Quantum computing CEOs hope “validating” government backing proves their technology is no longer speculative - Sherwood News

The government funding is a push to boost the foundational elements of quantum computing to get the industry ready for prime time. The CEOs of Infleqtion and D-Wave give us their thoughts. In recent years, publicly traded quantum computing upstarts have been whipped around by grand pronouncements from the world’s largest companies and the presumption of support from the government of the world’s largest economy, causing massive waves of retail money into and out of their stocks. In other words, speculation drove speculative stocks. Thursday’s massive gains in InfleqtionINFQ $15.54 (-2.14%), D-Wave QuantumQBTS $26.64 (-4.24%), and Rigetti ComputingRGTI $24.31 (-3.01%) were no exception. The surges came as the Trump administration awarded grants to these firms, among others, in exchange for equity stakes. In interviews with Sherwood News, the CEOs of Infleqtion and D-Wave called the government’s backing “validating” and an “important endorsement,” respectively, making the case that the funding signals their technology is no longer speculative — and leaves them well positioned to prove it. “ The US government decided to take a very hard look at the state of the quantum computing industry and walked away with the conclusion that we are closer than most had thought,” said Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella. “Therefore the US government felt it was time to invest taxpayer money into quantum computing companies because it’s a critical technology that they deem no longer speculative.” “ This is about accelerating our R&D program,” said D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz. “With this government funding, we’re able to make a more significant investment sooner and accelerate that work, and in the case of our gate-model program, potentially up to a three-year acceleration.” Ahead of this announcement, Infleqtion had already been selling quantum equipment (like sensors and clocks) or software to the Department of Defense and NASA. D-Wave, for its part, has a partnership with Davidson Technologies and Anduril Industries (two companies that have received lucrative defense contracts) to help improve US missile defense planning. However, these investments by the government do not mark a bid to see incremental improvements to the products and services it’s already receiving from the industry. It’s a push to boost the foundational elements of quantum computing to get the industry ready for prime time. “At the highest level, what do we need to get useful quantum computing? We need a lot of very high-quality qubits, and then we need to error-correct them,” said Infleqtion’s Kinsella. “ You can think about this funding being directly associated with accelerating one of those three things: more qubits, higher-quality qubits, and error correction.” Despite not being involved with this initiative, IonQIONQ $61.04 (-4.06%) and Quantum ComputingQUBT $11.44 (-2.10%) also jumped in sympathy with their government-backed peers on Thursday. But while traders might be treating this as a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, make no mistake: Baratz and Kinsella are taking it as a point of pride that they’re among those who received these grants. For Baratz, this marks the culmination of a multiyear effort to get the US government to pay more attention to annealing quantum computing, D-Wave’s leading technology. “Up until now, the US government has been primarily focused on gate-model quantum computing,” he said. “This is an important endorsement for the first time from the US government in annealing quantum computing, and I think that’s a very important and very strong statement, and we’re very excited about it.” (To oversimplify, gate-based models have more potential power and flexibility in problem-solving, while annealing computers provide solutions to more specific optimization queries.) This process was a competition where the government picked the winners — and not too many of the players won, Kinsella said. “Every quantum company I have spoken with throughout the supply chain applied and put in a proposal for this CHIPS Act money,” he said. “So I view this as the US government having done a very, very broad overview of the quantum industry and selected the partners that they believe can execute.” IRENIREN $62.58 (4.68%) jumped postmarket on Tuesday after management announced that they’d secured supply to make good on their recent deal with NvidiaNVDA $210.73 (-1.92%). The data company reached a $1.6 billion agreement with DellDELL $307.93 (0.93%) for air-cooled Blackwell systems to service its AI cloud contract with the chip designer announced earlier this month. The stock has pared much of its gains in early trading on Wednesday. This previously revealed partnership will see IREN build out data centers designed by Nvidia to optimize for its hardware. Some of that compute will then be utilized by Nvidia, which also received warrants to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN. Once these systems are up and running in early 2027, IREN said that its annualized run rate would rise to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion. “Securing capacity and accelerating commissioning are our top priorities in a market where time-to-compute is everything,” IREN cofounder and CEO Daniel Roberts said in a statement. “Our relationship with Dell ensures access to hardware at the scale and speed the market demands.” The market has deeply ingrained software-phobia right now, as traders are highly sensitive to anything software-related giving off any whiff of AI-related weakness. So, it’s not a huge surprise to see ZscalerZS $129.60 (-29.80%) down more than 20% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the cloud security company gave a softer customer growth outlook than expected, despite reporting solid results for its fiscal Q3. Zscaler announced better-than-expected results across its key metrics for the quarter ended April 30, 2026, including revenue of $850 million (topping analyst estimates of $835 million, compiled by Bloomberg), annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3.53 billion (vs. the $3.51 billion expected), and adjusted earnings per share of $1.08 (vs. expectations of $1.01). But Zscaler’s ability to continue its winning streak is the main question — and as far as the company’s early guidance for new customer additions, its future looks bleaker than expected. The security firm now anticipates total ARR and revenue growth of 16% to 17% for fiscal 2027. In the nearer term, Zscaler also expects Q4 revenue to fall between $875 million and $878 million, with its upper limit below Wall Street estimates of $879 million. