I certainly don’t mean to presume, just would appreciate some education here on how this board operates (I’m a bit of a newcomer here).
It’s not hard for me to think of how political dimensions figure in the investment thesis for a number of companies discussed on this board, such as:
Axon: the body camera/video storage service LOBs didn’t go from nothing to a big part of their revenue stream by accident
Tesla, Enphase, & Aehr: the recent Federal legislation boosting buyer incentives but mandating a percentage of domestically production is just one of many examples. Enphase’s recent difficulties in CA appear to me to be largely driven by politics
Even a company like The Trade Desk is potentially vulnerable to some Senator deciding that their approach to advertising to consumers is “invasive and abusive” (I’m intentionally exaggerating here to make my point) and must be regulated.
I’ll grant you that my point about the tie between the Taiwan/China conflict and the Congressional decision on aid to Ukraine could be seen as excessive (although I don’t believe that it was). But I am hearing that all discussion on political themes is not OK on this board, even if it directly affects our companies.
Politics are part of the “real world”, the world where businesses operate. If you want to understand the pressures, restrictions, and incentives for a business, how can you exclude political analysis from your analysis of the business?
First, Saul makes the rules, I don’t. I was simply informing you of one of the rules as your post kind of wandered in a political direction.
Saul has explained his reason for this rule, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t want to speak for him, but the gist of the rational is that political discussions can quickly get heated and emotional. Politics, religion and for a while even Tesla was off limits. Saul says he’s seen political discussions destroy an otherwise informative board. I don’t doubt him.
The safe route is just avoid political topics, even if some political issue is germane to a company. So yes, Taiwan/China and Congressional decisions on anything are off limits. This isn’t a matter of ignoring the “real world.” It’s a matter of preserving the board.
Cloudflare and rival Akamai Technologies (AKAM) are racing to deploy network gear that supports edge computing — extending cloud services closer to where data is generated. At the same time, Cloudflare is targeting AI “inferencing” — processing AI apps or workloads locally on the network edge.
In late September, Cloudflare announced its “Workers AI” platform and partnerships with Microsoft (MSFT), privately-held Databricks and Hugging Face. Hugging Face is among a wave of AI startups building AI training models for apps.
As of Oct. 31, Cloudflare told analysts it had deployed “inference-optimized” Nvidia (NVDA)-made GPUs in 75 cities. It said it planed to deploy the Nvidia chips in 100 cities by the end of 2023.
“We view NET as the first unique, serverless, global edge compute and AI inferencing platform,” said Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan in a recent report. “NET is deploying AI infrastructure on Workers AI and is already partnering with large technology companies. Workers AI is only three months old, but it is already seeing strong demand and interesting new user cases, both with small startups/developers and large enterprises.”
In 2024, Cloudflare aims to deploy the Nvidia AI chips in 300 locations worldwide. The AI networking cards are simply plugged into computer server PCI slots, lowering capital spending needs.
This all bodes well for NVDA and NET. SMCI stock jumped 35% today because of its huge boost in outlook for its AI purposed-designed rack/server systems, many of which use NVDA.