Top Ten Global Business Events of 2024: Musk's Big Bet, Broadcom's Rise, Google's Quantum Computing Chip Willow Makes a Splash

Looking back at the year that is about to pass, a series of influential business events have left a special mark on 2024. The AI boom continues, with major companies spending lavishly on AI chips, which has propelled Nvidia's market value to surpass Microsoft for the first time in history, becoming the world's number one. Tesla has experienced "sharp declines and sharp rises," with its stock price rebounding 250% from its low point this year, driven by the substantial returns from founder Elon Musk's "All in" political gamble on Trump. SpaceX, under Musk, has also quietly made progress in rocket technology, achieving the "chopstick recovery" feat, marking an important milestone in making Starship a fully reusable rocket system. Humanity may no longer be far from landing on Mars. At the end of the year, Google threw a heavy news bomb into the market with its quantum computing chip, Willow. Will today's quantum computing be like AI was ten years ago? Broadcom has painted a new competitive landscape for the AI chip market: in the coming years, ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) may gradually capture market share from expensive GPUs in generative AI applications. Where there are winners, there are naturally losers. With the rise of "new kings" in chips like Nvidia and Broadcom, the old semiconductor giant Intel seems to be left behind by the times. With disappointing earnings reports, CEO departures, and the fate of company splits, it may be unavoidable. As the year draws to a close, Wall Street Insight reviews the representative top ten global business events of 2024: Tesla's stock price rebounds 250% from its low this year, Musk's gamble yields huge returns As a major bull stock that rebounded 250% from its low this year and rose nearly 70% for the year, Tesla's performance this year can be described as "thrilling" and "full of twists and turns." At the beginning of 2024, Tesla faced multiple headwinds: global electric vehicle demand continued to slow, prices dropped again in the China-U.S. markets, and car rental giant Hertz changed its attitude towards the electric vehicle market. Under the continuous impact of negative news, Tesla's stock price plummeted, with a monthly decline of 25% in January alone, and the maximum drawdown for the year reaching 44%, nearly halving. As the stock price fell, Wall Street analysts also began to publicly express pessimism, believing that Tesla's once-strong growth ability is no longer present, and the high growth behind the company's high valuation may no longer be realized. Some analysts even began discussing removing Tesla from the tech stock "seven sisters" and replacing it with communication chip giant Broadcom. Musk himself has also faced continuous troubles, first with a Delaware judge questioning the validity of Musk's $55 billion compensation plan, doubting that the compensation plan adequately disclosed the performance targets that needed to be met and did not consider conflicts of interest among board members. The media subsequently launched attacks on Musk's private life, claiming that he was suspected of abusing drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, and psychedelics, which raised concerns among executives at SpaceX and Tesla. In the face of internal and external troubles, Musk did not "sit idly by" but instead fought back directly. For Tesla, it first stabilized company sales through continuous price reductions. Then it "froze" the progress of the Model 2, throwing the "pie" of autonomous taxis (Robotaxi) into the market, making a big bet on the autonomous driving market, and maintaining market confidence in Tesla's future growth. Regarding exorbitant salaries, Musk directly mobilized retail shareholders, announcing the relocation of the company address to Texas while the shareholders' meeting approved a $56 billion compensation plan, thereby avoiding interference from Delaware judges. But Musk's bigger gamble was in politics. As early as the beginning of Trump's campaign, Musk provided a large amount of campaign funding. After Trump's assassination attempt, Musk publicly expressed his support for Trump on social media. He then frequently participated in Trump's campaign events, live-streaming conversations with him on social media, going "All in" for Trump. This "political gamble" ultimately yielded rich returns three months later: With Trump leading in polls, he won the election in November, and Tesla's stock price skyrocketed, doubling in two months and reaching a historic high for the first time in three years. Compared to other Silicon Valley and tech giants "lining up" to please Trump, Musk appeared to be an "insider," deeply involved in Trump's appointments while directly joining Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) to participate in government spending reduction plans. As the "number one contributor" to Trump's victory, Musk's political resources quickly soared, and the potential for Tesla's future growth was fully unlocked. Musk's other company, SpaceX, also took a step closer to its Mars dream. Musk has