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Alibaba Takes On Nvidia as the Global AI Race Heats Up artwork

Alibaba Takes On Nvidia as the Global AI Race Heats Up

Bloomberg Tech

September 22, 2026

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Alibaba's new AI chip, an accelerator to compete with Nvidia and underpinning a massive expansion of data center capacity in coming years.

Speakers Ed Ludlow, Tyler Kendall, Nancy Tangler, Antonio Guterres, Mike Sheppard, Peter Elstrom, Gagan Biyani, Donald Trump, Fei-Fei Li

TopicsTech NewsNewsBusiness News

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Ed Ludlow (0:08)

This is Bloomberg Tech, and we've just been listening to US President Donald Trump, his address of the United Nations General Assembly, where the latter part of that speech focused on artificial intelligence, highly relevant to this show Bloomberg Tech. He said that the US rejects attempts of a global scheme to control AI, and that in the future, all US documents will use quote superintelligence. He will encourage superintelligence, the president said, not rein it in. In terms of what markets are doing, looking at equities, looking at the treasury market, and also the dollar, not so many moves in response to the content of the speech. We see equities largely flat on the whole, some outperformance in technology, US 10-year yield at 4.95%, Bloomberg dollar spot index, not really moving on the content of what the president had to say. Outside of artificial intelligence, a focus on Iran, the events in Venezuela, commentary on Cuba, and a whole lot more. Let's get out to Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall, who is at the UN Rose Garden, to summarize what the president had to say. Tyler.

Tyler Kendall (1:15)

Hey, Ed, well, at this point, President Trump really used this speech to defend his foreign policy objective, saying that he has tackled, quote, intractable challenges. Early on, as he mentioned, he highlighted Iran, threatening that we can either see escalation or diplomacy in terms of what comes next. He threatened that he has a decision to soon make. On one hand, he can make a deal with Iran to allow the country to rebuild, or on the other, he will, quote, annihilate the Islamic Republic. Domestic and foreign policy really dovetailing there, as he claims that Iran is waiting until after the midterm elections to strike a deal. For his part, President Trump says that he is urging Iran to make a deal. As we know, there has been growing frustration, not just from the Trump administration, but also from the regional Gulf allies that President Trump is set to meet with later this afternoon. The president did thank the UN Security Council in passing a resolution to condemn Iran when it comes to attacks on commercial shipping. He also claimed that the US is quickly adding to its stockpiles, even as on Friday, Bloomberg News reported that the US is now alerting European allies that they could see delays of up to five years in terms of getting their weapons deliveries as the US tries to rebuild and revitalize the domestic industrial base. He then pivoted to talk about the Western Hemisphere. We can go through some of the headlines there. The interim president of Venezuela, Delci Rodriguez, was in that room. He also claimed that Cuba will soon fail and said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently negotiating with the country. On Russia, he said that he is going to potentially use that new tariff authority to impose secondary tariffs on Russia if the Kremlin does not come to the negotiating table. That was some of the foreign policy headlines, but really at the end there, Ed, as you know best, we got that update from President Trump touting artificial intelligence, saying that he's now going to call it super intelligence and that whoever dominates the technology will be the winner, appearing to set the stage for that high stakes meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.

Ed Ludlow (3:14)

Thank you, Tyler Kendall at the UN Rose Garden. Thank you very much. And it's on AI that we will pick up and carry on this episode of Bloomberg Tech. President Trump talking about artificial intelligence just moments ago at UNGA and the ongoing AI race with China. Let's bring in Nancy Tangler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments to digest it all, which Nancy, I appreciate, is no hard task. Look, the president speaks very positively about AI as a strength of America and as a competitive tool against China. Your reaction to his remarks?

Nancy Tangler (3:44)

I mean, I do think they're important, Ed. Good to be with you.

He has taken a position. I actually support that position because I don't think government has been effective at regulating crypto, for example, or even go back to Internet days. So I think self-regulation from the company, solutions around the problems allow us to continue to grow and continue to see disinflationary growth in the US economy, not to mention potential defense applications, et cetera. So I thought it was a good comment for him to make. And super intelligence may in fact catch.

Ed Ludlow (4:22)

We're going to talk about super intelligence in just a second. In terms of like the bigger picture markets, picture Bloomberg writes in its global rap that stocks and bonds wavered during that speech. I would say there was little movement in many asset classes. The main takeaway though being that there was no sort of knee-jerk reaction to the idea that the president is going to put America in a position where he wants them to lead in AI. He's not going to allow for a pullback.

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