Shares in the chipmaker were lower in pre-market trading, after closing Friday’s session with a 3% drop, following the launch last week of Chinese generative AI program DeepSeek, which claimed to be able to outperform rival offerings at a fraction of their cost.
DeepSeek- which is funded by Chinese quant firm High-Flyer made its R1 large language model (LLM) open source, and also released a paper outlining how advanced LLMs can be built on much smaller budgets.
The project took only $6m (£4.81m) to train and it appears to perform on par with leading AI models, despite US government restrictions on exports of advanced chips.
DeepSeek's apparent advances have raised questions over the computing power needed to develop AI systems, a key driver for AI stocks.
"DeepSeek clearly doesn't have access to as much compute as US hyperscalers and somehow managed to develop a model that appears highly competitive," Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri told the Wall Street Journal. "The natural question is, how would DeepSeek's emergence impact compute intensity growth and the demand for hardware/semiconductors?"
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, was trending in pre-market trading today, despite showing limited movement. Investors are biding their time ahead of the Q4 earnings report, scheduled for release on February 4.
Wall Street analysts are forecasting robust results for the tech giant. They project earnings per share (EPS) growth of 29%, reaching $2.12, with revenue climbing 12% to $96.7bn for the quarter.
Google’s core business — internet search advertising — is expected to see an 11% increase, totalling $53.29bn. Meanwhile, YouTube’s advertising revenue is anticipated to grow by the same percentage, reaching $10.24bn. Alphabet’s cloud computing division is also on track for a good performance, with a projected 32% growth to $12.1bn.
The Q4 earnings call will be the first for Alphabet’s new chief financial officer, Anat Ashkenazi, who is expected to outline her strategic priorities to analysts.
Alphabet also remains a popular pick among hedge fund managers. According to Insider Monkey data, 202 hedge fund investors have increased their positions in the company. Investors are particularly drawn to Google Cloud, which continues to grow at a 35% year-on-year rate, generating $11.4bn in quarterly revenue.
Shares in the Chinese stock were trending, after closing Friday’s session with a 3.5% gain, amid growing speculation about the company’s potential in artificial intelligence, particularly driven by advancements from the AI startup DeepSeek.
Investors are hopeful that these developments could significantly enhance the AI capabilities of major Chinese tech players like Alibaba.
However, the e-commerce giant has faced several quarters of underperformance, and its stock has followed suit, making it an increasingly appealing prospect for investors. Some are betting that the surge in AI-focused initiatives backed by Beijing will give Alibaba’s share price a needed boost.
In a show of confidence, Hong Kong-based investment firm Perennial International revealed on Monday that it had acquired an additional 50,000 shares in Alibaba. The firm cited its strong belief in the company’s long-term growth potential and its intention to benefit from Alibaba’s future financial performance as key reasons for the move.
Shares in global healthcare giant Novo Nordisk were trending in pre-market trading on Monday, following Friday’s announcement of promising trial results for its next-generation obesity drug, amycretin.
The trial data revealed that patients taking the highest dose of amycretin — 20 milligrams — achieved an estimated 22% body weight reduction over 36 weeks. This compares closely with the 22.5% weight loss seen with Eli Lilly’s (LLY) obesity treatment, Zepbound, which achieved similar results over 72 weeks.
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly’s next-generation obesity drug, retatrutide, demonstrated a slightly higher average weight reduction of 24.4% over 48 weeks.
The upbeat news sent Novo Nordisk’s shares surging by as much as 14% during Friday’s trading session, before settling to close 7.13% higher in Copenhagen. In the US, shares ended the day up 8%.
Shares in GSK surged nearly 2% in early trading in London after the pharmaceutical giant announced it would invest £50m in a groundbreaking project with the University of Oxford.
The initiative aims to explore whether vaccines could be used to prevent certain cancers, marking a major step forward in cancer prevention research.
The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) company revealed that, under the three-year collaboration, it would focus on understanding whether vaccines could be developed to prevent cancer by targeting precancerous cells before they progress into full-blown malignancies. GSK emphasised that most cancers take years or even decades to develop, providing a potential window for drugs to identify and eliminate precancerous cells through the immune system.
Tony Wood, GSK's chief scientific officer, said the goal of the project is to “generate key insights for people at risk of developing cancer.”
The company highlighted Oxford’s expertise in identifying and sequencing neoantigens — tumour-specific proteins that can prompt the immune system to recognise and fight cancerous cells. These insights could ultimately lead to the development of vaccines or other therapies aimed at targeting pre-cancerous cells.
GSK’s investment in the research reflects its commitment to advancing innovative cancer treatments, while also opening the door to a new frontier in cancer prevention.
