Since Microsoft (MSFT.US) announced its 2FQ results for the period ended December 2025 at the end of last month, its share price has fallen by about 15% in total, Goldman Sachs released a research report saying.

This is believed to be due to the higher capital expenditure guidance, but management did not simultaneously raise its Azure growth forecast, sparking market question and concerns about the return on capital and competition Azure faces from peers, as well as concerns about whether the Office 365 business will be impacted by new AI competition.

However, the broker still believed that capital expenditure on internal R&D is a long-term investment, some of which is not directly monetized at present but may be monetized in the future and remains crucial to Microsoft's overall development strategy.

Currently, Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for the proportion of Microsoft's computing resources used internally from about 10% to about 20%, which is believed to drive Microsoft's multi-dimensional strategic AI positioning in the future and bring better returns in the medium term.

Therefore, the broker kept rating at Buy, with a target price of US$600.
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Tesla (TSLA.US) CEO Elon Musk responded to a post by Cathie Wood on the social platform X, stating that the Optimus humanoid robots will begin to transform things in 2027, become noticeable by 2028 and have a significant impact after 2029.

Wood had previously posted that the development of humanoid robots are 200,000 times more complex than autonomous taxis, and stated that robots could bring revolutionary changes to life as early as 2028.

The post mentioned that based on Musk's first principle's approach and dogged determination, Wood predicted that Tesla's Optimus robots will start transforming factory life in 2028 and 2029, eventually changing household life.
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Tech industry leaders, including Tesla (TSLA.US) CEO Elon Musk and Apple (AAPL.US) CEO Tim Cook, are warning of a brewing global crisis as memory chip shortages begin to impact profits and disrupt corporate planning, Bloomberg reported. This has shored up prices for a range of products from laptops and smartphones to cars and data centers, with supply tensions expected to deteriorate.

The root cause of the memory chip supply strain is the wave of construction of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. NVIDIA (NVDA.US) AI chips require a large amount of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), squeezing the available capacity in the memory chip industry, resulting in severe shortages for traditional sectors such as mobile phones and PCs.

Even before AI magnates fully launch their massive data center construction plans, memory chip supply has been increasingly tight, with prices soaring. LENOVO GROUP (00992.HK) Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing had previously noted that the supply tension is expected to last at least until the end of this year, with the structural imbalance between supply and demand not being a short-term fluctuation.
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The US Department of War (formerly known as the Department of Defense) is considering terminating its cooperation with AI startup Anthropic because the company insists on keeping restrictions on the use of its models by the US military, Axios quoted sources as saying.

The Pentagon is pressuring four AI companies to allow the military to use their AI tools for all legitimate purposes, including weapons development, intelligence collection and battlefield operations, but Anthropic has not accepted those terms, the report stated.

Other AI companies cooperating with the Department of War include OpenAI, Alphabet (GOOGL.US)'s Google and xAI.

Moreover, according to The Wall Street Journal, sources said that the US military used Anthropic's Claude model in the operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The deployment of Claude was achieved through Anthropic's collaboration with Palantir (PLTR.US), whose platform is widely used by the Department of War and federal law enforcement agencies, the report added.
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AI startup Anthropic announced the appointment of Chris Liddell to its board of directors.

Liddell previously served as the chief financial officer of Microsoft (MSFT.US), the vice chairman of General Motors (GM.US) and the deputy White House chief of staff during US President Donald Trump's first term. He has also participated in three presidential transition cycles.
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Mainland Chinese macroeconomic growth remained strong, China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) Secretary-General Cui Dongshu said, releasing the "Analysis of Automotive Submarket Trends and Manufacturer Competitive Performance for January 2026".

Driven by national consumer promotion policies, the mainalnd automotive market maintained robust growth, Cui said. Last year, the overall trend of the national automotive market was robust, with a noticeable recovery in the truck and bus markets.

Cui added that due to the exceptionally strong policy measures last year, there has been a significant policy contraction this year, leading to negative growth in passenger car retail sales in January. However, in light of increased exports, manufacturers' sales growth in January was relatively good.

The trend for new energy vehicles in January was relatively stable, mainly because the automotive export market continued to strengthen, but industry pressure remained high.
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Microsoft (MSFT.US) AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman warned in an interview with the Financial Times that artificial intelligence may replace most white-collar jobs. Whether it is the work of lawyers, accountants, project managers, or marketing personnel, most will be fully automated by AI within the next 12-18 months. Nearly all professionals working in front of computers may face risks, and the future labor market will undergo major changes.
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OpenAI released its first AI model, GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, equipped with a chip from semiconductor startup Cerebras Systems, according to Bloomberg. This model is a lightweight accelerated version of its latest automatic coding software, Codex.

The model can assist software engineers in quickly completing tasks such as editing specific chunks of code and running tests, the report added. Users can also interrupt the execution process or instruct the model to perform other coding-related tasks without waiting for it to finish lengthy computing process.

Last month, OpenAI signed an agreement worth over US$10 billion to adopt Cerebras hardware to accelerate the response speed of its AI models.
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The US stock market cascaded on Thursday since investors once again sold off tech stocks. The DJIA erased an earlier gain of up to 325 points, closing down 669 points or 1.3% at 49,451. The Nasdaq plunged 469 points or 2%, ending at 22,597. The S&P 500 finished down 108 points or 1.6% at 6,832.

Cisco (CSCO.US) logged quarterly results that beat expectations, but its gross margin target was lackluster. This prompted a slump of 12.3% in the stock at close, rendering it the top loser among the DJIA constituents.

Heavyweight techs faced hefty selling pressure, with Apple (AAPL.US) down 5%, Meta (META.US) and Amazon (AMZN.US) down over 2%, Nvidia (NVDA.US) down 1.6%, and Microsoft (MSFT.US) down less than 1%.

Meanwhile, defensive stocks advanced against the market trend, with Walmart (WMT.US) and Costco (COST.US) gaining 3.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
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The US stock market cascaded on Thursday since investors once again sold off tech stocks and precious metals. The DJIA erased its early gains of up to 325 points and recently plunged 500 points or 1%, to 49,620. The Nasdaq tumbled 425 points or 1.8%, to 22,641. The S&P 500 dropped 78 points or 1.1%, to 6,862.

Blockbuster selling pressure was observed in major tech stocks, with Apple (AAPL.US) slipping over 3%, Meta (META.US) and Amazon (AMZN.US) diving nearly 3%, and Microsoft (MSFT.US) and NVIDIA (NVDA.US) declining about 1%.

The spot gold price once plummeted by USD205 or 4% to bottom at USD4,878, with the latest decline narrowing to 2.9%, at USD4,939.
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