August 31, 2025: Ok Week, Weak Friday

Last week , Dow Jones fell 0.2%, S&P 500 lost 0.1%, and Nasdaq composite was down 0.2%. Markets were strong through Friday, which was a weak day for the AI trade, likely on reports that Alibaba is developing its own AI chip. Stocks had previously largely shrugged off Nvidia earnings. Nvidia’s Q2 revenue surged 56% y/y to US$46.7B, with hyperscalers driving demand, and the U.S. is seeking a 15% cut of China sales. Alibaba cloud revenue jumped 26% on AI demand, e-commerce grew 10%. Snowflake beat estimates with 32% growth and raised FY guidance as AI adoption lifts workloads. CrowdStrike beat earnings but swung to a US$77.7M loss; shares fell 6.7%. ByteDance is planning a US$330B employee buyback. Klarna is once again looking at a US IPO, at a US$13–14B valuation. Vast Data, a data storage startup backed by Nvidia, is reportedly preparing a U.S. IPO. Microsoft will unveil in-house AI models to lessen reliance on OpenAI. SpaceX aced its 10th Starship test flight. U.S. shoppers ordering smaller goods from abroad were met with waves of cancellation notices ahead of a key trade rule change ordered by the U.S. administration. In Canada news pertaining to Sophic Capital clients, Ionik delivered record Q2 revenue of US$53.5M (+20% y/y, +28% q/q) and Adjusted EBITDA of US$9.3M (+58% y/y). Gross margin expanded to 40% as acquisitions Nimble5 and Rise4 fueled growth. Free cash flow rose to US$7.3M. Boardwalktech Q1-FY26 revenue declined 28% y/y to US$0.9M amid previously announced customer non-renewals. Adjusted EBITDA loss narrowed to US$(0.6)M, while monthly burn improved to US$75K. The firm raised CAD$0.3M in a July financing and expects additional savings of ~US$0.7–0.8M over the next year. Plurilock released the latest Code and Country podcast with CrowdStrike’s co-founder. VitalHub closes a $75M Bought Deal financing, with a full Over-Allotment.

Sophic Client Ionik (INIK-TSXV, INIKF-OTCQX) delivers record revenue & Adjusted EBITDA in second quarter 2025.

(All figures in US dollars, unless otherwise indicated) Revenue of $53.5 million, an increase of 20% compared to $41.8 million in the same period of the prior year (“Q2 2024”), and 28% over the prior quarter (“Q1 2025”). The change versus the prior year was mainly attributable to the acquisitions of Nimble5, LLC in September 2024 and Rise4 Inc. in November 2024 (the “2024 Acquisitions”). Gross profit increased 28% to $21.4 million (40% gross profit margin), compared to $16.7 million (37% gross profit margin) in Q2 2024. The increase was predominantly attributable to growth driven by the 2024 acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA of $9.3 million increased 58% over Q2 2024 and 47% over Q1 2025, with growth derived mainly from the 2024 Acquisitions. Adjusted Free Cash Flow of $7.3 million (79% Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion rate), compared to $3.9 million (67% Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion rate) for Q2 2024. Adjusted Free Cash Flow reported in Q2 2024 was affected by income taxes paid totalling $1.9 million. Net loss after tax from continuing operations of $2.8 million versus a net income of $0.1 million for Q2 2024. Cash as at June 30, 2025 was $5.1 million, compared to $12.7 million at March 31, 2025 and $6.8 million at June 30, 2024. As at June 30, 2025, the Company had not drawn on its revolving facility of $10.0 million.Ted Hastings, Ionik’s CEO commented, “During highly dynamic market conditions our platform and team have responded well as evidenced by our strong EBITDA and Revenues in Q2. We have focused this year on integration across our two platforms – Marketing Optimization and Media Activation – and that streamlined focus is allowing us to service our growing customers better while improving our gross profit margins. We remain confident in the platform and team we’ve assembled and our ability to achieve our objectives in the second half.” https://t.co/nSUBJ295Jd

Sophic Client Boardwalktech, Inc. (BWLK-TSXV, BWLKF-OTCQB) reports first quarter Fiscal 2026 financial results.

