Everyone Saw This Coming
A series of “high blast radius” outages on Amazon’s [AMZN] website and shopping app were partly attributable to “novel GenAI usage for which best practices and safeguards are not yet fully established”, according to a briefing note seen by the Financial Times. Elsewhere, Amazon Web Services has had at least two incidents linked to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) coding assistants. The firm has had multiple rounds of layoffs in recent months, although it says this has nothing to do with the outages.
TSMC Revenue Climbs on AI Demand
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co [TSM] reported January–February 2026 revenue of NT$718.9bn, up about 30% year-over-year, driven by strong AI-related chip demand. February revenue reached NT$317.7bn, down from January but up 22.2% annually. TSMC produces chips for major tech firms including Apple [AAPL], Nvidia [NVDA] and Advanced Micro Devices [AMD], and recently approved a NT$6.0 dividend and $45bn for fab expansion, Seeking Alpha outlined.
AI Demand Propels HPE to a Strong Q1
Hewlett Packard Enterprise [HPE] reported a strong start to fiscal 2026, with CEO Antonio Neri saying revenue landed at the high end of guidance and EPS hit a record high, driven by networking, cloud and AI demand. Orders exceeded revenue as customers ramped up spending. HPE also completed phase one of its Juniper Networks integration and expects DRAM and NAND price pressures to persist into 2027.
Earnings Season Round-up
Despite a challenging macro environment, the recent earnings season was largely positive, with many companies striking a bullish tone. According to data compiled by FactSet, 73% of S&P 500 constituents beat earnings expectations in results reported between December 15 and March 5, with 21% missing estimates and 6% in line with them. OPTO looks at how some of the major names performed in their most recently reported quarter.
Europe’s Largest-Ever Seed Funding Round
On Tuesday, Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs raised $1.03bn, highlighting investor interest in AI that goes beyond large language models (LLMs); the round puts the company at a $3.5bn pre-money valuation. Founded by former Meta [META] AI chief Yann LeCun, the company is working to build so-called “world models” trained on spatial data and videos, with potential applications in robotics and transport.
Anthropic Fights Back
The maker of the Claude LLM has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the US government after the Pentagon labeled it a “supply chain risk”. The company argues the action violates the First Amendment, as the Trump administration’s directive for agencies to stop using Anthropic products has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in potential contract losses. Anthropic is not seeking monetary damages, but is asking a California federal court to strike down the directive as unconstitutional.
Navigating the Memory Supercycle: A Chipmaker’s Bet
Historically focused on the consumer electronics market, Silicon Motion [SIMO] now wants a share of the AI pie. On Foresight, our Substack platform, OPTO details how the firm is expanding into AI infrastructure, with its MonTitan platform expected to contribute 5% to 10% of revenue in 2026. SIMO stock reached a record high of $146.85 in February 2026; all 10 analysts covering the stock rated it a ‘buy’, with an average price target of $158.56.
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