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Samsung Electronics’ flagship smartphones Galaxy S24 series are displayed during their unveiling ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, January 15, 2024. 

Kim Hong-ji | Reuters

BARCELONA – Smartphone makers are talking a big game about artificial intelligence this year. 

And they’re so confident about features they’re cramming into their phones that they think it’ll drive a new “supercycle” for the industry. 

Samsung, Google, and Chinese firm Honor are among the names that are beefing up their latest handsets with AI-powered features for translating and summarizing conversations and taking and editing photos with the power of generative AI algorithms. 

These are algorithms that are baked into the devices’ chips themselves, rather than accessed via the cloud. 

Samsung has gone big on generative AI with its Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone. 

Google, too, has integrated AI directly into its latest Pixel phones. 

Apple, meanwhile, is also reportedly exploring the addition of on-device AI features to the next iPhone, per the Financial Times

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This is all coming at a time when Mobile World Congress, the mobile technology industry’s biggest trade show of the year, is kicking off. 

Major device makers like Samsung, Huawei, Honor, and Oppo, plus chip companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek, are expected to talk a big game about how much AI is transforming our personal devices. 

When was the last smartphone supercycle? 

Smartphone makers have been dreaming of a “supercycle” in their industry, driven by AI, after a bruising few years that saw device sales slow aggressively. 

In 2023, smartphone sales fell to 1.16 billion units, the lowest point for unit shipments in a decade. 

The last “supercycle” in smartphones happened between 2010 and 2015, where in five years the market grew fivefold from roughly 300 million units sold per year to 1.5 billion units, according to IDC data. 

That came at a time when smartphones were just starting to become mainstream thanks to the emergence of widely used applications: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, Snapchat, Twitter, and Candy Crush Saga, to name a few. 

“The growth happened not just because Apple launched the iPhone, or because Google launched Android,” Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of data and analytics at research firm IDC, told CNBC. 

“What really made it successful, that supercycle, was the fact that people were able to get the internet in their pocket,” Jeronimo said, in a phone interview with CNBC. 

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Other things were happening at the time, including the ability to make video calls over the internet with 3G, and the transition to 4G which meant faster speeds. 

“We saw very popular operating systems not just the browser, but a world of applications that brought so many services and so much content through the phone,” Jeronimo said. 

Ben Wood, chief analyst of CCS Insight, pinpoints the unveiling of the iPhone as the last “seismic disruption” that took place in the industry.  

“Everything since then has been less disruptive,” Wood told CNBC. 

‘AI phone era’

Major smartphone players are betting that a supercycle is about to happen thanks to AI. 

Samsung, which launched the Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier this year, thinks that there’s a strong chance that AI will drive a new dawn that can breathe fresh life into the industry. 

James Kitto, Samsung’s head of mobile experience division in the U.K., told CNBC the mobile industry is at the start of a new era of hypergrowth driven by AI. 

“There’s every expectation that will be the case. We’re seeing some really, really high demand,” Kitto told CNBC from Samsung’s European headquarters in Chertsey, England. 

The Galaxy S24 came with the ability to circle an object on your camera and pull up Google Search results for it, as well as live translation of phone calls to people speaking in foreign languages. 

“We’re right now at the dawning of an entirely new era, an AI phone era,” Kitto said.

Brian Rakowski, vice president of product management for Google’s Pixel phone unit, said he expects AI to drive renewed interest around mobile technology. 

Google has been working on integrating AI into its devices for years, most notably with the addition of Tensor line of smartphone processors. 

“We already saw that AI was going to be the differentiator and the next wave of innovation across all technology but especially mobile,” Rakowski told CNBC. “It is so key to everything all our computing lives and computing platform.” 

The smartphone market has shifted toward the premium, market research firm says

Google recently made it possible for its Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, to run its Gemini nano AI system. This is a smaller version of its family of large language models which come under the umbrella name Gemini. 

Google is expecting it will launch more advanced versions of Gemini on Android next year, according to Rakowski.

“We’ve placed a lot of bets and have really close collaboration with the research team at [AI lab] DeepMind to make sure Pixel is the best way to showcase and surface what’s coming down the pipe,” Rakowski said. 

“No one knew that LLMs would be the thing. But we expected breakthroughs in the space,” he added. 

Why a supercycle is unlikely

Analysts say a supercycle is unlikely to occur within the next few years as there’s not enough going on in the market in terms of novel features and innovation that will convince people holding their aging smartphones to upgrade. 

Sales are expected to see growth this year, according to IDC, with smartphone shipments expected to climb 2.4% this year to 1.19 billion units in 2024. But that’s coming off a low base, and overall represents lackluster growth for an industry.

Growth is expected to remain stagnant from there in the coming years, with IDC forecasting incremental year-over-year increases of between 2% and 3% from 2025 to 2028.

Consumers remain wary about the prospect of upgrading their smartphones today as the prices for upgrading are still elevated.  

Plus, much of the latest models that are coming out are still only touting incremental improvements on what came before. 

“Much as the potential of AI on smartphones is an exciting prospect, I don’t believe the technology will contribute to a new supercycle for smartphone sales,” Wood told CNBC via email. 

“At best it will help sustain sales and add a little bit of extra interest in smartphones at a time when the hardware is becoming increasingly boring.” 

Today, there’s not enough excitement about smartphones on a broader level to justify a sales boom of the kind many companies are dreaming up. 

