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Special CES Edition

2025/1/8
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Peter Elstrom: 三星上一季度的财报显示其盈利远低于预期,营收也略低于预期。然而,Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang对三星在AI芯片领域的进展表示乐观,这使得三星股价出现反弹。三星需要在AI芯片领域取得突破,才能赶上竞争对手SK Hynix。SK Hynix凭借其在高带宽内存芯片设计上的突破,获得了Nvidia的认可,并占据了市场主导地位。三星正在努力追赶,并开发新一代高带宽内存芯片,以期获得Nvidia的批准,成为其供应商。 Ed Ludlow: 三星上一季度的业绩不佳,其非AI业务是主要痛点。虽然三星在CES上展示了其AI集成家电产品,但这些产品并未对利润增长做出显著贡献。 Caroline Hyde: 三星的股价波动与AI芯片领域的发展密切相关,Nvidia的乐观预期以及三星在高带宽内存芯片方面的进展是其股价上涨的主要原因。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

Why did Samsung's stock bounce back despite disappointing quarterly results?

Samsung's stock bounced back due to optimism expressed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about Samsung's progress in developing high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for AI accelerators. Huang's comments suggested Samsung could soon compete with SK Hynix, which currently dominates the market.

What is the significance of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips in AI development?

High-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips are crucial for AI development as they enable faster data processing and heat dissipation, which are essential for training large AI models. Nvidia relies on these chips for its AI accelerators, and competition in this market is vital for driving innovation and reducing costs.

How is Samsung addressing its lag in the HBM chip market?

Samsung is investing heavily in developing next-generation HBM chips to catch up with competitors like SK Hynix. The company is working on new designs to improve heat dissipation and performance, aiming to secure Nvidia's approval for its chips and enter the market.

What role does AI play in Samsung's consumer electronics strategy at CES 2025?

Samsung is integrating AI into its consumer electronics, such as smart appliances and home devices, to enhance efficiency, energy savings, and user experience. The company's SmartThings platform connects various devices, enabling adaptive and personalized home automation.

How is Panasonic leveraging AI in its energy supply chain?

Panasonic is using AI to improve supply chain efficiency and resilience, particularly in its EV battery production. The company acquired Blue Yonder, which provides AI-driven solutions for end-to-end supply chain visibility and optimization.

What is the outlook for autonomous driving according to Nvidia's Jensen Huang?

Jensen Huang believes autonomous driving will take 15 to 30 years to achieve significant outcomes. Nvidia is focusing on developing AI-driven systems, including training computers, robotics computers, and digital twin platforms, to accelerate progress in this field.

How does Mobileye's approach to autonomous driving differ from Nvidia's?

Mobileye relies on real-world data from its chips already deployed in vehicles, while Nvidia emphasizes synthetic data for training AI models. Mobileye argues that real-world data minimizes distribution drift and provides more precise training for autonomous systems.

What is Scout Motors' strategy for its EV comeback?

Scout Motors is focusing on range-extended EVs, which combine electric propulsion with a backup gasoline engine. This approach addresses concerns about charging infrastructure and offers flexibility, with over 50% of pre-orders favoring the range-extended version.

How is Siemens using AI and digital twins to improve industrial processes?

Siemens uses AI and digital twins to optimize design, manufacturing, and operations. Its collaboration with Nvidia's Omniverse platform enables photorealistic simulations, allowing engineers to test and refine designs virtually before physical production.

What is the impact of the upcoming Trump administration on the auto and tech industries?

Industry leaders expect the Trump administration to bring policy changes that could promote autonomous driving and reshore manufacturing. Companies like Panasonic and Siemens are preparing for potential tariffs and regulatory shifts, while maintaining optimism about federal-level support for innovation.

Shownotes Transcript

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89% of business leaders say AI is a top priority, according to research by Boston Consulting Group. The right choice is crucial, which is why teams at Fortune 500 companies use Grammarly. With top-tier security credentials and 15 years of experience in responsible AI, Grammarly is how companies like yours increase productivity while keeping data protected and private.

