Latest news with #Nvidia-backed
Express Tribune
5 hours ago
- Business
- Express Tribune
Apple mulls bid for AI startup Perplexity in search shake-up: Bloomberg report
man walks past an Apple logo outside an Apple store in Aix-en Provence, France, January 15, 2025. Photo:REUTERS Listen to article Apple executives have held internal talks about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, the report said, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management. "We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity," Perplexity said in response to a Reuters' request for comment. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment. Big tech companies are doubling down on investments to enhance AI capabilities and support growing demand for AI-powered services to maintain competitive leadership in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Bloomberg News also reported on Friday that Meta Platforms tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Exclusive: Apple executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and technology — Bloomberg (@business) June 20, 2025 Meta announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit. Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, as per the report. The iPhone maker reportedly plans to integrate AI-driven search capabilities - such as Perplexity AI - into its Safari browser, potentially moving away from its longstanding partnership with Alphabet's Google. Banning Google from paying companies to make it their default search engine is one of the remedies proposed by the US Department of Justice to break up its dominance in online search. NEW: Apple executives have held internal discussions about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI, seeking to address the need for more AI talent and technology — — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) June 20, 2025 While traditional search engines such as Google still dominate global market share, AI-powered search options including Perplexity and ChatGPT are gaining prominence and seeing rising user adoption, especially among younger generations. Perplexity recently completed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, Bloomberg News reported. A deal close to that would be Apple's largest acquisition so far. The Nvidia-backed startup provides AI search tools that deliver information summaries to users, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
The Star
6 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity, Bloomberg News reports
FILE PHOTO: A man walks past an Apple logo outside an Apple store in Aix-en Provence, France, January 15, 2025. REUTERS/Manon Cruz/File photo (Reuters) -Apple executives have held internal talks about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, the report said, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management. "We have no knowledge of any current or future M&A discussions involving Perplexity," Perplexity said in response to a Reuters' request for comment. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment. Big tech companies are doubling down on investments to enhance AI capabilities and support growing demand for AI-powered services to maintain competitive leadership in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Bloomberg News also reported on Friday that Meta Platforms tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Meta announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit. Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, as per the report. The iPhone maker reportedly plans to integrate AI-driven search capabilities - such as Perplexity AI - into its Safari browser, potentially moving away from its longstanding partnership with Alphabet's Google. Banning Google from paying companies to make it their default search engine is one of the remedies proposed by the U.S. Department of Justice to break up its dominance in online search. While traditional search engines such as Google still dominate global market share, AI-powered search options including Perplexity and ChatGPT are gaining prominence and seeing rising user adoption, especially among younger generations. Perplexity recently completed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, Bloomberg News reported. A deal close to that would be Apple's largest acquisition so far. The Nvidia-backed startup provides AI search tools that deliver information summaries to users, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. (Reporting by Niket Nishant and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Juby Babu and Rhea Rose Abraham; Editing by Maju Samuel and Tom Hogue)
The Hindu
11 hours ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity: Report
Apple executives have held internal talks about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, the report said, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management. Apple and Perplexity did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Big tech companies are doubling down investments to enhance AI capabilities and support growing demand for AI-powered services to maintain competitive leadership in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Bloomberg News reported earlier on Friday that Meta Platforms tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Meta announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit. Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, as per the report. The iPhone maker reportedly plans to integrate AI-driven search capabilities- such as Perplexity AI- into its Safari browser, potentially moving away from its longstanding partnership with Alphabet's Google. Banning Google from paying companies to be the default search engine is among the remedies that the U.S. Justice Department has proposed to break up its dominance in online search. While traditional search engines such as Google still dominate global market share, AI-powered search options including Perplexity and ChatGPT are rapidly gaining prominence this year and seeing rising user adoption, especially among younger generations. Perplexity recently completed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, according to the Bloomberg News report on Friday. A deal close to that value would be the largest acquisition for Apple till date. The Nvidia-backed startup provides artificial intelligence search tools that deliver information summaries to users, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Apple executives held internal talks about buying Perplexity: Report
