马克·扎克伯格的Meta宣布计划融资950亿美元（710亿英镑），以支付其人工智能支出，尽管埃隆·马斯克警告称，该行业较小参与者的融资正在枯竭。
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has announced plans for a $95bn (£71bn) fundraising to cover its AI expenditure, even as Elon Musk warned that funding for smaller players in the sector was drying up.
Facebook、Instagram和WhatsApp的母公司是人工智能领域的领先投资者，正向数据中心——这项技术的核心神经系统——投入数十亿美元资金。
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is a leading investor in AI and is ploughing multibillion-dollar sums into datacentres, the central nervous systems of the technology.
Meta周一宣布上述消息之前，马斯克加大了对“新云”数据中心提供商的压力，称该行业面临“死亡和整合”，原因是人们担忧其融资的可持续性。这类提供商向人工智能公司出租算力。
Meta’s announcement on Monday came after Musk added to the pressure on “neocloud” datacentre providers – which lease out computing power to AI companies – by saying the sector faced “death and consolidation” amid concerns over the sustainability of their funding.
Meta的融资将分两部分进行。第一部分，该公司计划通过新的“承销公开发行”——即出售公司股票——筹集350亿美元。Meta表示，此次发行有一些知名支持者，芯片制造商英伟达、AMD和博通都表示有兴趣参与。这些“基石投资者”可能买下此次发行中最多50亿美元的股票。
The Meta fundraising will come in two parts. In the first, the company plans to raise $35bn through new “underwritten public offerings” – a sale of company stock. This offering has some big name backers, with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom all showing interest in taking part, Meta said. These “cornerstone investors” could buy up to $5bn of the stock on offer.
第二部分，Meta还计划启动一项600亿美元的“按市价发行”，未来将按当前市场价格向投资者出售新的普通股。该发行涉及出售Meta新的C类股票，该公司上周宣布将创设这一类别。这些C类股票没有投票权，因此可以在不稀释扎克伯格对公司的控制权的情况下出售。
In the second, Meta also plans to launch a $60bn “at-the-market offering” in which it will sell new common stock to investors at the going market rate in future. That offering involves selling Meta’s new class C stock, which it announced it was creating last week. These class C shares do not have voting rights, so can be sold without diluting Zuckerberg’s control of the company.
这家硅谷公司表示，这些计划将支持“Meta对人工智能基础设施和个人超级智能的持续投资”。
The Silicon Valley companies said these plans would support “Meta’s continued investment in AI infrastructure and personal superintelligence”.
受此消息影响，Meta股价在盘前交易中上涨。然而，人工智能领域的其他公司周一面临进一步压力。
Shares in Meta rose in premarket trading on the news. However, other companies in the AI sector found themselves under further pressure on Monday.
在马斯克表示200多家新云公司陷入困境后，CoreWeave和Iren的股价周一在盘前交易中下跌逾2%。
Shares in CoreWeave and Iren dropped more than 2% in premarket trading on Monday after Musk said more than 200 neocloud firms were in trouble.
“截至过去几周，债务市场几乎完全切断了任何没有独立于AI数据中心之外的实质性收入的公司获取资金的渠道，”这位世界首富周日在X上发帖写道。
“As of the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely shut off access to money for any company that doesn’t have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers,” the world’s richest person wrote in a post on X on Sunday.
马斯克以孔雀鱼（guppy）的生存前景作类比——这种鱼以难以在家庭鱼缸中茁壮成长而闻名——并补充道：“这意味着200多家新型云服务公司（neoclouds）将面临孔雀鱼级别的死亡和整合。有些会挺过去，但不会很多。”这位特斯拉和SpaceX的首席执行官兼最大股东——SpaceX也拥有并运营数据中心——是在回应风险投资人查马斯·帕里哈皮蒂亚（Chamath Palihapitiya）的帖子，后者在马斯克拥有的平台上写道，新型云服务公司“组织混乱且资本不足”。
Drawing an analogy with the survival prospects of the guppy fish – which has a reputation for struggling to thrive in domestic fishtanks – Musk added: “That means the 200+ neoclouds are going to see guppy-level death and consolidation. Some will make it through, but not many.”The chief executive and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX – which also owns and operates datacentres - was responding to a post by the venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who had written on the Musk-owned platform that neoclouds were “disorganized and poorly capitalized”.
对新型云服务企业财务稳定性的担忧集中在其高额借贷上——例如CoreWeave约350亿美元——以及AI市场能否增长到足够快以偿还这些债务。
Fears over the financial stability of neocloud businesses are focused on their high levels of borrowing – approximately $35bn at CoreWeave, for example – and whether the AI market will grow fast enough to service it.
在华尔街盘前交易中，CoreWeave股价下跌2.7%，而Iren预计开盘时将下跌2.2%。
In premarket trading on Wall Street shares in CoreWeave were down 2.7% while Iren was expected to fall 2.2% on opening.
投资平台Saxo UK的分析师尼尔·威尔逊（Neil Wilson）表示，盘前反应的不同表明，投资者更愿意支持财务状况稳健的公司的AI投资计划。
Neil Wilson, an analyst at the investment platform Saxo UK, said the differing premarket reactions showed investors were more willing to support the AI investment plans of financially robust companies.
“Meta不会在偿债方面遇到困难，还可以依靠股权融资来最小化债务。这恰恰就是马斯克所说的要点——SpaceX拥有全部收益且是投资级，而新型云服务公司不具备这些，”他说。
“Meta’s not going to struggle to service debts and can lean on equity raises to minimise debt too. This is kind of exactly the point Musk made about SpaceX having all its earnings and is investment grade, which the neoclouds don’t have,” he said.
SpaceX周一报告称，它已与阿波罗全球管理公司（Apollo Global Management）达成一项400亿美元的交易，租赁芯片用于驱动AI数据中心。
SpaceX reported on Monday that it had entered a $40bn deal with Apollo Global Management to lease chips to power AI datacentres.
据报道，CoreWeave首席执行官迈克尔·因特拉托（Michael Intrator）向员工发送了一份内部备忘录，称一些投资者没有理解这家300亿美元的公司。该公司股价在过去一个月里下跌了超过三分之一。
CoreWeave’s chief executive, Michael Intrator, reportedly sent an internal memo to employees saying that some investors had not understood the $30bn company. The company’s stock has declined in value by more than a third over the past month.
据彭博社报道，他写道：“当你在建立一家新型科技公司时，会有段时间市场会误解并表现得不理性。”
“When you are building a new type of technology company, there will be periods of time when the market misunderstands and acts irrationally,” he wrote, according to Bloomberg.