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From the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond, this is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow. ♪♪

Live from New York and Las Vegas, this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, Nvidia rides to Samsung's rescue after disappointing quarterly results. Shares actually bounce back as Jensen Wang expresses optimism for the memory maker. Plus, we sit down with Mobileye at CES to discuss the future of autonomous driving in the US and our conversation with the CEO of SiriusXM on the company's focus on growth and leveraging AI. Meanwhile, Jensen Wang makes impact on the

on all of the quantum names that have rallied so hard in 2024, they're off to a bad start in 2025, off by 43% for IonQ, for all the others on the downside. Jensen Wang is saying, "Look, it's going to take 15 to 30 years before we get some significantly useful quantum computing outcomes." So pouring cold water on some of that optimism. But on the upside, Jensen writes the rescue of Samsung were currently up 3.4%, even though

the numbers of their last quarter were dismal, but it looks as though the high bandwidth memory chips that are so important to integrate into AI accelerators of Nvidia, well, they're coming at a pace. Peter Elstrom has more on all of this. Peter, just give us the nuance because Samsung has lagged behind SK Hynix and smaller competitors when it comes to high bandwidth memory, but some optimism from Jensen Huang here.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So Samsung reported preliminary earnings. We're going to get the final earnings later. But as you say, they were pretty terrible. They reported operating profit of $6.5 trillion. It's about $4.5 billion. It's a third less than everybody had been expecting. Revenue was also a bit late. But just a few words from Jensen Huang and the stock went up.

And really the reason for this is what he said was not even that positive, but he said that Samsung has to make this leap to AI chips. They have to make these breakthroughs. And he said that they can do it and they're working very fast to do it. They're trying to come out with the next generation of high bandwidth memory chips that will be paired with the NVIDIA AI accelerators to be able to train these AI models. So just a few words from Jensen Wang. We're really

enough to turn around Samsung's fate. He expressed some optimism that they're making progress. They're coming out with a new design for the HBM chips. NVIDIA is going to get to the point where at some point they're going to give them approval for these HBM chips. Then they can start to buy from them in addition to SK Hynix. Essentially, SK Hynix has had a monopoly on this market so far. So NVIDIA wants competition there. They want Samsung to get into the market.

And boy, has it been displayed in the share prices, right? We saw SK Hynix up about 20% last year, whereas I think it was about a third of the market capitalization of Samsung was ripped away because of their seeming delay on getting in on high bandwidth memory. Are they having, though, to spend a lot? Is that why we saw the disappointment in the numbers?

Yeah, certainly they're investing very heavily. And Samsung is not used to being in this position. Samsung has long led the memory market. They've been the biggest. They invest the most amount of money. They get the best engineers. And what they're seeing is that SK Hynix, kind of like the little brother in this market, has been able to surpass them. And partly that's because SK Hynix had a breakthrough design in how they organized

their HBM chips that really help with some of the heat dissipation issues that are necessary as we move into this higher powered computing with AI and AI memory in particular. So SK Hynix has gotten ahead of them. They got Nvidia's approval to be able to ship these chips. That's been a huge boom to SK Hynix in their share price so far, but they have Samsung right behind them, very determined to catch up. And as we heard from Jensen Huang, they are making some progress.

Peter Ahlstrom, we thank you so much. Now, let's head out to Las Vegas. We have our own Ed Ludlow. He's on the ground at CES with the latest, Ed. Yeah, it's so interesting to hear Peter talk about the semiconductor and AI demand at Samsung. Because if you look at the numbers, it was everything not AI that was the pain point. And a lot of the street going into that print were like, well, what does Samsung do? They sell smartphones and they sell high-end TVs.

And everything here at CES is all the rest, right? They're always the biggest exhibitor here. High-end appliances that are AI integrated. I don't know if you have an AI integrated fridge or washing machine, Caroline. I don't know if I need one, but that's what Samsung was hoping would be a boost to profit in particular, and it didn't materialize.

It certainly didn't, but actually Jensen Huang rides to the rescue and Jensen's making moves, whether it's on quantum stocks as well. But just talk us through a little bit more of what we're seeing unfolded when it comes to actual consumer technology here.

Yeah. So if you imagine the ginormous hall behind me, right at the center of it out of shot is this like mini stadium. And that is Samsung's display. It's always the biggest. And they are betting that the consumer now is going to part with their cash to build out their home in competition with Apple, in competition with Amazon. I spoke to Jianzheng, executive vice president of Samsung, head of smart things. It's all about efficiency, cost and energy. Listen to this.