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts noted that Zscaler’s fiscal 2027 ARR growth figure “suggests muted new customer additions are likely to weigh on the top line,” adding that the company “lacks identity security for AI agents in the suite, which may limit larger order closings.” Mizuho, RBC Capital Markets, and Evercore ISI analysts, similarly focusing on future guidance, also lowered their price targets for the stock following the call. Separately, Citi analysts, who spoke to the company’s management following the results, suggested that new customer growth could provide some upside, as new logo growth wasn’t factored into the 2027 baseline. However, they also noted disruptions to the sales organization from two leadership changes, though the Zscaler’s CEO and CFO seem confident that those impacts will be absorbed, and don’t expect disruptions at the “quota-bearing level.” Peers CrowdStrikeCRWD $646.90 (-3.67%) and Palo Alto NetworksPANW $250.16 (-2.57%) also sank around 2% before the bell on Wednesday. Hopes of an imminent peace deal with Iran and reports that the US Navy has restarted shepherding vessels through the Strait of Hormuz sent stocks higher and oil prices lower. OkloOKLO $66.53 (-3.17%) shares jumped following the announcement that the company has been selected by the US Department of Energy for advanced negotiations under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program. Under this federal program, Oklo will help to turn excess legacy Cold War nuclear material into commercial fuel for its advanced power plants. Read more: Inside Oklo’s audacious plan to turn leftover weapons-grade plutonium into a nuclear bridge fuel Oklo will partner with European nuclear developer Newcleo, validating their October 2025 partnership including a Newcleo-affiliated investment of up to $2 billion, to convert material that already exists into fuel for advanced reactors, using it to generate electricity and consume it through fission. “Fuel supply constraints are a key throttle to advanced reactor development,” said cofounder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. “This program creates a pathway to use existing surplus material as bridge fuel for advanced reactors to bring more reactors online sooner.” Advanced nuclear companies are facing roadblocks trying to find fuel. This deal gives Oklo a chance to reduce its dependence on foreign supply chains. Wall Street is closely watching what this means for Oklo’s business model. Wedbush maintained its “outperform” rating and a $110 price target on the stock, emphasizing that this is a helpful “addition” to Oklo’s multipronged fuel strategy, rather than a stand-alone fix. Just last month, Oklo announced a collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Nvidia “to support critical infrastructure development and accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy.” QualcommQCOM $231.45 (-6.98%) is spiking after a Bloomberg report that the chip company is poised to sell “millions” of AI chips to TikTok owner ByteDance. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, said these custom processors would be used to “support the social media company’s AI agent software.” Qualcomm had come under pressure earlier this year because of softness in its China handset business in light of difficulty accessing memory chips, which are in a severe supply crunch. At one time, the company had seemingly been counting on supporting AI-enabled devices to earn its role in the boom — and still might be doing that, with analysts speculating over a potential partnership with OpenAI for an AI smartphone chip. But it’s also been telegraphing a shift toward playing a bigger role upstream in providing hardware for data centers. In the press release that accompanied Qualcomm’s recent earnings report, President and CEO Cristiano Amon touted the company’s entry into the data center business, with initial shipments to a “leading hyperscaler” on track for later this year, and said that investors could expect to hear more on Qualcomm’s growth plans in data center and physical AI at its Investor Day on June 24. Teen summer hiring in the US might hit its lowest level since federal tracking began, new report finds. US antitrust regulators appear to be leaning toward approval of Paramount’sPARA $11.39 (3.17%) $110 billion acquisition of rival Warner Bros. DiscoveryWBD $27.23 (0.83%), according to a Semafor report. The DOJ’s apparent positive analysis of the Hollywood megamerger follows a Tuesday meeting between Paramount CEO David Ellison and DOJ staffers including acting antitrust chief Omeed Assefi. Per Semafor, that meeting included a significant number of questions about the would-be streaming giant’s theatrical release priorities. Ellison has pledged to release a “minimum” of 30 films for theaters between Paramount and WBD upon completion of the merger, and to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for films, followed by a three-month SVOD (digital rent or purchase) period before they land on Paramount+. The DOJ has not yet approved the merger, and the agency’s current apparent analysis could shift. It’s unclear