Nvidia, ¡gran caída en la madrugada! ¡El "pánico por la IA" se amplifica, las instituciones emiten declaraciones en masa!

Local time Thursday, the three major U.S. stock indices opened mixed. As of press time, the Nasdaq fell 0.89%, the Dow rose 0.21%, and the S&P 500 declined 0.4%.

Nvidia’s earnings exceeded expectations again but received a冷淡 response, with the stock price once dropping more than 3%.

Customer management software giant Salesforce’s better-than-expected earnings report eased investor concerns about the software industry.

Additionally, tech giants like Nvidia and Pinduoduo, along with top investment firm leaders, have spoken out intensively, agreeing that the market’s panic over AI has been significantly exaggerated. AI is not a “disruptor” of the software industry but an important “enabler.” The future mainstream trend is the integration, symbiosis, and iterative upgrading of both.

Popular Chinese concept stocks all declined, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index dropping over 2%, KE Holdings down more than 6%, Baidu Group and Li Auto down over 5%, Bilibili nearly 5%, XPeng Motors over 4%, Alibaba, JD.com, Ctrip, and New Oriental down over 2%.

Salesforce’s performance exceeds expectations

One of the biggest victims of this round of software stock sell-off—customer management software giant Salesforce—released a quarterly report better than market expectations.

The report shows that for the fiscal quarter ending January 31, Salesforce’s revenue was $11.2 billion, up 12% year-over-year, slightly above the market expectation of $11.18 billion, and the fastest growth in two years. Excluding certain items, earnings per share were $3.81, far exceeding the expected $3.04. Meanwhile, the contract value expected to recognize revenue within the next year—remaining performance obligations (CRPO)—reached $35.1 billion, higher than the market forecast of $34.53 billion.

Salesforce remains optimistic about short-term prospects. The company expects first-quarter revenue of $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion, and adjusted EPS of $3.11 to $3.13, both above analyst expectations. The company also forecasts annual revenue growth of 10% to 11%, with organic growth expected to accelerate in the second half.

Additionally, Salesforce announced a new $50 billion stock repurchase plan and increased quarterly dividends to $0.44 per share. The company stated these measures “strengthen our commitment to creating significant value for shareholders.” CEO Marc Benioff explicitly said during the analyst call that buybacks are happening because “the current price is very low.” The company also disclosed that its investment in AI startup Anthropic yielded $811 million this quarter, with additional investments, and now holds about 1% of the company.

Benioff emphasized in the statement that the company is steadily progressing toward its goal of $63 billion in annual revenue by fiscal 2030, a figure higher than the previous estimate of $60 billion and surpassing Wall Street’s current forecast of approximately $59.07 billion. Benioff stated that intelligent AI agents are one of the growth drivers.

Since the beginning of the year, Salesforce’s stock has fallen 27%, and it is considered a victim of the AI boom.

Industry leaders collectively speak: AI’s threat to the software industry is exaggerated

Besides Salesforce, the entire software sector has not been doing well. Oracle, Accenture, among others, have fallen more than 20% since the beginning of the year. However, industry consensus generally believes that the threat of AI to the software industry has been overstated.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said after the Wednesday earnings release that the market has seriously misjudged AI’s threat to software companies. He stated that AI assistants will not replace existing software tools but will instead become users of these tools, helping software companies significantly improve development and operational efficiency. “Tools like Cadence, ServiceNow, SAP have fundamental and legitimate reasons for existence. AI will represent human users of these tools, and ultimately, work still depends on these tools, with feedback in a human-understandable manner.”

Sequoia Capital partner and co-leader Alfred Lin also refuted the notion of “AI disrupting the software industry.” He pointed out that artificial intelligence itself is a “collection of a large number of software,” and the software industry is always evolving. Traditional software companies like Oracle still maintain strong competitiveness, demonstrating industry resilience. Lin believes that the long-term impact of AI is beneficial for companies overall; its essence is an “efficiency amplifier,” not a force to replace humans or destroy existing business models.

Renowned growth investment firm Baidu also provided its assessment of the software industry’s development from the perspective of market fundamentals and investment strategy. Baidu believes that recent market reactions to AI news are much faster than assessments of company fundamentals. While the transformation of software construction methods is real, it will not damage all software business models. The core value of software companies lies not only in code but also in their comprehensive service systems, including business support, compliance services, tool integration, and user experience. This is a key reason why companies will not replace software subscriptions with custom AI in the short term. Developing internal AI tools involves high maintenance costs and significant regulatory and operational risks, making collaboration with professional software providers more cost-effective. Baidu also pointed out that cases like OpenAI’s Frontier platform show that leading AI providers are empowering rather than replacing existing enterprise systems. Core business software such as customer management databases and financial programs will continue to exist long-term, accounting for about 50% of the enterprise software market. Their stock prices have already shown significant valuation dislocation amid the industry downturn.