Intel plunges 45% as AI stocks suffer a brutal October.
October erased more than $2.5 trillion from the Nasdaq 100’s market value. Chipmakers and companies renting out AI computing were among the hardest hit as investors questioned the cost of the buildout and how quickly it would pay off. |
Intel lost 45.3% over the month, including a 28.6% plunge on October 30 after a weak outlook. Manufacturing bottlenecks, rising memory costs, and softer PC demand added to the pressure.
CoreWeave fell 37.0% and Nebius 34.7%. The selling spread across AI hardware and infrastructure, reaching Alphabet, AMD, Meta, and Nvidia.
The broader market held up better: the S&P 500 lost about 0.9% in October while the Dow gained 1.7%. More than 70% of S&P 500 companies finished the month higher.
The concern is whether AI demand can turn into enough profit and cash to justify the valuations and infrastructure bills. Intel’s supply problems also show that strong demand alone does not guarantee strong results.
Adam Robinson and his family killed in Florida jet crash
Courtesy of the Robinson and Sharp families, via KUT. Retention.com and RB2b founder Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, and their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, were among nine people killed when a private jet crashed near West Palm Beach on November 1. Their families confirmed the passengers’ identities in a joint statement. |
The flight was traveling from Austin to the Bahamas. All nine people aboard died.
Investigators have indications the aircraft began breaking apart before impact. The cause remains undetermined.
OpenAI signs four deals across Abu Dhabi’s economy
Abu Dhabi entities signed four agreements with OpenAI on November 2, bringing its models deeper into government, energy, investment, and wider AI adoption. |
Government: a live food-import pilot helps officials assess regulatory compliance, with humans responsible for final decisions.
Energy and investment: ADNOC will apply AI across operations; Mubadala will use it for investment analysis and risk assessment.
Wider rollout: a five-year Inception42 agreement covers government, enterprise, and education.
The government pilot runs inference inside the UAE. Where AI computes and who remains accountable are becoming central parts of national AI deals.
France votes to tax data. Hackers target Europe’s freezers.
French lawmakers approved an amendment charging content providers €0.055 per gigabyte sent to French users. Separately, a fresh suspected cyberattack raised supermarket cooling temperatures across Europe. |
France’s proposed tax would equal €5.50 per 100 GB, billed to providers. It passed 11–10, but is not final law and may be dropped from the budget.
The freezer incidents forced stores to discard food, following earlier attacks in France. No confirmed evidence links the attacks to AI.
Apple’s $114.5B quarter. Palantir nearly doubles. Cloud giants keep growing.
Apple and Palantir delivered strong new quarters on November 2. Microsoft and Amazon’s latest results also show how quickly cloud demand is growing, even as investors become more demanding about returns. |
Apple: revenue reached $114.5 billion, up 12%, with September-quarter iPhone revenue and all-time Services revenue records. It generated $28 billion in quarterly operating cash flow and finished its fiscal year with $479 billion in sales.
Palantir: revenue rose 96% to $2.313 billion. U.S. commercial sales jumped 148% to $984 million, exceeding U.S. government sales of $953 million for the first time. Its full-year revenue outlook increased to about $8.53 billion.
Microsoft: revenue rose 19% to $92.3 billion. Microsoft Cloud brought in $63.9 billion, up 30%, while Azure revenue grew 48%. These results were released October 28.
Amazon: revenue rose 12% to $201.9 billion. AWS sales climbed 39.3% to $46 billion and generated $17.8 billion in operating income. These results were released October 29.
The spending pressure is clearest at Amazon: its free cash flow was negative $42.4 billion over the trailing 12 months as investment accelerated. Cloud revenue is growing quickly, but the cash needed to expand capacity remains central to the investment case.
Quick Hits
AI edits another model’s weights. MIT researchers report improving a small Qwen model’s math score from 7.9% to 48.1% through targeted weight edits, without gradient-based training. Read more →
Google’s AI answers from space. Gemma 4 ran on a TPU aboard Project Suncatcher’s prototype satellite. Its first answer was a haiku. Announced October 30. Read more →
Anthropic bought a one-person biotech. Mithril’s founder used Claude to coordinate 11 outside labs. Results remain preclinical. Announced October 27; acquired in July. Read more →
Fake nuclear alerts reach civilians. Hacked emergency apps in Ukraine and Russia sent false warnings of nuclear and chemical threats. Read more →
Another crypto exchange is hit. Mercado Bitcoin suspended deposits and withdrawals after a breach. Bitquery estimates $48.5 million left its wallets. Read more →
Northflank warns customers to rotate secrets. Its November 2 update confirms reports of unauthorized AI-key use after a breach affecting stored credentials. Read more →
Aramco takes 49% of HUMAIN. The closed transaction includes approximately $2.6 billion in cash contributions during 2026, plus AI and computing assets. Read more →
OpenAI offers to ease grid pressure. Its Grid Protectors program includes a planned Georgia campus agreement with up to 1,000 MW of flexible demand response. Read more →
Florida breach may affect 4.9 million people. Potentially exposed financial-aid records include Social Security numbers, birth dates, and contact details. Read more →
F1 has its youngest world champion. Kimi Antonelli secured the title at 20 after finishing third in Mexico. Max Verstappen won the race. Read more →
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