January 26, 2025: Not A Bad Week, Big Earnings Week Next

Last week, Dow Jones gained 2.15%, S&P 500 was up 1.7%, and Nasdaq rose 1.65%, despite Friday’s modest losses. Magnificent Seven stocks Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple will report earnings this coming week, and could provide clues about planned AI capex – with read throughs to a broad range of stocks. French AI startup Mistral, often billed as Europe’s answer to OpenAI, plans to IPO. Space tech company Voyager is aiming for a multibillion-valuation IPO. OpenAI will team up with SoftBank, and Oracle to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S. The joint venture, called the Stargate Project. The companies expect to commit US$100 billion to Stargate initially and pour up to US$500 billion into the venture over the next four years. Microsoft is also involved in Stargate as a tech partner. So are Arm and Nvidia. The massive venture will reportedly be powered, at least in part, by solar and batteries. OpenAI announced a new ChatGPT feature called “Operator” that will automate complex tasks typically done through the Web browser, such as planning trips or ordering groceries. Google invested a further US$1 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic. Hard drive firm Seagate sees surging cloud, AI demand. Meta will boost its capex 60% this year to develop AI data centers. ByteDance plans US$20 billion capex in 2025, mostly on AI. President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote digital assets in the U.S., including evaluating the possibility of creating a national digital asset stockpile. The SEC withdrew previous crypto accounting guidance. In Canada, Raymond James launched research coverage with a $3.50/share price target on Sophic Client, Kraken Robotics. Sophic Client Xcyte Digital completed the purchase of former Streamlined Communications LLC. assets. The total consideration of US$3.56 million is comprised of cash, debt and stock. Sophic Client, Boardwalktech, and LTIMindtree expanded their relationship with global banking clients.

Sophic Client Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC): Raymond James launches coverage with $3.50/share price target.

Sophic Client Xcyte Digital (XCYT-TSXV) completes purchase of former Streamlined Communications LLC. assets. Xcyte Digital signed an Agreement for Sale of Collateral Pursuant to Uniform Commercial Code 9-610 with Acquisition 8410 LLC (the “Seller”), a Delaware limited liability company. The agreement, along with other closing documents, was signed on January 23rd, 2025 (the “Closing”). Acquisition 8410 LLC was the holder of certain assets of Streamlined Communications Ltd. (“Streamlined Communications”, or “SLC”), pursuant to the agreement, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company (the “Purchaser”), acquired these assets (the “Transaction”). The sale included SLC’s technology and revenue-producing assets, such as intellectual property, customer contracts, and essential business infrastructure. Streamlined Communications was a US-based provider of audio conferencing, collaboration solutions, webcasting, and virtual events. This strategic Transaction represents a significant step forward for Xcyte to enhance its market and technology footprint globally. Xcyte was provided Streamlined’s financials for the Trailing Twelve Months (TTM) ended August 31st 2024 by the Seller. For that period, Streamlined reported revenue of US$3.6 million, with a Gross Margin of 50.6%, EBITDA of US$1.3 million and Net Earnings of US$917.126 with no Net Loss. Streamlined had total assets of US$6.0 million, and liabilities of US$6 million. Xcyte is only assuming certain of these assets, and none of these liabilities. Based on our analysis of the assets being purchased, we concluded upon reviewing existing contracts, bank statements, third party accounting company prepared documents, and giving effect to contracts that had no contractual guarantees and no definitive assignment language, that the amount of revenue and EBITDA realized by Xycte may be different than Streamlined’s reported results. The total Transaction consideration of US$3.56 million for SLC assets is comprised of 1) US$3 million in cash, which was funded by existing Xcyte shareholders in two tranches. The first being a US$1.9 million subordinated debt financing carrying an annual interest rate of 12% with an 18-month term and the second being a US$1.1 million subordinated debt financing carrying an annual interest rate of 12% with a 36-month term, with all payments due at maturity 2) a US$0.5 million term loan payable to the Seller (carrying an annual interest rate of 10% with an 18-month term), and 3) fifty (50) Multiple Voting Shares (each an “MV Share”, each of which is convertible into ten thousand 10,000 Subordinate Voting Shares in the capital of the Parent each, an “SV Share”, being the shares of the Company listed on the TSXV) issued by Xcyte, to the Seller. https://tinyurl.com/4fu4bsrw

