Fears of artificial intelligence in androids, massive computer facilities, and other devices taking over the world are not stopping investors from searching for ways to make prudent investments.

From AI and automation to robotics, nearly every industry is undergoing disruption. Over the past few months, the world has witnessed significant advancements in AI technology, such as the release of chatbots and image, art, and music generators for public use.

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) is a branch of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning algorithms to create new and original content, such as computer code, images, music, speech, or text. It works by using a training algorithm and ‘learning’ on a large dataset of examples, then using that training to generate new content that is similar to the original examples.

Most recently, the chatter around Gen AI has been brought to the forefront by the web-based Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, or as it is more widely known, ChatGPT, from OpenAI, L.L.C. OpenAI is a privately-held company with investors including Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, and Guangzhou Cornerstone Asset Management Co.

It has many applications and benefits for various industries, such as entertainment, education, finance, health care, marketing, media, pharmaceuticals, and security.

Some of the leading public companies by market cap that operate in the broader AI and Gen AI industry are:

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) – Market Cap US$2.20 Trillion

Microsoft offers cloud computing, software, and hardware products and services, such as Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Cognitive Services. Microsoft’s Azure AI is a collection of AI services that offers developers and data scientists the ability to build and deploy their own AI solutions using high-quality vision, speech, language, and decision-making AI models through simple API calls, and create their own machine learning models using familiar tools and open-source frameworks

Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) – Market Cap US$1.32 Trillion

Alphabet, best known for its Google search engine, provides internet-related products and services, such as Google Cloud and Google AI. Google Cloud recently announced generative AI offerings that let developers tap into Google’s foundation models, search expertise, and conversational AI technologies to create enterprise-grade generative AI applications. Google also offers its own Bard chatbot.

Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) – Market Cap US$1.08 Trillion

Amazon operates e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Alexa, and offers pre-trained AI Services to integrate into customer applications and workflows.  

NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) – Market Cap US$664.7 Billion

NVIDIA produces graphics processing units (GPUs) and artificial intelligence platforms, such as NVIDIA Omniverse and NVIDIA Clara. According to a report by research firm TrendForce, ChatGPT will require as many as 30,000 NVIDIA GPUs to operate, which costs between $10,000 and $15,000 for each GPU. As AI becomes more mainstream, NVIDIA looks to benefit from the GPU demand.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) – Market Cap US$537.2 Billion

Meta operates social media platforms and applications, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It also develops artificial intelligence products and services, such as Facebook AI Research and Facebook Reality Labs.

Adobe Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) – Market Cap US$116.5 Billion

Adobe provides software products and services for digital media creation and marketing, such as Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Sensei. Adobe Sensei is an artificial intelligence and machine learning technology developed by Adobe that powers its Creative Cloud suite of applications and uses AI and machine learning to automate tasks such as organizing, editing, and producing content.

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) – Market Cap US$114.3 Billion

IBM provides IT solutions and services, such as IBM Cloud and IBM Watson. It also develops artificial intelligence products and services, such as IBM Project Debater and IBM AutoAI. In 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson beat competitors on the popular game show Jeopardy!   

Final thoughts

The AI field is growing rapidly and has numerous applications in various industries. Major players offer a range of AI products and services, from cloud computing to chatbots and image, art, and music generators. NVIDIA, in particular, is poised to benefit from the increasing demand for GPUs as AI becomes more mainstream. Despite concerns about AI taking over the world, investors are eagerly searching for ways to invest in this space.

It’s been a wild couple of weeks for technology stocks to say the least. It’s not unusual to see 5%-10% (or more) daily moves in some of the biggest names in the stock market. That can be a little unsettling unless you have tremendous conviction in the equities you hold. And it gets even harder to stomach if you are participating in the leading edge (often called the bleeding edge) of disruptive or innovative companies. To have confidence in your holdings, such that you can weather the market gyrations and sleep at night, it helps if your equities are on firm footing.

With that in mind, today we are going to discuss a global company that is driving the sustainability transformation, but has the luxury of already generating revenue, churning out a quarterly gross profit and already had US$256 million in cash at the end of Q3/21. That’s the kind of cushion that should let an investor rest relatively easy while they await the promise of a greener, cleaner future. The company is Ideanomics, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDEX) and it is focused on the convergence of financial services and industries experiencing technological disruption. The Ideanomics Mobility division is a service provider which facilitates the adoption of electric vehicles by commercial fleet operators through offering vehicle procurement, finance and leasing, and energy management solutions under an innovative sale to financing to charging (S2F2C) business model. Ideanomics Capital is focused on disruptive fintech solutions for the financial services industry.

Ideanomics has a lot of irons in the fire, and an attempt to review them all would result in a small (but interesting) novel. So today we are going to focus on a business segment that is generating a lot news of late – US Hybrid. Ideanomics acquired the privately held manufacturer and distributor of electric powertrain components and fuel cell engines for medium and heavy-duty commercial fleet applications in May, 2021. Since that time US Hybrid has delivered EV power electronics components to several OEMs, including CAT, Pratt & Miller, FEV, and Nova Bus, as well as several powertrain kits for battery electric street sweepers deployed nation-wide. The latest news came out Wednesday as US Hybrid was awarded an order for 19 ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant electric, long-range, transit vans from AVTA (Antelope Valley Transit Authority, which is just North of Los Angeles) to expand their electric fleet. The zero-emission vans can be impactful game-changers in moving towards a fully electrified world with each electric van displacing the need for over 10,000 gallons of fossil fuel each year.

It’s always good to see any of your business segments get traction in the market, but where investors should pay attention to this deal is in the synergies developing among different operating companies within the Ideanomics family. In 2017, AVTA started working with WAVE, another wholly owned subsidiary of Ideanomics, to implement high-power wireless charging pads both in-route and at the bus depot. As of today, AVTA now powers the largest electric bus fleet in the U.S. powered by 12 WAVE wireless charging pads located in their four transit centers.

I find the WAVE technology fascinating. WAVE delivers near-instantaneous, safe, high power from charging pads embedded in the roadway within seconds of scheduled stops. Medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles gain substantial range and operation time without manual plug-in operations or mechanical contact. But beyond the interesting technology we are starting to see how the various Ideanomic brands are starting to lever off each other which could generate ever improving sales and revenue for the company.

Without writing that novel about other Ideanomics businesses, other mobility brands include:

Energica – The world’s leading manufacturer of high-performance 100% battery-powered motorbikes

Silk-FAW – Attracting top industry talent to produce fully electric, luxury vehicles for the Chinese and global auto markets from the heart of Italy’s Motor Valley

Solectrac – North America’s first manufacturer and distributor of 100% battery-powered, all-electric tractors

Treeletrik – The first Malaysian company to locally manufacture a fully electric bike, pioneering innovative electric vehicle technologies for the Malaysian market, and beyond

And that’s not even all of the Mobility divisions, let alone the Capital side of the business that includes a real estate transaction tool and a commodity trading platform. This seems like a lot of company for its US$492 million market cap when you consider that as of Sept 30, 2021, over 50% of that value was cash. Q4 and 2021-year end results are being released March 1^st at which point in time we can reassess the cash position and the progress being made from the various synergies. It should make for an interesting read.