Ford Is Becoming an AI Stock — Sort Of
A new direction.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
Ford Motor Co. has finally hit upon an electric strategy that shouldn’t lose money. The key element is that it doesn’t involve vehicles — not for now, anyway.
Ford’s stock, a habitual water-treader, jumped almost 14% on Wednesday, its biggest gain in more than six years, on news that the Detroit stalwart had found a way to tap into the AI boom — sort of. This week’s formal launch of Ford Energy, a grid-battery business, has stoked hopes that the company can benefit from the insatiable demand for energy from data centers powering artificial intelligence tools. As with other old industrial firms including Caterpillar Inc., which has discovered a seemingly boundless new client base for generators in Silicon Valley, Ford is pivoting to the hot new thing.