stated that under Democratic rule, the possibility of SpaceX realizing the "Mars dream" is slim, while under Republican rule, the support SpaceX receives from government departments may be greater. SpaceX Completes "Chopstick Recovery" Feat, Is Musk's Mars Dream Closer? While Musk was acquiring political resources, SpaceX's rocket technology was quietly making progress. In four test flights in early June this year, SpaceX's giant Starship achieved a soft landing on the sea for the first time, with performance in all key aspects deemed perfect. The giant Starship rocket was launched from the Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, USA The newly added thermal separation ring ejection task was successfully completed, and the Super Heavy booster successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 minutes after launch. This is the first time the Super Heavy booster has achieved a controlled return. After 66 minutes of flight, the Starship re-entered the atmosphere. Although at least one flap was severely damaged and some heat shield tiles fell off during the blackout phase, it ultimately splashed down successfully in the Indian Ocean, achieving the main objective of this test. By October, SpaceX achieved the remarkable feat of "Chopstick Recovery" during its fifth test flight, marking a historic success. As the fifth test flight, the main purpose of this flight was to attempt the first recovery of the booster. Live footage showed that after burning most of its fuel and separating from the first-stage spacecraft, the Super Heavy booster, which is approximately 232 feet (71 meters) long and equipped with 33 engines, descended from high altitude and slowly approached the launch tower. After multiple decelerations, the slightly tilted Super Heavy booster was precisely "embraced" in mid-air by two mechanical arms extending from the launch tower, completing this high-difficulty aerial recovery in a "silky" manner. The mechanical arms of the launch tower successfully captured the returning Super Heavy booster, achieving an important milestone in the goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system. Due to its more elongated shape compared to other space equipment, SpaceX named the mechanical arms of the recovery mechanism "Chopsticks," thus the aerial recovery scene has been vividly compared by major media to "Chopsticks picking up a rocket." Currently, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket booster uses landing leg recovery technology, which is already very mature with a high success rate. However, the downside is that subsequent reuse is relatively cumbersome, requiring long-distance transportation from the landing site, which cannot meet SpaceX's high-frequency launch demands Although the technical implementation of "chopsticks picking up rockets" is challenging, the rocket can directly dock with the launch tower after recovery, allowing subsequent steps such as inspection and refueling to be carried out immediately, greatly reducing the launch preparation time. With the success of the experiment, Musk is one step closer to fulfilling his promise of a "Mars unmanned spacecraft." For the first time in history! Nvidia's market value surpasses Microsoft, becoming the world's number one With investors fervently trading AI stocks, American tech giants welcome a "new king." On Tuesday, June 17, Eastern Time, Nvidia's stock price surpassed Microsoft, which previously held the top spot in market value, marking the first time in history that it has ascended to the throne of the world's highest market value company. Since 2020, Nvidia's stock price has increased by more than 22 times. This growth is attributed to its dominant position in the AI chip market, particularly in the AI chip market used in data centers, where Nvidia holds approximately 80% market share. With companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta having a high demand for processors, Nvidia's business has rapidly grown. Due to the booming demand, the delivery cycle for the H100 has extended from 36 weeks to 52 weeks. From Wall Street's perspective, GPU investment is just getting started, and the growth of AI supply chain investments will have a multiplier effect: Every $100 of cloud capital expenditure will translate into $30-40 of AI revenue, meaning investments in GPUs will increase exponentially. Considering the complexity of GPU development technology, such as a Grace Hopper 100 chip containing 35,000 components and weighing 35 kilograms, Nvidia has a relatively wide technological "moat" in this field due to its long-term accumulation. Therefore, despite more and more peers "going into the sea" to independently develop AI chips, Nvidia's position as the "number one" in computing power will not be shaken for a long time. Quantum chips emerge, AI from ten years ago? Google dropped a bombshell on the market at the end of the year: the quantum computing chip Willow. According to official information from Google, Willow achieved astonishing results in benchmark tests: it completed a standard computation in less than 5 minutes, a task that would take the world's top supercomputers over 10^25 years—longer than the age of the