2024 was the 10-year anniversary since Samsung acquired SmartThings and started building this smart home experience to our consumers. And with this SmartThings platform, we are just so thrilled that each year we can really deliver new, innovative features to our customers. And from kitchen to living room,

and all the appliances and TVs and, you know, watches and rings and Galaxy devices that, you know, with the SmartThings platform, we can really help you live in the best way. Like, we can set the

optimize settings for you, for your bedroom and kitchen and living room. So with the SmartThings, the connectivity and then AI that we add to make these appliances and devices more adaptive to your lifestyle, I think that's the really great benefit of SmartThings platform.

What behaviors are you recognizing in the consumer? So, for example, say somebody watching this has never had a connected appliance or device, let alone an AI-capable washing machine or refrigerator.

We think that, you know, so you may want to start with one, like, appliance at a time, right? But once you experience that benefit, then I, like, you may want to then change, replace all the other appliances. I mean, that's what I actually did. So I recently moved to a new apartment. And then, you know, I was like, okay, so maybe I can sort of have one new appliance.

washing washer and then you know just the benefit is so great right so you can remotely control it you can see the energy used and then why not you know replace the dryer so that i can have added benefit and then you know once i see the value of okay then with in the washer and dryer and then then cooktop and the hood you know they all together then you can save more energy

And then you can also have a coordinated control that we can provide. So kind of slowly, one at a time, you can build a smart home that way. This is the Consumer Electronics Show. But one of the more interesting

announcement I found was that you're taking smart things into a scenario that people might not expect with Samsung Heavy Industries shipping. We're talking big commercial boats. Why would a ship and a ship's crew need smart things? Why not, right? So this year's CES, you'll see

our offerings in the home and beyond the home. So we have the SmartThings Pro solution that we built on top of SmartThings platform. So this SmartThings Pro solution is for business and we are expanding that functionality to fleet of cars and ships. So you'll see our exhibition of

our collaboration with Samsung Heavy Industries this year. The Executive VP and Head of Smart Things at Samsung there with Ed. Coming up, we'll be joined by Panasonic North America Chairwoman and CEO Megan Maeyong-Wan Lee. Live from CES, this is Blue Bag Technology.

okay welcome back to las vegas and some special coverage of ces 2025. one of the big focuses at this place is always about the technology behind energy the supply chain for energy one of the companies that talks about that most is panasonic from energy supply chain right through to consumer products as well and i'm delighted to say that mega myung won lee

Panasonic's North America CEO is here. As every year we talk, and every year there's an update. So let's start with what I think your focus was, which was energy supply chains. Yes. Why? What's new, and in particular, how are you using artificial intelligence to...

to get better? Yes. So we did a keynote speech yesterday and our message was all about well into the future as a 160-year-old company and we're making big investment in North America in the area of energy for EV batteries. But supply chain is also a critical part of our business and the area that we're trying to make a contribution for a more efficient energy

smart supply chain solutions. So we bought Blue Yonder and Blue Yonder is coming out with an end-to-end visibility capability with AI agent they can customize for your problems and solutions and can work with you. So we're really excited about that announcement.

What kind of a deal was that? How difficult was it to get it done? You know, like the story of 2024 was companies, industrial companies in particular, going out and saying, we're either going to have to acquire capabilities or we're going to have to grow them internally. You went one way. Yes, yes. So we started working with them a couple of years ago. And we're really excited about our business.

and investment that we made with Blue Yonder and their capability to really solve the problem of the supply chain resilience and safety and will be the forthcoming with the newer technology and we're really excited about that. So it's a Blue Yonder subsidiary of Panasonic and Panasonic

They're in North America based and it's a great announcement for us and newer capability for us. You said two things, supply chain resilience and investing in America. Yes. And I post on social media every year that I'm going to be speaking to you. And every year I get dozens of questions, hundreds actually in this case. I would say the vast majority are about the upcoming Trump administration and potential tariffs and policy around China. And that's so interesting to you because of the

EV battery supply chain in particular in this country, what's your message around that?

So even before the Trump administration, the supply chain, I mean, we all know that China controls a lot of raw material. Right. We had our... Raw material being liquid. Yes, yes. For the EV batteries. Yes, yes. So we've been working hard even before. I mean, during COVID, everyone had the challenge of managing supply chain. So we had that issue of trying to make sure that the supply chain is smooth and predictable and...

and under control. So we have vested interest to make sure that it's closer to the production, the production being Reno and newer factory in Kansas, which is opening up this spring. We're really excited about that. Okay, so give me more updates because the next question from the audience, particularly those that follow names like Tesla. Right.

