Gatik, a startup developing an autonomous vehicle stack for B2B short-haul logistics, today announced it has raised $9 million, with $1 million coming from a partnership with Ontario's Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN). Gatik says the AVIN collaboration -- part of an Ontario government program providing R&D, business, technical, and talent support, as well as vehicle test tracks -- will help it understand how inclement weather affects its vehicles' movements Some experts predict the pandemic will hasten adoption of autonomous vehicles for delivery. Self-driving cars, vans, and trucks promise to minimize the risk of spreading disease by limiting driver contact. This is particularly true with regard to short-haul freight, an estimated 30% of which takes place in snowy and icy conditions. The producer price index for local truckload carriage jumped 20.4% from July to August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, most likely propelled by demand for short-haul distribution from warehouses and distribution centers to ecommerce fulfillment centers and stores.

Demand for some of Nvidia's chips has been so hot that it has outpaced the company's ability to increase production, adding to chip-supply shortages riling the semiconductor industry. Nvidia's newest graphics cards were a holiday sensation, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said during an earnings call. She added that some inventories are likely to remain low in the first quarter even as Nvidia increases supply. "Throughout our supply chain, stronger demand globally has limited the availability of capacity and components," Ms. Kress said. President Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order directing a broad review of supply chains for semiconductors and other critical materials.

Nvidia reported revenues of $5.0 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter ended January 31, up 61% from a year earlier. The revenues and non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.10 beat expectations as new gaming hardware and AI products generated strong demand. A year ago, Nvidia reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.89 on revenues of $3.1 billion. The Santa Clara, California-based company makes graphics processing units (GPUs) that can be used for games, AI, and datacenter computing. While many businesses have been hit hard by the pandemic, Nvidia has seen a boost in those areas.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters Corp will streamline technology, close offices and rely more on machines to prepare for a post-pandemic world, the news and information group said on Tuesday, as it reported higher sales and operating profit. The Toronto-headquartered company will spend $500 million to $600 million over two years to burnish its technology credentials, investing in AI and machine learning to get data faster to professional customers increasingly working from home during the coronavirus crisis. Thomson Reuters' New York- and Toronto-listed shares each gained more than 8%. It aims to cut annual operating expenses by $600 million through eliminating duplicate functions, modernizing and consolidating technology, as well as through attrition and shrinking its real estate footprint. Layoffs are not a focus of the cost cuts and there are no current plans to divest assets as part of this plan, the company said.

Hanover, Germany – Continental has acquired a minority stake in Recogni, a German-US start-up working on a new chip architecture for AI-based object-recognition in real time. The San Jose, California-based tech firm's chips are intended for use in Continental's vehicle computers, for example to perform rapid processing of sensor data for automated and autonomous driving. As an investor – percentage stake not disclosed – the Hanover-based group is contributing financial support and expertise in the field of AI, vehicle sensors and advanced driver assistance systems to Recogn's chip design work. Continental said volume production featuring the new chip application could begin as early as 2026: the new processors serving as "ultra-economical data boosters: with minimal energy consumption." The development, it added, will enable vehicle computers to gain a rapid sense of the vehicle's immediate surroundings, thus creating the basis for automated and autonomous driving.

Much about the SoftBank 9984 -0.14% of two decades ago would look familiar to investors today, starting with its guiding principle of betting big on the next tech revolution. Then, as now, global stock markets were on a tear, startups were listing at eye-popping prices, and SoftBank was building a huge stable of private companies. "Structurally, we're at the beginning of the AI [artificial intelligence] revolution, just as we were at the beginning of the internet revolution" in 2000, SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said at a press conference in Tokyo last week where the company reported around $11 billion in quarterly profit. The differences are important, too. Analysts say today's SoftBank, known for its $100 billion Vision Fund, is more capable of withstanding market turbulence, even if stocks take a dive again.

SoftBank Group Corp. has reported a record profit in its Vision Fund as a surging stock market lifted the value of its portfolio companies, but founder Masayoshi Son wiped out a significant chunk of those gains with his controversial trading in derivatives. The Vision Fund on Monday reported a ¥844.1 billion ($8 billion) profit in the December quarter, surpassing record numbers set just a quarter earlier. A global rally in technology shares has boosted the value of SoftBank's stakes in publicly traded firms like Uber Technologies Inc. and paved the way for initial public offerings from the likes of DoorDash Inc. Those gains, which had been widely expected, were offset by fallout from Son's decision last year to start dabbling in trading stocks and options. SoftBank posted a ¥285.3 billion derivatives loss in the period.

Elon Musk hosted Tesla's quarterly earnings call Wednesday where he revealed progress of the highly-anticipated Cybertruck and updates to the Full-Driving System (FDS). The CEO says the design of the futuristic vehicle has been finalized and a few are set to be delivered to customers this year – but volume production is set for 2022. Musk also made an ambitious claim that the FDS will have Level 5 autonomy capabilities by the end of 2021. However, FSD was only released as a beta version in November and Tesla's website states'the currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.' Elon Musk hosted Tesla's quarterly earnings call Wednesday where he revealed progress of the highly-anticipated Cybertruck and an updates to the Full-Driving System (FDS) Musk has been tirelessly working to perfect both Tesla's Cybertruck and FDS, but both ventures have had their own obstacles over the years. Musk unveiled the Cybertruck in November 2019 during a live demo that ended with embarrassment – and some profanity. It has been more than a year since Elon Musk unveiled Tesla's Cybertruck that ended with embarrassment when the'shatterproof' window did not hold up to its name.

It's 2021 and nearly 7 percent of the US workforce is currently idle on account of the pandemic but heck if Tesla CEO Elon Musk isn't still making money hand over fist. He's surpassed Jeff Bezos as the richest person on the planet over the past year, all while his company has delivered a record number of electric vehicles to Tesla customers worldwide. The company reportedly handed off 499,550 vehicles in 2020 -- just a hair shy of its 500k delivery target and a 36 percent increase over 2019's delivery figures. The company credits strong sales of the Model Y in the Chinese market for helping reach that high water mark. "Given Tesla's stock doubling again since November, we believe... bulls are betting on Tesla leading commercialization of autonomous vehicles technology," Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch told Yahoo! Finance in a note last week.

In the latest quarter, revenue fell 6.5% to $20.37 billion, missing analysts' projections, according to FactSet. Shares fell 6.8% in after-hours trading. IBM's stock closed at $131.65 on Thursday, down 5.4% over the past year. IBM, which had suspended financial projections last year over uncertainty about the pandemic's business impact, said Thursday that it expects revenue to grow this year and anticipates $11 billion to $12 billion in adjusted free cash flow for the year and $12 billion to $13 billion in 2022. "The actions we are taking to focus on hybrid cloud and [artificial intelligence] will take hold, giving us confidence we can achieve revenue growth in 2021," Mr. Krishna.