As our "Virtual Route 66" continues, our team hereby presents a visionary snapshot of our World with thoughts courtesy the team at Startegy and Business, The National's Future Beat, Bloomberg Spark, and the Information:
In brief | During a discussion looking at the effect of AI at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, managing director and chief executive of Mubadala Investment Company reflected on why he felt the UAE was so quick to identify AI as an unprecedented and transformational technology.
He pointed out that the UAE's economic history, going all the way back to the rise and fall of the pearl industry, provided a teachable moment that would reside in the minds of many amid a pivot to invest so heavily in AI.
In short, he said, it is best to always embrace new developments, and not depend on any one industry for too long.
Why it matters | When speaking about AI, it is easy and incredibly appropriate to always think of it in terms of the future.
Mr Al Mubarak's decision to recently talk about the past during a round-table discussion on AI, however, struck a chord.
We can look to history to better inform how we handle technological transformation, while also calming our nerves by looking at the doom and gloom scenarios that never really came to fruition.
There might not be a historical parallel for every new tech development, but that misses the point. We have to learn from the past.
Quoted | “Our main industry was pearl diving. We used to dive for pearls. Our ancestors … that's what they did and then we had a technological revolution by the Japanese which was the artificial pearl. You had our country [UAE] that depended on one product, on one industry, that suddenly got disrupted by technology. And that was a huge, huge lesson for us as a people. We then discovered oil and gas, and then the rest is history. However over the last 50 years one of the things we focused on as a nation was not to make that same mistake again, not to suffer from a technological revolution that would take us years back.
– Khaldoon Al Mubarak, managing director and chief executive of Mubadala Investment Company
Future in focus
New designs | Sheikh Hamdan announces new icons aimed at increasing AI transparency
Partnership prosperity | Why Microsoft’s president is so optimistic about what AI will do for the Middle East
Superintelligence efforts | What is ASI and how does it trump today's AI?
Virtual academies | Is the traditional bricks-and-mortar school set to be replaced by online academies?
Predicting the future: Signal or noise?
The race is on to create a smartphone without any ports. The catch, however, is charging. Apple's decision to quietly never release a wireless charging product first announced in 2017 spoke volumes about how wireless charging was not quite ready for prime time. New comments from Samsung executive, show that while progress has been made, there is still room for improvement.
This is a signal: Although quite prevalent, wireless charging still lacks the consistency and speed to be relied on in clutch situations. Samsung's transparency and acknowledgement that progress still needs to be made in the wireless charging sphere shows that we will still need to carry charging cords with us for the time being. Once the technology is more reliable, however, there will be no looking back and the possibilities will be endless. For now, however, most phones will still have ports.
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Opinion: Why we need more arts and humanities education in the AI era, not less
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The crypto industry today scored its biggest win in Congress with the passage in the House of Representatives of the Genius Act. The bill, which the Senate cleared last month, legitimizes and regulates stablecoins, crypto tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar. President Donald Trump is expected to sign it quickly.
It’s a moment of rejoicing for crypto, which has bounced back from an excruciating downturn and regulatory crackdown under President Joe Biden’s administration. Now companies like Circle, whose stock has ridden the stablecoin boom, are aiming to disrupt traditional finance and payments—and big bank bosses are feeling the heat. During earnings calls this week, the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup all described stablecoins as a competitive threat and said they are ready to react by potentially launching their own.
Still, the bank executives can’t hide their skepticism. “I think they’re real, but I don’t know why you’d want a stablecoin as opposed to just a payment,” said JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on the company’s earnings call this week.
It’s not just big banks that may follow suit. Cross River Bank, which caters to the fintech and crypto industry, is exploring accepting and sending stablecoins directly with its clients. Such transactions would cost less than bank wires. “Stablecoins are a tremendous opportunity,” Benjamin Melnicki, chief compliance officer at Cross River Bank, told me. He added, however, that “they are not going to supplant the existing payment system.”
Cross River’s plan could be attractive to its clients, like Stripe, which is already enabling merchants to accept stablecoins. Cross River is building out crypto wallets in partnership with Fireblocks so it can process the stablecoins.
Despite the skepticism among bankers, stablecoin use is a reality outside the U.S. In countries including Argentina, Nigeria and Brazil, individuals and businesses are using stablecoins to cope with volatile currencies, avoid capital controls and make payments. This is the first major crypto legislation passed under Trump, who became a big crypto fan when the industry poured cash into his campaign. Trump’s family has its own stablecoin, which a fund backed by Abu Dhabi used to make a $2 billion investment.
Meanwhile, some in the regulatory world are anxious about the new law. Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr this week voiced concerns around the reserve requirements the Genius Act imposed on stablecoins. The bill says stablecoins can be backed by cash, short-term treasuries—and uninsured bank deposits. That makes Barr nervous. “My best intuition is that in a couple years, Congress should have to come back and revisit this question, because there’s going to have been some significant problems in the sector,” he said.
Netflix’s Mature Moment
In human years, Netflix is still in its 20s, but as a company, it has entered middle age. The streaming giant reported second-quarter revenue growth of 15.9% on Thursday, almost exactly its growth rate for all of last year.
The current growth trajectory is a big improvement on the roughly 6.5% growth Netflix posted in 2022 and 2023. But it’s come down from the average 25% expansion rate the company enjoyed in the decade from 2012 through 2021.
And the current growth rate doesn’t match the lofty valuation at which Netflix is now trading—nearly 12 times next year’s sales. Spotify, which is growing revenue at about the same rate, is trading at 6.7 times, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Is a correction due?—Martin Peers
- OpenAI is launching ChatGPT agents aimed at automating tasks in Excel and PowerPoint.
- Investors are floating a $100 billion valuation for Anthropic as it rehired key talent from rival, Cursor.
- Billionaire-backed SandboxAQ is under fire, facing scrutiny for CEO spending and stagnant growth.
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