That will change in the coming years, according to Jeronimo — but only once artificial intelligence starts becoming useful for consumers. 

“If there’s anything that could make [a supercycle] happen, it would be AI,” Jeronimo said. “But with AI, there’s this question mark of how much the phone will become intelligent.” 

Smartphones today “are not intelligent,” he added. 

“If you see a billboard of the latest Tarantino or ‘Mission Impossible’ movie, what do you do? You need to open an app, book tickets in that app, send texts to your wife, text where she needs to go, go into your calendar app, check when is the best day to go to the movie, and so on.” 

Plenty of companies are working on tech that can do exactly this.

For example, Humane has its AI Pin, a compact, square-shaped device that users can speak with to ask it to do certain tasks like setting reminders. It uses OpenAI’s large language models to do so.  

Another startup, Rabbit, has a similar device. Geely-owned firm Meizu, meanwhile, recently said it’s giving up on making Android smartphones in favor of creating an AI-focused hardware product.

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Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

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Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

An Amazon logistics center in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Dummerstorf, Germany, on Nov. 27, 2024.

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Amazon announced Monday its millionth worker robot, and said its entire fleet will be powered by a newly launched generative artificial intelligence model. The move comes at a time when more tech companies are cutting jobs and warning of automation.

The million robot milestone — which joins Amazon’s global network of more than 300 facilities — strengthens the company’s position as the world’s largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics, Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, said in a press release

Meanwhile, Dresser said that its new “DeepFleet” AI model will coordinate the movement of its robots within its fulfillment centers, reducing the travel time of the fleet by 10% and enabling faster and more cost-effective package deliveries.

Amazon began deploying robots in its facilities in 2012 to move inventory shelves across warehouse floors, according to Dresser. Since then, their roles in factories have grown tremendously, ranging from those able to lift up to 1,250 pounds of inventory to fully autonomous robots that navigate factories with carts of customer orders.

Meanwhile, AI-powered humanoid robots — designed to mimic human movement and shape — could be deployed this year at factories owned by Tesla.

Job security fears

But although advancements in AI robotics like those working in Amazon facilities come with the promise of productivity gains, they have also raised concerns about mass job loss.

A Pew Research survey published in March found that both AI experts and the general public see factory workers as one of the groups most at risk of losing their jobs because of AI.

That’s a concern Dresser appeared to attempt to address in his statements. 

“These robots work alongside our employees, handling heavy lifting and repetitive tasks while creating new opportunities for our front-line operators to develop technical skills,” Dresser said. He added that Amazon’s “next-generation fulfillment center” in Shreveport, Louisiana, which was launched late last year, required 30% more employees in reliability, maintenance and engineering roles. 

However, the news of Amazon’s robot expansion came soon after CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC that Amazon’s rapid rollout of generative AI will result in “fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate.”

Jassy said that even as AI eliminates jobs in certain areas, Amazon will continue to hire more employees in AI, robotics and elsewhere. But in a memo to employees earlier in June, the CEO had admitted that he expects the company’s workforce to shrink in the coming years in light of technological advancements. 

The decline may have already begun. CNBC reported that Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs in 2022 and 2023, and had continued to make more targeted cuts across business units. 

Other big tech CEOs such as Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke also recently warned of the impact that AI will have on staffing. That comes as a vast array of firms investing in and adopting AI execute rounds of layoffs. 

According to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks technology industry layoffs, 551 companies laid off roughly 153,000 employees last year. And a World Economic Forum report in February found that 48% of U.S. employers plan to reduce their workforce due to AI.

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (left), shake hands during an announcement of an additional $100 billion into TSMC’s U.S. manufacturing at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on March 3, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The latest version of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could make it cheaper for semiconductor manufacturers to build plants in the U.S. as Washington continues its efforts to strengthen its domestic chip supply chain.

Under the bill, passed by the Senate Tuesday, tax credits for those semiconductor firms would rise to 35% from 25%. That’s more than the 30% increase that had made it into a draft version of the bill. 

Companies eligible for the credits could include chipmakers such as Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Micron Technology, provided that they expand their advanced manufacturing in the U.S. ahead of a 2026 deadline

The new provisions expand on tax incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided grants of $39 billion and loans of $75 billion for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing projects. 

But before the expanded credits come into play, Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package will have to be passed again in the House, which narrowly passed its own version last month. The president has urged lawmakers to get the bill passed by July 4.

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Trump has previously stated that tariffs, as opposed to the CHIPS Act grants, would be the best method of onshoring semiconductor production. The Trump administration is currently conducting an investigation into imports of semiconductor technology, which could result in new duties on the industry.

In recent months, a number of chipmakers with projects in the U.S. have ramped up planned investments there. That includes the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, as well as American chip companies such as Nvidia, Micron and GlobalFoundries.  

According to Daniel Newman, CEO at tech advisory firm Futurum Group, the threat of Trump’s tariffs has created more urgency for semiconductor companies to expand U.S. capacity. If the increased investment tax credits come into law, those onshoring efforts are only expected to accelerate, he told CNBC. 

“Given the risk of tariffs, increasing manufacturing in the U.S. remains a key consideration for these large semiconductor companies,” Newman said, adding that the tax credits could be seen as an opportunity to offset certain costs related to U.S.-based projects.

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63 to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.

Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.

Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.

The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.

That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.

Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.

Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.

The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.

SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.

Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.

These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.

Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.

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Threats to SpaceX & Tesla as Musk, Trump feud heats up

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