universe! Unlike its previous claim of achieving "quantum supremacy" with its quantum computer Sycamore, Google did not assert that Willow has achieved "quantum supremacy," but instead emphasized its accomplishments in "exceeding classical computing." In 2019, Google publicly showcased its previous generation quantum computer Sycamore, promoting that it completed a computation in just 200 seconds, a task that theoretically would take the fastest supercomputer in the world 10,000 years to complete. The Willow chip features 105 quantum bits, enabling it to achieve best-in-class performance in quantum error correction and random circuit sampling (RCS). In the RCS benchmark test, the Willow chip completed a standard computation in less than 5 minutes, a task that would take the fastest supercomputers over 10^25 years—far exceeding the age of the universe and far beyond our understanding of traditional computing capabilities. The progress of Google's quantum computing has directly triggered a surge in the stock prices of quantum computing companies. D-Wave Quantum soared 74% in a week, Rigetti Computing rose 78%, Quantum Computing's stock price more than doubled, and KunTeng skyrocketed 523%. For the investment community, quantum computing is equivalent to AI a decade ago. After the investment boom in artificial intelligence, investors are looking for the next potential technology frontier that could yield substantial returns. This is particularly important. Although quantum computing has sparked widespread discussion, its actual development status is still in a relatively early stage. While investor interest in quantum computing has increased, it remains far below that of the artificial intelligence sector. Public search interest in quantum computing has also risen, but it is still at a lower level compared to artificial intelligence. The frequency with which companies mention quantum computing in their financial reports and documents has increased, but the base remains low A Major Shift from Training to Inference in AI: The Rise of ASIC and Broadcom As the year comes to a close, the AI market has also undergone dramatic changes, with Nvidia retreating and Broadcom making its entrance. On December 12, Broadcom released its fourth-quarter financial report for the period ending November 3. Driven by AI demand, the company's total revenue, profit, and semiconductor revenue all reached new highs for fiscal year 2024. CEO Hock Tan even "shot for the stars" during the analyst call, stating that he expects the market demand for custom AI chips (ASIC) to reach between $60 billion and $90 billion by 2027. In terms of AI chips, Broadcom has two additional super (computing) customers, and new clients are expected to generate revenue before 2027. Hock Tan stated: "We currently have three hyperscale customers who have established their own multi-generation AI XPU roadmaps and plan to deploy at different speeds over the next three years. We believe that by 2027, each of them plans to deploy 1 million XPU clusters on a single architecture." Market analysis suggests that the prediction from Broadcom's CEO actually tells a grand narrative about ASIC: The $60-90 billion AI revenue SAM (serviceable addressable market) by 2027 implies that AI revenue (AISC + network) will nearly double each year from this year to 2027. This means that Broadcom "believes" or "hopes to achieve" a near equal share between ASIC and GPU in three years, or even replace it. Broadcom's financial report shook the market, with its stock price soaring 38% within two trading days, pushing its market capitalization past $1.2 trillion. ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) AI chips have become the market focus. Broadcom's surge inevitably brings to mind Nvidia's performance in 2023, when Nvidia's financial report exceeded expectations, leading to a skyrocketing stock price. With Broadcom's surge, Nvidia's stock fell in response. Analysts believe that Wall Street is focusing on the demand for ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) from large tech companies, which may be one of the reasons for Nvidia's stock decline. In the coming years, custom chips will gradually capture market share from expensive GPUs in generative AI applications. Although GPUs will continue to dominate AI training, the rise of ASIC has raised questions among investors about whether companies like Meta and Alphabet will shift towards ASIC. ** Apple Vision Pro, despite high pricing, fans are not buying it After the iPhone, what is Apple's next blockbuster hardware? In early February this year, Apple Vision Pro was officially launched. Within 5 minutes of going on sale, the servers were overwhelmed. Within half an hour of pre-sales, physical stores were sold out. The last time Apple attracted global attention like this was in 2007, when the first iPhone was launched. Seventeen years have passed, and Apple has been searching for the "next iPhone," but based on current market feedback, Vision Pro clearly cannot take on that role. After an initial market excitement, the popularity of Vision Pro has rapidly declined. The high price, sluggish market demand, and slow growth in the number of platform