3:30 am

live from singapore now on bbc news. business today. spacex and and xai two of elon musk’s biggest biggest companies, merged to put put ai data centres in space. i’m i’m suranjana tewari at the singapore singapore airshow where defence and and space spending is up. but geopolitics geopolitics and aircraft delays continue continue to weigh on the industry. industry. hello and welcome to business business today with me steve lai. lai. elon musk is merging his rocket rocket company spacex, with his artificial artificial intelligence firm xai xai to create the world’s largest largest private company. the billionaire billionaire said the combined firm firm would work to install ai data ai data centres in space, where

3:31 am

they could harness power from the the sun while avoiding the expense expense of cooling. well, to help help us unpack the huge significance significance of this merger, let’s let’s bring in bob o’donnell, president president and chief analyst at technalysis technalysis research. bob, great great to get your thoughts. and what what was your initial reaction when when you heard this news? well, it it had been rumoured as of last week, week, steve. so i’m not surprised. surprised. but when you look at it it from a big picture perspective, perspective, on the one hand it’s it’s kind of exciting. it’s wow, wow, data centres in space. how cool cool is that? on the other hand, hand, realistically i think that’s that’s a long way off and it feels feels a little bit like, look, we we got spacex incredibly successful successful company headed towards towards an ipo xai doing ok. not not necessarily great like all of of by the way of all the llm based based ai companies and twitter x x that is also having its own challenges. challenges. so there’s part of me me that’s like well ok, they’re taking taking this very successful company, company, bringing in a company that’s that’s not doing as well. and it it has some challenges, has huge

3:32 am

huge capital demands and then making making it a better package. so that’s that’s interesting. i will say the the notion of leveraging the sun sun for power for data centres is is a very intriguing idea. and don’t don’t get me wrong, i am excited excited about that opportunity. i i just feel like that could be a a little further off than a lot of of people are willing to acknowledge. yeah, it does seem like like the stuff of science fiction fiction when you sort of hear it it or think about it in sort of plain plain terms. but you mentioned the the ipo that’s coming. do you think think it’s in part boost to sort sort of build up the height or excitement excitement towards that? absolutely. absolutely. there’s no question in in my mind. i mean, one of the things things that i think we’re going to to see happen throughout 2026 is is that all of these big ai companies companies that we’ve been talking talking about from open ai and anthropic anthropic and all the standalone standalone companies as well as frankly, frankly, what google’s been doing, doing, all of them are going to need need to figure out ways to start start making money this year because because the amount of capital spending spending that they’re making is enormous. enormous. and at a certain point, point, people are going to expect

3:33 am

expect some kind of return. and early early efforts in some of the discussions discussions we’ve seen openai throwing throwing out ads and xai trying to to sell some of their services. you you know, they haven’t really translated translated into big dollars and cents. cents. so there’s got to be a way way to create some kind of income. income. and frankly, by combining combining these elements together, together, you can sort of obfuscate obfuscate that a little bit more more when it comes to xai. and again, again, practically speaking. oh sorry. sorry. go ahead steve. no, no, finish finish your thought. well, just practically practically speaking, like i said, said, one of the challenges we’ve we’ve been hearing is that the compute compute power required to drive these these ai models is so high that power power grids around the world may may not be able to provide that power. power. so let’s look to an alternative. alternative. some people have talked talked about local small modular modular reactors, nuclear reactors. reactors. and musk is saying, hey, hey, let’s look at the sun. yeah, yeah, it’s fascinating. all the different different permutations and that could could come out from all these developments. developments. bob, thanks very much much for helping us with your perspectives. perspectives. bob o’donnell president president and chief analyst at technalysis

3:34 am

technalysis research. staying in in the aerospace sector, the industry’s industry’s biggest names are in singapore singapore this week for an influential influential aerospace and defence defence exhibition. the asia-pacific asia-pacific is the fastest growing growing aviation market in the world, world, and defence spending is rising rising to match global trends. but but geopolitics is looming over the the industry in shaping the decisions decisions being taken. our asia business business correspondent suranjana suranjana tewari joins me now from from the singapore air show. sir, sir, what have you learned so far? far? yes, steve, talking off defence defence spending. a lot of that is is being focused on space and, you you know, putting defence capabilities capabilities up there as well as as passenger travel in the near future. future. the other big theme here here is defence. we’ve got some of of the world’s biggest names lockheed lockheed martin over there. you can can see some defence helicopters helicopters as well. lots of militaries militaries around. i’ve seen plenty plenty of personnel in military outfits outfits walking around trying to to look for the next big orders that

3:35 am

that they’re going to be making commercial commercial air travel. of course, course, the demand is really high high in the asia pacific. it’s the the world’s fastest growing aviation aviation market over there in the the distance there is a plane company, company, a taiwanese carrier called called starlux. it’s displaying and and demonstrating the airbus a350 a350 1000. that’s a new plane. it’s it’s got a big capacity. it’s a very very strong contender for these big big airline deals in the region. region. of course, there are a lot lot of low cost carriers looking looking for cheaper options as well, well, especially in the face of the the delays. the carrier delays, aeroplane aeroplane delays that boeing and and airbus are facing. chinese plane-maker plane-maker comac is a big story. story. this year they demonstrated demonstrated at the last airshow airshow in 2024. but they’ve picked picked up more customers, especially especially in south east asia, including including in vietnam and laos and and indonesia. many other countries countries in the region are looking looking at the comac. this is the the c919. it’s got another smaller

