Bill Gates speaks with CNBC at Abu Dhabi Finance Week.
CNBC
Bill Gates has warned that some highly valued AI companies will lose out in the “competitive” AI industry as investors consider whether the bubble will burst.
“AI is the most important thing happening right now.” microsoft The founder and philanthropist spoke to CNBC’s Tania Breyer at Abu Dhabi Finance Week as high capital spending and a series of cyclical transactions spook the market.
“Are all the companies with the highest valuations going to be winners? No, there’s going to be a lot of competition,” Gates said on Monday.
“AI is just a bubble in the sense that not all of these valuations are going to end up going up. Some of them are going to go down,” he said, adding that AI is “a profound technology that will reshape the world. There’s no doubt about that.”
Many AI companies have valuations that are well above average. Palantir and tesla The company’s P/E (price-to-earnings-per-share ratio) is well above 200, compared to the average for S&P 500 companies of about 25.
World markets fell in November as concerns about the bubble bursting grew.
“A significant percentage of those companies will not be worth that much,” Gates said.
Despite the bubbling of AI in some areas, Gates said it will fundamentally change life for the better. “Is this something profound and real and is it going to have all these benefits that we’re working on, including health, education and agriculture? Absolutely no one should question that.”
Earlier this week, the Gates Foundation and other international leaders and philanthropists pledged $1.9 billion to fight polio by providing vaccines to millions of children and strengthening health systems to protect against other preventable diseases.
Gates predicted that next year will be a big year for global health.
“We can take hold of the great pledge that we just got and use it very effectively. This year will be the year that we pilot these AI tools, virtual doctors, virtual doctors that support all African dialects, agricultural advisors, etc… Most people in Africa are farmers who own very small amounts of land, and today productivity is very low,” he said.
“We want to dramatically increase their productivity, and we think that’s achievable,” he added.