Sophic Client Boardwalktech, Inc. (BWLK-TSXV, BWLKF-OTCQB) and LTIMindtree expand relationship with global banking clients. Boardwalktech and LTIMindtree Limited, a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, have expanded their partnership including current work at a top 5 U.S. joint banking client to remediate the risk of End User Computing applications (EUCs) using the Boardwalk Velocity software product. This collaboration empowers the seamless migration of Excel-based EUC applications to IT controlled and managed business applications, setting new industry standards.. https://t.co/PlwbuO9qpk

Private equity firm Novacap raises more than US$1 billion for first digital infrastructure fund. Montréal-based private equity firm Novacap has raised more than US$1 billion ($1.43 billion) for its first fund dedicated entirely to investing in digital infrastructure. New fund has already deployed capital in four companies. Novacap said in a statement that the new fund exceeded its fundraising target, and is backed by undisclosed existing and new institutional investors, family offices, and “high-net-worth investors” from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The firm added that the digital infrastructure fund complements its investments in technology, industries, and financial services. The new fund is looking to invest as much as $100 million into 10 regional companies that sell connectivity and data access services backed by physical assets, according to BNN Bloomberg. https://tinyurl.com/3udscdxx

Wound care device maker MolecuLight secures $39.5 million.

Toronto-based medtech company MolecuLight has secured US$27.5 million ($39.5 million CAD) in financing to expand its global footprint and introduce new features to its wound bacteria-detecting devices. London, UK-based investment firm Hayfin Capital Management was the sole investor. The medtech startup most recently raised an $11.7-million Series C round in August 2024, led by Crown corporation Export Development Canada, bringing its total funding to at least $60 million, not including the undisclosed amount of funding from BDC Capital and iGan Ventures in 2022. https://tinyurl.com/yaztvyzt

Basetwo closes $16.5 million Series A round to optimize manufacturing with AI copilots.

Toronto-based Basetwo has closed a US$11.5 million Series A round for its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered copilot for manufacturing engineers. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup is trying to solve tech inefficiencies in large-scale chemical manufacturing. Basetwo says its AI platform can cut energy consumption and costs for the mass production of pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and gas processing. The all-equity, all-primary round was led by Paris-based firm Axa Venture Partners (AVP), with participation from Glasswing Ventures, Deloitte Ventures, Global Brain Ventures, Shimadzu Corporation, Chiyoda Corporation, and United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based angel investors. https://tinyurl.com/wtfa82dw

Canadian quantum commercialization and research projects get federal funding boost.

Canada’s quantum sector just got a big boost this week as more than 100 quantum projects are receiving nearly $80 million in combined federal funding. Canada’s federally funded Digital Innovation Cluster is investing $4.7-million across three commercialization projects led by autonomous farming software company Verge Ag, cybersecurity maker Quantum Bridge Technologies, and quantum computing firm Xanadu. Meanwhile, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is doling out $74 million in grants to support 107 quantum science research projects. NSERC claims supported projects will help train more than 500 graduates and postdoctoral fellows. https://tinyurl.com/4bx8rtvv

Buzzy French AI startup Mistral isn’t for sale and plans to IPO, its CEO says.

French AI startup Mistral, often billed as Europe’s answer to OpenAI, plans to take the initial public offering route instead of being acquired, its cofounder and CEO Arthur Mensch said at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday. Launched in 2023 by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, Mistral is building open-source large language models, known as LLMs, and has released a generative AI chatbot called “Le Chat.” It claims its models can run much faster than its competitors. Amid industry chatter that consolidation could be on the cards for LLM startups this year, Mensch said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Davos, Switzerland, that Mistral “is not for sale” and that his company would instead look to IPO at some point. Why “deployment of AI is top of mind for everybody,” according to IBM’s Jonathan Adashek Mistral is one of Europe’s most valuable AI startups and the continent’s only contender that has created AI models to rival the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. It has raised consecutive mega-rounds totaling over €1 billion since its inception — last raking in €600 million (around US$620 million) in a round led by General Catalyst at a US$6.2 billion valuation in June 2024. https://tinyurl.com/2eymazru

Space tech Voyager is aiming for a multibillion-valuation IPO.

