Their shares have fallen 11.8% from last month’s peak but more AI breakthroughs may reassure investors It has been tough week for the magnificent seven, the group of technology stocks that has played a dominant role in the US stock market, buoyed by investor excitement about breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Last year Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, the chipmaker Nvidia, Google’s parent, Alphabet, Facebook’s owner, Meta, and Elon Musk’s Tesla accounted for half the gains in the S&P 500 share index. But doubts about the return on AI investment, along with a mixed set of quarterly results, investors shifting their focus to other sectors and weak US economic data have hit the group over the past month. Continue reading...

New computing infrastructure means big tech is likely to miss emissions targets but they can’t afford to get left behind in a winner takes all market The artificial intelligence boom has driven big tech share prices to fresh highs, but at the cost of the sector’s climate aspirations. Google admitted on Tuesday that the technology is threatening its environmental targets after revealing that datacentres, a key piece of AI infrastructure, had helped increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 48% since 2019. It said “significant uncertainty” around reaching its target of net zero emissions by 2030 – reducing the overall amount of CO2 emissions it is responsible for to zero – included “the uncertainty around the future environmental impact of AI, which is complex and difficult to predict”. Continue reading...