Ask, give me a factory update please. Yes, so our Reno operation has been really successful and it's up and running for now 10 years and we're opening up new operation in Kansas and we've been building the factory for now two years. It's going to open up in April and will be in full operation from spring and summer this year.

And we're working with partners like Mazda, Subaru, which is already announced, and Lucid as well. That's right, with the Gravity project. Exactly. Okay, that's interesting. So I got a question for you about Lucid. And when I read it, it was from an audience member, I was trying to think, like, what's the core of this question? But I think people were surprised that you partnered with Lucid on the Gravity. It might not necessarily be a high-volume EV initially. What was your thinking there? Yeah.

So Panasonic being a 106 years old company, and it's great to work with the partners like Subaru and Mazda, but we're very also keen on working with up and coming newer companies so that they challenge us and we learn from them and make sure that we're partnering and capable of partnering with the companies like Lucid. And we're really excited about that. It's going really well. I've covered that company a few years and...

interesting vehicles, they're not very good at building them, you know, from a volume perspective. When you make a decision like that, how do you weigh that up in your head? You know, because you want to be able to provide supply, it helps you in supply chain planning.

I do think we as a company want to take a chance and partner with the companies that operate different ways than us. Blue Yonder is an example, it's a software company, US-based, and Lucid is also a newer partner too. But we have a success cases with Tesla 10 years ago, and we're doing it again with Lucid, and we're very bullish about that. What is the latest on the Tesla relationship? Where are you innovating and where do you see it progressing?

We are Panasonic, as a Panasonic, and really excited about the 4680 capability. Okay, where are we at with 4680? So that product is, the capability and quality is great. It's been tested in production in our mother company factory.

factory in Japan and we're planning on bringing it to our Kansas in the future. You, with respect, are a CES veteran. You've been to many. What's it been like this year? Many of the OEMs and automakers are here. Just walking around, I feel like even on the consumer electronics side, genuine consumer electronics, things are positive. Yes. What have you been talking with your customers, your suppliers with? What are they thinking about?

So we started working with CTA and CES since 1967. So we're one of the longer... So we feel like we've grown up with the CTA. CES is not necessarily so much about newer gadgets and products. It's about our message. Our keynote speech was about storytelling, how we grew up with the CTA for the past 60 years. So we feel really good. AI was big last year.

This year it's all about application, even including us. We made an announcement about a product called UMI. It's an AI wellness coach that's on the floor. And it's a newer capability that we're demonstrating on this platform, which is a little bit different from our past capability, but we are coming up with a newer solution and AI product. We just have 15 seconds. Are you ready for the Trump administration?

Yes, we are. And we've been prepared for this. And we will work with the government to make sure that our investment in this market is meaningful for our company as well as for the market. Megan Myung Wong Lee, I always appreciate catching up with you every year here in Las Vegas. Thank you. Panasonic North America CEO. Caroline, back to you in New York. Great conversation. And another story, Ed, that we're watching, and it's going back to Anthropic.

The OpenAI rival is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a funding round that would value the startup at $60 billion. Sources saying this. Lightspeed Venture Partners is leading the round. Anthropic was recently on pace to generate around $875 million in annual revenue.

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Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com. SiriusXM, the online radio service, says it's focused on growth after its 2025 forecasts missed expectations that was back in December. Now, Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow just caught up with the CEO, Jennifer Witts, at CES and began with a discussion on AI implementation.

In some ways, I think we're the anti-AI in terms of content creation and curation. So we pride ourselves on the hosts and the programmers that we have, the people that actually put together the channels and the shows. It's the voices you hear every day on your commute that really drive that intimacy that audio offers and the connection that

Where we will leverage AI is in some respects where others have used it as well to provide better discovery and personalization, right? So we hope that our programmers can really curate an experience to help you find what you love, but also the technology of AI can create more personalization in our marketing, in the product itself in terms of recommendations to enhance that even more. And of course, there's lots of other benefits for AI.

