Pony AI (PONY) Secures Landmark Permit for Paid Driverless Robotaxis in Shenzhen

We recently published a list of Top 8 AI News Updates on Wall Street’s Radar. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ:PONY) stands against other top AI news updates on Wall Street’s radar.

As xAI’s Grok became the top app on the Google Play Store, its owner, Elon Musk, revealed a major development at his AI startup. The wealthiest person on Earth revealed Friday that xAI had acquired X, formerly Twitter, in an all-stock transaction, valuing his social media platform X at a staggering $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk wrote. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach…The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”

Elsewhere, OpenAI is reportedly in advanced negotiations to close a record funding round of $40 billion. The round, led by SoftBank, would value OpenAI at $300 billion, which is double compared to its valuation in October 2024. SoftBank is expected to invest $7.5 billion initially and $22.5 billion in the latter half of this year.

The AI-based humanoid robot industry also made headlines after Realbotix announced that it will showcase an advanced intelligence robot at the DiscoveryX expo in mid-April. The AI-powered humanoid robot, Aria, will demonstrate the company’s efforts to integrate AI, robotics, and human connection through direct interaction with conference attendees.

“DiscoveryX is a great event to showcase how far we’ve come in developing emotionally intelligent, interactive AI,” said Realbotix CEO Andrew Kiguel. “Aria isn’t just a robot – she’s a glimpse into the future of personalized, human-centric technology.”

According to a Goldman Sachs report led by research analyst Jacqueline Du, the total addressable market for humanoid robots could reach $38 billion by 2035, which is over six times higher than a previous estimate of $6 billion.

We selected AI stocks by reviewing news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. We listed the stocks in ascending order of the number of hedge funds that hold stakes in them, as of Q4 2024.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Pony AI (PONY) Secures Landmark Permit for Paid Driverless Robotaxis in Shenzhen

A Software-as-a-Service interface illustrating the interconnectivity of users and the internet.

Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ:PONY)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20

Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ:PONY) leverages its full-stack, vehicle-agnostic Virtual Driver technology in combination with its proprietary software and hardware offerings to drive large-scale commercialization of autonomous mobility for diverse transportation use cases.

On March 28th, Pony AI Inc. (NASDAQ:PONY) said it won a permit to operate paid, driverless robotaxis across city centers in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District. The company will also extend its commercial operations to connect Nanshan with its service zone in Baoan District, marking the first cross-district driverless network.

“Expanding our fully driverless commercial robotaxi services to the vibrant city centers of Shenzhen will accelerate public adoption, as well as inspire confidence and trust in fully driverless technology as we deploy its application to daily urban use cases.”

-said James Peng, CEO of Pony AI Inc.

Overall, PONY ranks 8th on our list of top AI news updates on Wall Street’s radar. While we acknowledge the potential of PONY as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PONY but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.