applications have all contributed to this decline. By the end of October, reports emerged that Apple had decided to cease production of the first-generation Vision Pro. As an alternative, Apple may release a cheaper headset in 2025. For Apple, Vision Pro is its biggest bet on a new product category in many years. However, Apple has already fallen behind its competitor Meta in this field, as Meta has not only been selling headsets for several years but also at a lower price. As Tianfeng International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo analyzed before the official launch of Vision Pro, after the hype and novelty of the new computing terminal fade, whether Vision Pro can maintain demand based on practicality depends on whether the product positioning and key applications are clear and correct. After a decade of car-making dreams, is it too late for Apple to turn to AI? Not only Vision Pro, but in 2024, Apple has also quietly abandoned its electric vehicle project that had been in preparation for 10 years. According to media reports, Apple has internally canceled its electric vehicle plans, and nearly 2,000 employees involved in the project will shift to AI. This means that Apple's efforts to invest billions of dollars in car-making have come to an abrupt halt. Apple's car-making history dates back to 2014, when it was approved by Cook, Apple launched the Titan project, and then leveraged its "cash ability" to heavily poach talent from companies like Google, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla, forming a core team with Silicon Valley and automotive industry genes. Later, due to repeated wavering in Apple's car-making direction and a lack of partners and concrete forms, many executives involved in the Titan project left, and the project faced multiple stoppages. By December 2022, the Titan project underwent a significant transformation. Media reports at the time revealed that Apple had postponed its target launch date for the electric vehicle by about a year, pushing it to 2026, stating that Apple's Titan project had been in a state of limbo for months, as executives faced the reality that, given the current technological environment, it is not feasible to create a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals. ** However, the rapidly spreading AI craze that began in 2023 caught Apple off guard, and generative AI has become an increasingly important area for Apple, ultimately making the decade-long electric vehicle project the biggest casualty. $7 Trillion Chip Plan, Is OpenAI Reshaping the Global Semiconductor Industry the First Step? While leading the global development of generative AI, OpenAI's CEO Altman has set a grand goal: to reshape the global semiconductor industry. According to media reports, Altman is negotiating with investors, including those from the UAE, to raise trillions of dollars to enhance global chip manufacturing capacity. The project may require raising between $5 trillion to $7 trillion. Insiders indicate that Altman has suggested that OpenAI, various investors, chip manufacturers, and power suppliers establish partnerships to jointly fund the establishment of chip foundries, which will then be operated by existing chip manufacturers, with OpenAI becoming a key customer of the new factories. In response to media reports, Altman did not deny the claims but stated that the "$7 trillion" figure is inaccurate, although AI does require substantial investment. The AI sector indeed needs large-scale global funding and energy investments to build AI chips and the surrounding infrastructure stack, ultimately providing a vast array of services to the world, allowing everyone to derive significant value from it. This scale even dwarfs the global semiconductor industry. To put it in perspective, the total global chip sales for the entire year of 2023 is only $527 billion, and this figure is expected to grow to just $1 trillion annually by 2030. According to industry organization SEMI, global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales last year amounted to $100 billion. $7 trillion represents 10% of the global GDP, enough to buy Nvidia, AMD, TSMC, Broadcom, ASML, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, Arm, and still have enough left to package Meta and take home $300 billion. Some netizens sharply commented, "Unless OpenAI is confident that its technology fundamentally reshapes the entire world, otherwise, artificial intelligence is in a massive bubble." Turning Point for Digital Currency: SEC Approves Spot ETF for the First Time After a period of consolidation in 2023, digital currencies, including Bitcoin, are 迎来关键转折点 in 2024. On the funding side, after years of back-and-forth, the U.S. SEC made a rare compromise earlier this year, approving the first Bitcoin spot ETFs and authorizing 11 ETFs for trading. The Bitcoin spot ETF was proposed as early as 2013, but for the next 10 years, both the current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and his predecessor Jay Clayton refused to allow such products to launch, citing reasons such as the extreme volatility of Bitcoin prices, concerns about investor protection, and the potential for market