what other topics were discussed at Tuesday’s meeting. Hollywood insiders critical of a Warner Bros. acquisition have also highlighted that any merger decreasing the number of content buyers would squeeze an already depressed entertainment labor market. Per Semafor, that meeting included a significant number of questions about the would-be streaming giant’s theatrical release priorities. Ellison has pledged to release a “minimum” of 30 films for theaters between Paramount and WBD upon completion of the merger, and to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for films, followed by a three-month SVOD (digital rent or purchase) period before they land on Paramount+. The DOJ has not yet approved the merger, and the agency’s current apparent analysis could shift. It’s unclear what other topics were discussed at Tuesday’s meeting. Hollywood insiders critical of a Warner Bros. acquisition have also highlighted that any merger decreasing the number of content buyers would squeeze an already depressed entertainment labor market. Tesla’sTSLA $439.24 (1.30%) recovery across Europe continued last month, but it still lags BYDBYDDY $11.58 (-1.99%), according to new data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. In April, BYD registered more than twice as many cars as Tesla in the EU, UK, and the European Free Trade Association. It’s also growing faster, with BYD up 115% compared with April 2025, while Tesla grew 47% in that time. Year-to-date registration data tells a similar story. Tesla thinks upcoming approval of its supervised Full Self-Driving tech is integral to its success on the continent. “It’s worth noting that we do not actually yet have approval for supervised FSD in Europe,” CEO Elon Musk said during an earnings call last year. “So our sales in Europe, we think, will improve significantly once we are able to give customers the same experience that they have in the US.” Tesla recently received approval for a version of its supervised FSD in the Netherlands, its first European market, and expects “EU-wide” approval in the second or third quarter of this year. European vehicle regulators could potentially vote on the issue in July. EthereumETH $2,058.75 (-0.38%) has been stuck between $2,000 and $2,150 in the past week amid ongoing scrutiny toward the Ethereum Foundation, which has seen its talent pool thin out. “ETH continues to show weakness... ETH/BTC keeps grinding lower, at a 10-month low,” Jasper De Maere, a desk strategist and OTC trader at Wintermute, posted on X. “The marginal risk dollar went into equities, not crypto. When AI semis are working and yields are easing, crypto should follow. It didn’t.” De Maere continued, “Based on our OTC flow, we see that institutional buying pressure, which was responsible for the recent +ve price action, is now fading quickly, indicating that institutional investors might be at capacity or are re-assessing risk/reward at these new levels.” Data from SoSoValue shows ethereum ETFs have seen 10 consecutive days of outflows, totaling more than $471.1 million. Meanwhile, the blockchain’s cofounder Vitalik Buterin, who sits on the board of the Ethereum Foundation, addressed the controversy surrounding the nonprofit over the weekend. Holding around 0.16% of ethereum’s total supply, the foundation is not the center of blockchain network, but rather “one node, with a defined purpose alongside other nodes,” according to Buterin, who says nearly 90% of his net worth is in ethereum. “EF is still in a transition period, and we expect its new long-term form to stabilize over the next few months,” Buterin said, adding that the EF will sell ethereum less and focus on remaining censorship-resistant, open-source, private, and secure. “The most high-value ‘product’ of the ethereum blockchain, financially speaking, is ETH the asset. Ethereum secures $250 billion of ETH,” Buterin continued. “That said, there are aspects of supporting ETH the asset — *necessary* aspects even — that are outside the scope of the EF. This is where we need other heroes (some of whom hold more ETH than the EF does) to step in and help.” Carlos Guzman, vice president of research at crypto trading firm GSR, said Vitalik’s response is a bet on credible neutrality as ethereum’s durable competitive advantage, which attracts liquidity, users, and apps, because “builders and institutions gravitate toward platforms they can trust won’t be captured or co-opted. This is what builds network effects, and network effects are what create durable moats,” Guzman wrote on X. And yet, Guzman argued credible neutrality is just one piece of the puzzle: “The risk is that a nimbler chain builds sufficient network effects by executing well on fees, throughput, and UX today while promising credible neutrality tomorrow. Vitalik’s vision is arguably the right one. Whether the ecosystem can execute on it before that window closes remains uncertain.” Traders are increasingly bearish: prediction market-implied odds of ethereum dropping below $1,750 in 2026 stand at 64%, a jump from 57% at the start of May. (Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.) Traders are increasingly bearish: prediction market-implied odds of ethereum dropping below $1,750 in 2026 stand at 64%, a jump from 57% at the start of May. (Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.) Snacks provides fresh takes on the financial news you need to start your day. Chartr provides data visualizations on business, entertainment, and society. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. One of the biggest fears of the AI boom is that the technology will destroy jobs, starting with entry-level programmers and eventually coming for all manner of white-collar work. This week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the “jobs apocalypse” isn’t turning out as bad as he’d feared, noting, “I’m delighted to ⁠be wrong about this.” One tech job that had appeared at risk of AI replacement was cybersecurity engineer.

