Author: Anusuya Lahiri

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google DeepMind is expanding in Singapore with a new research lab to accelerate real-world artificial intelligence applications via advanced research, top regional talent, and direct collaboration with the government.

DeepMind noted Singapore’s ambitious National AI Strategy 2.0, Smart Nation initiatives, and openness to global expertise make the city-state a prime hub for growth in the Asia-Pacific region — the world’s fastest-expanding market.

The new lab will strengthen Gemini development, advance inclusive AI for diverse Asian languages and cultures, and support deployments across Google products and Cloud customers.

Also Read: Google Looks To Germany For AI, Data Center Expansion As Alphabet Commits $6.4 Billion

DeepMind’s team in Singapore — which more than doubled over the past year — will work closely with public agencies, leading universities, and businesses to apply AI in science, cybersecurity, education, and startup innovation.

The company highlighted successful partnerships in Parkinson’s research using AlphaFold, public-sector AI testing with GovTech and CSA, multilingual AI advancements with AI Singapore.

DeepMind’s AGI Ambitions and Industry Challenges

DeepMind has become a key force in artificial intelligence by pushing breakthroughs in deep reinforcement learning and scientific discovery, all while pursuing its goal of building Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that supports human progress.

In August, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis warned that inconsistent performance remains a major roadblock to AGI, noting that even top models like Gemini can ace Olympiad-level math yet stumble on simpler problems, and arguing that real progress will demand better testing and tougher benchmarks—not just bigger datasets and more compute.

Analyst Concerns Over Infrastructure and Market Outlook

Bank of America’s Haim Israel warned that AI’s explosive growth is outpacing global infrastructure, arguing that supporting next year’s expected surge in data-center demand would require more land than Singapore and more power than Japan, while also straining water supplies.

He urged the industry to look beyond small, short-term applications and recognize AI’s far broader potential in fields like drug discovery and climate science, even as future technologies such as quantum computing raise resource needs even higher.

Price Action: GOOGL stock was trading higher by 1.43% to $288.34 premarket at last check Wednesday.

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PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock gained on Tuesday after it announced an OpenAI collaboration, upbeat third-quarter 2025 results, and the initiation of a dividend plan.

• PPL is in a favorable position. See the full breakdown here

The Venmo parent reported a quarterly revenue growth of 7% year-over-year to $8.42 billion, topping the analyst consensus estimate of $8.23 billion. 

The adjusted EPS was $1.34, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $1.20.

Also Read: PayPal Expands Honey With AI Shopping Tools To Turn Searches Into Purchases

Transaction Metrics And Margins

Total payment volumes rose by 8% year-over-year, reaching $458.1 billion in the quarter. However, payment transactions declined by 5%, totaling 6.3 billion.

On a trailing 12-month basis, the number of payment transactions per active account decreased by 6%, averaging $57.6.

The total number of active accounts increased by 1%, reaching 438 million. Sequentially, active accounts rose by 0.1%, or 0.3 million accounts.

The operating margin improved by 33 basis points to 18.1%. The adjusted operating margin decreased by 19 basis points to 18.6%.

The company generated a quarterly operating cash flow of $2 billion, free cash flow of $1.7 billion, and an adjusted free cash flow of $2.3 billion.

PayPal held $14.4 billion in cash and equivalents as of September 30, with $11.4 billion in debt.

Dividend

PayPal’s Board of Directors approved the launch of a quarterly cash dividend program. It declared an initial dividend of 14 cents per share. The dividend is payable on December 10, 2025, to shareholders of record as of November 19, 2025.

The payout represents roughly 10% of PayPal’s adjusted net income.

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said the company achieved another strong quarter and raised its guidance as growth accelerated across branded checkout, payment services, and Venmo.

OpenAI Deal

He stated that PayPal has returned to sustained growth and remains on track to deliver 6%–7% transaction margin dollar growth in 2025, excluding interest on customer balances. Chriss emphasized that PayPal is preparing for an AI-driven future through partnerships with Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity.

On Tuesday, PayPal also announced plans to adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to expand payments and shopping capabilities within ChatGPT.

