for KKR’s long-standing bid of ¥8,800, or $59, a share — but refused to reject outright Bain’s more recent offer and the 7 per cent extra it…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Chinese artificial intelligence companies are driving down costs to create competitive models, as they contend with US chip restrictions and smaller budgets than their Western counterparts.Start-ups such as 01.ai and DeepSeek have reduced prices by adopting strategies such as focusing on smaller data sets to train AI models and hiring cheap but skilled computer engineers. Bigger technology groups such as Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance have also engaged in a pricing war to cut “inference” costs, the price of calling upon large language…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Before taking all our jobs, AI sure is creating a lot of jobs. Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.The chart above uses data from Barclays, and it may not tell the whole story, because not all AI jobs are equal. Adam Lauretig and Ryan Preclaw, of Barclays’ data science team, have been collecting job ad data to determine which companies are hiring AI specialists, rather than creating “digital prophet” type roles. More than 85 per cent…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Japan’s Nikon has said a global reordering of the chip supply chain is buoying exports of its semiconductor equipment as it tries to pivot away from reliance on sales to China and the US.The company, better known to consumers for its cameras and lenses, vies with ASML and Canon to sell lithography equipment. It has so far profited from selling less advanced machinery to China while its rivals’ more cutting-edge equipment has faced US-led export restrictions.Nikon president Muneaki Tokunari told the Financial…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A tragedy is in the making for EU economic policy if a misleading conclusion drawn from Mario Draghi’s recent productivity report is cemented. This is the paralysing belief that Europe will fall hopelessly behind the US in innovation unless it finds hundreds of billions in additional public subsidies — which politicians who pride themselves on their realism rush to dismiss as impossible. Draghi’s analysis is of course a lot more sophisticated than that. But where do the sources of the EU’s innovation…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Perplexity, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine aiming to take on Google, is in funding discussions for the fourth time this year, looking to raise up to $1bn at more than double its previous valuation as an investor frenzy for AI start-ups shows little sign of abating.Weeks after OpenAI sealed one of the largest fundraisings in Silicon Valley history, Perplexity had been overwhelmed by unsolicited interest from new investors, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.It is now in talks to raise…

Spending time in a warm, noisy building full of servers, routers and storage devices might not be everyone’s idea of a fun day out — let alone appear to be a glamorous investment opportunity.But these unassuming physical assets, known as data centres, are the beating heart of the internet, cloud services and emerging technologies such as AI. As internet usage and AI uptake increase, so will the need for powerful data centres. In fact, ABI Research predicts the number of global public data centres will reach almost 5,700 by the end of the year and could top 8,400 by 2030.This…