The global insurance industry will grow more strongly than the global economy in 2018 and 2019, Munich Re predicts in its latest outlook. "This year and next, we expect global premium to grow by more than €460 billion in all. This is equivalent to average annual premium growth of 5.3% (in real terms, i.e., adjusted for inflation: 3.7%), whereas global GDP is expected to grow by only 4.9% (3.3% in real terms). Life insurance, in particular, looks set to return to strong annual premium growth of 5.6% (3.9% in real terms) after a weak 2017. Property-casualty insurance is benefiting from the currently favorable economic environment. In this segment, we are expecting annual growth rates of close to 5% (3.3% in real terms). Emerging countries are the primary growth drivers, but somewhat stronger growth rates in high-volume industrialized countries are also contributing to this positive development."

Roundup Here's your quick roundup of AI news beyond what we've already written about this week. Crypto-mining is bust for Nvidia: Nvidia reported strong growth in its second quarter financial results, emitted this week, in areas expected like the data center and gaming – but not for cryptocurrency mining. The demand for GPUs grew 40 per cent from last year to account for $2.66bn in sales, we're told. Popular online titles such as Fortnite and PUBG have helped Nvidia in the gaming department, which grew 52 per cent in terms of revenue to $1.8bn. The boom in deep learning is also accelerating its data center business by 83 per cent, to $760m, where its graphics cards are used as math accelerators.

Owning a car means having the freedom to venture at your own pace… it also means a great deal of expenses, and surprisingly a study found that it might be cheaper to Uber in these major cities than to own a car. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has brought Uber back to basics, refocusing on delivering profitable ride-hailing. Uber wants to be more than your first choice for a ride-sharing service: It wants to infiltrate your life, just as Amazon does. The ride-hailing company, now nine years old, is generating revenue growth, and reinvesting that into a variety of expansive ventures – from scooters and bikes to flying taxis. Uber generated $2.8 billion in revenue last quarter, up 63 percent from the same period a year ago when revenue was about $1.7 billion.

The San Francisco-based company's second-quarter revenue rose 63% from the prior year to $2.8 billion, while gross bookings, a measure of the overall demand for its ride and delivery services, jumped 41% to about $12 billion, according to a financial statement released by Uber. The company narrowed its loss to $891 million in the second quarter from $1.1 billion a year ago. The loss was, however, wider than the $550 million loss in the first quarter of this year, not including a $3 billion gain from the sales of its southeast Asian and Russian operations. The company is spending more money on new businesses such as food delivery and scooters, according to an Uber spokesman. Mr. Khosrowshahi, who replaced ousted Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick last August, has worked to cut expenses at the ride-hailing company in preparation for an initial public offering. This year, he has sold divisions such as the money-losing U.S. car leasing business to Fair.com and its southeast Asian operations to rival Grab Inc.

Uber's efforts to develop self-driving cars also have been bogged down during the past year amid allegations that it stole technology from a Google spinoff and a fatal collision involving one of its robotic cars that ran over a pedestrian in Arizona. And on Tuesday, New York City's mayor signed a bill that would impose a yearlong cap on new licenses for ride-hailing apps and also allow the city to set a minimum wage for drivers. New York is the largest American market for Uber.

The basic argument is increasingly deployed by frustrated executives and self-promoting private-equity groups: Companies are doing dumb things to meet the market's quarterly expectations, and hurting their long-term prospects as a result. Take the company private and executives no longer have to care about the short term, allowing them to invest for the long run and help the company, their loyal shareholders and wider society. The trouble is that none of this applies to Tesla. It is hard to think of a company that cares less about sucking up to Wall Street than Tesla. Mr. Musk earlier this year rejected "boring bonehead questions" from analysts on his quarterly earnings call; the company offers no guidance on quarterly earnings; and it has frequently and unapologetically reported losses far worse than expected (only twice has it made a quarterly profit, both times a surprise).

When it comes to relationships, even the business kind, sometimes you just have to make nice. That's what Tesla's Elon Musk did this week, when he expressed regret about sounding a bit overtaxed during an ultimately upbeat quarterly earnings call for the tumultuous electric carmaker. He's still in the depths of production hell, you see. Meanwhile, the autonomous developers at Waymo decided to make friends with public transit officials in Phoenix, agreeing to work with them to ensure their driverless vehicles work for seniors and writers with disabilities. And in Sacramento, officials are opening their doors, er, streets to all the Bay Area self-driving developers who are sick of the fog and high housing costs.

As a result, electric car company reported a net loss of £548 million ($717.5 million) for its latest financial quarter, despite cranking out more vehicles than ever before. However, investors were buoyed by the news that Tesla still holds £1.6 billion ($2.2 billion) in cash reserves -- enough to keep building cars without borrowing more. CEO Elon Musk also pledged to post a profit later this year, as he set the firm the ambitious new goal of producing 10,000 Model 3s each week by next year. Tesla has cut back on capital spending by changing its strategy to produce the sedan on existing assembly lines – one of which is protected from the elements using a giant tent outside the factory – rather than adding all-new lines. Shares jumped 9.3 per cent to £328.85 ($328.85) in after-hours trading.

REVENUE FORECAST: Baidu's quarterly revenue is likely to have reached $3.9 billion, up from $3.1 billion a year ago, the survey showed. AD GROWTH: Baidu has seen its search-related advertising bounce back, boosting both its revenue and profit in recent quarters. Baidu should continue to benefit as companies--especially in areas such as health and online education--allocate more of their ad budgets to search advertising, which has a higher conversion rate than newsfeeds, Shawn Yang, executive director at Blue Lotus Capital Advisors, wrote in a research report. "We see an increasing demand of search ads from both users and advertisers," he wrote. "Chinese internet users become more mature in gaining information and tend to use search engines more frequently."

ARM Holdings is preparing a $600mn takeover bid for data analytics specialist Treasure Data, reports Bloomberg. SoftBank-owned ARM, which is based in the United Kingdom and is an industry-leader in semiconductor and software design, is eyeing the acquisition to expand its footprint in the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is at the forefront of ARM's long-term strategy - in June, it completed the acquisition of leading technology connectivity management provider Stream Technologies and by 2035 it hopes to operate a trillion connected devices around the world. ARM was sold to SoftBank in 2016 for a reported $32bn, a purchase funded by SoftBank's Vision Fund which delivers investment for startups in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics and ride sharing, as well as IoT. Treasure Data operates cloud services tailored to Big Data collection, storage and analysis and already works with a number of major IoT companies.