Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and dozens of other tech companies are descending on Las Vegas next week to showcase artificial intelligence tools they say will save doctors and nurses valuable time. 

Sunday marks the official start of a health-care technology conference called HLTH, which is expected to draw more than 12,000 industry leaders this year. CNBC will be on the ground. Based on the speaking agenda and announcements leading up to the conference, AI tools to conquer administrative burdens will be the star of this year’s show. 

Doctors and nurses are responsible for mountains of documentation as they work to keep up with patient records, interface with insurance companies and comply with regulators. Often, these tasks are painstakingly manual, in part because health data is siloed and stored across multiple vendors and formats. 

The daunting administrative workload is a major cause of burnout in the industry, and it’s part of the reason a nationwide shortage of 100,000 health-care workers is expected by 2028, according to consulting firm Mercer. Tech companies, eager to carve out a piece of a market that could top $6.8 trillion in spending by the decade’s end, argue that their generative AI tools can help.

Google, for instance, said it’s working to expand its health-care customer base by tackling administrative burden with AI.

On Thursday, the company announced the general availability of Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, which it introduced in a trial capacity during HLTH last year. Vertex AI Search for Healthcare allows developers to build tools to help doctors quickly search for information across disparate medical records, Google said. New features within Google’s Healthcare Data Engine, which helps organizations build the platforms they need to support generative AI, are also now available, the company said.

Google on Thursday released the results of a survey that said clinicians spend nearly 28 hours a week on administrative tasks. In the survey, 80% of providers said this clerical work takes away from their time with patients, and 91% said they feel positive about using AI to streamline these tasks. 

Similarly, Microsoft on Oct. 11 announced its collection of tools that aim to lessen clinicians’ administrative workload, including medical imaging models, a health-care agent service and an automated documentation solution for nurses, most of which are still in the early stages of development. 

Microsoft already offers an automated documentation tool for doctors through its subsidiary, Nuance Communications, which it acquired in a $16 billion deal in 2021. The tool, called DAX Copilot, uses AI to transcribe doctors’ visits with patients and turn them into clinical notes and summaries. Ideally, this means doctors don’t have to spend time typing out these notes themselves. 

Nurses and doctors complete different types of documentation during their shifts, so Microsoft said it’s building a separate tool for nurses that’s best suited to their workflows. 

AI scribe tools such as DAX Copilot have exploded in popularity this year, and Nuance’s competitors, such as Abridge, which has reportedly raised more than $460 million, and Suki, which has raised $165 million, will also be at the HLTH conference. 

Dr. Shiv Rao, the founder and CEO of Abridge, told CNBC in March that the rate at which the health-care industry has adopted this new form of clinical documentation feels “historic.” Abridge received a coveted investment from Nvidia’s venture capital arm that same month. 

Nvidia is also gearing up to address doctor and nurse workloads at HLTH. 

Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care, is delivering a keynote Monday that will explain how using generative AI will help health-care professionals “dedicate more time to patient care,” according to the conference’s website.

Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs, are used to create and deploy the models that power OpenAI’s ChatGPT and similar applications. As a result, Nvidia has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the AI boom. Nvidia shares are up more than 150% year to date, and the stock tripled last year. 

The company has been making steady inroads into the health-care sector in recent years, and it offers a range of AI tools across medical devices, drug discovery, genomics and medical imaging. Nvidia also announced expanded partnerships with companies such as Johnson & Johnson and GE HealthCare in March. 

While the health-care sector has historically been slow to adopt new technology, the buzz around administrative AI tools has been undeniable since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene two years ago. 

Even so, many health systems are still in the early stages of evaluating tools and vendors, and they’ll be making the rounds on the HLTH exhibition floor. Tech companies will have to prove they have the chops to tackle one of health care’s most complex problems. 

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest producer of advanced chips, serving clients such as Apple and Nvidia, jumped more than 10% on Thursday morning after the company reported a 54% hike in net profit in the third quarter. The company expects annual revenue growth in the last three months of the year, as global chipmakers continue to benefit from demand boosted by AI applications.

Shares of chip companies rose on the results. Nvidia stock was up about 3%, Micron rose about 4% and AMD was up about 2% Thursday morning.

