TechCheck

Micron shares tumbling today on weak guidance, but what the drop doesn’t reflect are signs of strength in the chipmaker’s AI data center business. A sign that AI is moving towards the so-called ‘digestion’ phase. Plus a conversation with Chetan Puttagunta, General partner at VC firm Benchmark about the shifting trend from scaling to innovation in generative AI. 

Mega Caps stocks are popping this month, and the trend is being propelled by more than just traditional trading. We dig into how bullish options activity is driving some of the biggest moves in tech and fueling increased volatility as investors search for more upside. 

CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa sits down with Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi to talk its mega funding round, what it means for AI enthusiasm and more.

Databricks is announcing an eye-popping $10 billion funding round at a $62 billion dollar valuation, one of the largest in Silicon Valley history. Investors include Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz as Databricks looks well positioned in the next phase of AI generative AI adoption. We look at what the ballooning Silicon Valley funding rounds mean amid Wall Street's IPO drought.

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son joined President Trump at Mar-a-Lago this morning to announce a $100 billion dollar investment in the U.S. over the next four years. The AI-focused investment comes as Washington’s hunger for the emerging technology grows, and Softbank shows signs of refining their own AI strategy. We dig into what sets this apart from Son’s 2016, $50 billion dollar investment after Trump’s first win. 

Tech leaders are previewing their playbook for Trump’s second term. Including trips to Mar-a-Lago, and larger donations to the inaugural fund. So will it translate into warmer relations between Trump's new White House and some of the Silicon Valley leaders he's long railed against?

Deirdre Bosa sits down with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins to talk the outlook for business under a new Trump Presidency and how AI is creating a boom for new digital infrastructure. Plus, the latest developments from the Barclays Global Tech Conference in San Francisco. 

Google is announcing its more powerful Gemini 2.0 model, which will power its AI search tool “Overviews.” It means the company is now getting new capabilities like reasoning into the hands of more than a billion users, in contrast to OpenAI’s 12 days of Ship-Mas, where it released a full version of its model to a far smaller group of users. 

Generative AI has developed so quickly in the past two years, massive breakthroughs seemed more a question of “when” rather than “if.” But in recent weeks, Silicon Valley has become increasingly concerned that advancements are slowing. One early indication is the lack of progress between models released by the biggest players in the space. OpenAI is reportedly facing a significantly smaller increase in quality for its next model GPT-5, while Anthropic has delayed the release of its most powerful model Opus, according to wording that was removed from its website. Even at tech giant Google, its upcoming version of Gemini is reportedly not living up to internal expectations. If progress is plateauing, it would call into question a core assumption that Silicon Valley has treated as religion: scaling laws. The idea is that adding more computing power and more data guarantees better models to an infinite degree. But those recent developments suggest they may be more theory than law. The key problem could be that AI companies are running out of data to train models on, hitting what experts call the “data wall.” Instead, they’re turning to synthetic data, or AI-generated data. CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa explores whether AI progress is slowing, and what it means for the industry.

President-elect Trump has selected venture capitalist David Sacks as his pick for White House AI & Crypto Czar, a role that involves two of the most important emerging technologies. It’s also a signal of the growing influence that Silicon Valley is wielding over the new administration, as the impact of tech elites like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen also expand. 

The new frontier emerging in AI is 3D world-generating models, where you input text, an image or a video and generate a modifiable 3D world. Plus, OpenAI launched two new updates today -- a better version of one of its models and a $200 per month pro tier.  

Spotify is now jumping on the AI hype train, teaming up with Google to use their viral AI podcast tool for the 2024 Wrapped, helping users generate customized content about their listening habits this year. It could be what Google needs to supercharge the feature’s reach with more consumers. 

Shares of Intel are extending yesterday’s drop after popping initially on the news of Pat Gelsinger’s retirement. It could be because investors are digging further into the chip giant’s issues, and finding the challenges run deeper than who’s at the helm – instead reaching the board, which lacks technical expertise more than other semiconductor peers. 

Google’s latest move after losing its antitrust case over search is subpoenaing AI rivals, trying to rebuff the Justice Department’s efforts to force a breakoff of Chrome and more. The strategy involves convincing the court that the emergence of AI-powered search competition needs to be taken into account. Plus, Amazon’s Prime Video will stream the NFL match up on Black Friday, and the game already looks like a success, selling out of ad inventory months earlier than last year. 

Nvidia is showing off a new AI audio generator tool they’re calling Fugatto, capable of creating never-before heard sounds through text and audio prompts. While Nvidia says it doesn’t have immediate plans to release the tool, the product is an example of Nvidia’s moonshot projects that has helped cement its dominance through shifting technological trends like gaming and crypto over decades

Apple CEO Tim Cook is visiting China for at least the third time this year as he looks to shore up relations ahead of a potential trade battle under President-elect Trump. It comes as Chinese tech giant Huawei makes smartphone tech breakthroughs to rival Apple and Google, while America’s chip revival under Intel hits more snags. 

Elon Musk is emerging as a new wild card for big tech in Trump’s second administration. His empire of companies and ventures compete with megacaps on numerous levels, particularly Google, whose Waymo, Gemini and YouTube frequently go up against Musk’s Tesla, xAI and X.   

Shares of Alphabet moved higher today despite reports that the Justice Department is planning to force a sale of the Google Chrome browser. It’s part of the government’s efforts to limit Google’s monopoly in search, but could it end up hindering the big tech firm’s position in the AI race too?

A federal framework for regulating self-driving technology instead of state-by-state ones is more likely to benefit the current and arguably underappreciated leader in self-driving cars, Waymo, which has clocked 25 million rider-only miles and is completing more than 150,000 paid rides a week. 

One year ago this week we saw the dramatic ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and reinstatement just days later. Back at the helm, he has reshaped the company in culture, staff and even mission.