All figures are reported in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Revenue for Q1-FY26 was $0.9 million, a 6% decrease from $1.0 million in Q4-FY25, and a 28% decrease versus $1.3 million in Q1-FY25, mainly due to two previously announced customer non-renewals. Annual recurring revenue (“ARR”), a non-IFRS metric, at March 31, 2025 was $3.8 million. The Company defines ARR, as the annual recurring revenue expected based on trailing quarterly revenue from license subscriptions and certain recurring services. Gross margin for Q1-FY26 was 83.5%, versus 85.3% in Q4-FY25, and 87.9% in Q1-FY25, with the change in margin levels due to lower revenue levels. The Company expects gross margins to return to prior levels at or about 90% but expects gross margins to fluctuate by quarter. Total adjusted operating expenses (excluding share-based payments and depreciation) in Q1-FY26 was $1.4 million, a $0.2 million decrease from $1.6 million in Q4-FY25 and a $0.1 million decrease from $1.5 in Q1-FY25, as the Company continues to recognize savings from previously announced (and new) cost alignment efforts. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1-FY26 was a loss of $(0.6) million, which was a 15% improvement versus $(0.8) million of adjusted EBITDA in Q4-FY25, and versus a loss of $(0.4) million in Q1-FY25. Cash ending Q1-FY26 was $0.1 million, plus $0.4 million of accounts receivables, while cash burn from Operations decreased by $1.6 million in Q1-FY26 versus Q1-FY25, to a burn rate of $75,000 per month. Outstanding debt as at June 30, 2025 was $2.5 million which was drawn against the previously announced $4 million line of credit from Celtic Bank, with approximately $0.4 million of available credit as of the last loan compliance report on July 31, 2025. Due to requirements under IFRS, this debt was reclassified under current liabilities even though the final debt maturity remains unchanged at March of 2027. On July 25, 2025, the Company closed a non-brokered placement of 2,793,800 units at a price of CAD$0.13 per unit for gross proceeds of $0.3 million, pursuant to the Listed Issuer Financing Exemption. Additional cash and cost saving actions were taken subsequent to the end of Q1-FY26 for cash savings of $0.7-$0.8 million projected over the next year, in addition to the $0.9 million of cost savings recognized last year. https://t.co/zN8SFGy3uc

Astrus announces $11 million to automate semiconductor design with AI.

Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based artificial intelligence (AI) software startup Astrus says it has closed US$8 million ($11 million ) in seed funding to help semiconductor companies automate the design of analog circuits for advanced microchips. https://tinyurl.com/2jpz349a

Bench IQ raises $7.3 million for AI platform analyzing judicial rulings.

Toronto-based legaltech startup Bench IQ has raised US$5.3 million ($7.3 million) in seed financing to help expand its artificial intelligence (AI) platform that says it can analyze judicial rulings for lawyers. Bench IQ said it plans to expand its coverage to US state judges and Canadian judges. The round closed earlier this year, led by Inovia Capital and Battery Ventures, and included US$1 million of debt. Other backers included CIBC Innovation Banking, MVP Ventures, Maple VC, and Haystack VC. The startup said this brings its total funding to US$7.4 million. Bench IQ’s platform claims to help lawyers prepare for litigation by providing reports and intelligence on judges’ past rulings. https://tinyurl.com/mrtxr9pm

Klarna to seek valuation of up to US$14 billion in IPO next month.

Swedish fintech Klarna will restart its plan to go public in the United States next month with a valuation of between US$13 billion and US$14 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The company paused its IPO plans in April after U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs rattled global markets. It had also looked at going public in 2021 but decided not to proceed. The shares sold in the offering could be priced at between US$34 and US$36 as early as this week, the sources said. That would be a sharp drop from the valuation of close to US$50 billion Klarna was aiming for in 2021 and down from more than US$15 billion earlier this year. One of the sources said Klarna is looking to raise close to US$1 billion from the IPO. Klarna declined to comment. This summer’s improvement in equity markets and robust debuts from new issuers have fuelled renewed enthusiasm for U.S. initial public offerings. Design software maker Figma and stablecoin giant Circle are among those to have recently listed, with shares peaking 333% and 864%, respectively, above their IPO prices in the days following their debut. The 20 biggest U.S. IPOs this year averaged a first-day share price rise of 36%, a Reuters calculation using data compiled by LSEG showed. Klarna, which reshaped online shopping with its short-term financing model, said earlier this month that its second-quarter revenue rose 20% from a year earlier on a like-for-like basis to US$823 million, while adjusted operating profit was up US$1 million to US$29 million. Active customers rose 31% year-on-year to 111 million. https://tinyurl.com/wrrb6zbm

Vast Data aims to go public second half of 2026 or later.

