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Lucy Brewster

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 may be on his way out—but the Oracle of Oracle is winning big.

Larry Ellison, the co-founder, chairman, and CTO of Oracle, has 

 to become the richest person in the world after his net worth jumped by $101 billion today. That means Ellison is now worth $393 billion, beating Musk’s measly $385 billion.

The biggest single-day jump in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ever matches the suddenly frantic hype surrounding Oracle’s stock. Shares exploded 35.91% today after the company released a stellar fiscal forecast—making today its best since 1992 and putting its market cap at nearly 

The reason for the jump, if you haven’t already guessed, is the company’s role in the artificial intelligence revolution. Specifically, its cloud contract demand, which is booming: The firm revealed it has an enormous AI backlog of $455 billion in remaining performance obligations, up 359% from the year prior. On top of that, Oracle now forecasts $18 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue for fiscal 2026, a 77% year over year increase. Even crazier, it said it expects cloud infrastructure sales to hit $114 billion by 2029.

As if all that wasn’t enough, late in the day the 

 with OpenAI to provide the AI startup with up to 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity—more than two Hoover Dams worth of power, according to the WSJ.

Analysts were left gobsmacked by the stellar numbers. “An extraordinary $332 billion in bookings in Oracle’s Q1 represents not only the biggest bookings number we’ve ever seen in software, but a fundamental shift in the business model toward Data Center Operator,” Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss wrote.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank analysts called the figures “truly awesome.”

“In our 20 years covering Oracle and for that matter the entire Software industry, there are few quarterly results that match F1Q both in terms of magnitude of revision and clarity of the moment,” wrote Deutsche Bank’s Brad Zelnick. He rates Oracle a buy with a $240 price target.

Founded in 1977, Oracle has gone through its fair share of different eras when it comes to software and hardware development.

Oracle’s rapid transformation into an AI infrastructure giant recalls another fan favorite: Nvidia. But even Nvidia doesn’t predict profits as far out as the next quarter due to the uncertainty of the AI industry, suggesting that perhaps Oracle is getting a little 

 with those hefty forecasts, the WSJ warned.

If there’s anything that Jensen Huang could teach Ellison, it’s that once the bar is raised high enough, investors only want to see you jump higher.—

The new richest man in the world: Oracle CTO Larry Ellison

Ellison, who co-founded the company, saw his fortune soar $101 billion today.

Oracle's unforeseen miracle

The fight over market share among Silicon Valley titans is still only a small battle in the real AI war: the US vs China.

China already put its ability to play catchup on full display with the launch of its own large language model from 

 earlier this year—which underscored how Chinese AI startups can compete with American chatbots even with far less money, and without access to the most advanced AI hardware.

Today, China has once again proven that it doesn’t need Silicon Valley to pave the way for its success: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba just developed its own 

Alibaba was previously a customer of Nvidia before the US installed export restrictions that prohibited Nvidia from selling chips to China, forcing Alibaba to refocus on creating its own chips. This latest model is built in China, and can handle a broad range of AI tasks, according to the WSJ.

Alibaba isn’t the only company trying to be a Chinese Nvidia. Cambricon, another Chinese chipmaker, just reported 

 in revenue during the first half of the year, a sign of strong domestic demand from AI companies, including its key customer DeepSeek.

Then there’s MetaX, a chipmaker based in Shanghai, which rolled out its own version of Nvidia’s H20 chip in July, but with even 

 memory. Just this week, the company announced it was going to start mass-producing those chips, the WSJ reported.

China’s determination to stop relying on a semiconductor trade with the US that can be throttled at a moment’s notice is fueling a surge in homegrown chipmakers. But most analysts still don’t think Chinese chips are comparable to Silicon Valley’s (at least not yet), and many expect Nvidia will soon start selling its H20 chips in China again, undercutting China’s need for local chipmakers.

So it looks like China’s Nvidia might end up being…Nvidia.—

China wants its own Nvidia

Chinese AI companies are making big strides to catch up to the US.

For months now, investors have lived in fear that the stocks propelling the entire market higher could stumble—and bring the whole S&P 500 down with them.

This week, it feels like the dominos have started to fall, and the anxiety about an AI bubble is reaching a fever pitch. The latest indicator: today’s announcement that Meta Platforms is freezing its 

The tech titan has shelled out incredible paychecks to bring researchers aboard its AI unit as Mark Zuckerberg races rivals like OpenAI to become the biggest name in artificial intelligence. But even Big Bucks Zuck has a spending limit, and he’s decided to close up his wallet only a few days after news broke that Meta’s AI group is undergoing its 

Investors are starting to get antsy, and want to see some tangible result from big tech’s AI spending bonanza, in which Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta will dole out a combined 

 just this year. Even crazier: a recent McKinsey report predicted AI spending will reach $7 trillion over the next five years to meet demand.