The move will enable millions of ChatGPT users to complete instant checkouts using PayPal, while PayPal will process payments for merchants through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout system.

Through this partnership, PayPal will integrate its wallet features—including multiple payment methods, buyer and seller protections, and post-purchase services such as tracking and dispute resolution—into ChatGPT’s commerce experience. It will also manage card payments using its delegated payments API.

Beyond commerce, PayPal is deepening its AI collaboration with OpenAI by deploying ChatGPT Enterprise for its 24,000 employees, enabling developers with Codex, and expanding internal use of OpenAI APIs to accelerate innovation and improve customer experiences.

Outlook

PayPal expects a fourth-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.27 to $1.31, compared to the analyst consensus estimate of $1.31.

PayPal expects a full-year 2025 adjusted EPS of $5.35-$5.39 (up from prior forecast of $5.15-$5.30). Current analysts estimate an EPS of $5.24.

PYPL Price Action: PayPal Holdings shares were up 16.68% at $81.97 during premarket trading on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT), the world’s leading supplier of equipment, software, and services for manufacturing semiconductor chips, flat-panel displays, and solar products, announced on October 23 a plan to reduce its global workforce by approximately 4%.

Strategic Rationale

Following the news, the stock slipped in the premarket session on Friday. The workforce reduction is framed as a strategic move to reposition the company for future growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness.

In an email to employees, CEO Gary Dickerson attributed the action to evolving business needs, stating that “automation, digitalization, and geographic shifts are redefining the company’s workforce needs.”

Also Read: Applied Materials Partners With GlobalFoundries To Accelerate Photonics

He continued, explaining that this coordinated action will accelerate the company’s existing plans to build higher-velocity teams, adopt new technologies, and simplify its organizational structure.

Financial Impact of Restructuring

Affected employees began receiving notifications on the same day. The company expects to incur one-time charges between $160 million and $180 million, primarily for severance and termination benefits.

The majority of these charges are slated for recognition in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, with the plan anticipated to be fully completed by the first quarter of fiscal 2026.

Strong Market Performance Fueled by AI

The restructuring comes as the semiconductor giant rides the surging wave of demand for AI infrastructure. Applied Materials’ stock has delivered impressive year-to-date returns, gaining over 40%, significantly outpacing the Nasdaq 100 index’s over 19% return. This performance is largely backed by the global movement toward AI integration across the data center and cloud space.

To capitalize on this momentum and enhance the performance of chips powering artificial intelligence, Applied Materials has launched a new suite of advanced semiconductor manufacturing systems.

Broader Tech Industry Context and Parallel Layoffs

Applied Materials is not alone in its corporate rationalization. Major technology firms, including Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), and Google parent Alphabet, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), have been executing significant job cuts, in the hundreds and thousands, concurrently with aggressive investments in AI technology to unlock future value.

For instance, Meta confirmed on Wednesday that it is eliminating approximately 600 positions within its AI division to streamline operations.

This move is part of a broader restructuring following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s reported dissatisfaction with Meta’s recent AI progress, despite the company recently investing billions in Scale AI, hiring a new Chief AI Officer, and creating a new “Superintelligence Lab” to accelerate its AI development.

Price Action: AMAT stock was trading lower by 0.68% to $226.91 premarket at last check Friday.

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Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is aggressively accelerating its artificial intelligence deployment, a strategy bolstering its cloud business and fueling significant stock appreciation.

The company’s multifaceted AI push is marked by the launch of two new dense visual-language models within the Qwen3-VL family and the internal development of a conversational AI initiative codenamed “Plan C.”

This dual focus on advanced models and strategic cloud expansion positions Alibaba to drive robust revenue growth.

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Advanced Models and Edge AI Deployment

Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen team has unveiled two new dense AI large language models, the 2B and 32B, for its Qwen3-VL suite, substantially enhancing capabilities for visual-language understanding tasks.

These models are engineered for efficiency; the company emphasizes that both are lightweight enough to run on smartphones and are designed to be more “developer-friendly,” as reported by TechNode on Wednesday.