Vast Data, a data storage startup backed by Nvidia, has considered holding an initial public offering in the second half of 2026 or later, Vast Data co-founder and CEO Renen Hallak has told employees and bankers. Vast Data develops software for storing data in a way that helps customers develop AI applications. Its customers include Elon Musk-run businesses xAI and Tesla, CoreWeave and Disney’s Pixar. Its bookings, or expected revenue from contracts its customers signed, grew around 300% to nearly US$800 million in the 12 months that ended Jan. 31. The startup, last valued at US$9.1 billion in a 2023 funding round, has been in talks with Alphabet’s venture arm and Nvidia to raise new money at a valuation of around US$30 billion, Reuters reported. Its investors include Fidelity Management, Tiger Global Management and Bond Capital. https://tinyurl.com/5bbm5xhp

Nvidia projects strong revenue growth, says U.S. wants 15% cut of China sales.

Nvidia on Wednesday posted solid revenue growth from the sale of artificial intelligence chips and networking equipment, including its flagship Blackwell chips, despite recent restrictions on its sale of its chips to China. Revenue rose 56% to US$46.7 billion in the quarter that ended in July compared to the same period a year ago, beating the company’s prior revenue projection for the quarter by 6 percentage points. Nvidia projected 53.8% revenue growth in the current quarter, which ends in October. Given Nvidia’s history of beating projections, the figure suggests the company’s revenue growth could accelerate in the current quarter from the July quarter. About half of the company’s sales come from large cloud providers such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said just those companies will collectively spend US$600 billion on data centers and chips this year alone, and Nvidia expected US$3 trillion to US$4 trillion in such AI infrastructure spending globally by the end of the decade, a range that CEO Jensen Huang said was “fairly sensible.” Nvidia said it didn’t sell any AI chips to China in the July quarter and didn’t include such sales in its revenue projection for the current quarter. But Kress said that if it gets a green light from U.S. authorities for such sales, the company could generate another US$2 billion to US$5 billion in revenue in the current quarter. She said the Trump administration indicated it wanted to take a 15% cut of Nvidia’s chip sales to China, a geopolitical rival. Huang said China would have been a US$50 billion “revenue opportunity” for Nvidia this year if U.S. restrictions hadn’t gotten in the way. The stock fell 3% in after-hours trading after rising more than 30% so far in 2025, roughly in line with peers such as Broadcom and AMD. Despite being the world’s most valuable company, with a market capitalization of nearly $4.5 trillion, Nvidia shares are trading at roughly 36 times its projected forward earnings, far lower than its price-to-earnings ratio from a couple of years ago. In other words, the stock is a lot less expensive than it used to be. Nvidia reported a sizable jump in the sale of networking equipment that connects servers powered by its chips. Notably, unlike in prior quarters, the company’s “CFO commentary” about its business did not reference the company’s DGX Cloud services, in which it rents out its own chips to enterprises. That suggests Nvidia’s cloud business is not a major focus. The company generated US$13.5 billion in cash in the July quarter, roughly the same as its free cash flow in the same period a year ago. https://tinyurl.com/yv35fcb2

Alibaba’s cloud revenue jumps 26% thanks to AI boost.

Alibaba Group said its revenue from cloud computing services in the quarter through June grew 26%, boosted by triple-digit sales growth for artificial intelligence-related products. The solid cloud revenue growth came after Alibaba in April launched Qwen3, the latest generation of its open-source AI foundation models, cementing its position as one of the leaders in China’s domestic AI competition. For Alibaba Cloud, China’s largest cloud service provider, offering a broad lineup of open-source AI models is a way to motivate more businesses to start using the company’s cloud computing platform. Alibaba’s revenue from its China e-commerce segment rose 10%. But the company’s overall revenue rose only 2% in the quarter, in part because Alibaba earlier sold two major brick-and-mortar retail businesses. Those businesses are no longer included in Alibaba’s revenue. https://tinyurl.com/yzmvbtcm

Snowflake shares jump as AI helps boost sales in Q2.

