On theCUBE Pod: The tech inauguration and the winners and losers of the next wave

A special theCUBE Podcast this week brought insights from theCUBE’s East Coast studio at the iconic New York Stock Exchange.

It comes at a time of significant technological and political change, coinciding with the “tech inauguration” and offering plenty for theCUBE Research industry analysts John Furrier (pictured, left) and Dave Vellante (right) to explore on the latest episode of the CUBE Podcast.

CUBE East at the NYSE can be variously thought of as a supernode or a super point of presence, according to Furrier. It was also the site of theCUBE’s coverage of NRF Media Week, which focused on the transformative impact of artificial intelligence in the retail sector.

“In 2025, we’re going to be ramping up a lot of content here,” Furrier said. “Great setup here. The action in 2025 is off to a fever pitch.”

The tech inauguration plays out

President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Monday, something that is of great relevance to the tech industry. Figures such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk have been very involved with the election and what has become a “tech inauguration.”

“You’re seeing Elon Musk’s role. He went all-in on the election,” Furrier said. “He burned the boats, as we say, to get Trump elected. Buying Twitter, $65 billion, great ROI for Elon.”

The technology industry has never been so influential in government and policy, according to Furrier. It’s traditionally been an industry that has been an outlier influencer.

“Now, tech with the TikTok ban … you’re seeing a lot more influence, a lot more first-party kind of relationships being developed,” Furrier said of the tech inauguration. “What you see now is, for the first time we’ve ever seen in our lifetime, tech leaders driving government.”

There’s a palpable shift in public policy going on right now, according to Vellante. It, of course, started with Musk being aligned with Trump early on.

“Now, you’ve got all the rest of the tech bros aligning with Trump. Tim Cook. You’ve got [Mark Zuckerberg]. You know, firms are donating to the inauguration,” he said.

Taiwan semiconductor moves

Aligning with the new administration is strategic for businesses, especially as tariffs come into play, according to Vellante. There’s also the matter of the future of the Chips and Science Act.

“The small little news item the other day, but I think it’s significant, is the Taiwanese government … is now allowing [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing], the world’s single best manufacturer of semi-advanced semiconductors, to manufacture two-nanometer chips outside of Taiwan,” Vellante said. “Prior to this announcement, they were restricted of only doing the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing inside of Taiwan. That’s interesting because it’s a hedge on China.”

Taiwan clearly is significant in its presence in chips, according to Furrier. Meanwhile, AI infrastructure is due to be a big thing, but there are concerns to keep in mind.

“Taiwan as a political entity, geography, all that goes with that. Water, manufacturing,” Furrier said. “If they don’t get something up and running outside of Taiwan, then, you know, that could cause some supply chain problems.”

Tech stack continues to evolve

Meanwhile, every layer of the tech stack is undergoing transformative shifts driven by AI optimization and agent-based frameworks. That points out why this supercomputing revolution is an AI infrastructure game, according to Furrier.

“If you look at the winners and losers, there will be many losers in this next wave,” he said. “The famous quote from Pat Gelsinger, former Intel CEO, former CUBE alumni: ‘If you’re not out in front of that next wave, you’re driftwood.’ Meaning, you’re going to get pummeled by the big wave.”

That means if companies fail to adapt to the data center shift, they risk losing their competitive edge. That’s why companies such as Vast Data Inc. are emerging, according to Furrier.

“It’s a new architecture. For them, that’s the key, and that’s where I see this world coming. You’re going to see new brands emerge out of nowhere, rocket ship up and just pop into the market, and at the expense of the incumbents who don’t move fast enough,” Furrier said.

Right now, all the action is happening in the hyperscalers. The big three U.S. hyperscalers will comprise $200 billion in revenue in 2025, and that’s growing — largely due to AI, according to Vellante.

“They’ve got the flywheel going,” he said. “But I’ll say this. When you mentioned Dell and HPE and Lenovo, the core system vendors and the infrastructure players, I think they have between 12 and 18 months to figure out the gaps that they have in their portfolio so that they can compete more effectively with the hyperscalers on-prem.”

Watch the full podcast below to find out why these industry pros were mentioned:

Donald Trump, 45th and 47th U.S. president
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms
Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon
Gary Gensler, chairperson, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data
Dan Ives, internet personality
Joe Biden, 46th United States president
Pat Gelsinger, former CEO of Intel
Jeff Dean, chief scientist, Google DeepMind and Google Research at Google
Michael Dell, founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies
Peter McKay, CEO of Snyk

Here’s the full theCUBE Pod episode:

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Photo: SiliconANGLE

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