But The New York Times reports that the role is now going through a “hiring frenzy,” and tech recruiters can’t keep up with demand for them. One of the driving forces behind the surge in cybersecurity roles is the emergence of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model — which is being held back by the company due to its advanced cyber capabilities until companies can shore up defenses. The demise of software engineering roles in general may have been overblown as well. According to the report, engineers are still needed to manage AI agents, which are increasingly writing the bulk of the code at Big Tech companies. One tech job that had appeared at risk of AI replacement was cybersecurity engineer.

But The New York Times reports that the role is now going through a “hiring frenzy,” and tech recruiters can’t keep up with demand for them. One of the driving forces behind the surge in cybersecurity roles is the emergence of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model — which is being held back by the company due to its advanced cyber capabilities until companies can shore up defenses. The demise of software engineering roles in general may have been overblown as well. According to the report, engineers are still needed to manage AI agents, which are increasingly writing the bulk of the code at Big Tech companies. Traders are happy about potential peace. But they’re even more happy that MicronMU $916.02 (2.25%) exists. That’s the best way to describe the price action on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump’s comments this weekend that a deal with Iran has been “largely negotiated,” along with reports that the US Navy has restarted shepherding vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, have contributed to a worldwide rally in stocks and sell-off in crude oil. Some normal things you’d expect to see are happening: Within US markets, the SPDR S&P Retail ETFXRT $85.08 (2.56%) is up; the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR FundXLP $84.85 (1.46%) is selling off. A world in which high gasoline prices are placing less pressure on household budgets is positive for more discretionary spending versus necessities. Checks out. Europe is typically much more adversely impacted by energy price shocks than the US. Accordingly, the iShares MSCI Eurozone ETFEZU $69.15 (-0.02%) is outperforming the SPDR S&P 500 ETFSPY $750.70 (0.01%). Checks out. Zooming out, the iShares MSCI ACWI ex-US ETFACWX $76.50 (-0.10%) is crushing SPY by over 1%. Checks out — that’s what was happening before the war was on anyone’s radar. But... there’s also some weird stuff beneath the hood. When global stocks outperform the US by a ton, it’s generally because tech is out of favor. After all, the US market is heavily weighted toward megacap tech giants. However, a big reason why ACWX is trouncing the US is because of how insanely well the iShares MSCI South Korea ETFEWY $199.01 (-0.82%) and iShares MSCI Taiwan ETFEWT $103.29 (1.13%) are doing! Those countries, of course, are even more heavily levered to AI hardware than the US market. The new Street-high view on Micron in particular is fueling gains for Korean stocks, where fellow memory chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung are the biggest components. The tech-heavy Invesco QQQ TrustQQQ $728.59 (-0.23%) is putting in a bigger gain than European stocks, as of 11 a.m. ET. It’s extremely rare for Europe, a major portion of global equities, to be lagging US tech when ACWX is leaving SPY in the dust. The combination of global equities outperforming by at least 1% while the Nasdaq 100 bests EZU hasn’t happened since December 16, 2022. If that holds, it would be only the sixth time this has happened in the past 15 years. (My kingdom for an MSCI ACWI ex-US ex-Korea ETF... bonus points if you can throw in an ex-Taiwan, too!) The lesson seems to be: peace is great; the small pieces that help the brains of the AI boom access information are even better. TeraWulfWULF $25.33 (0.58%) shares are rising after the company announced it has acquired a 1-gigawatt hyperscale data center site in eastern Kentucky. The project, known as the Muskie Data Campus, marks an expansion of the company’s digital infrastructure capabilities and accelerates TeraWulf’s transition from a bitcoin miner into an HPC and AI infrastructure provider. The newly acquired site spans 285 acres and is engineered to support more than 1 gigawatt of data center capacity over time, with the first 500 megawatts scheduled to ramp up in the second half of 2028.