The company’s net income was 325.3 billion Taiwanese dollars ($10.1 billion) over the July-September quarter, surpassing an LSEG estimate of $300.2 billion Taiwanese dollars cited by Reuters.

Net revenue came in at $23.5 billion in the third quarter, up 36% year-on-year, with TSMC’s gross margin rising to 57.8% over July-September, compared with 54.3% in the same period of last year.

“Based on the current business outlook, we expect for our fourth-quarter revenue to be between $26.1 billion and $26.9 billion, which represents a 13% sequential increase or a 35% year-over-year increase at the midpoint,” TSMC Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang said during an earnings call following the results release, according to a call transcript produced by FactSet.

In the third quarter, “our business was supported by strong smartphone and AI-related demand for our industry leading 3nm and 5nm technologies,” TSMC said in a statement, referencing its semiconductor nodes.

In the Thursday earnings call, TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei stressed that AI demand is “real” and that the company has experienced the “deepest and widest growth of anyone in this industry,” as a result.

“We have talked to our customers all the time, including our hyperscaler customers who are building their own chips. And almost every AI innovator is working with TSMC,” he said.

The company’s Taipei-listed shares have soared nearly 80% year-to-date, outpacing the 28.57% gains of the broader market over the same period.

TSMC now anticipates its capital expenditure for this year will pick up to slightly higher than $30 billion, it said during its earnings call. The firm’s capex costs edged higher to $6.4 billion in the third quarter, versus $6.36 billion across the three preceding months.

The Taiwanese chipmaker, whose advanced chips are vital to a swathe of products ranging from smartphones to AI applications, has been increasing its manufacturing presence worldwide, carrying out a vast overseas investment of $65 billion for three chip plants in Arizona to meet U.S. demand, as well as opening its first factory in Japan earlier this year.

TSMC’s earnings beat comes the same week as Netherlands-based ASML, which supplies machines to the Taiwanese company, issued a lower-than-expected forecast of net sales, sending shares tumbling.

Some market participants have questioned the long-term resilience of the AI boom and the return on increasing investments in the technology sector — while Young Liu, CEO and chairman of key Apple supplier Foxconn, told CNBC last week that the AI frenzy “still has some time to go,” as advanced language models evolve with each new iteration.

Correction: This article has been updated to accurately reflect that TSMC’s third-quarter net income hit 325.3 billion Taiwanese dollars.

The Raytheon subsidiary of defense contractor RTX agreed Wednesday to pay more than $950 million to settle U.S. Department of Justice investigations into an alleged government contract fraud scheme, violations of foreign bribery laws and the Arms Export Control Act.

Raytheon also agreed to pay more than $124 million to settle charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with paying bribes of more than $32 million to a relative of the emir of Qatar and to military and government officials in that country in exchange for obtaining defense contracts there. More than $22 million of that settlement will be offset by Raytheon’s settlement with the DOJ.

The company as part of the DOJ settlement also agreed to enter into deferred prosecution agreements involving that conduct in federal district courts in Brooklyn, New York, and Massachusetts.

The company was charged in the Brooklyn case with conspiracy to violate anti-bribery laws in a scheme to bribe a high-level government official in Qatar and with failing to disclose the bribes in export licensing applications with the State Department as legally required.

In the Massachusetts case, Raytheon admitted to engaging in two separate schemes to defraud the Defense Department in connection with the Patriot missile systems and a radar system, along with other defense products and services.

The company also will retain an independent monitor for three years and enhance its internal compliance program as part of the settlement, which the DOJ announced.

“Raytheon engaged in criminal schemes to defraud the U.S. government in connection with contracts for critical military systems and to win business through bribery in Qatar,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, in a statement.

“Such corrupt and fraudulent conduct, especially by a publicly traded U.S. defense contractor, erodes public trust and harms the DOD, businesses that play by the rules, and American taxpayers,” Driscoll said.

RTX in a statement said the settlements with the DOJ and the SEC relate to probes previously disclosed by the company, and that “these legacy legal matters relate to conduct that occurred at Raytheon Company largely prior to 2020,”

“RTX is taking responsibility for the misconduct that occurred,” the company said. “We have worked diligently during the investigations to remediate that misconduct and continue to do so. We are committed to working closely with the incoming independent monitor to improve and further enhance our ethics and compliance program.” 