Voyager Technologies has filed its confidential paperwork to go public, according to multiple media reports. The defense and space company has raised over US$215 million from investors like Afterburner Capital and Balerion Space Ventures, according to PitchBook. The Denver-based company will likely be valued between US$2 billion and US$3 billion, and Morgan Stanley and Latham & Watkins are expected to lead the IPO, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, founded in 2019, has a wide set of offerings, from propulsion technologies for defense purposes to building in-space infrastructure. Voyager has also forged powerful partnerships in the industry, linking up with Palantir to integrate Palantir’s AI into Voyager’s offerings. https://tinyurl.com/yv32vjcw

OpenAI teams up with SoftBank and Oracle on US$500 billion data center project.

OpenAI says that it will team up with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, among others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S. The joint venture, called the Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit US$100 billion to Stargate initially and pour up to US$500 billion into the venture over the next four years. The companies made the announcement during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday, where President Donald Trump spoke about plans for investment in U.S. infrastructure. SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison were in attendance. Microsoft is also involved in Stargate as a tech partner. So are Arm and Nvidia. Middle East AI fund MGX will join SoftBank in its investment; MGX’s first public deal was an investment in OpenAI. SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle are also listed as “initial equity investors” in Stargate. https://tinyurl.com/bdearur5

Google invests further US$1 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic.

Google is making a fresh investment of more than US$1 billion into OpenAI rival Anthropic, boosting its position in the start-up as Silicon Valley titans rush to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems. Anthropic was also on the cusp of securing a further US$2 billion from Silicon Valley venture capital investors, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, in a separate deal expected to triple the start-up’s valuation to about US$60 billion, according to several people with direct knowledge of the deal. The new tranche of money from Google into Anthropic adds to a total investment of US$8 billion from Amazon, the ecommerce group’s largest-ever venture investment, announced over the past 18 months. Amazon is also working to embed the Claude models into the next-generation version of its Alexa speaker. Anthropic’s revenue hit an annualised US$1 billion in December, up roughly 10 times on a year earlier, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s finances. https://tinyurl.com/mry89wdu

Electric semitruck maker Nikola may sell itself.

Nikola, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based developer of electric and hydrogen-powered semitrucks, is looking for ways to stave off a cash crunch, including selling parts of its business or the entire company, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The company’s share price dropped 28% after Bloomberg’s report was published Thursday, and is down 96% over the last 12 months. As of the end of September, Nikola had US$198 million in cash and cash equivalents, down from US$464 million at the beginning of 2024. In its October earnings call, Nikola said it had enough money to last through the end of the first quarter of 2025. Last month, it filed a notice with regulators that it might sell up to US$100 million of new stock. The report comes amid slower than expected sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. Last week, electric van startup Canoo filed for bankruptcy. Nikola went public in 2020. In 2022, its founder, Trevor Milton, was convicted of fraud by misleading investors about how advanced Nikola’s technology was. https://tinyurl.com/4v7etj6m

Hard drive firm Seagate sees surging cloud, AI demand.

Seagate Technology, which makes hard drives for data storage, saw its stock price rise by 4% shortly after it reported a 50% increase in revenue to US$2.3 billion in the December quarter. Seagate CEO Dave Mosley attributed the uptick in large part to growing demand for data storage products from cloud computing providers, which have ramped up their capital expenditures in recent quarters as they train and run data-hungry artificial intelligence models. Mosley noted that in the latest quarter, revenue from Seagate’s so-called “nearline” products, a type of mass-capacity drive popular amongst cloud firms, nearly doubled relative to the year prior. This is the second consecutive quarter in which Seagate has posted roughly 50% sales growth, following two fiscal years in which its top-line shrank. Demand for Seagate’s hardware from consumers who use it to store data from their PCs, and from the companies that make consumer-facing apps such as games, has barely started to recover following a severe post-pandemic slump. Demand from cloud customers, in recent quarters, has offset weakness in Seagate’s other end markets and represents a growing chunk of its business; Indeed, mass-capacity drives made up 86% of Seagate’s revenue in the December quarter, up from 71% a year ago. https://tinyurl.com/2s4btw99

Meta to boost capex 60% this year to develop AI data centers.

