Nvidia Starts Putting Chips in the Road | Rewire News Evening Update

After Huang Renxun tagged the trillion-dollar order, he also brought BYD and Geely to the autonomous driving table.

1｜Huang Renxun's trillion-dollar calculation hasn't included the roads

This morning, Huang Renxun announced at GTC that Blackwell's acquisition of Vera Rubin will exceed $1 trillion by 2027. This number is double the estimate from last year. He added, "We are supply-constrained, and I am sure the calculated demand will far exceed this number."

However, the $1 trillion is just for the data center. On the same day, NVIDIA announced that BYD, Geely, Nissan, and Isuzu had joined the Drive Hyperion platform to develop Level 4 autonomous driving. The self-driving taxis in partnership with Uber will debut in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the first half of 2027 and expand to 28 markets by 2028. Huang Renxun called this the "ChatGPT moment of autonomous driving."

(Source: CNBC / TechCrunch / The Verge)

2｜Kalanick Lurked for Eight Years, Betting on the Physical World Not Yet Automated

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick revealed the eight-year stealth operation of the robotics company Atoms. Formerly known as CloudKitchens and City Storage Systems, with thousands of employees, not a single person was allowed to list the company on LinkedIn. The three business lines focus on food infrastructure, mining automation, and robot chassis. In a public letter, he wrote a defining statement, "Software has automated language and math, but full automation of the physical world remains untapped territory."

According to Fortune, Kalanick is set to acquire the self-driving company Pronto founded by his former Uber colleague Anthony Levandowski and has Uber's support. Eight years ago, when he was ousted from Uber, self-driving was still Waymo's solo act. Eight years later, he's back with robots, and NVIDIA just happened to announce the "ChatGPT moment" of autonomous driving in the same week. The timing is not a coincidence; it's a signal.

(Source: All-In Podcast / Fortune / TechCrunch)

3｜Murata Raises Prices by 35%, the Implicit Bill for AI Infrastructure Has Arrived

According to 36Kr citing a report from Securities Times, Murata Manufacturing Co., the world's largest MLCC supplier, has initiated a comprehensive price hike for AI servers and high-end automotive-grade products, ranging from 15% to 35%, effective April 1. Murata holds over 40% of the global MLCC market share, with a 70% share in AI server MLCCs. This is the first large-scale price adjustment in three years.

Everyone is counting the price of GPUs. No one is counting the price of that capacitor on the circuit board. Murata's monopoly on passive components in AI servers is no less than NVIDIA's monopoly on GPUs, except it doesn't host a GTC. When the invisible layer in the supply chain starts pricing scarcity, the $1 trillion infrastructure bill will only go up.

(Source: 36Kr / Securities Times)

4｜SEC Wants Public Companies to File Only Twice a Year

According to TechCrunch citing WSJ, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins is in talks with exchanges to allow public companies to switch from quarterly to semiannual reporting. The reason is that the compliance cost of quarterly reports is too high, dampening companies' willingness to go public. This could be the biggest potential change in U.S. public company disclosure requirements in over 50 years.

For tech companies heavily investing in AI infrastructure, filing two fewer reports means explaining "where the money went" two fewer times. The AI capital expenditure burned by Meta in one quarter can now be hidden in the large numbers of a semiannual report. The beneficiaries of deregulation will be companies that need time to prove the correctness of long-term investments.

(Source: TechCrunch / WSJ)

Also worth noting ↓

Alibaba has established the Alibaba Token Hub business group and has simultaneously issued AI tool Token quotas to all employees. Employees can use tools like Wukong and Qoder series for free, purchase Bai Lian Coding Plans or external AI development tools for reimbursement. From "encouraging trial" to "all-staff standard configuration," Tokens are becoming the second means of production for employees at major tech companies. (Source: 36Kr)

The FDIC is preparing to halt pass-through insurance on stablecoin deposits. If approved, users holding stablecoins will not be able to obtain FDIC deposit protection through the issuer. The narrative of stablecoins as "similar to deposits" has just had its last safety net taken away by regulatory authorities. (Source: Payments Dive)

A deepfake conspiracy theory about Netanyahu is spreading on social media, forcing the Israeli government to respond. The so-called "evidence" includes extra fingers in a video and a gravity-defying coffee cup. During wartime, deepfake has shifted from a technological issue to a national security issue. (Source: The Verge)

Picsart has launched an AI Agent Market, where creators can "hire" AI assistants on demand. The first batch includes 4 Agents, with more added weekly. The creation tools platform is shifting from selling features to selling labor. (Source: TechCrunch)