The hope is that this gargantuan spending will result in huge profits for these companies—but with actual returns remaining in limbo, this AI-fueled bull market is beginning to fizzle.

Today’s news from Meta is just the latest in a series of body blows to the AI trade this week.

Fears of a bubble forming in the AI space began after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that startup valuations are “insane.” The bad news kept coming when MIT published a study showing that 

In the days since, some of the highest-flying AI stocks on the market dropped hard. Palantir is the prime example: The secretive tech stock sold off for six days straight on the heels of a short seller report from 

 its high valuation, calling it “detached from fundamentals and analysis.”

Nobody knows for sure whether AI stocks are in a dot-com era bubble—not even us (shocking, we know). But FT editor John Thornhill 

: There will probably be multiple cycles of hype and crash as the AI revolution continues on. Bubbles can serve a purpose, he argued, resulting in the buildout of infrastructure that eventually leads to widespread adoption of the technology.

, now is the moment to buy the dip when it comes to these flashy, momentum-driven tech stocks. If you’re a big tech believer, right now offers a great entry point into these stocks, which have been on a tear over the past year.

But we can’t promise it’ll be a smooth ride upward anymore.—

Meta logo with a "not hiring" speech bubble

Meta halted its hiring frenzy

The AI bubble is starting to look overextended, and Meta might be the canary in the coalmine.

Is the AI bubble bursting?

In this newsletter, we’ve discussed many of the reasons the S&P 500 keeps ascending despite the 

But there could be another factor driving market enthusiasm: AI.

The gap between how humans and AI interpret the market is widening. In fact, computer algorithms haven't been this more bullish on stocks than humans since 2020, according to 

A chasm is emerging between those looking at the data themselves and those using algorithms to invest. While some investors see a storm gathering and cutting their equity exposure as a result, others relying more on computers to guide them are largely seeing sunny skies ahead.

The reason for this dichotomy is that while quant firms use complex strategies that factor in momentum and volatility signals, investors who apply a more human touch look at signals such as earnings and broader macroeconomic data to guide investments, according to Bloomberg.

As professional traders lean into computer-driven strategies, retail traders have begun experimenting with their own, simpler version: 

. But despite its seemingly infinite treasure trove of information, AI isn’t a miracle stock predictor, and studies testing how ChatGPT compares to fund managers 

. The problem with relying on them to tell you what to do with your portfolio? They’ll look at the market with those same flattering eyes, too. AI doesn’t have the same human anxieties about labor department data, tariffs, or geopolitical conflict. That can be helpful for investors using it, because it provides a counterbalance to the day-to-day market moves that can cause needless panic selling. On the other hand, it can cause blind optimism, 

 Since stock markets have existed, investors have been trying to crack the code to picking lucrative, individual stocks. But there’s a reason 

 most professional money managers: Nobody knows the future, not even ChatGPT.—

a stock exchange front facade half of which has a ton of digital looking things and the other half is normal

Are computers making you bullish?

The gap between how humans and algorithms see the market is widening.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at Apple’s annual developers conference, WWDC, in Cupertino today, he was obscured by the shadow of a tough era for the tech giant

Apple stock is down over 17% year to date, its highly anticipated Apple Intelligence software announced at last year’s WWDC turned out to be 

So, what futuristic tech did the company unveil this time in its signature awkward employee presentation?

Besides a celebrity cameo-filled F1 commercial for its upcoming Brad Pitt movie, not that much that would make your jaw drop. Instead of focusing on a new flashy product or feature like 

 with its M2 chip, 2023 with the Vision Pro, and last year with Apple Intelligence, this year’s presentation was focused on core product updates.

New operating systems loading: Apple will now align its naming conventions with the next calendar year, starting with iOS 26, macOS 26, iPadOS 26, and tvOS26.

AI, who? Apple kicked off the conference by admitting Apple Intelligence wasn’t quite up to its 

 while announcing a new foundation model for developers.

 including adding backgrounds and polls to iMessage, a new “workout buddy,” and Visual Intelligence, an AI companion that can find similar products from a screenshot.