The Muskie Data Campus represents TeraWulf’s second major digital infrastructure campus in Kentucky, alongside the company’s 480-megawatt Justified Data campus in Hancock County. “This acquisition further reinforces the strategy we discussed on our first quarter earnings call: securing and developing large-scale, power-advantaged sites capable of supporting the next generation of HPC workloads,” Paul Prager, chairman and CEO of TeraWulf, said. “As we said then, the defining constraint in this market is no longer computing hardware — it is power, transmission infrastructure, and execution certainty.” TeraWulf reported strong Q1 earnings results in early May. While heavy capital expenditure resulted in a GAAP loss, the company generated $34 million in revenue. The stock is up more than 120% year to date. Several analysts warn that bitcoin ETF outflows are a key driver to monitor. Shares of WolfspeedWOLF $61.83 (-15.88%) and Navitas SemiconductorNVTS $29.78 (-6.32%) are rising after power chip company VicorVICR $349.16 (4.87%) boosted its Q2 guidance and a potential technological breakthrough by China’s Huawei is helping to boost US chip stocks with a big Asia footprint. Vicor attributed the strong guidance in part to “royalties from an additional licensee to its patented power system technology.” Wolfspeed is a little more upstream from Vicor in the power chip industry as a silicon carbide producer. Huawei, one of China’s national tech champions, said it’s developed a “LogicFolding” technology that will allow it to start producing 1.4-nanometer chips by 2031. This announcement helped lift sentiment across Chinese semiconductor names. SemtechSMTC $159.87 (-2.79%), another stock with historically elevated sales exposure to Asia, was up big in early trading but pared most of its gains. ASMLASML $1,604.45 (-1.69%) is modestly lower, perhaps a nod to the idea that Huawei’s ability to manufacture chips this tiny without its top-notch EUV lithography machines (in light of export restrictions to China) undercuts its critical role in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. (The irony of any US stocks going up on a Chinese tech self-sufficiency push is not lost on us, especially given competition from Chinese silicon carbide suppliers helped push Wolfspeed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy!) TSMCTSM $423.77 (2.78%), for its part, plans on having chips that small in mass production by 2028. Last week, ahead of the Enhanced Games, a spectacle that featured chemically enhanced athletes competing in a doped-up weekend version of the Olympic Games, our Edward Moreno wrote that the event “isn’t just about sports — it’s a $31 million product demo.” If investors are telling us anything the Tuesday morning after the games, it’s that they don’t believe the product demo worked. Shares of Enhanced GroupENHA $2.94 (-2.97%), the company that put on the games, tanked a whopping 40% in early trading, falling to their lowest level since the company went public via a SPAC. The drop comes after enhanced Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev “broke” the only world record of the games in the 50-meter freestyle, while doping and also wearing a suit that’s illegal in elite sport. Meanwhile, three athletes who were reportedly competing clean in the games also won their events over enhanced athletes. After the games, Enhanced CEO Maximilian Martin underscored what we wrote last week: that this was all aimed at getting regular people to want to dope, too. It was about showcasing athletes who might cause regular people to want to subscribe to Enhanced’s newly launched consumer health business that sells supplements. According to The Guardian, he said: “With the power of enhancements we can prove we are the best we can ever think of and you are ­living proof of that. For the last three days Enhanced took over the internet. Enhanced is culture. And now people can also get enhanced and be the best they have ever been.” If today’s stock reaction is any indication, investors don’t think the Enhanced Games are going to cause that many regular folks to sign up. It would appear that the outcomes of the games themselves undermine the very case Enhanced was aiming to make to customers and investors. After all, if all it takes to become a world-class champion athlete is “hard work” and “dedication” and not a cocktail of designer peptides, well, investors are probably better off throwing their money into Planet FitnessPLNT $52.61 (0.08%) or PelotonPTON $5.83 (0.95%). If investors are telling us anything the Tuesday morning after the games, it’s that they don’t believe the product demo worked. Shares of Enhanced GroupENHA $2.94 (-2.97%), the company that put on the games, tanked a whopping 40% in early trading, falling to their lowest level since the company went public via a SPAC. The drop comes after enhanced Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev “broke” the only world record of the games in the 50-meter freestyle, while doping and also wearing a suit that’s illegal in elite sport. Meanwhile, three athletes who were reportedly competing clean in the games also won their events over enhanced athletes. After the games, Enhanced CEO Maximilian Martin underscored what we wrote last week: that this was all aimed at getting regular people to want