EVENTS:   Where's the Puck Going? - James Aitken/Aitken Advisors - 05 May 26     ROADSHOWS: Consumer Research & Industry Trends focused on US Retail, E-Tail, and Consumer Products Companies - Scott Mushkin /R5 Capital   •   London   07 - 08 May 26      
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Fortnightly publication highlighting latest insights from IRF providers

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Approaching peak AI hysteria

Report by Aitken Advisors

People are gregarious and instinctively follow the impulses of the herd, remarks James Aitken. The past two weeks have been a reminder of the mob mentality, and with dystopian projections on AI hysteria reaching millions of views, James believes we are approaching peak AI hysteria. Just remember when scouring the news: why am I reading this now and who benefits? XAI, Anthropic and OpenAI are all in windows to raise absurd amounts of money at lofty valuations, so it’s no surprise everyone is getting almost daily updates on LLMs about their improvements. DRAM, NAND and H100 rental prices suggest the AI juggernaut and associated memory shortage continues, yet so violent has been the recent shakedown that companies that would seem to have little risk of being disrupted by AI have been smashed, too. Just look at the current P/E of Microsoft (green) vs the current P/E of Colgate (red).

AI: The race to the bottom

Report by Radio Free Mobile

One would have expected Anthropic’s latest innovation to be part of its premium tier, but the fact it is free is a sign that the race to the bottom, kicked off by Meta, is already underway. Richard Windsor sees it as a sign that the company is struggling to attract users to its platform in an already competitive environment. There are still no signs of the promised superintelligence on the horizon. Current expectations and valuations are unrealistic, and we will likely see the reset begin in the venture capital space as start-ups fail to meet their targets and go back to their backers for more money. Against this backdrop, everyone is going to take a hit, but the least pain is likely to be felt by Nvidia and TSMC. Richard prefers adjacencies of inference at the edge and nuclear power as the best way to get exposure to AI.