Meta Platforms on Friday said projected capital expenditures would rise around 60% this year to between US$60 billion and US$65 billion as the company develops more data centers for artificial intelligence, according to a Facebook post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company had projected to spend about $40 billion on capex in 2024. Zuckerberg’s move comes after OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank—backed by President Donald Trump—on Tuesday announced plans to spend up to US$500 billion to build AI data centers in the U.S. over the next four years. By comparison, Microsoft—which runs AI servers for OpenAI and sells access to such servers to its cloud customers—has projected to spend about $80 billion on capex for the 12 months ending this June. In December, Meta said it would spend US$10 billion developing a data center in Richland Parish, La., to power its AI efforts. That facility could scale up to 2 gigawatts, or enough to power a city the size of San Diego. The company will bring online about 1 gigawatt of servers in 2025, Zuckerberg said. Despite the increased spending, Meta’s share price rose 2% in early trading after Zuckerberg’s announcement. https://tinyurl.com/yw2bzs4b

ByteDance plans US$20 billion capex in 2025, mostly on AI, sources say.

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, has earmarked over 150 billion yuan (US$20.64 billion) in capital expenditure for this year, much of which will be centred on artificial intelligence, two people briefed on the matter said. The privately held technology giant plans to spend about half of the amount abroad on AI-related infrastructure, primarily data centres and networking equipment, they said. The main beneficiaries of the spending will be chipmakers Huawei Technologies and Cambricon Technologies plus U.S. supplier Nvidia, the people said, declining to be identified as the information was confidential. On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported ByteDance planned US$12 billion for AI infrastructure. In December, The Information reported a plan for up to US$7 billion to access Nvidia chips outside China, to which the U.S. restricts high-tech exports. https://tinyurl.com/24j5vnaz

AI apps saw over US$1 billion in consumer spending in 2024.

Demand for generative AI help drive consumer spending on apps to US$150 billion globally in 2024, up 13% from the prior year. According to an annual “State of Mobile” report from app intelligence provider Sensor Tower (which acquired Data.ai, the original report’s author, last March), AI apps saw a surge of interest over the past year. This led to an over 200% increase year-over-year in consumer spending in AI apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, ByteDance’s Doubao, and others, bringing the total spent in the category to nearly US$1.1 billion in 2024. If this rate of growth is sustained, this category of apps could move into the top 10 by consumer spending within a year, the firm notes. https://tinyurl.com/3zztmy7a

OpenAI announces web-browsing agent, ‘Operator’.

OpenAI announced a new ChatGPT feature called “Operator” that will automate complex tasks typically done through the Web browser, such as planning trips or ordering groceries. The announcement, in a blog post on Thursday. With Operator, users describe the task they’d like completed in plain English, and the product then opens up a miniature screen displaying a browser and the actions Operator is taking. Users can take control of the virtual browser at any point. Operator will also ask the user to take over for tasks that require logging in, payment details or when solving CAPTCHAs. Users can also have multiple Operator tasks running simultaneously. Operator is currently only available to ChatGPT Pro users, who pay $200 a month for a premium version of the chatbot. However, OpenAI plans to make the model powering Operator, which allows it to understand and navigate websites, available to developers through an application programming interface in the future. https://tinyurl.com/4dfcbkwt

AI startup Perplexity launches assistant-like feature for Android devices.

Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity launched an agent-based assistant for Android devices on Thursday as it looks to take on larger rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and incumbent assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. The Nvidia and Jeff Bezos-backed company said the tool, known as Perplexity Assistant, can book dinner reservations, hail rides on apps and set reminders, among other actions. It is available in 15 languages on Google’s Play Store. “We’d love to make it available on iOS, and if Apple gives us the right permissions, we’ll make it happen,” a spokesperson for Perplexity said. OpenAI rolled out a similar tool, called Tasks, to ChatGPT Team and Pro subscribers last week on the web platform. Tech giants Amazon and Apple have also been developing more advanced versions of their assistants. Last year, Apple incorporated Apple Intelligence into its voice assistant, Siri, and in a partnership with OpenAI, the iPhone maker also introduced the use of ChatGPT, with user permission. Meanwhile, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, said in December that a refreshed version of their voice assistant, Alexa, is on the horizon and expected to launch in the “coming months.” https://tinyurl.com/yk2m5eh7

China to host world’s first human-robot marathon as robotics drives national goals.

