Who did it best? NVDA, AMZN…IREN?

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• Looking back on stocks from a year ago
• Japan in 1885
• Is Nvidia dominant in 2034?

If that’s enough to get the time travelling, read on…

AI Collision 💥

The other day I asked for a bit of feedback as to ways in which you think we could look to improve AI Collision and what you might like to see more (or less of).

After getting through some comments and emails, a few people have suggested focusing in more on the listed stocks that are impacted by AI.

We try to ensure that we’re looking at the bigger thematic investment trend of how AI is going to rule the world and then drill that down into ideas that you can use and take into your research when trying to figure out where to invest next.

These, of course, aren’t recommendations – we can’t give those here. But they’re ideas and introductions to companies and names you might not have heard before, as well as ones you’ve heard of before but might not fully realise just what they’re doing and how it relates to AI.

Some are bleedingly obvious that should always be in the mix for consideration when you’re working on your investments.

That said, we will be ensuring we take a more targeted approach to this in 2025 as AI Collision continues to do what we do best. But I also thought that considering we’ve now been publishing over a year, why don’t we have a look at a handful of companies we were talking to you about from the outset, and how they’ve gone in the last year – good, bad and ugly.

Back in October 2023 we launched AI Collision with a discussion about AI and mining. This took us to talk about…

BHP (LSE:BHP). So, in the year of the AI boom, how has BHP fared?

Not so well. But then again, this is a miner using AI. It’s not really what we’d call an out-and-out AI company.

We also spoke about Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), one of the poster children of the AI boom:

Interestingly, Microsoft is only up 11% for the rolling year. It seems like it should be far more… but it isn’t.

Sphere Entertainment (NYSE:SPHR) got a run because of its use of AI in its entertainment “experience”. It’s gone on to do a little better in the last year:

SoftBank (TOK:9984) has its hands in a lot of different AI pies, including the potential development of an AI phone. The last year has been quite fruitful for SoftBank holders:

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is another company with its future resting on the integration of AI into all its businesses. But if I asked you who had a better year, SoftBank or Amazon, you might be surprised with the answer:

When we were talking about Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) a year ago, it would have felt like the tech giant couldn’t go any higher. But then, it just went higher, and higher, and higher. For a mega-cap stock, it is still one of the most astonishing rises in history:

Iris Energy (NASDAQ:IREN) is another convergence of investment ideas, of bitcoin and AI that’s really seen a rocket higher in the last year. Of course, bitcoin mining just happens to use more or less the exact same technology needed for high performance computing and AI… so those bitcoin miners get the double whammy of demand for their data services, and the rise of bitcoin:

We have written about many many more companies, and we’ll revisit those too in the coming months. A year might not feel like a long time, but as you can see from the stocks above, those predominately tied to AI are all doing pretty well. Some much more than others. But even with Microsoft at 11% for the rolling year, that’s outperforming most funds, most indexes and frankly, most investors.

#AD

The age of AI is stepping into its most profitable phase, set to create the first $100 trillion market. This rare “wealth window” could redefine your financial future – if you act quickly. In this video, James Altucher uncovers the AI stocks that could be game-changers in this booming industry. Don’t miss out. Click here to learn everything you need to know.

Capital at risk. Forecasts are not a reliable indicator of future results.

AI gone wild 🤪

It’s 1885, Japan. There is no such thing as high speed trains. Heck, actual trains, the steam engine type, have only existed between Tokyo and Yokohama for about the last ten years.

The first car, a Panhard Levassor imported from France, won’t be even driven in Japan for another 13 years.

Planes, not a thing. The public telephone network is still two years away. And public electricity, well, that just arrived last year.

Not even Nintendo exists yet, and when they do (in fours years time) they’ll start off making playing cards!

Needless to say, in 1885 Japan was (like the rest of the world) still in the early days of a technology boom. But there’s another company that’s just getting off the ground that makes wires from silk and cotton.

Pretty sure, that when the Fujikura company started 139 years ago the expectation wasn’t that they’d be one of Japan’s most critical companies related to the AI boom.

But considering that the stock is up 420% year to date, 1,128% over five years, this is the kind of unknown AI-related company that we so often talk about, that most people would never have heard of and that (on the year to date) even puts Nvidia to shame.

Of course, it’s not doing silk and cotton wiring anymore. It’s a bit more sophisticated than that. Just like Nintendo doesn’t do playing cards anymore.

In that sense, Nintendo still makes games, and Fujikura still makes wires… just the fibre optic kind, and really good ones at that. I liken what Fujikura does to what we’ve written about before with the likes of Vertiv.

It’s a company that builds the house that AI lives inside. A bit like a landlord owns the house and rents it out to the tenants. Companies like Fujikura own parts of the house, they are the landlords; and the AI that we all talk about, it’s really just renting the house.

That’s why it counts companies like Apple as customers. What Fujikura does, it does really well – and without it, things just don’t run as smoothly as they should.

The only question is, if we fast forward a year from now, what does this company look like? Has it run its race already, or is there more growth to come?

Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• BigBear.ai (NYSE:BBAI) up 44%
• C3.ai (NYSE:AI) up 44%
• Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) up 16%

Bust 📉

• Appen (ASX:APX) down 18%
• Lantern Pharma (NASDAQ:LTRN) down 13%
• Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) down 4%

From the hive mind 🧠

• It’s not the billions that some AI companies are raising, but a cheeky $5 million for a fitness AI start-up is still more evidence that as money flows, so does the opportunity in the market.
• Is this the singularity for rheumatologists? As good as kind of indicates the unnecessary nature for humans, right?
• Story developing… but Nvidia can’t remain top of the kingdom forever, can it? What you know for sure, is that even if it does (and it has a BIG lead) when you’re at the top, all everyone else is trying to do is knock you off.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

The idea of Nvidia not being the most dominant provider of AI chips is hard to comprehend. It has been at the forefront of this technology for the better part of a decade.

But competition is strong. Cashed-up mega giants like AMD, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft aren’t stupid and won’t sit idle either. They will do what they can to ease reliance on Nvidia, look for alternatives and eventually develop their own tech.

The big question is… can they?

Weirdest AI image of the day

No one’s going to judge you – r/weirddalle

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision