Connect with us

Published

on

Nilay Patel, left, editor in chief of The Verge, and Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, speak at Vox Media’s Code Conference at The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, California, on Sept. 27, 2023.

Jerod Harris | Vox Media | Getty Images

Microsoft technology chief Kevin Scott said on Wednesday that the company is having an easier time getting access to Nvidia‘s chips that run artificial intelligence workloads than it was a few months ago.

Speaking on stage at the Code Conference in Dana Point, California, Scott said the market for Nvidia’s graphics processing units is opening up a little. The GPUs have been heavily in demand since Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched the ChatGPT chatbot late last year.

“Demand was far exceeding the supply of GPU capacity that the whole ecosystem could produce,” Scott told The Verge’s Nilay Patel. “That is resolving. It’s still tight, but it’s getting better every week, and we’ve got more good news ahead of us than bad on that front, which is great.”

Microsoft, similar to Google and other tech companies, has been quickly adding generative AI to its own products and selling the technology’s capabilities to clients. Training and deploying the underlying AI models has mainly relied on Nvidia’s GPUs, creating scarcity of supply.

Nvidia said last month that it expects revenue growth this quarter of 170% from a year earlier. The company has such control of the AI chip market that its gross margin shot up from 44% to 70% in a year. Nvidia’s stock price is up 190% in 2023, far outpacing every other member of the S&P 500.

In an interview with Patel that was published in May, Scott said one of his responsibilities is controlling the GPU budget across Microsoft. He called it “a terrible job” that has been “miserable for five years now.”

“It’s easier now than when we talked last time,” Scott said Wednesday. At that time, generative AI technologies were still new and attracting broad attention from the public, he said.

The increased supply “makes my job of adjudicating these very gnarly conflicts less terrible,” he said.

Nvidia expects to increase supply each quarter through next year, finance chief Colette Kress told analysts on last month’s earnings call.

Traffic to ChatGPT has declined month over month for three consecutive months, Similarweb said in a blog post. Microsoft provides Azure cloud-computing services to OpenAI. Meanwhile, Microsoft is planning to start selling access to its Microsoft 365 Copilot to large organizations with subscriptions to its productivity software in November.

Scott declined to address the accuracy of media reports regarding Microsoft’s development of a custom AI chip, but he did highlight the company’s in-house silicon work. Microsoft has previously worked with Qualcomm on an Arm-based chip for Surface PCs.

“I’m not confirming anything, but I will say that we’ve got a pretty substantial silicon investment that we’ve had for years,” Scott said. “And the thing that we will do is we’ll make sure that we’re making the best choices for how we build these systems, using whatever options we have available. And the best option that’s been available during the last handful of years has been Nvidia.”

WATCH: Amazon’s A.I. investment is a page out of the OpenAI-Microsoft playbook: Deepwater’s Doug Clinton

Amazon's A.I. investment is a page out of the OpenAI-Microsoft playbook: Deepwater's Doug Clinton

Continue Reading

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: Flying blind in markets and the economy

Published

on

By

CNBC Daily Open: Flying blind in markets and the economy

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

U.S. markets had their worst day since Oct. 10. That marks a sharp reversal for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which shed 1.65% to settle at 47,457.22, a day after it closed above 48,000 for the first time. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 lost 1.66% and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.29%.

The slump in stocks can partly be traced to a turnaround in sentiment regarding artificial intelligence. Tech behemoths such as Nvidia, Broadcom and Oracle slumped, with the last losing more than one-third in value since it rocketed 36% in September.

Investors, it seems, are growing worried over the high valuations of tech names, as well as the gigantic amount of capital expenditure they are committing to — with some, like Oracle, having to take on debt to fulfil those obligations.

Uncertainty over an interest rate cut in December is also putting a downer on Wall Street. It’s a coin toss as to whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will ease monetary policy then, according to the CME FedWatch tool. That’s a huge difference from a month ago, when traders were pricing in a 95.5% chance of a December cut.

Not having October’s employment and inflation numbers, and possibly never getting them, means the Fed lacks visibility into the state of the economy — and whether it should try to support the labor market or continue reining in inflation.

After all, flying blind makes it hard to see where you’ll land. As of now, that applies both to the Fed and investors trying to navigate the still-hazy ambitions of tech companies.

What you need to know today

And finally…

Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk speaks at a Q&A following a tour of the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.

Shelby Tauber | Reuters

Wall Street cools on Oracle’s buildout plans as debt concerns mount: ‘AI sentiment is waning’

Two months ago, Oracle’s stock soared 36% to a record after the company blew away investors with its forecast for cloud infrastructure revenue. Since then, the company has lost one-third of its value, more than wiping out those gains.

