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Indian real estate attracts record institutional investments in January-June period at $4.1 billion: Vestian
As automation spreads, India's FMCG companies rethink the size of their workforce
Apparel exports drag India's textile and clothing exports despite growth in textile shipments: CITI
The U.S. coffee industry asked the Trump administration on Wednesday to keep Brazilian green coffee exempt from tariffs, during a session of public consultation that is reviewing tariffs on Brazilian imports. The National Coffee Association (NCA) also asked the administration to include instant coffee in the list of tariff-free Brazilian products, saying the product is key for the competitiveness of the U.S. coffee industry considering new product offerings such as the ready-to-drink coffee cans. The U.S. government is holding consultations this week related to the Section 301 investigation on Brazilian trade practices. The Trump administration could impose a 25% tariff on imports of several Brazilian products, alleging the country's practices were unfair on a range of issues from digital trade to illegal deforestation.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee will vote on July 15 on bipartisan legislation to toughen a U.S. government ban on Chinese automakers entering the American market. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan proposed legislation in April to codify a regulation imposed by the Biden administration that effectively bans all Chinese automakers from selling passenger vehicles in the U.S. and takes other steps to prevent China from entering the U.S. light-duty market. Last month, Polestar said it was forced by the Trump administration to stop selling vehicles in the United States beginning in the 2027 model year as Washington ramps up its crackdown on Chinese vehicles. House lawmakers have introduced a similar version of the Senate bill. The legislation would ban vehicles designed in China if they had advanced connectivity as well as vehicle software.
Tech giant Meta announced Wednesday it will build a massive data center in central Alberta, the company's first in Canada, as it rapidly builds out computing capacity to support the global AI boom. The 1-gigawatt data center, which will be built with the ability to scale up to 1.8 gigawatts, will be located in Sturgeon County and represents a total investment of C$13 billion, or $9.17 billion, Meta said. Meta has doubled down on AI, pledging hundreds of billions of dollars to build large AI data centers in the U.S. The Alberta announcement represents the company's 33rd data center globally. Executives made the announcement in Calgary alongside Premier Danielle Smith and other Alberta government officials, who have spent several years courting Silicon Valley tech giants with the aim of spurring a large-scale investment in the oil-and-gas province.
Corporate buyout and private equity activity in Japan is in the "early innings" and the country's stock market is well placed for consolidation, Goldman Sachs Asset Management's Stephanie Hui told the Reuters NEXT Asia event in Singapore on Thursday. Hui said Japan, alongside South Korea and Australia, were the most lucrative regions in Asia for mergers and acquisitions or take-private deals given their stable economies and larger-sized companies. Foreign private equity firms have become increasingly active in Japan in the past three years, especially as changes in corporate governance rules put pressure on companies and boards to improve returns for investors. Deals in Japan this year include KKR moving to take chemicals company Taiyo Holdings private and Bain Capital and SoftBank's LY Corp competing with EQT to buy internet firm Kakaku.com.
Companies in the Gulf, some of the most directly affected by the Iran war, will provide one of the clearest insights so far of its regional financial impact when they begin reporting their second-quarter earnings this week. In countries from Saudi Arabia and Oman to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, company results are likely to be mixed. Banks and real estate are most exposed given pre-existing challenges that have been exacerbated by the war's impact on inflation on interest rates, while telecoms were sheltered by long-term contracts and relatively inflexible demand, analysts said. Energy companies faced supply disruption from the four-month conflict, but also potential gains from the price volatility caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel.
Australia's Steadfast said on Thursday that Amwins Group and Dragoneer Investment had reaffirmed their takeover proposal valuing the insurance broker at A$7.7 billion ($5.34 billion), prompting a four-week extension of the exclusivity period. Here are some details: • The consortium reaffirmed its offer of A$6 per share, which values the Sydney-headquartered firm at an enterprise value of A$7.7 billion. • The offer price represents a 52% premium to the last closing price before the original proposal was tabled. • The current bid marks the third and highest approach after earlier offers of A$5.50 and A$5.83 per share failed to secure an agreement. • Under the proposed transaction, Amwins, an insurance distributor, will acquire Steadfast's underwriting agency operations, while U.S.-based Dragoneer Investment will take control of the retail brokerage business.
AI is driving a major restructuring in the tech industry in 2026. Unlike 2025, where brands used AI as an excuse to balance excess hirings, companies are using AI-driven automation as the major reason behind layoffs. Tech giants are sacking thousands of engineers, managers, and support staff because companies are aggressively transitioning to an ‘AI-first’ business model. According to the tracking site Layoffs.fyi, a staggering 119,494 tech professionals have been laid off across 219 firms so far this year. And the reason behind these layoffs is largely due to funding secured for expensive AI infrastructure, specialised chips, and automated workflows. Technology giants are simply slashing human headcount to fund AI. This aggressive push toward AI automation extends far beyond traditional Silicon Valley software firms. Hence, to get a better idea of the layoffs scenario, we looked through the latest data from Layoffs.fyi for various companies.
Top companies, including American giants, have cautioned USTR that its move to impose additional tariff of up to 12.5% on 60 countries, including India, will push up costs for consumers and businesses, with several of them seeking exemptions for specific products. "The practical effect would be to make it more expensive to build in America than to build elsewhere, which runs directly counter to the administration's goal of expanding domestic manufacturing," Intel said in its submission. IBM, Dow Chemicals Thailand and GE Appliances, which is now a Haier company, also argued against the move. "Dell wants to express the importance of leveraging policy tools that achieve the administration's laudable goals without rapidly increasing production and end-user costs or risking operational delays of key products and components," Dell Technologies stated.