Snowflake shares rose more than 13% after its second-quarter earnings, as CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said that customers are increasingly using AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI to analyze the data they store in its cloud database. For the three months to July 31, Snowflake had nearly US$1.1 billion in product revenue (the main metric it provides on earnings), up 32% from the same period last year and 6% from last quarter. The revenue figure surpassed Snowflake’s earlier projection by 7 percentage points. Snowflake also raised its annual sales forecast US$70 million to nearly US$4.4 billion. While Ramaswamy didn’t specify how much revenue Snowflake is generating from AI products, he said that around 25% of customer projects during the quarter included AI. At the midpoint of its fiscal year at the end of July, Snowflake was just over halfway to its goal of generating US$100 million in annual recurring revenue from AI products this fiscal year, as we reported last week. While Snowflake sells its product through all major cloud providers, its revenue from Azure is growing the fastest, CFO Michael Scarpelli said on the call. Snowflake announced an agreement with Microsoft in February to provide customers access to OpenAI models through Azure. For its current quarter, Snowflake expects product revenue of between US$1.125 and US$1.13 billion, which would represent growth of 25% to 26% from the same period last year. https://tinyurl.com/588vcsre

CrowdStrike swings to loss, revenue view undershoots.

CrowdStrike Holdings swung to a second-quarter loss and guided for lower third-quarter revenue than Wall Street anticipated, while lifting its full-year adjusted earnings outlook. The cybersecurity company said after the closing bell Wednesday that it delivered record second-quarter net new annual recurring revenue and exceeded internal expectations across several metrics. CrowdStrike posted a quarterly loss of US$77.7 million, or 31 cents a share, compared with a profit of US$47 million, or 19 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Stripping out one-time items, adjusted earnings were 93 cents a share, beating analyst forecasts by a dime, according to FactSet. Revenue was up 21% at US$1.17 billion for the quarter-ended July 31, ahead of analyst projections for US$1.15 billion, according to FactSet. For the third quarter, CrowdStrike said it expects revenue of US$1.21 billion to US$1.22 billion and adjusted earnings of 93 cents to 95 cents a share. Analysts were expecting revenue of US$1.23 billion and adjusted earnings per share of 91 cents. CrowdStrike nudged the low-end of its full-year revenue guidance up to US$4.75 billion from US$4.74 billion, and said adjusted earnings for fiscal 2026 would be US$3.60 to US$3.72 a share, up from US$3.44 to US$3.56 a share previously. The stock declined 6.7% to US$394.40 in trading after hours. https://tinyurl.com/y9nydkcu

ByteDance plans share buyback at US$330 billion valuation.

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is preparing to launch a new share buyback program for employees later this year that will value the company at more than US$330 billion, Reuters reported. In the new program, the company plans to offer current employees US$200.41 per share, 5.5% higher than the price of US$189.90 it offered in its previous buyback program earlier this year, which valued the firm at US$315 billion, according to Reuters. ByteDance’s valuation is less than a fifth of Meta Platforms, even though the Chinese company’s revenue is on par with Meta’s, due in part to the threat of a ban that TikTok has faced in the U.S. While a deal to sell TikTok’s U.S. business hasn’t yet materialized, President Donald Trump has repeatedly delayed enforcement of the federal law that forces a ban or sale of the app. ByteDance’s revenue in the second quarter rose 25% from a year earlier to US$48 billion, similar to Meta’s second-quarter revenue of US$47.52 billion, Reuters reported. ByteDance’s growth has been decelerating due to a slowdown in its China operations, which account for the majority of its overall revenue. The company’s 2024 annual revenue grew 29% to US$155 billion, a slowdown compared to its 40% revenue growth in 2023, The Information reported in April. https://tinyurl.com/n3e9y27n

Elon Musk’s xAI sues Apple and OpenAI for hurting AI competition.