After two weeks of wearing the Oura Ring 4, the smart ring gave me a better understanding of how my sleep, stress and exercise influence how I feel in my day-to-day life. 

The Oura Ring 4 began shipping to customers and became available in retail stores on Tuesday, and it’s an impressive option for those looking for a sleek and comfortable way to learn more about their bodies and make healthier choices. 

The smart ring offers more accurate sensors, a more comfortable design and longer battery life than its predecessor. The gadget is available in 12 sizes and six colors, including a new black finish, and it costs $349, although users have to pay a $5.99 a month, or $69.99 a year, subscription to use all of the accompanying app’s features. 

On the whole, the Oura Ring 4 is comfortable to wear and its app is easy to navigate. The ring was a bit more clunky and scratched more easily than I’d prefer, but after two weeks of testing it, the Oura Ring 4 did provide me useful information about my health. 

Getting set up

I had never worn an Oura Ring before, so the entire experience was new to me. 

The first order of business was choosing a color and determining my ring size, which I did by using the company’s sizing kit. Oura recommends customers new and old should get sized since the fit can change from one generation to the next. The kits are available online, and in-store sizing is available at retailers such as Target and Best Buy, the company said.

Silver jewelry has always been my preferred style, so I picked the silver Oura Ring 4 to match my accessories. 

Getting sized proved more difficult. I did my sizing in person with the Oura team, but I misjudged it slightly. The ring I’ve been wearing is a little big, so there are sometimes gaps between my finger and the hardware. I never felt like my ring was going to fall off, but I would size down if I were to do it again.

The ring was delivered to my apartment in a small box that included a charger and some basic instructions about how to clean and wear it. 

I charged the ring as I downloaded the Oura app and filled it out with biographical information such as my birthday, height and weight. Pairing the hoop with my iPhone was incredibly easy, and once the battery was topped off, it was time to slip the ring on. 

What’s good

As someone who has never liked the look of smartwatches, I was excited to try out the Oura Ring 4 and use it to track my sleep. The wearable was so comfortable, I often forgot I had it on.

That’s at least in part due to the device’s new sensors, which are significantly smaller than those of its predecessor. The third-generation Oura has sensors that are raised and feel like little bumps, while those on the Ring 4 are basically flat, giving it a smooth interior like any other ring. 

I purposely wore the ring on my right index finger. I still write a lot of my stories by hand (old school, I know), so I wanted to see if it would bother me while holding a pen or pencil. It didn’t. The ring is also designed to be worn 24/7 and is water resistant, and it didn’t give me any trouble when I washed my hands or showered with it.

Another highlight was the Oura app. The company began rolling out a redesign of the app to all its users earlier this month, and I thought the layout of the app was very intuitive. Data from the smart rings is presented in three tabs called Today, Vitals and My Health. 

The Today tab highlights information based on the time of day, and it includes shortcuts where I could quickly view the latest readings for things such as my sleep, activity, heart rate, stress or my readiness for the day. These at-a-glance metrics are easy to digest and helpful to look at when I had a quick minute throughout the day.   

I also enjoyed looking at my reading at a more granular level in the Vitals tab. There’s a lot to learn and decipher. Oura shows you nearly 20 different data points about your sleep alone. Even so, the company does a nice job breaking down all of these concepts in simple language. I wasn’t familiar with the term latency, for example, but the app taught me that it’s the amount of time it takes to fall asleep. 

The My Health tab gives users access to longer-term insights such as heart health, sleep health and resilience, a metric that measures your ability to recover from stress over time. These metrics are calibrated once Oura has recorded several weeks’ worth of data, so I was unable to explore this feature in depth for this review. 

Before the review, I was concerned about whether Oura’s metrics would negatively affect my mood. For instance, if Oura tells me that I slept poorly, would I feel less prepared to take on my day?

I was pleasantly surprised by how the company approached this framing. I never felt like I was being reprimanded for getting a bad night’s sleep, feeling stressed or missing a workout. Instead, Oura gave me tips about small changes I could make to feel better throughout the day, such as taking a few minutes for a break or meditation. 

I also liked that the exercise goal in the app varied based on my readings. If there was a day where I was particularly tired or stressed, Oura lowered my activity goal. This helped me feel a sense of accomplishment even when I wasn’t at my very best.