Dell's AI Server Boom: Profit Forecast Raised
So, get this Dell, yeah? They just bumped up how much money they think they'll make this year. It looks like their AI-powered servers are a hot ticket right now, especially since they come with those super strong chips from Nvidia.
You know how companies like Elon Musk's xAI and CoreWeave use Dell servers? Well, after this news came out, Dell's stock went up a bit.
Even though lots of folks want these servers, which is great for Dell and another company called Super Micro Computer, it's also kinda pricey to build 'em, and there's a lot of competition. That can make it tough to make a ton of profit on each one.
Dell's Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Clarke, said they got a whopping $12.1 billion in AI server orders just in the past few months! That's more than all the AI servers they shipped in a whole year before this. They've got $14.4 billion worth of orders waiting to go out. That's a lot of servers, right?
Something else cool that happened is the U.S. Department of Energy is building a crazy powerful new supercomputer called Doudna. It's going to use Dell and Nvidia's tech to do some seriously complicated stuff.
Because of all this good stuff, Dell is now thinking they'll make about $9.40 per share this year, which is a little more than the $9.30 they thought before. And their guess for how much money they'll bring in overall this year is still the same.
Looking ahead to the next few months, Dell thinks they'll make between $28.5 billion and $29.5 billion. That's actually way more than what most experts were guessing, which was around $25.05 billion.
And for how much profit they expect to make per share next quarter, they're saying about $2.25, which is also higher than the $2.09 people were expecting. For the first few months of the year, Dell actually brought in a bit more cash than predicted ($23.38 billion versus $23.14 billion). But their profit per share for that time was a little less than expected ($1.55 instead of $1.69).
Someone who watches stocks, Shreya Gheewala, mentioned that it might be a bit harder for Dell to make as much money in the short term. She said maybe it's because of companies lowering prices to compete, maybe some extra fees on stuff, or just where they're selling things around the world.
On the bright side, the part of Dell that sells servers and stuff for big businesses saw their money go up by 12%. Their computer business, you know, selling PCs and laptops, went up by 5%.
Jeff Clarke also talked about how people aren't upgrading their computers as fast as they used to. But he did say it seems like more folks are getting computers with Windows 11, including those new AI PCs. What kind of computer are you using these days?
