Investors Fall Back in Love With IPOs

<p>For the past two days, I’ve been at JP Morgan’s annual tech conference in Boston. As usual, AI has dominated most of my conversations with investors. But in a change from the past few months, it’s not <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/dealmaker/anthropic-steals-limelight-morgan-stanleys-tech-conference?rc=zjctrx">Anthropic</a> and <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/dealmaker/ai-haves-nots-goldmans-big-tech-event?rc=zjctrx">OpenAI</a> driving those discussions—but hardware and utility companies a few steps removed from what the AI model makers do.</p><p>On Monday, for example, NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy agreed to a $400 billion tie-up driven in part by AI’s voracious demand for energy, the two utility giants said. That’s also happening at the chip level: Analog Devices, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/analog-devices-talks-buy-ai-power-chip-startup-1-5-billion?rc=zjctrx">as we reported </a>Monday night, is buying a startup whose chips help manage power transmission to the semiconductors that handle AI functions.&nbsp;</p>