AI in terms of cost reduction and more efficiencies in the business overall. This is Bloomberg. So let's talk some business. Last month, you basically said, this is our revenue outlook for 2025. And investors, for whatever reason, were disappointed. You also said that you're going to cut costs, run your business. How is the cost cutting going? And what were the factors that, I guess, if you accept that the revenue outlook was not what

your investors wanted to see? What were the factors behind it being what it was? Yeah, so

We're very focused on supporting the top line in the two aspects of our business that we've talked about, subscription and advertising. And we have opportunities to continue to grow there and drive improvements in that part of our business. But we're really focused on the subscription side on what we do best, audio first and in the car, because that's where we've proven that we can really be successful. And that's where radio is very successful. In our ads business, we talked about where we're adding in terms of podcasts and other content to build out that portfolio.

And yes, cost reduction will be increasingly important as we move forward, as we want to sustain our industry-leading margins. And on top of that, we also have significant free cash flow generation. And as we get to our target leverage ratio, we'll be able to increasingly return capital to shareholders, whether it's through our dividend or through share repurchases as well. I think I'm right in saying this is your first CES in about five years. That's right.

It's packed. There is an intense focus on the exhibitors' AI. I would also say there are lots of questions about what 2025 is going to be like, in particular because we have a new administration that will come into office this month. How is SiriusXM preparing for that? Do you see it being a factor

to people that listen to audio in America this year? We have a really diverse set of content, and I think one of the things we saw during the election is an increase in news and politics content consumption, which is probably not surprising, but it just speaks to the overall buzz

overall bundle and that we have something for everyone at any given time, depending on what's going on, and also the value of live linear when something important is going on. So I think that's going to continue to be a focus for us. And then there are things like people are focused on tariffs and taxes and what happens with the auto business. But we feel really good about our position in terms of our availability across the spectrum of auto manufacturers. We have a lot of meetings with the OEMs while we're here, in addition to advertisers.

And I think we feel good. December was a great month for auto sales. So hopefully that's an indication of what's going to come in 2025. Strong auto market is great for our business. SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witt's there.

Welcome back to Blue Meg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York. I'm looking at D-Wave Quantum as one of the key quantum stocks we are keeping an eye on. Jensen Huang takes a sledgehammer to some of these market capitalizations by saying, look, quantum from a really useful perspective, not going to be there for about 15 years. Many got very excited post the Google Willow AI chip.

and quantum chip at that. But let's just talk a little bit more about what Nvidia CEO Jensen Wang has been saying. He actually joined us yesterday at CES and had this to say about the outlook for autonomous driving. Just take a listen.

The autonomous vehicle industry and the robotics industry is really important to us and we offer three computers for them. We offer, of course, the training computer. Through DGX. Through DGX. The robotics computer that's inside the car or inside a robot. And now we have this new computer called Omniverse with Cosmos that is the digital twin or the playground where these robots can learn how to be robots.

And so if we could accelerate the development of artificial intelligence for AVs and for robotics, it brings in a lot of business for us.

So interesting to see NVIDIA move in more aggressively to autonomous driving. Part of that Cosmos Foundation model play is the generation of synthetic data, text input, generate images or video, train models on that video rather than real-world data. A lot happening in this space. One of the key players, Mobileye, and the CEO, Amnon Shashua, joins us once again in Las Vegas. That is an academic debate.

I've always understood Mobilize's advantage to be that you have SOCs or chips in vehicles already on real roads around the world, real world data. Jensen says synthetic data. What do you say?

Well, synthetic data is a big thing in humanoid robotics. Why for humanoid robotics? Because each robot has different actuator types, different placement of actuators. So if you build a foundation model using some architecture of a robot, it will not generalize to other architectures.

If you build a foundation model from synthetic data, you can have something that generalizes to all robots. For example, I co-founded a company in humanoid robotics, Menti Robotics, three years ago. So they rely heavily on NVIDIA's physics simulators and build foundation robots from synthetic data. And you can then train dexterity, you can train pick and place of objects, grasping and so forth, just from synthetic data.