The mood of late has turned, with investors questioning whether the AI market ran too far, too fast and whether OpenAI can live up to its $300 billion commitment to Oracle over five years. Of the big cloud companies in the GPU business, Oracle is expected to generate the least amount of free cash flow, said Jackson Ader, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

— Seema Mody

Continue Reading

Technology

StubHub stock tanks 20% as CEO says it is not giving guidance for current quarter

Published

on

By

StubHub stock tanks 20% as CEO says it is not giving guidance for current quarter

Ticket reseller StubHub signage on display at the New York Stock Exchange for the company’s IPO on Sept. 17, 2025.

NYSE

StubHub shares plunged 20% in extended trading on Thursday after the company reported quarterly results for the first time since its initial public offering in September.

Here’s how the ticket vendor did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Loss per share: $4.27
  • Revenue: $468.1 million vs. $452 million expected

During a conference call with investors, StubHub CEO and founder Eric Baker said the company wouldn’t provide guidance for the current quarter.

Baker said that the company takes “a long term approach,” adding that the timing of when tickets go on sale can vary, making it hard to predict consumer demand. StubHub plans to offer outlook for 2026 when it reports fourth-quarter results, he said.

“The demand for live events is phenomenal,” Baker said. “We don’t see anything with consumer demand that’s any different.”

Revenue increased 8% in its second quarter from $433.8 million a year earlier, the company said.

StubHub reported a net loss of $1.33 billion, or a loss of $4.27 per share, compared to a net loss of $45.9 million, or a loss of 15 cents per share, during the same period last year. StubHub said this reflects a one-time stock-based compensation charge of $1.4 billion stemming from its IPO.

Gross merchandise sales, which represent the total dollar value paid by ticket buyers, rose 11% year over year to $2.43 billion.

The company faced tough comparisons from a year earlier, when results were boosted by Taylor Swift’s massively popular Eras Tour. Excluding that impact, StubHub said GMS grew 24% year over year.

Founded in 2000, StubHub primarily generates revenue from connecting buyers with ticket resellers. It competes with Vivid Seats, which was taken public via a special purpose acquisition company in 2021; SeatGeek; and Ticketmaster parent Live Nation Entertainment.

“We are building a truly differentiated consumer product that improves the experience for fans while unlocking better economics for venues, teams, and artists through open distribution,” Baker said in a statement. “We’re early in that journey, but our progress so far gives us great confidence in our strategy and the long-term value we’re creating.”

StubHub raised $800 million in its long-awaited IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, which came after it delayed its debut twice. The most recent stall came in April after President Donald Trump‘s announcement of sweeping tariffs roiled markets. The company restarted the process to go public in August when it filed an updated prospectus.

On Thursday, the company’s stock closed at $18.82. Shares are now down roughly 20% from the IPO price of $23.50.

Read more CNBC tech news

Continue Reading

Technology

Google says group behind E-ZPass, USPS text scam has been ‘shut down’ after suit

Published

on

By

Google says group behind E-ZPass, USPS text scam has been 'shut down' after suit

The Google corporate logo hangs outside the Google Germany offices on August 31, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Google said on Thursday said it has disrupted the foreign cybercriminal group behind a massive SMS text phishing operation within 24 hours of filing its lawsuit.

“This shut down of Lighthouse’s operations is a win for everyone,” said Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado. “We will continue to hold malicious scammers accountable and protect consumers.”

Google filed the suit early Wednesday, seeking to dismantle the organization that some cyber experts have dubbed the “Smishing Triad,” which used a phishing kit named “Lighthouse” to generate and deploy attacks using fake texts.

The company provided translated Telegram messages allegedly posted by the group’s ringleader.

“Our cloud server has been blocked due to malicious complaints. Please be patient and we will restore it as soon as possible!” one message read.

Another message stated that “The reopening date will be announced separately.”

Google did not provide specifics on how the operation was shut down.

Read more CNBC tech news

The crime group had harmed at least 1 million victims across over 120 countries, Google said in a release.

Victims would receive texts containing malicious links to fraudulent websites designed to steal sensitive financial information, including Social Security numbers and banking credentials.

The messages often appeared as fake delivery updates, unpaid fees notifications, fraud alerts, and other texts designed to appear urgent.

“They were preying on users’ trust in reputable brands such as E-ZPass, the U.S. Postal Service, and even us as Google,” DeLaine Prado previously told CNBC.

The company said that it found over 100 templates generated by Lighthouse using the company’s branding to trick victims into thinking the sites were legitimate.

Continue Reading

Trending