Elon Musk’s xAI sued Apple and OpenAI on Monday, accusing the companies of colluding to squash competition in artificial intelligence. The suit accuses the companies of working together to steer users toward OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the expense of competing chatbots like xAI’s Grok, including through a deal announced last year that integrates ChatGPT into iOS. (Apple is evaluating models from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google to power the next iteration of Siri, The Information reported in May.) xAI’s lawsuit also claims that Apple has given ChatGPT favorable placement in its app store and “dragged out its App Store app review process” for competitors like Grok. “This is a tale of two monopolists joining forces to ensure their continued dominance in a world rapidly driven by the most powerful technology humanity has ever created,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas. xAI is asking a federal judge to order the companies to stop engaging in anticompetitive conduct and to pay xAI unspecified monetary damages. Musk, who co-founded and funded OpenAI before having a falling out with co-founder Sam Altman, also filed a separate lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI in California last year, challenging OpenAI’s attempt to convert from a nonprofit to a for-profit company. https://tinyurl.com/mwbrn8dk

Microsoft unveils AI models to lessen its reliance on OpenAI’s.

Microsoft on Thursday debuted two new large language models it developed over the past year to reduce its reliance on OpenAI’s artificial intelligence in powering Copilot products. Microsoft will start swapping in the new models, dubbed MAI, to power Copilot features in the coming weeks, Microsoft’s consumer AI chief Mustafa Suleyman said in a blog post. Microsoft also confirmed an earlier report that it plans to offer the models to developers the same way OpenAI sells models such as GPT-5. One of the new models responds to voice commands and talks back, similar to models developed by OpenAI and Google. Suleyman has been leading a team training the MAI models since as early as May 2024, but the effort ran into technical problems, including when the team tried to replicate OpenAI’s models. (Microsoft has exclusive access to OpenAI’s intellectual property.) https://tinyurl.com/3mkw3y6h

SpaceX aces tenth test launch of Starship rocket.

SpaceX’s tenth launch of its gargantuan Starship rocket went off without an apparent hitch on Tuesday. After launching from a SpaceX base in south Texas, the 400-foot tall rocket hurtled into space and successfully deployed a collection of dummy satellites modeled on those that support SpaceX’s Starlink wireless internet service. Before that, the booster stage of Starship separated from the rocket and, as planned, executed a “soft splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico after conducting a brief engine test. In addition to deploying its payload in space—the first time SpaceX has managed to do so with Starship—the upper stage of the rocket achieved other milestones, successfully relighting one of its engines in space before plummeting back to Earth and flipping upright shortly before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. It was a welcome result for a rocket that SpaceX’s CEO and founder Elon Musk hopes will eventually allow humanity to colonize Mars. Previous test launches of the rocket have experienced a variety of problems, some of which resulted in explosions of portions of Starship. In June, the upper stage of the rocket exploded on the ground in Texas, seriously damaging a SpaceX test facility. https://tinyurl.com/3n52efhd

Illegal sites took 71% of Europe’s betting, casino sales in 2024.

Illegal gambling operators captured 71% of Europe’s online betting and casino market last year, or €80.65 billion (US$93.8 billion), as regulators struggled to rein in crypto casinos, prediction markets and unlicensed sportsbooks during a booming year for sports. That represents a 53% jump in illegal gross gaming revenue, the difference between what bettors gamble and what they win, from 2023, according to data from Yield Sec published on Tuesday. Yield Sec, a data analytics company that monitors online marketplaces, defines illegal platforms as those not licensed in jurisdictions they are targeting or transacting with. The growth of unlicensed platforms in the European Union’s 27 countries outpaced that of the regulated sector, which grew by 30% to €33.64 billion, according to the report. The overall market was up 46% from the year before to €114.3 billion. The research was compiled for the European Casino Association, an industry body representing licensed operators. The surge was amplified by a crowded sports calendar. The Paris Olympics and the Euro 2024 soccer tournament funneled fans to betting sites, many of them offshore and not licensed within Europe, Yield Sec said. The increasingly costly subscriptions required for consumers to view these broadcasts also fueled demand for pirated sports streams, a channel increasingly leveraged by unlicensed gambling operators to recruit new players, he added. Yield Sec says its estimates are based on AI- and human-powered monitoring of web user activity across search engines, social media, streaming sites and apps, which it uses to benchmark transacting operators by an estimated value per visit. The firm counted more than 6,200 active illegal operators targeting EU audiences last year. https://tinyurl.com/2zz86xbj

PDD Holdings reports continued growth slowdown.

