AI Spending Is the Only Certainty in Silicon Valley Right Now
Tariffs loomed over quarterly technology earnings but didn’t derail the artificial-intelligence express.
AI unabated.
Photographer: Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Ahead of this quarter’s crop of tech earnings, I predicted companies would be reluctant to offer much in the way of forward guidance given the almost Covid-like upheaval of the global economy thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. I was half right: There was some guidance — though it arrived with a large asterisk.
“It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen with tariffs right now,” Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said on Thursday. “It’s hard to tell where they’re going to settle and when they’re going to settle.” His company gave itself characteristically large wiggle room with its operating income projection of $13 billion to $17.5 billion.