On July 5, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates appeared on the Next Big Idea podcast to discuss his vision for Superhuman artificial intelligence and technological progress. At the same time, it said that the enthusiasm of the AI market is far more than the Internet bubble. Gates believes that the current threshold for entry in the AI field is very low, and the entire market is in a fever period, AI startups can easily get hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, and even have raised $6 billion (about 43.734 billion yuan) in cash for a company. "Never before has so much capital poured into a new area, and the entire AI market has fallen into a 'frenzy' in terms of market capitalization and valuation, which dwarfs the frenzy of the Internet and automotive periods in history." Gates said. At this stage, the rapid development of the artificial intelligence industry is a veritable gold industry, and Nvidia's market value is therefore soaring, and the total market value reached 3.34 trillion US dollars on June 18 local time, surpassing Microsoft and Apple in one fell fell, becoming the world's most valuable listed enterprise. But in fact, doubts about the field of artificial intelligence have also risen one after another and have never stopped.

The UAE insurance sector continued to grow in Q4-2023, as reflected by increase in the gross written premiums. As of year-end, the number of licensed insurance companies in the UAE remained at 60, according to the Central Bank of the UAE's (CBUAE) Quarterly Economic Review (Q4-2023). The insurance sector comprised 23 traditional national companies, 10 Takaful national and 27 foreign companies, while the number of insurance related professions remained at 491. The review on insurance sector structure and activity showed that the gross written premium increased by 12.7% Y-o-Y in Q4 2023 to AED 53.2 billion, mostly due to an increase in health insurance premiums by 16.5% Y-o-Y and an increase in property and liability insurance premiums by 18.9% Y-o-Y, while the insurance of persons and fund accumulation premiums decreased by 12.4% Y-o-Y, resulting primarily from decrease in individual life premiums. Gross paid claims of all types of insurance plans increased by 12.8% Y-o-Y to AED 31.1 billion at the end of 2023. This was mainly driven by the increase in claims paid in health insurance by 16.9% Y-o-Y and increase in paid claims in property and liability insurance by 10.9% Y-o-Y, partially offset by the decline in claims paid in insurance of persons and fund accumulation by 2.8% Y-o-Y. The total technical provisions of all types of insurance increased by 8.4% Y-o-Y to AED 74.4 billion in Q4 2023 compared to AED68.6 billion in Q4 2022. The volume of invested assets in the insurance sector amounted to AED 76 billion (60.4% of total assets) in Q4 2023 compared to AED 71.4 billion (59.4% of total assets) in Q4 2022. The retention ratio of written insurance premiums for all types of insurance was 52.9 % (AED 28.1 billion) in Q4 2023, compared to 54.9% (AED 25.9 billion) at the end of 2022. The UAE insurance sector remained well capitalized in terms of early warning ratios and risk assessment. Own funds to minimum capital requirement ratio increased to 335.7% in Q4 2023, compared to 309.3% at the end of 2022, due to an increase in own funds eligible to meet the minimum capital requirements. Also, own funds to solvency capital requirement ratio rose to 221% in Q4 2023 compared to 208.5% in Q4 2022, due to an increase in own funds eligible to meet solvency capital requirements. Finally, own funds to minimum guarantee fund ratio reached to 316.3% at the end of 2023 down from 314.6% a year earlier, due to higher eligible funds to meet minimum guarantee funds. In terms of profitability, the net total profit to net written premiums increased to 6.5% in Q4 2023, compared to 2.9% at the end of 2022. The return on average assets increased to 0.3% in Q4 2023 compared to the 0.1% at the of the previous year.