Temu’s parent company PDD Holdings reported on Monday that its revenue growth slowed again in the second quarter, with executives citing “intense competition” as a reason for the slowdown. The period also coincided with the elimination of an import duty loophole that had allowed Temu to flourish in the U.S. and keep costs low. The China-founded company, which also owns e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, said revenue grew 7% from the same period last year to US$14.5 billion, the lowest growth rate since late 2021. Net income declined 4% from a year earlier to US$4.29 billion, as the company said its investment in “merchant support initiatives” weighed on short-term profitability. PDD doesn’t break out results for Temu or any of its other businesses. The company has recently had to contend with higher U.S. tariffs on imports from China, as well as the end of duty-free imports for low value shipments in the U.S. and other countries, which has increased PDD’s costs. https://tinyurl.com/natefcdc

U.S. shoppers’ orders canceled as world shuts down some American-bound shipments.

U.S. shoppers ordering smaller goods from abroad are being met with waves of cancellation notices ahead of a key trade rule change ordered by the Trump administration. On Friday, the United States will end the nearly century-old “de minimis” exemption, which allowed items worth less than US$800 to be shipped to the country duty-free, or without having to pay any tariffs. In advance of the official termination date for the exemption, many European nations, alongside Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and New Zealand, have announced suspensions of U.S.-bound shipments. Mexico’s postal service announced Thursday it was suspending package deliveries to the United States because of the pending changes. U.S. e-commerce hubs have been posting notices warning customers about shipping disruptions. Last week, Etsy announced it would no longer process purchases for goods sent via Australia Post, Canada Post and the United Kingdom’s Evri and Royal Mail services in anticipation of those firms’ shutting down U.S. deliveries. Online auction site eBay has likewise warned that sellers who rely on foreign postal services may have to find alternative shipping processors to get their products to U.S. customers. Canada Post said Thursday it had contracted with a third-party duty processor to keep parcels flowing into the United States. Private, third-party carriers that may already have tariff-collection systems can cost as much as four times the cost of sending an item by regular post, said Alison Layfield, vice president of product development at ePost Global, a California-based logistics firm. https://tinyurl.com/6k486y75

EU ramps up effort for digital Euro.

The European Union is speeding up plans for a digital euro, ramping up the push following the passage of stablecoin legislation in the U.S., the Financial Times reported. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a traditional currency, in most cases the U.S. dollar, and backed by assets such as government bonds. The EU doesn’t want the dollar to dominate the stablecoin market. Discussions in Europe are centered on putting a digital euro on a public blockchain like solana or ethereum, rather than a private one, which had been considered due to privacy concerns, the FT reported. Stablecoins already use these two public blockchains. A digital euro could be used across the continent to speed transactions and promote the use of the currency globally. It could also be used for trade outside of the eurozone, which the dollar already dominates. https://tinyurl.com/2c8bf84s

CFTC outlines path for offshore crypto exchanges to bring on U.S. users.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a letter Thursday explaining how it would allow a pathway for overseas crypto exchanges to legally accept U.S.-based customers. The guidance could benefit crypto exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, BitGet, which currently ban U.S. users. That means it could introduce more competition for domestic exchanges such as Coinbase. CFTC acting chair Caroline Pham said the guidance will bring back “trading activity that was driven out of the U.S. due to the unprecedented regulation by enforcement approach of the past several years.” Many trading firms, such as Jane Street and Jump Crypto, have set up their crypto trading operations outside of the U.S., in part because that allows them to access Binance, the biggest global crypto exchange. https://tinyurl.com/863yfpt3

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) Code and Country Podcast – Episode 18

Dmitri Alperovitch — Part 2 – Co-founder Crowdstrike, Executive Chairman Silverado Policy Accelerator. In this episode of Code and Country, Ian Paterson continues his conversation with Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator executive chairman, and author of World on the Brink. Dmitri explains how China’s Volt Typhoon campaign marks a shift from espionage to battlefield preparation by infiltrating water utilities, small telecom providers, and local power grids. The discussion explores why Taiwan has become the central flashpoint in U.S.-China competition, and how cyber could shape the opening moves of a conflict. From disrupting mobilization to targeting sustainment systems like the F-35’s ODIN platform, cyber’s impact on logistics and readiness could prove decisive. With candid insights on deterrence, logistics, and overlooked vulnerabilities in small utilities, this episode gives CISOs, IT leaders, and national security executives a front-row seat to the strategies shaping the future of nation-state cyber conflict. For the first part of this conversation, listen to Episode 17, Dmitri Alperovitch Part I. https://tinyurl.com/2b8e3ek9.