3:36 am

smaller plane as well on display display here. it is still waiting waiting for european regulation, regulation, but there are positive positive signs that that may come come through. some testing is ongoing ongoing and the other big area of of course is private jets and the the luxury segment. we’re hearing hearing that a lot of famous carriers carriers that we know about are looking looking at the business customer, customer, of course. asia pacific pacific has a lot of billionaires billionaires they’re willing to spend spend on things like luxury airlines, airlines, on outfitting their private private jets. and so that’s another another big theme that we’re seeing. seeing. we’re not expecting too many many deals, but what usually happens happens in singapore is that many many customers can come and see get get access to things like chinese chinese plane-makers. and then we we hear about orders later on in in the year. thanks very much for for that. we’ll check in with you you in the hours ahead as well here here on business today. suranjana suranjana tewari there at the singapore singapore air show, gold prices have have risen more than 3%, rebounding rebounding from a near one month month low hit in the previous session.

3:37 am

session. it comes after a three deep, deep, deep drop in prices of precious precious metals on friday and monday, monday, after us president donald donald trump said he is nominating nominating kevin warsh to lead the the federal reserve. now the plunge plunge of historic proportions sent sent tremors through a global commodity commodity and stock markets as traders traders sold other assets to bail bail out losing bets. well, to help help us make sense of this volatility, volatility, i’m joined by nikos karvelas, karvelas, managing director at metals metals focus and nikos. talk us through through your reading then, of what’s what’s been happening with gold. hi there. thanks for having having me. look, i think to get one one set around what’s happening with with gold and indeed other precious precious metals in the last 2 or or 3 days. one has to keep in mind mind the tremendous inflow of retail retail money that we had seen in in the preceding few weeks. frankly, frankly, pretty much everyone in in the market was expecting a washout washout to happen at some point. point. let me be clear no one was was expecting the extent of the route route that we saw on friday. in particular.

3:38 am

particular. but really a liquidation liquidation was necessary in a sense sense to get rid of some of the froth. froth. and if we talk about silver, silver, then it’s been even more more volatile than gold. some analysts analysts have even likened it’s likened likened it to a meme stock meme stock. stock. gamestop. well, yeah, to an an extent. i mean, i can see the the parallel i mean, the amount of of money that entered silver in particular particular throughout january from from retail hands in particular was was really quite remarkable. and and yes, it did reminiscent, you you know, one could one could make make parallels with what was happening happening with meme stocks. you’re you’re right. yeah. and what do you you see happening with precious metals metals going forward then. do you you think this volatility is set set to continue? look i think i’m i’m we’re still confident that the the market is remains in a that we we remain in a bull market. we think think prices you know you already already seeing some early stage and and early stage rebound. we think think prices will move will continue continue to move upwards without without a doubt when you have such

3:39 am

such increased participation from from retail investors speculators, speculators, we will continue to to be in a very volatile environment environment when there are corrections. corrections. hopefully they won’t won’t be as dramatic as what we saw saw last friday again, but you will will have volatility. you will have have wide volatility. you will have wide trading ranges. but we think that that look yes i understand that the the warsh nomination is easing some some of the concerns about fed independence. independence. but the genie is out out of the bottle and fed independence independence is by no means the only only problem that the world is contending contending with. and the only reason reason why investors are seeking seeking the safety of precious metals. metals. so i think in this environment environment i’m pretty confident confident that we’ll see higher prices prices again later this year and and very likely new all time records. records. nicholas, thanks very much much for your perspectives today. today. nikos kavalis, their managing managing director at metals focus. focus. now to some other business business news making headlines today, today, us president donald trump

3:40 am

trump said that the department of of justice should not drop its investigation investigation into federal reserve reserve chair jerome powell. it comes comes after federal prosecutors opened opened a criminal investigation into into the fed chair over testimony testimony he gave to a senate committee committee about renovations to federal federal reserve buildings. powell powell has said he believed it was was opened due to president trump’s trump’s anger over the fed’s refusal refusal to cut interest rates. she’s she’s going to take it to the end end and say, look, you’re doing a a small renovation and they’ve spent spent almost $4 billion doing a small small renovation. i’m doing buildings. buildings. i built a hotel, the waldorf. waldorf. it’s called and i did it it for around $200 million. it’s it’s a much bigger job. they’re spending spending almost it could be $4 billion. billion. i’ll tell you what. i don’t don’t even see an end in sight. i i feel badly for the new fed chairman chairman because he may not have have an office for four years. i i don’t know what these people are are doing, so it’s either gross incompetence incompetence or it’s theft of some some kind or kickbacks. that’s it

3:41 am

it for this edition of business today. today. thanks for watching.

3:42 am

3:43 am

3:44 am

3:45 am

. on bbc news, a round up of the day’s sporting action, plus talking talking points, analysis and original original journalism. bbc sport. hello, hello, i’m mark benstead and here here are your latest sports headlines. headlines. the january transfer window window is now closed. wolves got got their man. but not all clubs clubs across europe will be happy. happy. sunderland score three as as they add to burnley’s blues in in the premier league. and we hear hear from the youngest man to complete complete the career grand slam, carlos carlos alcaraz.

0 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on February 3, 2026