“There was a delay,” Deierling said, speaking alongside other tech executives on the sidelines of the Cisco Connect conference in Toronto on Wednesday. “Suddenly I have all this bandwidth for the Internet and the dot-com era, but now I actually need Amazon and Uber and Netflix and all these other companies.”
AI technology is prepared, no waiting required
While these use cases evolved over time, Deierling said AI doesn’t must wait many years. He said applications for software based on AI technology “already exist” and firms can use them immediately.
“In the dot-com era, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, you started seeing inventory build up … and people were shipping things that weren’t actually selling. We don’t see that at all,” he said in an interview. “This stuff will be used as soon as it’s built.”
The hopeful outlook got here just hours before the corporate reported its latest quarterly results on Wednesday, potentially easing recent jitters amongst some analysts. The company posted net income of $31.9 billion within the third quarter, up from $19.3 billion a yr earlier, while revenue rose 62%. Nvidia’s sales of computer chipsets generally known as graphics processors, that are used to coach powerful AI systems just like the technology behind ChatGPT and image generators, beat analysts’ expectations.
Nvidia, Wall Street’s biggest stock, whose value briefly topped $5 trillion, has struggled this month, losing greater than 10% against the S&P 500 on Tuesday. The stock was trading about 6% higher late Thursday morning. Analysts have been watching the stock closely for possible clues about how the AI sector might evolve as other firms depend on Nvidia’s chips to power their very own AI efforts.
The best online brokers, rated and compared
Despite profit concerns, demand for AI is powerful
While AI-related stocks have been surging for years, there’s growing concern that overspending within the industry may not produce the profits hoped for. Other industry leaders also downplayed those concerns at Wednesday’s conference. Francois Chadwick, chief financial officer of Toronto technology company Cohere, likened the demand for AI to a “constant drumbeat.”
“There’s a real need,” Chadwick said in an interview, adding that within the early days of the Internet, some tech firms were “building things that no one really needed or wanted. Right now there’s the demand, the need. Businesses, corporations, governments – everyone’s asking for it.”
“This doesn’t mean that all investments in AI will bear fruit,” warned Tom Gillis, senior vice chairman and general manager of infrastructure and security at Cisco. He said that in disruptions of this magnitude, “there have to be winners and losers. Someone will make a bet and do something that turns out to be wrong,” Gillis said.
The article continues below promoting
X
“But do I believe there might be some kind of pullback and say, ‘Oh, it seems AI is not that useful?’ Just go into your chat interface after which tell me… It’s really, really, really helpful and so I believe it warrants a major amount of capital to drive that change.”
Canada is powerful in research, slow in deployment
A study released last month found that only 8% of Canadian organizations are considered “AI ready.” According to the CiscoAI Readiness Index, nearly three-quarters of respondents in Canada plan to deploy AI agents and 34% expect to be working with employees inside a yr, but few have the secure infrastructure to sustain it. Those who’re fully prepared are 50% more prone to see measurable value.
Deierling described Canada as “a leader in research and lagging behind in deployment” relating to AI use. “And I don’t understand why,” he said. “I mean, you have the core competency, the people who understand this. You have all kinds of companies that should benefit from this, and so I think it’s just a question of will.”
However, Deierling acknowledged that many firms remain afraid of AI. He said the secret’s to start out small and infrequently deal with internal use cases relatively than “putting your entire company on an AI that you may not understand how to implement.”
“Every company is ready to use AI, they just don’t know it,” he said. “The risk isn’t that high. Deploy something and start using it and you’ll find that there are such large increases in productivity that the demand will completely drive the next generation.”
Get free MoneyDown financial suggestions, news and advice in your inbox.
Read more news:
