The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending May 20, 2022, closed at 4,548.80 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was down -3.59% (or -169.15 basis points) from the week ending May 13, 2022. Ten of the 25 RDWI members gained value from 0.07% (Johnson & Johnson) to 5.11% (Pfizer). Fifteen of the 25 RDWI members lost value from -1.36% (Alibaba) to -13.36% (Cisco).
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The federal government’s FY2022 budget decision to create a biomedical research agency similar to the Department of Defense’s DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has created a multi-state competition to host the new agency, being termed ARPA-H, for health. Congressional, institutional and industry leaders met last week in Boston to unify Massachusett’s bid to win the competition. Other states with leading proposals include Texas, California, North Carolina and Maryland (home to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ARPA-H’s future parent agency). Details on the size and structure of ARPA-H have not yet been released.
Hyundai Motor Company, Seoul, South Korea, last week announced that it plans to build a $5.5 billion manufacturing complex in Georgia which will focus on designing and producing electric vehicles (EVs). The plant will break ground in early 2023 and open in the first half of 2025. When fully completed, the plant will have a capacity of 300,000 EVs per year. The company also stated that it plans to offer up to 23 battery-powered models by 2025. The company already has an auto factory in Alabama and another in Georgia. The new plant will be its first facility dedicated solely to EVs and will occupy a 3,000-acre site in southeast Georgia.
The Wall Street Journal commented last week that the global economy is entering a period of “stagflation — high inflation with weak growth”. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also stated last week that the global outlook is challenging and uncertain, although the strong U.S. economy could help buffer it from a stagflation threat.
Samsung. Seoul, South Korea, last week announced that its electronics subsidiary in Vietnam, is establishing an R&D center in Hanoi. With a budget of $220 million, construction began in 2020 on the 16-story, 79,000-m2 facility and is currently about 70% complete. It is scheduled to open by the end of the year with a staff of about 1,300 researchers.
Check Point Research, San Carlos, California, announced last week that Chinese cyber spies had targeted two Russian defense institutes and another research facility in Belarus. The campaign, dubbed Twisted Panda, is part of a larger, state-sponsored espionage operation that has been ongoing for several months. These attacks were timed to exploit Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to target Russian organizations. A new phishing email attack started in late-March contained attachments appearing to be from the Health Ministry of Russia.
RDW Index member Google/Alphabet, Mountain View, California, announced last week that it had moved the bulk of its employees out of Russia, with most of the employees opting to relocate to Dubai, where Google has a large office. This move was prompted by Russia’s seizure of Google Russia’s bank account which made it impossible for the company to pay its employees and suppliers. Google plans to keep free services, such as Search, YouTube, Maps and Gmail available in Russia.
A cooperative R&D agreement (CRADA) was signed last week between the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Armaments Center, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, and the National Armaments Consortium (NAC) to develop new armaments. NAC consists of more than 970 member organizations. Under the first annex of this CRADA master agreement, The CCDC is set to work with the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, California, and several NAC members to develop and refine an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is broadly compatible with tri-service munitions.
RDW Index member Intel, Santa Clara, California, announced last week its intention to invest $700 million in a new R&D lab focused on developing sustainable data center technologies, such as immersion cooling, water usage effectiveness and heat recapture and reuse. The new 200,000-ft2 lab will be located in Hillsboro, Oregon, with construction beginning this year and opening in late-2023. The facility will qualify, test and enable Intel’s portfolio of data center products, including processors, memory technologies, FPGA chips, Habana accelerators and future products still in development.
Deere & Company, Moline, Illinois, last week announced an increase in profit for 2022, but stated that inflation-based rising costs continue to pressure the farm equipment manufacturer’s margins. High prices for crops will keep farmers interested in buying equipment, despite higher costs for seed, fertilizer and other supplies, according to Deere. The company invested about $1.3 billion in R&D in 2020.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated the fed’s resolve last week to curb inflation. Restoring price stability is an “unconditional need”, but there could be some pain involved with an associated increase in unemployment resulting or the risk of a recession, according to Powell. A Wall Street Journal editorial opined that stock investors are now positioning for a recession. Most European analysts, however, state that few, if any, signs of a recession are occurring and economic data remains relatively robust.
The European Union (EU) last week released a $317 billion plan aimed at ending its dependence on Russian energy within five years. The plan envisions European countries negotiating deals with energy producers in the U.S., Middle East and Africa to replace the current Russian supplies. The plan seeks to cut Russian energy supplies by two-thirds in 2022 and end its dependence entirely by 2027.
R&D World’s R&D Index is a weekly stock market summary of the top international companies involved in R&D. The top 25 industrial R&D spenders in 2019 were selected based on the latest listings from Schonfeld & Associates’ June 2020 R&D Ratios & Budgets. These 25 companies include pharmaceutical (10 companies), automotive (6 companies) and ICT (9 companies) who invested a cumulative total of nearly 260 billion dollars in R&D in 2019, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spent in the world by government, industries and academia combined, according to R&D World’s 2021 Global R&D Funding Forecast. The stock prices used in the R&D World Index are tabulated from NASDAQ, NYSE and OTC common stock prices for the companies selected at the close of stock trading business on the Friday preceding the online publication of the R&D World Index.
