IBM shares plunge 24% after CEO blames unexpected AI spending shift

Mysten Labs, the developer of Sui, announced on October 6 a joint development plan with Google Cloud. The two will build Verifiable Agent Arbiter, or VAA, a platform that uses blockchain to prove that AI agents acted within the scope of the authority granted to them. VAA links the operations an agent is permitted to perform, its actual actions, and their outcomes into a record, so that counterparties and auditors can verify the record independently of the system that ran the agent. Instructions given to the AI, its outputs, its use of external tools, and decisions based on internal rules are stored privately in customer-managed Google Cloud storage, while cryptographic proofs corresponding to the records are stored on Walrus, a data storage platform, with Sui handling the management and linkage of those proofs. In addition to handling disputes in business-to-business transactions and investigating the causes of suspicious operations, the plan also includes integration with Sui's mechanism for AI agents to pay usage fees for external services under the x402 payment standard.

Jim Cramer said on the September 30 episode of Mad Money that Microsoft's massive artificial intelligence investment is entering a new phase as the company begins turning its data-center buildout into higher revenue. Cramer noted Copilot now has 30 million users and growing, Azure is accelerating rather than contracting, and Microsoft is beginning to recoup its monster data center investment, which he compared to the payback period Nvidia's Jensen Huang once described for his semiconductors. In its fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft Cloud revenue increased 27% to $59.3 billion, while Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43%, and commercial remaining performance obligations rose 84% to $678 billion, including a 25% increase excluding OpenAI. CFO Amy Hood said on September 9 that Microsoft had reduced dock-to-live times for infrastructure by more than 50% over the year, even as capital expenditures reached $41 billion in the June quarter and first-quarter fiscal 2027 spending is expected to exceed $50 billion. Microsoft Cloud's gross margin fell to 65% in the June quarter, and the company generated $19.6 billion of free cash flow while paying $35.8 billion for property and equipment, leaving margins and cash flow worth watching as spending continues to rise.

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said demand continues to outpace supply and that the company plans to substantially increase supply in 2027, sending AMD shares higher in early trading Tuesday. Roughly 80% of Anthropic's planned $518 billion in cloud and compute spending over the next decade is non-cancelable or payable regardless of how much capacity it actually uses. Elon Musk confirmed over the weekend that SpaceX and Taiwan Semiconductor are in discussions about a potential collaboration in which the Taiwanese foundry may use Terafab, the vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing initiative launched by Musk, Tesla and SpaceX, as an anchor client for a future Texas facility. Zscaler reaffirmed its Q1 and full-year 2027 guidance, with CEO Jay Chaudry warning that autonomous AI agents will become the primary cybersecurity risk vector in coming years. Wells Fargo maintained its overweight rating on Meta Platforms and raised its price target to $1,000, citing Muse as a driver of a larger long-term AI cycle.