But investors weren’t wowed: Shares fell 1.21% after the keynote presentation at 1pm ET.

become humanity’s technocratic overlord 

advance AI. But investors are hoping that Apple will turn out to be the tortoise, and the rest of the tech industry the hare. After all, we aren’t yet at the point where everyone and their mom is using AI every day, buying the company some time to come up with something more impactful than those 

And Apple still has obvious advantages over competitors like Google and OpenAI: “Of course, Apple is late to AI, but they are essentially a toll collector on its unmatched global ecosystem as any AI app to consumers will ultimately go through Cupertino as we saw firsthand with DeepSeek earlier this year,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. “This continues to be the major piece of the Apple AI strategy that investors are missing...it’s less about the killer app/LLM from Apple itself and more around being a foundation for consumer AI agnostic of the LLM.”

 from analysts covering the stock and an average price target of $228, 13% higher than the stock trades today.

But if you have more questions, you might have better luck asking ChatGPT than Siri. —

Apple is getting back to basics

Investors weren't impressed with Apple's latest product and features updates.

CoreWeave just hit the market this morning, but the biggest tech IPO since 2021 is 

, which rents out access to Nvidia chips to tech giants like Microsoft, priced its IPO at $40 per share (implied valuation of $23 billion), started trading at $39, and ended the day back at $40. Both the amount CoreWeave raised in the IPO ($1.5 billion) and the valuation were far below what it was targeting.

CoreWeave has plenty of critics who point out company-specific challenges 

. But today’s IPO flop also highlights the lackluster market for public listings and the end of Wall Street hype about any company linked to the AI trade.

CoreWeave’s business model relies on Big Tech’s rabid demand for AI hardware to keep increasing, but its IPO coincides with increasing doubts about whether the data center game is oversaturated already. Just yesterday, TD Cowen sparked an AI selloff when analysts revealed that 

 from some of its data center leases due to “data center oversupply.”

But CoreWeave co-founder and chief development officer Brannin McBee insisted that business was booming in an interview with Brew Markets

“I think the business is priced exactly where it makes sense for us,” he said. “Ultimately, like there's sometimes a disconnect between what the financial markets see and what is happening in reality on the ground…what we see is just relentless, overwhelming demand out there.”

Whether or not CoreWeave recovers from today’s slump, one potential ripple effect is to chill what had been a warming IPO pipeline. Tech startups eyeing an IPO, such as Klarna and Stubhub, might be wary of the choppy public market waters.—

CoreWeave’s core problem 

The AI company's priced its IPO lower than the firm originally planned. 

Judy Dutton

Move over, DeepSeek: There’s a new chatbot in town.

 an artificial intelligence reasoning model named QwQ-32B, which the company claims can achieve 

 with DeepSeek-R1 while using less computational power.

Although we wish China’s latest AI breakthrough had a shorter, more pronounceable name, the news has sent Alibaba shares soaring. In Hong Kong, the stock closed Thursday 

, while shares in New York remained flat.

QwQ-32B may be China’s newest, shiniest chatbot on the block, but it’s hardly the only contender. Tencent’s AI assistant 

, for instance, has already left DeepSeek in the dust as the country’s most-downloaded iPhone app. Meanwhile, a Chinese startup debuted an AI taskbot named 

 that’s been hailed for its ability to complete complex requests, from building custom websites to planning an itinerary for your next vacation.

All of which sounds great…but where does this leave the US?

This explosion of Chinese AI innovations has fueled worries about whether US tech firms are keeping their foot on the gas. Those fears were only exacerbated by Marvell Technology’s 

, which not only caused its shares to plummet 19.81%, but also sparked concerns over widespread weakness in America’s tech dominace—at the exact same time that tariffs are threatening tech companies’ bottom lines.

But even though China’s AI seems to be outshining the US of late, this doesn’t mean American companies are just loafing around. In fact, some of the biggest are going full steam ahead on AI.

 announced plans to create software for artificial intelligence agents, which are defined by their skill for executing multi-step tasks versus simply responding to questions or prompts.

All of this drives home that the AI race is more of a marathon than a sprint—China may seem to be at the forefront right now, but it’s still too early to tell who will win.

“Investors should ignore the herd mentality associated with any recent news about Marvell or Alibaba. The biggest mistake investors will make is focusing on the news of the day,” says Dave Nicholson, chief research officer at tech firm 

. Instead, he believes investors can benefit from diversifying their AI investments. “The monster margins that Nvidia enjoys today will naturally slosh around into the pockets of competitors as time goes by and the market for all things AI continues to grow.”

 China and the US can have some winners in the AI race.

AI