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The Dutch Connection: French AI Leader Gets Backing from European Tech Giant ASML

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French AI leader Mistral isn’t settling for being le grand fromage at home. It aims to be the best on earth. That means developing AI models and data centers that can go toe to toe with the best the US and Asia have on offer.

On Tuesday, the company received key backing from a continental ally. Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML opened its wallet — or portemonnee, a word borrowed from the French porte-monnaie — to become Mistral’s largest shareholder.

Which Way the Mistral Blows

Paris-based Mistral is a relative newbie in the AI world, founded just two years ago; by comparison, OpenAI, at 10 years old, is practically ready for senior citizen discounts. The maker of the chatbot Le Chat has been hailed by policymakers, including French President Emmanuel Macron, as key to Europe’s ambitions of building its own tech bulwark to fend off dominant US and Asian competition. Named after a famously strong wind in southern France, Mistral is also building data centers to establish European competition against major US cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, making it a strategic bet on two fronts.

Enter ASML, one of Europe’s undisputed tech giants. Its $1.5 billion, 11% stake in the French startup announced Tuesday is a breakthrough moment in continental synergy. The fresh cash fuels Mistral’s efforts to develop new models and data centers, and ASML could hardly be a better-positioned partner. The Dutch giant has a de facto monopoly on the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines essential to making advanced semiconductors. This has placed it at the heart of the global AI boom, furthering its lucrative symbiotic relationship with chip giants like Nvidia. On Tuesday, its $316 billion market cap made it the most valuable company in the European Union, which is something Mistral can look up to:

  • ASML’s stake, part of a total $2 billion round, values the French company at roughly $14 billion. That number underscores how far Mistral trails its AI competition in Silicon Valley: Anthropic closed a $13 billion funding round with a $183 billion valuation last week, while OpenAI is planning a secondary sale at a $500 billion valuation.
  • Mistral has another unique backer in Macron, who has encouraged blue chip firms to do business with Mistral and positioned the company as a key beneficiary of a €109 billion ($127 billion) national AI plan. France’s state-owned investment bank Bpifrance is also among its backers, though Mistral has no shortage of prominent international investors, among them Lightspeed Ventures, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia and Microsoft. 

Double Dutch: And speaking of European companies with Microsoft ties, the US tech giant reached across the Atlantic on Monday to do business with another Netherlands-based tech firm. Nebius is a new arrival to Amsterdam, having split from Russia’s Google-equivalent Yandex last year. It ditched the search engine business of its former Russian parent to focus on AI infrastructure and computing capacity, something Microsoft has a growing need for as it builds out new products. Nebius will make at least $17.4 billion, and up to $19.4 billion, for providing Microsoft with dedicated AI computing capacity from a new data center being built not in picturesque Amsterdam or elegant Paris, but the land of gardens itself … New Jersey.



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This $1 Trillion Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Will Be the Next Nvidia

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Key Points

  • Broadcom has outperformed Nvidia over the past year, and that trend appears poised to continue.

  • The company’s prosperous artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor and data center business is taking market share from the leader, according to Wall Street.

  • Broadcom made a surprise announcement during its recent quarterly results that caught investors off guard.

  • 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

Since the dawn of the artificial intelligence (AI) era, a number of players have been at the leading edge of the technology. Perhaps no company has exemplified the vast potential of AI more than Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). Since early 2023, the chipmaker’s stock has surged more than 1,000% (as of this writing) as its graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the gold standard for facilitating the technology.

However, investors may be surprised to learn that Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) has actually outperformed Nvidia over the past year, as its stock has soared 149% compared with 63% for Nvidia. Furthermore, several pronouncements by the company during its recent quarterly report suggest that trend is poised to continue.

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Let’s look at what’s driving Broadcom’s robust rally and why I predict the company is on track to be the next Nvidia.

Image source: Getty Images.

The next big winner

Nvidia’s GPUs have transformed AI by providing the massive computational horsepower required to power AI models. These lightning-fast chips offer extremely flexible use cases and are unmatched for this purpose, which is why Nvidia has thrived over the past few years.

It’s also no surprise that Broadcom has benefited from the accelerating adoption of AI, as the company’s Ethernet switching and networking products have long been a staple in data centers. However, Broadcom’s application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) have been gaining ground. These custom-designed AI accelerators, which Broadcom calls XPUs, are tailored to specific tasks and therefore more energy efficient. Rapid adoption of this chips has fueled a blistering run for Broadcom stock, which is up more than 500% since early 2023, earning its membership in the $1 trillion club.

