Dan Ives Sees a Generational Opportunity in the AI Revolution!
📅 Nov 04, 2026Finance Deep Dive11 MIN188 VIEWS23 SEGMENTS · 3 SPEAKERS
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Dan Ives explains why major tech companies cannot afford to slow down their AI investments, despite growing concerns about spending and profitability.
Meanwhile, Chinese tech giants reportedly placed orders for around 6 million NVIDIA chips worth approximately $70 billion, but are expected to receive only a small fraction. Is this a warning sign for NVIDIA or proof that AI chip demand is stronger than ever?
We also explore Apple's services business, Palantir's commercial growth, and the fu...
What Dan Ives said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Dan Ives, Managing Director and Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities, argued that hyperscalers must maintain aggressive AI capital expenditure despite near-term profitability concerns, calling the backlog 'trillions of dollars' and predicting parabolic free cash flow in the second half of 2027 through 2029. He valued Apple's services business at $150 to $175 per share, citing 85-90% margins, double that of hardware, and said AI profitability will increasingly flow through services. On Palantir, he called its commercial business 'off the charts' despite a stock selloff. He highlighted Marvell Technologies' major M&A deal and predicted a 'generational' two-year period for tech capital raises and banking hiring. He did not address Nvidia's China chip orders, which were covered by the narrator.
Key takeaways
Hyperscaler AI capex backlog is trillions of dollars; free cash flow will be parabolic in second half 2027 through 2029.
Apple's services business is worth $150 to $175 per share with 85-90% margins, double hardware margins.
Next two years will be 'generational' for tech capital raises and bank hiring, citing Marvell's big M&A deal.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
$150 to $175 per share
Ives' sum-of-the-parts valuation of Apple's services business
1:45What am I getting for free when you sum of the parts, services, and some of the other stuff?
3:01Are we at a point, Dan Ives, where, you know, I'm looking at this almost as an M&A model where 27, post-election and all, is where we begin to see mergers, transactions, convenient rollups of less-than-good or failed models?
No, to some extent, their profitability, when you take away some of these near-term things on memory and things, it's actually increasing. So the view is, when you look out over the next four, six, eight quarters, their free cash flow potential and call bar is actually increasing.
What is the AI call from investors out there? Do they want the high capex, negative free cash flow? Just build it and it'll show up, the business will show up. Or are they asking different questions these days?
You get one shot to get this right. So if you take the foot off the pedal, you don't spend on capbacks, ultimately you're going to be left behind. And I think that's why you've seen all the comments from all the hyperscalers. You see all the capital raised from Oracle to Microsoft to Meta, because everyone recognizes that the backlog is trillions of dollars. Now, I'm not saying could some of that fall apart, could there be some neocalars that fall by the wayside? But from a hyperscaler perspective, from a large cap perspective, this is viewed as basically a storm that they will get through. And on the other side of it, to Tom's point, the free cash flow as you go into second half 27, 28, 29 will be parabolic for a lot of these large cap names.
Okay, we're going... I can do this now because of AI. Ask B on Bloomberg and Google Gemini and all the rest of them. Sum of the parts, Mr. Ives, the services sector. Oh, they were a little bit off today. Let's sell our shares. What's the margin on that? And then what's the value of services?
It's 85-90% in terms of a lot of those margins because it goes right to the bottom. The services margins are double the margins of the hardware business.
Ives, D. (2026, November 4). Dan Ives Sees a Generational Opportunity in the AI Revolution! [Interview transcript]. Finance Deep Dive. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3193169/
MLA
Dan Ives. "Dan Ives Sees a Generational Opportunity in the AI Revolution!." Finance Deep Dive, 4 Nov. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3193169/.
BibTeX
@misc{ives2026_3193169,
author = {Dan Ives},
title = {Dan Ives Sees a Generational Opportunity in the AI Revolution!},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Finance Deep Dive. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {nov},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3193169/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