Notably, the Qwen3-VL-32B reportedly rivals the performance of larger systems, including OpenAI’s GPT-5 mini and Anthropic’s Claude 4 Sonnet, while the 2B model facilitates efficient deployment on edge devices.

Simultaneously, Alibaba’s Quark business unit is spearheading an internal AI project, “Plan C,” according to Chinese tech media Sina Tech.

The project, led by Quark’s core team with support from Alibaba’s Tongyi Lab, is centered on developing conversational AI products.

Sources indicate the team has been working on “Plan C” for months as part of a long-term effort linked to model breakthroughs, signaling a direct challenge to ByteDance’s chatbot, Doubao.

Cloud Growth Fuels Stock Gains

The market has reacted positively to Alibaba’s AI and cloud focus, with the stock gaining nearly 97% year-to-date as its strategic investments begin to unlock tangible value.

Analysts overwhelmingly attribute this rebound to the strong performance of Alibaba Cloud.

Goldman Sachs, for example, cited Alibaba Cloud’s full-stack AI capabilities, diversified chip supply, and international expansion as crucial growth drivers, prompting the firm to raise cloud revenue forecasts to 31–38% over the next three fiscal years.

Daiwa Securities highlighted cost optimizations, marketing reductions, and supply-side expansion as factors projected to reduce EBITA losses while forecasting 30% year-over-year revenue growth for Alibaba Cloud.

Furthermore, China International Capital Corporation (CICC) emphasized new AI models, applications, and hardware unveiled at the Apsara Conference, alongside supply-side advantages, as key drivers of sustained revenue and profit growth.

Price Action: BABA stock was trading lower by 0.34% to $166.10 premarket at last check Wednesday.

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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is seeing renewed momentum in its crucial cloud business, primarily fueled by robust demand for security services within Azure.

This strength comes as the tech giant prepares for its fiscal first-quarter 2026 earnings release on October 29, 2025, and points toward a future requiring significantly higher capital expenditure.

Upbeat Forecasts Ahead of Earnings

Reflecting this optimism, Bank of America Securities analyst Brad Sills maintained a Buy rating on Microsoft, accompanied by a price forecast of $640.

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Channel partners report a consistent pace of deal activity and increasing enterprise investment in AI and data infrastructure, signaling enduring corporate confidence in Microsoft’s central role in technology roadmaps, Sills noted.

The analyst said most partners reported results that were inline or better, supporting his expectation for up to 1% upside to the $77 billion revenue estimate — up 18.2% year-over-year (16.2% in constant currency or cc).

He expects Azure growth of 39% (38% cc) versus a base case of 38% (37% cc), noting that while Azure’s performance was broadly inline, security strength offset some softness in workloads affected by capacity constraints and customers taking more time to build long-term AI roadmaps.

Sills views both factors as positive for Microsoft’s deeper enterprise integration.

The analyst projects Productivity and Business Processes (PBP) growth of 22.7% (21.7% cc) versus a 22.2% (21.2% cc) base case, driven by steady momentum in E3/E5 commercial Office licenses.

AI Infrastructure and Capex Outlook

He said Microsoft continues to take a strategic, measured approach to expanding AI infrastructure while balancing scale and energy independence.

Sills cited growing visibility into compute investments, including Microsoft’s role in the Aligned Data Centers acquisition with BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) and Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), as evidence of durable demand despite Azure’s current capacity limits.

The analyst expects upward revisions to fiscal 2026 capex forecasts from consensus at $115 billion (36% of revenue) to around $125 billion (38% of revenue).

Despite the stock lagging since fourth-quarter results (down 4% versus Nasdaq +6%), he views potential capex revisions as a key catalyst.

Sills also flagged two additional drivers including potential margin expansion through fiscal 2026 and accelerating commercial Office growth, expected to rise from 14% due to continued E3/E5 and Copilot adoption.

The analyst called Microsoft a top pick and an AI leader across both applications and infrastructure. Channel partners echoed his view, citing strong Azure, AI, and security momentum.

Sills projected fiscal 2026 sales of $322.1 billion and EPS of $15.24. He expects first-quarter sales of $77.5 billion and EPS of $3.64.