manipulation. However, last August, Grayscale Investments won a key lawsuit against the U.S. SEC. The judge of the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the SEC's decision to approve Bitcoin futures ETFs while rejecting Grayscale's request to convert GBTC into a spot Bitcoin ETF was "arbitrary and capricious." The court's ruling ultimately forced the SEC to make a rare compromise, approving the listing of spot Bitcoin ETFs in an expedited manner. But for the entire cryptocurrency community, the real boost came from Trump. To attract cryptocurrency investors, Trump made a series of eye-catching promises during his campaign, including designating Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset for the U.S., firing the current SEC chairman, establishing a Bitcoin Presidential Committee, encouraging power plants to enhance electricity supply for Bitcoin mining, and exploring synergies between the cryptocurrency industry and the electric vehicle industry. Pro-crypto lawmakers within the Republican Party proposed even more radical measures: selling gold reserves to buy 1 million Bitcoins. The bill requires the U.S. to purchase 1 million Bitcoins, which, at current market prices, would cost about $90 billion. With Trump's victory, the entire cryptocurrency community erupted in celebration, and the price of Bitcoin broke the $100,000 mark for the first time in history. However, in contrast to the FOMO frenzy in the crypto community, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio provided reasons for investing in gold and Bitcoin as "hard currencies" from a debt perspective. In Dalio's view, the debt levels of major countries have reached "unprecedented levels," which is unsustainable. In the future, these countries will inevitably face debt crises, leading to a significant decline in the value of their currencies. Against the backdrop of worsening debt issues in most major economies, he prefers to invest in "hard currencies" like gold and Bitcoin while avoiding debt-related assets. Intel's Decline: This Year's Layoffs Are the Largest in Tech Companies, Stock Price Drops 60% This Year With the rise of new semiconductor kings like NVIDIA and Broadcom, Intel, the old semiconductor company, seems to be abandoned by the times, experiencing unprecedented turmoil in 2024. The company first faced a financial report disaster in August: second-quarter revenue fell year-on-year instead of increasing, and the third-quarter guidance was down by as much as 11%; the third-quarter EPS guidance unexpectedly turned from profit to loss; it suspended dividends for the first time since 1992. After the Q2 financial report, the company's stock price plummeted 26% in one day, marking one of the worst declines in its 50-year history, second only to a 31% drop in July 1974. The severe sell-off caused the Nasdaq index to drop 2.4% and pulled down global semiconductor stocks. To salvage its performance decline, Intel announced in August that it would cut more than 15% of its workforce starting in the fourth quarter, affecting at least 16,000 employees. According to data from independent layoff tracking organization Layoffs.fyi, Intel's layoffs are the largest among tech companies this year. Analysts believe that Intel's main problem lies in its failure to keep pace with product development, particularly in the data center business. In contrast, Intel's strongest competitor, AMD, has captured most of the market share, with revenue from its data center division growing more than double. New Street Research estimates that by the end of the year, AMD's market share in x86 server processors will reach 40%, up from less than 5% four years ago. However, the company's troubles are far from over. As the year draws to a close, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was forced to leave after three years in office, further exacerbating the turmoil facing Intel. According to insiders, Gelsinger had discussed with the board the progress of Intel regaining market share and narrowing the gap with NVIDIA, at which point the conflict between both sides reached a peak. Gelsinger faced the choice of retirement or dismissal, and he ultimately chose to end his career at Intel. At 63, Gelsinger was seen as the savior of the chip giant. After taking office three years ago, he publicly expressed his love for Intel and vowed to restore the company's leading position in the semiconductor industry. Gelsinger joined Intel as a teenager but left the company in 2009 to become the CEO of VMware. After returning in 2021, he promised to re-establish Intel's leadership in manufacturing, a position that has been taken over by competitors like TSMC. Analysts believe that Gelsinger's departure may lead to significant strategic changes, with "advanced processes" being halted and "product priority" becoming the focus. Intel is more likely to split its internal chip manufacturing business from its external foundry business, as the soon-to-depart Gelsinger had advocated for their merger and strongly promoted Intel's foundry business (Intel Foundry). Risk Warning and Disclaimer The market has risks, and investment requires caution. 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