The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending May 26, 2023, closed at 2,729.01 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was down -0.32% (or -8.79 basis points). Thirteen of the 25 RDWI members gained value last week from 0.60% (Roche Holdings AG) to 6.68% (Facebook/Meta Platforms). Twelve of the 25 RDWI members lost value last week from -1.50% (Toyota) to -5.24% (Stellantis NV).

Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup Neuralink, Fremont, California, announced last week that it has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin the company’s first human clinical studies with its prototype Link brain-computer interface (BCI). The wide-ranging medical and therapeutic applications for the BCI include stroke and spinal cord injury rehabilitation, neural prosthetic controls, and the capacity to rewind memories or download them into robots. The company is not yet recruiting human volunteers. The company has been experimenting with the BCI on animals for several years with more than 1,500 animals sacrificed in BCI development since 2018.

RDW Index member Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, Michigan, announced last week that its electric vehicle (EV) customers will be able to access more than 12,000 fast chargers in Tesla’s Austin, Texas, U.S., and Canadian Supercharger network beginning in early 2024. Ford said it plans to switch to the same charging hardware used by Tesla, when the company rolls out a new generation of EV models in about two years, from a different plug currently used by most major automakers. Tesla’s broadening access to its Supercharger network will qualify the company for billions of federal dollars in the U.S. government’s plans to build a national network of EV chargers.

Germany’s statistics agency, Destatis, Wiesbaden, announced last week that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 0.3% lower in 1Q 2023 than 1Q 2022, which followed a 0.5% contraction in 4Q 2022. The two consecutive quarters of economic decline meet the technical definition of a recession. Business surveys have forecast a return to German growth in 2Q 2023, but the impact of higher borrowing costs and a weak expansion in many of the country’s export markets lead to the possibility of a continued contraction for the next two quarters.

RDW Index member, Apple, Cupertino, California, announced last week that it is extending its chip-supply agreement with Broadcom, San Jose, California, in a multiyear, multibillion-dollar deal. Broadcom will supply Apple with 5G radio-frequency components and wireless connectivity components. The Broadcom components will be built in several U.S. manufacturing locations, including Fort Collins, Colorado, reinforcing Apple’s plan to buy U.S.-made products. Apple is approximately 20% of Broadcom’s revenue base.

Energy company Chevron, San Ramon, California, announced last week that it is purchasing PDC Energy, Denver, Colorado, for $6.3 billion. Chevron plans to build a larger foothold in the Denver-Julesburg Basin that straddles Colorado and Wyoming. Major oil companies like Chevron have been scooping up smaller rivals like PDC as they are challenged with existing well productivity, a sign that the industry has already drilled many of its best wells.

Chip giant Nvidia, Santa Clara, California, announced last week a more than 64% increase in sales as its devices are found to be particularly useful for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The company is close to becoming the world’s first $1 trillion chip company by market value. A new generation of advanced Nvidia chips is also being developed for AI calculations in data centers. The huge demand for computing power that drives language-generating tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT is opening a new revenue opportunity for Nvidia and others. Nvidia does not manufacture its own chips but farms out production to chip makers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).

China overtook Japan as the largest exporter of EVs in 1Q 2023, according to company statistics. Its lead is also increasing. About 35% of EVs exported globally came from China in 2022, compared to 25% in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. EVs shipped from Tesla’s Shanghai factory are a significant part of that total. Tesla has exported 130,000 EVs from China in the first four months of 2023. State-owned EV-makers SAIC and BYD are among the top EV exporters from China. BYD has overtaken VW as the best-selling carmaker in China in 2023.

The city of Shanghai, China, last week invited RDW Index member General Motors, Detroit, to boost investment and R&D in Shanghai. GM is struggling with a sales slump in China, the world’s largest auto market. GM has stated that it will roll out 15 new EVs in China in the next two years and build EV production capacity to more than 1 million units annually by 2025.

Semiconductor chip equipment maker Applied Materials, Santa Clara, California, announced last week that it plans to invest $4 billion in a new R&D center near its headquarters in a rare building project in the heart of Silicon Valley. The EPIC center in Sunnyvale, California, will be the industry’s largest R&D facility dedicated to semiconductor equipment and processes. The company is the largest seller of chipmaking gear with the EPIC center allowing customers rapidly develop new production techniques.

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 2020 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) which invested a cumulative total of nearly 260 billion dollars in R&D in 2019, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spending 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