MSFT Price Action: MSFT stock was trading higher by 0.66% to $516.97 at last check Monday.

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Snowflake Inc (NYSE:SNOW) is gaining momentum as it sharpens its go-to-market strategy and scales its cloud platform to meet soaring enterprise demand for artificial intelligence solutions, driving stronger deal flow and deeper integration across industries.

• SNOW is building positive momentum. Find out why here.

The company continues to expand its AI Data Cloud, with half of new customers using Snowflake for AI workloads and 25% engaging its AI capabilities weekly.

It is a sign that its innovation engine and partnerships, are fueling long-term growth in the fast-evolving data infrastructure market.

Also Read: Snowflake’s Palantir Deal Is Key To Unlock Massive AI, Government Data Opportunities: Analyst

Analyst Take

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives maintained Snowflake with an Outperform rating and raised the price forecast from $250 to $270.

Ives cited accelerating momentum as the company fine-tunes its go-to-market strategy and scales its platform through stronger engineering, innovation, and marketing execution.

The analyst said Snowflake still has significant room to expand as it integrates simplicity and scalability across its data cloud, positioning itself to capture a larger share of the AI market opportunity.

He emphasized that Snowflake remains in the early stages of monetizing AI demand, with a growing share of its customer base leveraging the platform for advanced AI use cases.

Ives commented that half of new customers now use Snowflake for AI-related workloads, while approximately 25% of existing organizations rely on Snowflake’s AI capabilities on a weekly basis.

Snowflake continues to enhance its Cortex platform, focusing on improving retrieval quality and unifying data early in the lifecycle to optimize workflows and drive efficiency, the analyst told.

AI

Despite facing intense competition in a multi-trillion-dollar AI and data infrastructure market, he believes Snowflake’s “innovation engine” remains a major differentiator.

Ives highlighted that enterprises are increasingly adopting Snowflake’s easy-to-use AI products to streamline operations, boost productivity, and consolidate data workflows across cloud environments.

The analyst said Snowflake is still in the early innings of modernizing data infrastructure for the generative AI era, with large enterprises across sectors turning to the platform for data preparation, analytics, and storage.

The company continues to expand its data engine by combining analytical and transactional capabilities and allowing users to act on larger datasets that historically existed outside Snowflake’s environment, he said.

Ives noted that Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud has evolved into a connected ecosystem of shared data applications, with thousands of customers securely collaborating via the Snowflake Marketplace.

This ecosystem supports enterprise-grade performance and cross-industry data sharing, the analyst noted.

Palantir Partnership

Ives also pointed to Snowflake’s strategic partnership with Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE:PLTR) as a growth catalyst.

The integration of Snowflake’s Data Cloud with Palantir’s Foundry and AIP platforms enables faster analytics, stronger data pipelines, and more trusted AI-driven applications for commercial and federal clients,as per Ives.

The analyst called Snowflake a “second-derivative winner” of the AI boom and one of Wedbush’s top picks in its AI 30 list, expecting it to capitalize on growing AI adoption over the next 12 to 18 months.

Ives projected third-quarter revenue of $1.18 billion and EPS of $0.35. He projected fiscal 2026 revenue of $4.61 billion and EPS of $1.30.

SNOW Price Action: Snowflake shares were up 1.20% at $243.64 at the time of publication on Monday. The stock is approaching its 52-week high of $255.39, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 17 series outsold the iPhone 16 lineup by 14% in the first 10 days of sales across China and the U.S., Apple’s two largest markets, according to Counterpoint Research’s China and U.S. third-quarter 2025 Smartphone Sell-Out Tracker.

The base iPhone 17 has driven demand in China as consumers responded positively to its strong value proposition, featuring a faster chip, better display, larger storage, and upgraded selfie camera at the same price as the iPhone 16.

The base model has driven strong sales, with overall sell-outs up nearly 33%. In China, consumer demand for the base model has nearly doubled compared to the iPhone 16.

