AI, Chips and Energy Deals Drive Market Moves

Braze, an AI-powered customer engagement platform, saw its shares rise about 19.9% after reporting strong fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter results and issuing an upbeat outlook. Fourth-quarter revenue grew 28% year over year to roughly $205 million, driven by new customer wins and upsells to existing clients.

Customer count increased 14% to 2,609, while customers with at least $500,000 in annual recurring revenue climbed 35% to 333. Adjusted operating income rose 83% to $14.5 million, reflecting operating leverage as the business scales its AI-based marketing tools.

For fiscal 2027, Braze targets revenue between $884 million and $889 million, up from $738 million, implying growth of roughly 20%. The company also expects adjusted operating income of $69 million to $73 million, up from $28.5 million, and is guiding toward reaching non-GAAP profitability after a $130.8 million net loss in fiscal 2026.

Management highlighted expanded partnerships with Snowflake, Shopify (SHOP) and The Trade Desk as growth drivers, and authorized a $100 million share repurchase program, with $50 million earmarked for accelerated implementation, citing a strong balance sheet and consistent cash generation.

Arm Holdings shares climbed 16.38% to $157.07 after the company announced its entry into silicon production with the AGI CPU, a chip designed for AI data centers and “agentic” AI workloads, and disclosed backing from Meta Platforms (META). Arm says AGI offers more than twice the performance per rack versus x86 CPUs and higher workload density.

Arm framed the launch as an expansion of its long-standing compute platform strategy, moving beyond intellectual property and subsystems into Arm-designed silicon to give partners more options for deploying Arm technology at scale in AI infrastructure.

Separately, Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX confirmed plans for “Terafab,” two chip factories at Tesla’s (TSLA) Austin site, each focused on a single AI chip design for electric vehicles, humanoid robots and space-based AI data centers. The facilities aim to produce roughly one terawatt of computing capacity per year, deepening vertical integration across Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX and xAI.

In memory, Taiwan’s Nanya Technology opened limit up 10% after announcing a $2.5 billion private placement to investors including Sandisk Technology and Cisco Systems (CSCO). A related filing showed a Sandisk subsidiary bought 139 million Nanya shares for $1 billion, alongside a strategic supply agreement for Nanya DRAM products to support Sandisk’s long-term sourcing strategy.

NVIDIA (NVDA) and energy technology provider SLB are expanding their collaboration to build modular AI factories and industrial-scale agentic AI solutions for energy companies. The initiative is aimed at turning operational and energy-specific data into insights that can support lower-carbon operations, embedding NVIDIA’s DSX AI factory and model stack into core energy workflows.

The announcement comes as NVIDIA’s stock, at about $178.67, has delivered a roughly 13-fold five-year return and a 57.1% gain over the past year, but has fallen about 6.7% over the last 30 days and 5.4% year to date, against an average analyst target near $268.22.

In utilities, AES moved Maximo’s AI-powered robotic solar installation system from pilot to commercial deployment at its Bellefield complex. The company is using robotics to speed construction, improve safety and address labor constraints in utility-scale solar, while partnering with NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services on simulation and AI tools.

Commentary around AES notes that higher, more predictable site productivity could affect how it bids for future solar projects, though the company still faces pressure from lower profit margins, high capital needs and sensitivity to tax incentives and financing conditions.

In critical materials, REalloys is highlighted for an AI-driven rare earth processing chain in North America, anchored by its Euclid, Ohio, facility and a partnership with the Saskatchewan Research Council. SRC’s plant, targeting first output in 2026–2027, uses AI to monitor thousands of data points and run separation with six workers, aiming to produce heavy rare earth metals and magnets outside China.

Amid rapid AI build-outs, Gartner urged CFOs to rethink how they evaluate AI investments. The research firm said many finance leaders misjudge AI by seeking a single return-on-investment formula instead of managing AI efforts as a portfolio of use cases with different cost curves, risk profiles and timelines.

Gartner recommends that CFOs distinguish between routine productivity projects, targeted process improvements and larger transformational bets, and incorporate nonfinancial benefits such as better decision support, greater agility and innovation capacity, which often appear before traditional metrics like revenue or cash flow improve.