Apple executives have held internal talks about potentially bidding for artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The discussions are at an early stage and may not lead to an offer, the report said, adding that the tech behemoth's executives have not discussed a bid with Perplexity's management. Apple and Perplexity did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Big tech companies are doubling down investments to enhance AI capabilities and support growing demand for AI-powered services to maintain competitive leadership in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Bloomberg News reported earlier on Friday that Meta Platforms tried to buy Perplexity earlier this year. Meta announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new superintelligence unit. Adrian Perica, Apple's head of mergers and acquisitions, has weighed the idea with services chief Eddy Cue and top AI decision-makers, as per the report. The iPhone maker reportedly plans to integrate AI-driven search capabilities- such as Perplexity AI- into its Safari browser, potentially moving away from its longstanding partnership with Alphabet's Google. Banning Google from paying companies to be the default search engine is among the remedies that the U.S. Justice Department has proposed to break up its dominance in online search. While traditional search engines such as Google still dominate global market share, AI-powered search options including Perplexity and ChatGPT are rapidly gaining prominence this year and seeing rising user adoption, especially among younger generations. Perplexity recently completed a funding round that valued it at $14 billion, according to the Bloomberg News report on Friday. A deal close to that value would be the largest acquisition for Apple till date. The Nvidia-backed startup provides artificial intelligence search tools that deliver information summaries to users, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Analysts reset Qualcomm stock price target, send warning
Keeping a business afloat is hard. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50% of small private businesses typically fail within five years. This five-year span seems like the breaking point. If your company is still in business after five years, it means you've likely overcome many setbacks and made many tough decisions. There's plenty that can derail even the best businesses. Suppliers may go bankrupt, fail to meet deadlines, or produce shoddy items. Marketing plans may go awry. Workers may defect to rivals. Even your best customers may eventually sour on your solutions, forcing you to pivot your business entirely. Related: Adobe launches genius new mobile app for content creators One company that seems to have been quite unlucky in choosing its business partners is Qualcomm. Apple is one of its biggest customers, and it is slowly but steadily ditching Qualcomm's modems in favor of its own, creating a crisis for the technology company and forcing it to rethink its business. Qualcomm was founded in 1985, and for a business to be turning 40 is an incredible achievement. The company has two different branches of business. One is Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT) and the other is Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL). QCT revenue streams are handsets, automotive, and Internet of Things, while QTL controls the patent licensing business. According to Bloomberg and the Bank of America Global Research estimates, Apple's contribution to QCT's handset division was 15% in 2024. On June 9th, Qualcomm (QCOM) announced that it plans to acquire Alphawave Semi, a producer of high-speed wired connectivity, chiplets, and custom silicon. Artificial intelligence training and inference require highly parallel, memory and bandwidth-intensive computations. Accelerators are built on GPUs or custom chiplets, and need better, more efficient interconnections and AlphaWave's technology enables that. "Alphawave Semi has developed leading high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies that are complementary to our power-efficient CPU and NPU cores," said Cristiano Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. Related: Analysts revamp forecast for Nvidia-backed AI stock Qualcomm's pivot to the data center markets may prove a good plan to recoup the lost revenue due to Apple's increasing reliance on its own modems. This acquisition of Alphawave Semi is expected to be completed during the first calendar quarter of 2026 and isn't final. More Tech Stocks: Amazon tries to make AI great again (or maybe for the first time)Veteran portfolio manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms moveGoogle plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion move According to Gartner, semiconductor revenue in data centers almost doubled in 2024 to reach $112 billion, and the firm expects global semiconductor revenue to total $705 billion in 2025. Qualcomm revenue in Q2 of fiscal year 2025 reached $10.9 billion, a 17% increase year-over-year. Majority of the revenue came from QCT part of the company, which had revenue of $9.5 billion. Handset division revenue was $6.9 billion, automotive revenue $959 million and $1.6 billion came from IoT. Bank of America analyst Tal Liani and his team recently updated their opinion on Qualcomm shares. Analysts noted that the Internet of Things and automotive have significant growth potential and were up 27% and 59% year over year in the most recent quarter. However, they warned that smartphones, representing 73% of Qualcomm CDMA revenues, have peaked. They forecast that Apple's contribution will drop from 15% in 2024 to 6% of total handset revenues by fiscal year 2027 and drop to zero beyond 2027. The analysts believe there are only limited near-term catalysts for the stock and lowered their estimates and price objectives to reflect their updated growth outlook. They set a Qualcomm stock price target of $200, down from $245, equal to 15 times their calendar 2026 earnings estimates. Previously, their target price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 17. Qualcomm's forward P/E ratio is currently 13. Related: Apple WWDC underwhelms fans in a crucial upgrade While they reduced their target, they still think the upside is enough to justify maintaining their buy rating on the stock. However, they did highlight three risks that could limit Qualcomm's stock in the near term: The handset market is mature and without any visible growth catalyst. They expect recent smartphone growth to reverse, as the impact of product launches and channel fill in China erodes, and share gains at Samsung will subside. Apple will start using its own modem for non-Pro phones. Analysts concluded that "AI PC and data center connectivity could contribute to growth but may take time [to] carry enough weight to offset the smartphone trends." Related: Amazon's latest big bet may flop The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