With cars, it's different. With cars, all cars look alike in terms of fluctuations. What you want to minimize is distribution drift. You don't want to train a model on some artifact that could come from synthetic data. Well, if you don't have real data, that's all what you can do. But if you have real data, then you can be more precise. Well, I think that Jensen's argument was that the synthetic data augments the real world data.

what we do at mobilize say for example we find an edge case okay then we go to a simulator we have simulators we go to a simulator and we generate many many examples of that edge case right but it's this is multiverse so this is really really for edge cases but not for the kind of

You know, main training off of the system. - Also ridiculous that we're saying multiverse. Like this isn't Spiderman, this is autonomous driving. Let me just make an observation. And the team in New York, let's bring up mobilized shares. The stock's down significantly. Is that because Nvidia's coming out strong and saying, we want some of this autonomous driving market as well?

I don't think so. I think investors were expecting announcements and we're not ready yet with announcements. I think we'll have major announcements throughout the year, but we're not ready yet.

And this is a natural response for that. You have something to show, and that is the Volkswagen ID.Buzz, the camper van, battery electric. You are working with them on a higher level of autonomy for that product. My understanding is like it's in the prototype phase. However...

A lot of the pieces are there to go to production, but there is no plan as it stands to firm, firm, dry ink, go to production, update us. Well, there is a firm plan to go to production. It's end of 2026. Right now, there are about 150 vehicles driving in Hamburg and Munich and Austin, Texas.

Testing. Yeah, testing. But there's a firm plan to go to start of production. That must be a really big deal for you guys. Yes, but, you know, Robotaxis is a spectrum. We build Robotaxis with ID.Buzz and also with Scheffler and Vernia.

We build with Audi a consumer level autonomous car, a level three, level four on highways, which will come out in 2027. And by the way, there's lots of commonality in hardware between those two.

It is the same IQ, the same boards. We are developing imaging radars both for the consumer car and for the robotaxi. So that commonality would reduce cost considerably. And we have also FSD-like systems which we call supervision. FSD-like in the sense they are camera vision-based systems?

It's purely camera-based. There is an optional front-facing radar, but it's purely camera-based. And it's eyes-on, which means the driver is still responsible. You cannot let go of driving. Very quick on this one. Mobileye has a broad offering in the theatre of autonomous driving, robo-taxi. Which specific deployment do we see first?

Well, we see the supervision. We're already deployed in China, but our next generation, which is 95% of the focus of the company, is this next generation on the IQ6. Coming out next year, it will be on all Volkswagen Group vehicles.

18 models of the Volkswagen Group including Porsche and Audi. That's coming out next year, 2026. And then Chauffeur, which is the level three autonomous driving on highways, will come 2027, early 2027. I have to ask you this. You are a key automotive supplier. You must be speaking with your customers and partners this week about the coming Trump administration.

How do you think that's going to impact 2025 in the auto market, particularly here in North America? Putting politics aside, I think it's going to be... Politics aside, but not policy. Yeah, but I think from a policy point of view, it's going to be very positive. The problem with the US is that there's a patchwork of regulations, state-wise and federal-wise, if the president comes in and puts things in order.

at the federal level, it could promote autonomous driving considerably. - Which Elon Musk mentioned. - Exactly. So I see that very positive. Amnon Shashua, it's great to catch up. Thank you for your time. I will go and check out ID.Buzz. Caroline, we keep going at CES Las Vegas. Back to you. We certainly do. Let's stick with autos because Scout Motors in the US, its revival is betting big on range extenders, on EVs. To lead its comeback by 2027, that's as Volkswagen relaunches the legendary nameplate.

Ed sat down with the CEO, Scott Keogh, and began by asking him about the demand the company has seen since its announcement. Yeah, look, the reaction's been huge. We're not giving the mixes, but I would say, you know, direction, it'll probably be over 50%, would be in the range extended version. Really? And I think in my mind...

I think there's two reasons. I think one, a portion of America, this gives us a 50-state vehicle, which I think is exactly what Scout always wants it to be. I think, look, what are the two challenges we see with electrification? Charging infrastructure.

And of course, this takes that all off the table and plus this convenience. So I think those two things, range of center makes a lot of sense. Let's find some common ground and give some context to the audience about Scout. One might frame it as Volkswagen's play to take a foothold long term in the U.S. market. Given your CV, you understand that. But we're waiting until 2027.

It's a long way. Look, I think what we're doing is we're restoring an American icon. I think Scout was an iconic American brand, and now we're bringing it back to life. So if you're waiting for just a product, well, yeah, 27 might seem like a long time. But if you're stating to restore an American icon, bring back 4,000 jobs into South Carolina, start an entirely new company...