For the first time, dozens of humanoid robots are expected to join a half-marathon to be held in the capital’s Daxing district in April, according to local authorities. This comes as China ramps up efforts to develop artificial intelligence and robotics, to gain an edge in the tech rivalry with the US as well as combat the challenges of an ageing society and a falling birth rate. Some 12,000 humans will take part in the coming race – and running alongside them on the 21km (13-mile) route will be robots from more than 20 companies, according to the administrative body of Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, or E-Town. E-Town is a state-level industrial area in Daxing district, with multiple industrial parks that support hi-tech industries such as aviation manufacturing and semiconductors. A statement from E-Town said companies, research institutes, robotics clubs and universities from around the world would be invited to enter their humanoids in the marathon. The only condition is they must look like humans and have a mechanical structure capable of performing motion actions such as bipedal walking or running, and not be on wheels. In 2023, Chinese clients installed 276,288 robots, or 51 per cent of the world’s total, according to the International Federation of Robotics. China’s robotics industry could grow to 400 billion yuan (US$54.6 billion) by 2030, state news agency Xinhua reported last month. https://tinyurl.com/d4b69dc4

Instagram looks to attract TikTokers with cash.

Instagram is offering some TikTok creators cash bonuses ranging from US$10,000 to US$50,000 per month or more to post exclusive videos to Reels, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversations. The creators can’t post those videos to other rival apps for a certain period of time, such as six months. Instagram on Tuesday, confirming our report, said that over the coming months it would offer some TikTok creators content deals “to help grow their communities on Instagram and Facebook.” The Meta Platforms-owned app on Tuesday also announced a different cash bonus program for Reels that doesn’t have any restrictions about where else they can post videos, and offers less cash. The new “Breakthrough Bonus” program also targets TikTok creators, who can earn up to $5,000 in bonuses over three months for posting Reels to Facebook and Instagram. https://tinyurl.com/ycyry928

Netflix surpasses 300 million subscribers, raises prices.

Netflix added a staggering 19 million members in the fourth quarter, lifting its total membership to 302 million globally, the best quarter for new subscribers it has ever had. The company’s stock price jumped 10% in after-hours trading. The bonanza quarter, which involved growth of between 4 million and 5 million in all four geographic regions, occurred in a quarter where Netflix streamed two major sporting events— two Christmas Day NFL games and a boxing event headlined by former champion Mike Tyson and social media influencer Jake Paul. Those events could potentially have driven the subscriber increase. But sporting events are expensive and Netflix’s profit margin dropped seven percentage points to 22.2% during the fourth quarter. The company’s stock price jumped 10% shortly after it released earnings. On the company’s earnings call, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said licensing rights to full seasons of live sports still remains economically challenging. Instead, he said to expect Netflix to seek out opportunities to host individual live sporting events—such as its NFL deal for Christmas Day games, or the Tyson-Paul fight. Netflix reported US$2.3 billion in operating income in the quarter, up 52% from a year earlier. For 2024, Netflix surpassed US$10 billion in operating income for the first time. In the past couple of years, the streaming video giant has emphasized its ability to generate profits as investors have pressured Netflix and its streaming rivals to prioritize profits over subscribers. For 2025, Netflix is projecting revenue of US$43.5 billion to US$44.5 billion and said it expects ad revenue to roughly double. The company said it is also raising prices in the U.S. for the ads plan by US$1 to US$7.99, and for the premium tier by US$2 to US$24.99. https://tinyurl.com/2w9dtvav

Snap and Reddit offer advertisers incentives as TikTok uncertainty swirls.

Reddit and Snap, taking advantage of uncertainty about TikTok’s future, are offering discounts to advertisers who spend more on their apps. Snap for instance is offering 20% back in free ad spend to advertisers, three media buyers said, for brands that spend more than US$100,000, two added. Reddit, meanwhile, is offering 10% in ad credits, two of the media buyers said. Those ad credits apply for brands spending between US$150,000 and US$1 million on the platform, one of the people said. If advertisers spend over US$1 million, they can get 15% back in ad credits, though the incentives are capped at US$500,000 and must be taken advantage of by the end of January, the person continued. While the salespeople didn’t explicitly say they wanted to draw ads from TikTok, representatives of both Snap and Reddit highlighted that advertisers could reach the same demographics known to be on TikTok, the person said. Pinterest has reportedly made a similar pitch: in a communication to advertisers, the platform noted half of TikTok’s Gen Z audience is also on Pinterest, Insider reported Jan. 21. “We’re committed to helping advertisers of all sizes unlock their full potential on Snapchat, especially during this period of uncertainty,” a Snap spokesperson said, noting that their incentive program is part of how the platform serves advertisers. It’s not clear if any of these offers will attract new dollars, given that President Trump has delayed the ban on TikTok for another 75 days, and ad campaigns are still running on TikTok, one of the media buyers said. Plus, the minimum spending thresholds of these programs are too high for many advertisers to take advantage of, that source and another media buyer said. TikTok’s revenue dwarfs these three competitors. In the first half of 2024, TikTok contributed the majority to its parent company ByteDance’s US$17 billion in international revenue, The Information reported. In the first nine months of 2024, none of these platforms approached even half that sum — Snap’s made US$3.8 billion in revenue the first three quarters of last year, while Pinterest made US$2.5 billion and Reddit reported US$872.5 million. https://tinyurl.com/4mah6mc7

