This Week in Tech: Apple, Facebook, Alphabet and More

NVIDIA Strikes Up An Alliance With Baidu

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) trended this week after it struck a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu Inc (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) to work together to build a self-driving car.  Self-driving cars are the next big thing in tech given the overall market size and the need for robust artificial intelligence software in the vehicles. Many analysts expect the self-driving vehicle market to become huge in China given the country’s population and the strong demand for ride-sharing services. Bulls hope the effort will increase demand for NVIDIA’s GPU’s and other chips in the long run. Of the 749 hedge funds that we track which filed 13F’s for the June quarter, 50 were long NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) at that time.

Alphabet Encroaches on Uber’s Turf

Although it owns a sizable stake in the startup and Uber uses Google Maps, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is becoming more and more a competitor to the ride-sharing app. Just this week, Alphabet announced that it will broaden its car-pool program in the fall to allow riders and drivers in San Francisco to commute together when going in the same direction. For now, Alphabet’s car-pooling program isn’t a direct competitor to Uber, as Alphabet won’t get a cut of the revenue and the fees charged will just cover depreciation and gas for the driver. In the future however, given Alphabet’s self-driving research and its ambitious goals, the odds are good that Alphabet will directly challenge Uber. 187 hedge funds in our system owned either the class A or class C shares (or both classes) of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) at the end of June.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Considers Selling a Unit

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE) was in the spotlight this week after Reuters reported that the company is in talks with private equity firm Thoma Bravo over a potential sale of its software segment. Although Hewlett Packard Enterprise previously received offers of as much as $7.5 billion for the unit according to some sources, the company hopes to garner a sum of between $8 billion and $10 billion from Thoma Bravo. If that occurs, Hewlett Packard’s management could use some of the money to buy back its stock. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is considering selling the unit to focus more on its core storage, networking, and data center competencies. Many analysts believe that selling the software segment is the right choice in terms of unlocking value. 63 funds in our database were long Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE) at the end of the second quarter, up by 12 funds quarter-over-quarter.

Disclosure: None