Martin Peers

Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons has filed to go public in the U.S., seeking capital to fund further acquisitions of aging internet properties. The company has already acquired AOL, Eventbrite, Evernote, and Vimeo. The IPO filing marks a shift toward public markets for a company that has built its portfolio through acquiring legacy digital assets.

Broadcom reported 48% revenue growth for its second fiscal quarter ended May 3, with AI chip revenue surging 143% to $10.8 billion. Total revenue reached $22.187 billion, matching the company's March guidance. The results reflect strong demand for AI infrastructure chips as major technology companies expand their AI capabilities.

Salesforce, Snowflake, and Asana are reporting Q1 earnings this week, offering a test case for whether AI is disrupting traditional enterprise software vendors or strengthening them. Workday's recent earnings showed the company accelerating new contract signings by positioning itself as AI-powered, with CEO Aneel Bhusri claiming the company is 'essentially a startup again.' The earnings reports will reveal whether established software firms can monetize their own AI tools faster than AI startups can cannibalize their business.

Microsoft shares have fallen nearly 16% year-to-date, making it the worst performer among major tech names. British hedge fund TCI recently sold almost all of its Microsoft stake, citing concerns that AI could undermine the company's core Office productivity business. With SpaceX's upcoming IPO expected to draw capital away from existing tech holdings, investor pressure on Microsoft stock may intensify in the coming months.

CoreWeave reported Q1 2026 revenue of $2 billion, doubling year-over-year, but the AI cloud infrastructure startup is burning cash at an accelerating rate. Capital expenditures hit $7.7 billion in the quarter, up from $1.4 billion a year earlier, resulting in $4.7 billion in quarterly cash burn. The company projects $12 billion to $13 billion in 2026 revenue but plans to spend as much as $35 billion on capex, illustrating the massive infrastructure bet required to compete in AI compute.

SpaceX's xAI unit has signed deals to supply computing capacity to both Anthropic and AI coding startup Cursor, a move that signals a strategic pivot toward operating as a cloud infrastructure provider. The deals are notable because leading AI firms typically consume all available compute capacity for their own model development and rarely rent out surplus capacity to competitors. The most straightforward interpretation is that xAI's Grok model is not gaining sufficient traction to justify full utilization of its infrastructure, making cloud services a revenue-generating alternative.

Google Cloud and AWS posted strong quarterly results driven by surging demand for AI computing capacity, with both cloud providers seeing accelerated revenue growth. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged that AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI are spending heavily on compute, though he noted that broader business demand for AI capabilities is also emerging. Google and Meta saw additional tailwinds from AI technologies boosting their advertising businesses. The results suggest cloud infrastructure is benefiting from the AI boom, though a significant portion of current demand appears concentrated among the largest AI firms rather than widespread enterprise adoption.

Related Digital and Blackstone have closed financing for a $16 billion data center campus in Michigan built for Oracle. The project is part of a broader infrastructure buildout designed to provide Oracle with computing capacity to lease to OpenAI. This represents a significant capital commitment to support large-scale AI model training and inference workloads.

SpaceX revealed Tuesday it is in talks to acquire Cursor, a coding AI startup, for approximately $60 billion. The move signals that xAI, Musk's AI company that SpaceX acquired for $250 billion in stock in February, is struggling to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI in the coding space. Musk recently acknowledged xAI needs to be rebuilt from its foundations after triggering mass departures, raising questions about what SpaceX shareholders actually paid for in the earlier acquisition.

Allbirds, the sustainable footwear company, is divesting its shoemaking business to American Exchange Group for $39 million and repositioning itself as an AI chip-service firm. The company plans to lease and rent out AI computing capacity, marking a dramatic strategic pivot away from its core apparel business. This move reflects broader market dynamics where established companies are exploring AI infrastructure opportunities.