Trump signs executive order to delay TikTok ban for 75 days.

President Trump signed an executive order to delay the enforcement of the TikTok sale-or-ban law for 75 days from Monday. In the order, Trump said his administration plans to find a solution “that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans,“ adding that the new administration must also review relevant intelligence relating to national security concerns and evaluate “the sufficiency of mitigation measures TikTok has taken to date.” The order also instructed the Department of Justice not to impose penalties for any noncompliance of the TikTok ban law during the 75-day period and shortly before the signing of the order. The move could prevent Oracle, which has already resumed its cloud services for TikTok, from getting punished, while providing assurance for Apple and Google to start hosting TikTok again in their app stores. The signing of the executive order follows Trump’s earlier proposal to pursue a joint venture under which TikTok is 50% owned by the U.S. Any deal would require approval by the Chinese government, which blocks the export of algorithms developed by ByteDance that are used in TikTok. Also on Monday, Trump said his administration could impose tariffs on China if the country got in the way of a good deal, according to Axios. https://tinyurl.com/2s4m6yv9

Trump signs crypto executive order.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote digital assets in the U.S., including evaluating the possibility of creating a national digital asset stockpile. The executive order also creates an interagency working group to propose a federal regulatory framework for digital assets, including stablecoins. It also orders protection for “fair and open access to banking services” for lawful individuals and companies. It bans the development of central bank digital currency, which crypto believers deem as a violation of individual privacy that risks surveillance by the government. The executive order fulfills several of the industry’s top wishlist items, including ensuring access to banking and customized regulations. It stops short of ordering the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve. Bitcoin fell 0.6% to US$103,160 as of Thursday afternoon. https://tinyurl.com/bdhj28fk

SEC withdraws crypto accounting guidance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission rescinded a Biden-era crypto accounting guidance that banks said have curbed their ability to provide custody of crypto assets. The earlier guidance—staff accounting bulletin No.121—directed public companies to record clients’ crypto assets as a liability on their balance sheets. That deterred banks from offering crypto custody, because it would tie up capital they could otherwise use for lending. Crypto custody is a foundational service that could pave the way for banks and brokers to expand broadly into other crypto businesses, such as trading and lending. Still, banks will need signoff from financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve for offering such services. In 2022, BNY Mellon became the first major U.S. bank to launch custody for bitcoin and ether to limited clients. State Street has also announced plans to offer crypto custody. https://tinyurl.com/2jf8ycpt

Stargate will use solar and batteries to power US$100 billion AI venture.

The massive US$100 billion Stargate joint venture will reportedly be powered, at least in part, by solar and batteries. The renewable power installations will be built by SoftBank-backed SB Energy, according to a report from Bloomberg, though they’re unlikely to be the venture’s sole source of energy. Stargate is a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Group, which promises to build a slew of new data centers to drive artificial intelligence applications. The growth in cloud computing and AI in recent years has sent developers and tech companies scurrying to secure power. The U.S. Department of Energy expects that data centers could consume as much as 12% of all power produced in the U.S. by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. The looming crunch could leave 50% of new data centers underpowered by 2027. Nuclear power has emerged as a darling of data center developers and tech companies. Google signed a 500-megawatt deal with nuclear startup Kairos, and Microsoft is restarting one of the shuttered reactors at Three Mile Island. Data center operator Switch announced an agreement in December with Oklo, the Sam Altman-backed small modular reactor company, for 12 gigawatts of capacity. https://tinyurl.com/ywm4bwnf