I think it's the perfect time. So the reaction to the customers has been, we want to go along for this journey, and I think 27 is manageable. What's interesting in some sense is that Scout is kind of leading the way in the concept of extended range. So you look at some of the legacy OEMs, they have put on pause pure battery electric offerings of variants, pickup or otherwise. And they may now look at the plug-in hybrid or the extended range. You see others following suit? Yeah.

I do, and I'll tell you why it's perfect technology. I think first and foremost, the two platforms are exactly the same. This is critical. So the platform for an EV and the platform in extended range are exactly the same. The second thing, it has zero impact.

on manufacturing and the plant. So you don't need to retool the entire plant. It's two relatively simple JIT operations, one for the tank and one for the engine. So this gives you ultimate flexibility. You could go from zero to 100% or 50-50, whatever it is. So regardless of the way America goes, we are put in a position for the next 20, 30 years to have a tech platform that can navigate it.

Scott Motors, CEO. Scott Keogh there. Coming up when we're joined by the Siemens US President and CEO, Barbara Humpton. Again, it's live from CES. This is Bloomberg Technology. 89% of business leaders say AI is a top priority, according to research by Boston Consulting Group. But with AI tools popping up everywhere, how do you separate the helpful from the hype? The right choice is crucial, which is why teams at Fortune 500 companies use Grammarly.

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Terms and points cap apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash amxbusiness. Siemens. It's showcasing its vision for the future here and over in Las Vegas as well at CES. A future where data, AI, and automation can provide more flexibility and optimization across the world's industries, big and small. I'm pleased to say Ed Ludlow is now sitting down with the key executive.

Yeah, what's so interesting about this is that we started with NVIDIA, and NVIDIA talked about, in particular, Omniverse, its simulation and 3D graphics platform. Basically, customers can go in and work within it. But the customers are also here, and that's what's so interesting about Siemens and North America CEO Barbara Humpton. I find Omniverse hard to understand. I would say it's at the center of what you've been talking about as an NVIDIA customer this week. Explain.

Yeah, NVIDIA's a treasured partner of ours. You know Siemens as the maker of industrial software. We've got the tools that help designers and engineers visualize and actually work with the most comprehensive physics-based digital twin. But when you would look at the drawings that we'd produce, they looked a lot like engineering drawings. Right. Now layer on the omniverse and bring that photorealistic rendering, and suddenly engineers anywhere can connect

look at this object that looks like it will look in the real world. That's the power of omniverse. I think something that Wall Street, but generally people with interest in technology are trying to understand is that all sounds great. If you are a business...

Does it help you make more money? Does it make the running of your facilities instantly better? Oh my heavens yes and let me tell you how. Right here in our booth we're featuring customers of ours who've chosen to use our Siemens accelerator platform and what they're doing is using these tools to help them in the design phase, in the manufacturing phase. Why would you want to go digital first?

so that you can try all kinds of permutations in the virtual world before actually bending metal and making things for real. Think about Jet Zero.

This is a blended wing aircraft that'll be brought to market. And Tom O'Leary, their CEO, said the other night to me, he said, we chose Siemens because it's the best. We wanted to start in the early phases with the virtual designs that would allow us to flow through into the manufacturing phase. I guess in really simple terms, if you build your own product like that platform,

Do you then just basically sell it as a high margin service? How does it translate to the business model for Siemens? Yeah, we're engaging with customers in a lot of different ways. In the olden days, we would have enterprise agreements. Think about all the aerospace, automotive, today battery manufacturers. We serve all of those markets, helping the designers, the manufacturers, the operators.

But we know that there's a need to put all that in the cloud, make it accessible on a per-user basis so that even startups can get going. And here with Teamcenter offered up in our Siemens Accelerator Marketplace, if you went to Eureka Park, you'd see a bunch of startups who are being onboarded and we're giving deep discounts for that license suite so that people can get their entryway into this new economy that's being built.

