Nvidia and OpenAI in Asia

Hey, this is Vlad in Hong Kong. The CEOs of Nvidia and OpenAI swung through Asia in search of more AI chips. But first...Three things you ne [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey, this is Vlad in Hong Kong. The CEOs of Nvidia and OpenAI swung through Asia in search of more AI chips. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Google’s search [revenue disappointed]( • Investors wanted [more from Microsoft’s cloud]( • TikTok and UMG are [slinging accusations at each other]( Designed in California, still assembled in Asia Sam Altman’s fateful decision in late 2022 — to push OpenAI to release ChatGPT before rivals could pounce — might be the best thing that ever happened to Nvidia Corp. The chipmaker’s share price tripled last year as the tech industry devoured its supply of AI accelerators. But Altman’s tour through Asia over the last week or so appears to indicate a desire to be less reliant on Nvidia. The OpenAI chief executive officer met with chipmakers in South Korea, likely part of his [project to create AI chip factories](. At the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in the region with two distinct missions. One, he visited China for the first time in more than four years. The low-key visit, ostensibly to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year, seemed intended to reassure local staff and customers that Nvidia isn’t abandoning the market. Even with growing pressure from Washington to block the export of advanced semiconductors to China, the country is still a huge market for graphics processing units and one of Nvidia’s core markets. Then Huang returned to the island of his birth for Taiwan’s storied beef noodles and a chat with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. executives about [making more chips](. His company’s products have proven peerless at the power-intensive task of training AI models, but he warned the entire supply chain will have to work extra hard to match demand in what he expects will be “a huge year.” Huang wasn’t challenged to quantify the claim. He received the rock-star treatment throughout the trip. Altman, likewise, got a grand reception in Seoul late last week. Altman met top executives at Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. — makers of the high-bandwidth memory that complements Nvidia’s chips. In the home of the world’s biggest pop bands, Samsung and SK Hynix are the two most valuable companies, built in part on the strength of demand for those memory components. Samsung was set to give Altman a [tour of its advanced chip fabrication facilities](, and it’s reasonable to think his interest in expanding the chip supply came up. The chip industry operates in cycles of oversupply and under-supply. The Covid-19 pandemic trigged a combination of supply constraints and high demand that lasted for years, but the slump finally arrived in mid-2022. SK Hynix, Samsung and TSMC have all signaled they expect a recovery this year. Altman and Huang’s activities add weight to those expectations. The two men want more AI chips, and both are in Asia because, as much as the US government is pushing the likes of TSMC to set up shop within US borders, Asia is still the leader. That is unlikely to change anytime soon. —[Vlad Savov](mailto:vsavov5@bloomberg.net), with Yoolim Lee and Jane Lanhee Lee The big story CEOs from Meta, Snap, TikTok and Discord will descend on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a Senate hearing that will [spotlight child safety online.]( The hearing comes at a time where there’s increasing evidence that excessive social media use and the spread of harmful content may be negatively impacting young people’s mental health. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Technology TV interview]( with Mazda North American Operations President and CEO Tom Donnelly. Get fully charged Byron Allen wants all of Paramount Global in [a huge $14 billion offer](. Russia suffered a widespread [internet outage across the country](. PayPal will cut around [2,500 jobs](. Block, formerly Square, is also [cutting jobs](. AMD gave a weak sales forecast, [overshadowing its prospects in AI chips](. Adobe will conclude its efforts to create a web design product [that rivals Figma](. Germany will approve the EU’s proposals to [regulate AI](. Elon Musk’s X claimed the right to fire a worker who protested the [return-to-office policy](. 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