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In the U.S., the iPhone 17 Pro Max saw the fastest demand surge as major carriers raised device subsidies by 10% to target ultra-premium buyers through long-term financing plans, boosting Apple’s ecosystem loyalty.

Meanwhile, the eSIM-only iPhone Air slightly outperformed the iPhone 16 Plus. Apple opened pre-orders for the Air in China on October 17, a key step for eSIM adoption in the region, though its higher price and shorter pre-order window could limit its initial appeal.

Apple shares climbed on Monday, marking nearly a 7% gain over the past 12 months.

Analyst Commentary

Analysts have highlighted that Apple is gaining momentum from the strong demand for the iPhone 17. However, they felt investors may need to wait until results from the September and December quarters to gauge the full impact.

Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said that the global iPhone’s 17 lead times indicate steady consumer demand. Three weeks after release, average wait times across eight countries were 2.29 weeks — about 13% longer than the iPhone 16’s 2.02 weeks.

Munster expects a slight miss in Apple’s fourth-quarter iPhone sales due to limited contribution from the new model, but anticipates substantial upside in fiscal 2026.

He also projects iPhone revenue to rise over 8% in fiscal 2026, exceeding Wall Street’s 5% consensus. He expects Apple’s guidance for the December quarter to “come in ahead of both the published estimates and the whisper number.”

JPMorgan on Robust Upgrade Cycle

Apple is riding strong demand for its iPhone 17 Series, fueled by loyal users upgrading to premium models and expanding traction in China, according to JPMorgan.

Analyst Samik Chatterjee said JPMorgan’s latest consumer survey points to a robust upgrade cycle led by existing iPhone owners, even as interest from Android users softens compared with last year.

Performance, design, and camera improvements remain the top drivers of upgrades, while AI features ranked lower in purchase motivation, Chatterjee noted.

Price Action: Apple shares were trading higher by 1.81% to $256.85 premarket at last check Monday.

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Goldman Sachs urged investors to focus on Chinese companies expanding overseas, citing a weaker yuan, cost advantages, and China’s strength in global supply chains as growth catalysts.

In a report led by analysts Si Fu and Kinger Lau, Goldman identified 25 top picks, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), and BYD Co Ltd (OTC:BYDDY) (OTC:BYDDF), as key beneficiaries of this “going global” trend.

Goldman said these companies — spanning e-commerce, capital goods, and healthcare — have already gained nearly 40% year-to-date, outperforming the Hang Seng Index’s 29% and the CSI 300 Index’s 16% rise, SCMP reported on Monday.

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Overseas Expansion to Boost Earnings Growth

The bank expects its overseas expansion to accelerate earnings growth by about 1.5% annually through 2028 as firms diversify beyond China’s saturated domestic market.

Goldman highlighted Alibaba’s overseas revenue doubling to 13% in 2023 from 7% in 2021 and CATL’s climbing to 30% from 21%, reflecting their rising global competitiveness.

While Goldman acknowledged that potential 100% U.S. tariffs under Trump’s trade agenda could trim short-term profits by around 10%, it said Chinese firms’ international diversification should offset the impact over time.

Alibaba Stock Soars on AI and Cloud Momentum

Alibaba is considered the tech barometer of China. The stock gained 97% year-to-date, topping NYSE Composite index’s over 12% returns as its cloud unit and AI model integration across its business segments and other enterprises fuel upside for the stock.

Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities, and China International Capital Corporation (CICC) expressed optimism over Alibaba’s cloud growth, AI breakthroughs, and early e-commerce recovery as key catalysts behind its rally.

Goldman Sachs raised its cloud revenue growth forecasts to 31–38% through fiscal 2028, citing advances in multimodal AI models and a diversified chip supply.

Daiwa Securities projected Alibaba Cloud revenue to climb 30% year-over-year in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 and expects operating losses to peak soon before narrowing on lower marketing and logistics costs.

CICC forecast 3.8% revenue growth for the same quarter and 30% cloud growth, saying new AI products and hardware unveiled at Alibaba’s Apsara Conference will support sustained profit gains.

Price Action: BABA stock was trading lower by 0.62% to $166.02 premarket at last check Monday.

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