You are an experienced CES goer. Yes. This week in particular, how many conversations have you had with customers, partners about the upcoming administration, tariffs, and are you ready for that at Siemens? We're absolutely ready. And here's what I keep telling our customers and certainly our own organization. We've been in the United States for 160 years. We've worked with all

of the administration's along the way and Siemens capabilities are aligned with national priorities so whether we're talking about increasing the amount of electricity that's available for data centers and using the switch gear that Siemens makes or whether we're talking about the resurgence of manufacturing and these tools were featuring this is a moment when Siemens can have true

might benefit from some policy that's coming. Have you had to adjust supply chain, make it more onshore, more focused in America? This has been a trend for Siemens. Actually, you'd see if you looked at our global megatrends we follow, glocalization is one of them. We truly believe that bringing manufacturing supply chains closer to the point of use is going to be a trend going forward. So we've been making in America for decades now

And no, I don't see tremendous change coming for us, but we truly want to be responsive. In particular, we think that the kind of technology we bring can make even government customers more efficient and effective. Elon Musk would like to hear that. I'd love to talk about it. You are someone that meets with so many CEOs during the week. I always am grateful for your time here at CES. Barbara Humpton, Siemens North America CEO. Caroline, back to you in New York.

Ed, it's time now for Talking Tech. First up, Tencent has announced its biggest buyback since 2006, repurchasing 3.93 million Hong Kong-listed shares. The move comes amid a sell-off in the stock after the tech firm was added to a US blacklist for alleged links to the Chinese military.

Plus, Indonesia keeps its Apple iPhone 16 ban. The country says the tech giant's $1 billion investment plan, which includes building an AirTag factory, is insufficient to meet local investment requirements. Indonesia says it's willing to negotiate with Apple, but may impose sanctions if the company continues to not comply with the investment rules.

And TikTok shop rival, Whatnot, has raised $265 million with a valuation of $4.97 billion. The LA-based livestream shopping platform says it plans to use those funds to hire engineers, improve customer service and expand into new countries. Whatnot's funding round coincides with a looming US ban potentially on TikTok, sending some of its live sellers maybe to competitors.

This CES in Las Vegas feels a little bit different, 2025. Yes, the inauguration of a new administration is around the corner, but there's just been more news. NVIDIA kind of kicked it all off in the week. And here at Bloomberg Technology, we're ramping up as well. Our coverage of consumer technology. There's more to cover. AI is playing a big part. I'm on my best behavior because the big boss is in town.

Senior Executive Editor Tom Giles, and we have a big team here and we are going to go deeper and broader on consumer technology. How and why? Right now is an incredibly exciting time in consumer electronics. As you mentioned, AI is changing everything. It's getting woven into every gadget we use, every robot that's infiltrating our homes and our warehouses, our cars, the list goes on and on.

and it's changing things in a very dramatic way. Right now is, I think the time is right to double down on our consumer electronics coverage. We've always cared about the business of CE. Right now it's time to do a better job of telling the world

where they can find all this information. There's a section on Bloomberg.com. Showing it right now. A place that we're going to show our best work. We're going to start. We've been doing product reviews, but we're going to be much more systematic about it, much more consistent, much more comprehensive about it. And we're going to talk about products in the context of the business and the strategy of these corporations that are trying to make money from these gadgets that are changing the way we live and work.

and do our everyday lives. We're going to talk about it in an unbiased way, and we're also going to draw on this group of journalists who have so much experience in writing and thinking about consumer electronics. Everybody like Vlad Savov, Mark Gurman, Dana Woolman, who we just hired from Engadget in the last year. Long list, Shereen Ghaffari, who writes about artificial intelligence. The list goes on and on, and we've got

dozens of reporters around the world, and they're going to be bringing you the latest in consumer electronics news. So real quick, CES is the first week of the year. It puts everyone in one place, speed dating with very important people. What's it been like for you? Oh my gosh, yesterday, a lot of conversations with NVIDIA. Really interesting. You talked to Jensen Wang yourself.

He wants to map the physical world. He's creating this new world foundational model that is going to help us understand how robots interact, how cars interact. If you want to weave AI into these physical devices, you need to understand how these objects interact in the real world. That's just the beginning of the really interesting, exciting things that we're seeing here. It's hard to find somebody more excitable than me, Caro, but I think we've done it with Bloomberg Senior Executive Editor Tom Giles. Back to you. He's giving a...

a run for your money almost on par with the energy levels and what a joy all things CES thank you for today's reporting meanwhile that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology and don't forget to check out our podcast you'll find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart from New York and from a very busy Las Vegas this is Bloomberg Technology

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