In the third quarter, Broadcom generated record revenue that accelerated 22% year over year to $15.9 billion, resulting in adjusted earnings per share (EPS) that jumped 36% to $1.69. The company was clear that it was AI that was driving this train, as its AI-specific revenue accelerated 63% year over year to $5.2 billion. The results were well ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, as analysts’ consensus estimates called for revenue of $15.82 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.66.

For context, in its fiscal 2026 second quarter (ended July 27), Nvidia’s data center segment, driven primarily by AI, grew 56% year over year, down from 73% growth in Q1, which shows its growth is decelerating.

However, it was management’s commentary that gave investors cause to celebrate, as Broadcom delivered two pieces of news that bode well for the future.

First, Broadcom stated that it continues to expand its business with its three biggest hyperscale customers. While the company doesn’t disclose who these customers are, they are widely believed to be Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and TikTok parent ByteDance. During the conference call to discuss the results, CEO Hock Tam said, “We continue to gain share at our three original customers.” He went on to say the company is forecasting its AI-centric growth to be higher next year, accelerating compared to the 50% to 60% growth it expects in 2025.

The other big development was that Broadcom confirmed the addition of a fourth big hyperscale customer, which many analysts believe to be OpenAI. The company said this new client moved from prospect to “qualified customer,” and had approved production of “AI racks based on our XPUs.” As a result, Broadcom boosted its backlog by $10 billion to $110 billion.

The next Nvidia?

Wall Street’s reaction to Broadcom’s results was decidedly bullish, as no fewer than 16 analysts boosted their price targets on the stock. Many of these cited the accelerating demand for Broadcom’s ASICs as a factor.

Ben Reitzes of Melius Research views Broadcom as a “Magnificent Eight” stock, arguing that it should be added to the Magnificent 7 stocks. He goes on to say that he has long believed that Nvidia’s share would fall over time, with Broadcom eventually taking a roughly 30% share of the AI compute market.

That said, Reitzes also believes that a rising tide lifts all boats, and both companies will be massive winners as the adoption of AI continues to gain steam. That said, the analyst points out that over the long term, Nvidia’s CUDA programming library shouldn’t be underestimated, as this software ecosystem is favored by developers and provides Nvidia with a significant competitive advantage.

So while Broadcom will likely be the next Nvidia, the demand for AI continues to climb, and the market will be able to support two major players, so Nvidia and Broadcom will likely both be market-beating investments from here.

From a valuation perspective, the recent spike in Broadcom’s stock price has seen a commensurate increase in its multiple. Broadcom stock is currently selling for 37 times next year’s earnings, compared to 27 for Nvidia. Both are trading for a premium, but both are also well-positioned to profit from the growing adoption of AI.

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Danny Vena has positions in Alphabet, Broadcom, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.



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From Automation to Autonomy: Agentic AI in 2025

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For decades, automation has been the bedrock of enterprise efficiency. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), workflow scripts, and machine learning models have streamlined tasks, reduced errors, and accelerated outcomes. But in 2025, efficiency is no longer enough. Enterprises need systems that not only execute tasks but also reason, adapt, and self-direct.

Enter Agentic AI — the next wave of enterprise intelligence. Unlike traditional AI, which operates within predefined constraints, Agentic AI systems demonstrate autonomy, goal-driven behavior, and adaptability, enabling them to handle dynamic, real-world complexity with minimal oversight.

This article explores how Agentic AI is redefining workflows across industries, why it matters now, and how Uber AI Solutions is powering this shift at global scale.



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AI prompt injection gets real — with macros the latest hidden threat

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“Attackers conceal instructions via ultra-small fonts, background-matched text, ASCII smuggling using Unicode Tags, macros that inject payloads at parsing time, and even file metadata (e.g., DOCX custom properties, PDF/XMP, EXIF),” Granoša explained. “These vectors evade human review yet are fully parsed and executed by LLMs, enabling indirect prompt injection.”

Countermeasures

Justin Endres, head of data security at cybersecurity vendor Seclore, argued that security leaders can’t rely on legacy tools alone to defend against malicious prompts that turn “everyday files into Trojan horses for AI systems.”

“[Security leaders] need layered defenses that sanitize content before it ever reaches an AI parser, enforce strict guardrails around model inputs, and keep humans in the loop for critical workflows,” Endres advised. “Otherwise, attackers will be the ones writing the prompts that shape your AI’s behavior.”



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