to dope, too. It was about showcasing athletes who might cause regular people to want to subscribe to Enhanced’s newly launched consumer health business that sells supplements. According to The Guardian, he said: “With the power of enhancements we can prove we are the best we can ever think of and you are ­living proof of that. For the last three days Enhanced took over the internet. Enhanced is culture. And now people can also get enhanced and be the best they have ever been.” If today’s stock reaction is any indication, investors don’t think the Enhanced Games are going to cause that many regular folks to sign up. It would appear that the outcomes of the games themselves undermine the very case Enhanced was aiming to make to customers and investors. After all, if all it takes to become a world-class champion athlete is “hard work” and “dedication” and not a cocktail of designer peptides, well, investors are probably better off throwing their money into Planet FitnessPLNT $52.61 (0.08%) or PelotonPTON $5.83 (0.95%). That’s the call from UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri, who more than tripled his price target on memory specialist MicronMU $916.02 (2.25%) to $1,625 from $535. If his view were realized, the company would be worth north of $1.8 trillion. Shares are surging 8% in early trading, and are up more than 780% over the past year. The AI boom’s brainpower needs to “remember” (that is, access) the information it’s processing, driving a spike in memory chip prices. Despite Micron going up and to the right for months on end, Arcuri argues that a) its future profitability is still underappreciated, and b) investors should be willing to pay more for these earnings, because a large chunk of demand is already locked down. Micron’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is about 8.25x versus 20.9x for the S&P 500 as a whole, which is effectively investors’ way of showing they expect the company’s pricing power and runaway profit growth will sour. “We believe the market will start to put a more ‘normal’ multiple on the stock and Micron will continue to re-rate higher as more details emerge about the structural changes AI has driven to the entire memory complex,” he wrote. Long-term purchasing agreements are providing strong visibility to the ample runway for high profits through 2029, per Arcuri, which will help the company avoid its typical boom-bust cycle. These supply pacts “allow Micron to trade some near-term revenue for demand visibility and a smoother earnings profile,” he concluded. The sunny sentiment on Micron is also lifting peers, with SandiskSNDK $1,583.12 (-0.40%), Western DigitalWDC $531.37 (1.28%), and Seagate Technology HoldingsSTX $867.01 (2.51%) all up between 2.8% and 3.9% as of 8:50 a.m. ET. The benchmark index is on its longest weekly winning streak since 2023. Server stocks are rallying as DellDELL $307.93 (0.93%), Super Micro ComputerSMCI $37.85 (2.02%), and Hewlett Packard EnterpriseHPQ $24.62 (0.76%) ride the momentum of Hong Kong-based Lenovo. The PC maker’s stock rose 19% on Friday, hitting an all-time high, on record Q4 earnings. Powering the positive earnings report was the company’s AI-related revenue, which grew 84% in the fourth quarter and now makes up over a third of total revenue. Investors seem to think the increased demand for servers could have trickle-down effects for other companies. “The company’s results and commentary reinforced the outlook for strong AI-infrastructure demand while indicating resilient broader traditional server and storage spending,” wrote Woo Jin Ho, a senior technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Lenovo’s $21 billion AI-server pipeline and remarks that demand is outpacing supply support Dell’s AI-demand momentum and point to robust orders.” AI’s insatiable computing demand is reshaping the hardware industry and driving up server demand. Dell will report first-quarter earnings on Thursday, May 28. What started as a 10-hour human-versus-robot challenge turned into a continuous marathon shift spanning nine days of continuous work. UberUBER $70.39 (0.39%) appears to be considering upping its competition with DoorDashDASH $159.65 (3.67%) outside the US, exploring a potential full takeover of Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero, Bloomberg reports. Earlier this week the US-based ride-hailing service disclosed a 19.5% stake in the food delivery company, but now that could go higher. The $11.8 billion German company could be particularly vulnerable to a takeover right now, with its CEO having recently stepped down following pressure from activist investors to sell off assets. A full acquisition would give Uber a massive foothold in over 60 countries to combat DoorDash’s European-focused Wolt unit. Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally. Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%. The $11.8 billion German company could be particularly vulnerable to a takeover right now, with its CEO having recently stepped down following pressure from activist investors to sell off assets. A full acquisition would give Uber a massive foothold in over 60 countries to combat DoorDash’s European-focused Wolt unit. Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally. Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%.