Recently, according to the FT, citing the latest forecast data of the market research institute SemiAnalysis, AI chip giant NVIDIA will ship more than 1 million new NVIDIA H20 acceleration chips to the Chinese market this year, and it is expected that the cost of each chip is between $12,000 and $13,000. This is expected to generate more than $12 billion in revenue for Nvidia. Affected by the United States export control policy, Nvidia's advanced AI chip exports to China have been restricted, H20 is Nvidia based on H100 specifically for the Chinese market to launch the three "castration version" GPU among the strongest performance, but its AI performance is only less than 15% of H100, some performance is even less than the domestic Ascend 910B. When Nvidia launched the new H20 in the spring of this year, there were reports that due to the large castration of H20 performance, coupled with the high price, Chinese customers' interest in buying is insufficient, and they will turn more to choose China's domestic AI chips. Then there are rumors that Nvidia has lowered the price of the H20 in order to improve its competitiveness. However, the latest news shows that due to supply issues caused by the low yield of the Ascend 910B chip, Chinese manufacturers in the absence of supply and other better options, Nvidia H20 has started to attract new purchases from Chinese tech giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Bytedance. Analysts at both Morgan Stanley and SemiAnalysis said the H20 chip is now being shipped in bulk and is popular with Chinese customers, despite its performance degradation compared to chips Nvidia sells in the United States.

Russia is seeing income growth of around 4-5%, with earnings growing in double digits, Ostapkovich said, stressing that the driving force is economic growth. "Incomes only grow when the economy grows. If the economy grows, then profits grow. If profits grow, then the entrepreneur is keen on hiring people and raising wages," he added. Russia’s economy grew by 3.6% in 2023, with real incomes and nominal wages up by 4.5% and 13% respectively. Industrial performance, particularly in manufacturing, is propelling this growth not seen in 20 to 30 years. Notably, mechanical engineering in the military industry is expanding at 25-30%, according to Ostapkovich. Andrey Kolganov, Doctor of Economics and Head of the Laboratory of Socio-Economic Systems at Moscow State University, acknowledged that despite the challenges posed by the growth stimuli, Western sanctions failed to inflict significant harm on the Russian economy. "The Russian economy has shown great potential in adapting to these difficulties. Moreover, these difficulties stimulated the development of domestic production, which in turn led to high rates of economic growth," he added. Kolganov noted that economic growth rates were higher in 2023, compared to 2022 - and even higher in 2024. These increases promoted Russia from the classification of middle-income countries, to the rank of high-income countries. Although Russia has not caught up with the richest countries, the achievement is nonetheless remarkable, especially in the face of unprecedented sanctions. Gross national income per capita in Russia is now $14,250, according to a document released by the World Bank that classifies countries that cross the $13,485 threshold as “high income.”

The world's first portable electrocardiograph was an 85-pound backpack, and now a 10-gram patch attached to your chest can transmit electrocardiograms uninterrupted for two weeks. The Apple Watch, which is worn by an estimated 100 million people, can send a text message to alert people when their heartbeat is irregular. Wearable sensors on the arms, wrists and fingers can now report arrhythmias, blood sugar levels, blood oxygen and other health indicators. Medical journals have also proposed a more ambitious vision - wearable devices can monitor patients with chronic diseases, eliminating the need for frequent hospital visits. They can spot potential health problems before a stroke or diabetes develops. The forces of health technology and wearables are converging. Tech giants like Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google are adding health features to their products. Medical technologists like electrocardiogram patch maker iRhythm Technologies or blood sugar monitor makers DexCom (DXCM) and Abbott Laboratories (ABT) are taking their devices beyond the clinic. "In the sensor world, people started on the consumer side and wanted to get into health care," said Kevin Sayer, chief executive of Decon Medical. "In health care, we're trying to be more consumer oriented, and I think all of those things are sort of colliding." Early bets favored the tech giants, with every health-related announcement from Apple, Google or Samsung Electronics hitting medical tech stocks. But changing doctors' practices will also require sustained investment in clinical trials. Big tech companies have cut back on investments in health care. Now it seems that medical technologists will be at the vanguard of the digital health revolution - with smartwatches and smart rings bringing them more customers who need to be diagnosed. Blake Goodner, co-founder of Bridger Management, a hedge fund focused on health care, said: "A group of medtech companies focused on digital health are maturing and reaching a scale where they can not only be profitable but also make investments to compete with larger tech companies." Tech giants aren't getting out of the health business. Apple's smartwatch has an electronic heart rate sensor that generates a single-point electrocardiogram, a wrist temperature sensor, and an accelerometer that can detect violent falls. Hundreds of millions of people are wearing smartwatches with health features from Apple or its rivals Samsung and Garmin.