Germany could benefit from planned U.S. port fees on merchant ships built in China, with its exports to the United States potentially rising by around 2% compared with a scenario without fees, according to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The reason is that German freight fleets rely less on Chinese-built vessels than those of some competitors, allowing German exporters to gain market share, the study found. The U.S. government plans to introduce the fees from November in an effort to curb China's dominance in shipbuilding, citing national security concerns. The charges would be based on where a vessel was built, rather than whose goods it carries.
In May, General Motors marked a rare milestone for a foreign automaker in China, selling more than 10,000 of its new Buick Electra E7 in the first month. While the nameplate is all-American, everything else about the car is Chinese — it was developed entirely at the technical centre GM runs with local partner SAIC. GM plans to export the car to South Korea and use its China-built platform in the next iteration of the Cadillac Optiq, said a person with direct knowledge of the plans, which are reported here for the first time. For years, global automakers used China as a low-cost manufacturing base to churn out cars developed at headquarters. Now, GM, Volkswagen and Renault are handing development to Chinese engineers, leveraging the country's growing advantage in critical technology such as electric powertrains and advanced software.
The Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday it is adding California-based Digitalsystem Technology to a list of companies posing risks to U.S. national security, citing links to Chinese telecom firms and its ownership by a Chinese national. The FCC also said it was denying the Los Angeles-based IT company permission to provide international telecommunications services, saying it could be exploited by Chinese threat actors. "There is significant risk that the government of China and other threat actors could exploit any vulnerabilities to the detriment of U.S. national security and law enforcement interests," the FCC said, citing concerns about the collection, disruption or misrouting of U.S. communications.
U.S. oil and gas major Exxon Mobil signaled on Tuesday that its second-quarter earnings could see a boost of about $5 billion compared to the previous quarter, as oil prices spiked during the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the company's refining margins also improved. Investors scrutinize Exxon's earnings snapshot for signals on how oil firms will perform when they release second-quarter results. The conflict in the Middle East that began in February injected a hefty geopolitical risk premium into oil markets. For months, it virtually shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about a fifth of global oil flows. Benchmark Brent crude had an average closing price of $96.68 per barrel during the April-June quarter, up 23% from the first three months of the year. Prices climbed to $109.27 a barrel in April for the first time since 2022. Exxon's upstream segment could see profits lifted by about $1.6 billion, according to the midpoint of estimates provided by the company.
A proposed U.S. tariff of 25% on Brazilian instant coffee risks increasing costs for U.S. businesses and consumers by disrupting supplies of a product the country largely imports, Brazil's instant coffee industry said. More than 90% of Brazil's instant coffee is destined for the U.S., accounting for more than a fifth of the North American country's instant coffee imports, equivalent to around 15,500 metric tons annually, according to the Brazilian Soluble Coffee Industry Association (Abics). "By imposing additional tariffs, the first impact falls on companies and jobs, and those higher costs will ultimately be passed on to American consumers," said Aguinaldo José de Lima, Abics executive director.
Chinese authorities have held meetings with top tech firms over the past month about potentially restricting overseas access to China's most advanced AI models, including those yet to be released, three people familiar with the discussions said. The talks follow a number of steps by Beijing to keep homegrown AI within the country and underscore how China, like the U.S., is now treating cutting-edge artificial intelligence as a critical national asset that needs controls. Companies present at the talks included tech giants Alibaba and ByteDance as well as startup Z.ai, said the people, who were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified. Since the emergence of DeepSeek's R1 model last year, Chinese AI models have made big inroads globally thanks to their low costs and increasing capabilities. Any decision by Beijing to limit access to those products could ripple across AI markets as costs for many businesses would likely increase.
Microsoft has announced that it will lay off around 4,800 employees, which is about 2.1% of its global workforce. The company confirmed the move on Monday. Most of the job cuts will affect Microsoft’s sales division and its Xbox gaming business. Before these layoffs, Microsoft had more than 220,000 employees worldwide. The company usually announces job cuts at the beginning of its financial year, which starts on July 1. Last year, Microsoft eliminated 6,000 jobs in May and another 9,000 positions, or around 4% of its workforce, in July.
U.S. chip design giant Synopsys plans to stop offering a suite of manufacturing process control software used by global semiconductor makers, six sources briefed on the matter said, as it seeks to divert resources to higher-margin offerings such as AI design.
Smartphone sales in China fell 13% year-on-year during the month-long 618 shopping festival, as brands raised prices to offset higher memory costs, according to data from Counterpoint Research. Sales declined from May 26 to June 21, with all major Chinese brands except Huawei posting double-digit drops as fewer promotions compared to last year weighed on demand. Honor sales dropped 33%, while Xiaomi's fell 24%.
Meta Platforms said in a court filing on Monday that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety. Meta put forward the figure in its response to the attorneys general's filings on how penalties should be calculated if the states prevailed at trial.
A shortage of critical minerals is starting to affect the broader Japanese economy, adding a sense of urgency for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government to find alternatives to exports that China has cut off, according to recent corporate filings. China dominates the global market for rare earths - which are crucial in making items from electric cars to weapons - and it is using those supplies as a diplomatic cudgel. Since Takaichi enraged Beijing with comments about defending Taiwan in November, Beijing has choked off shipments of certain key minerals to Japan.
Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday it will build a new $3.6 billion auto plant in Texas and shift some truck production to the United States from Mexico. The Japanese automaker said the new 2.5-million-square-foot building will be located on its San Antonio manufacturing campus and will open by 2030, creating 2,000 jobs. The company said it will move production of its mid-size Tacoma pickup truck from its Baja California plant in Mexico to Texas when the factory is completed.
South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics forecast Tuesday a massive 19-fold jump in second-quarter operating profit from a year earlier, buoyed by sustained AI-driven demand for memory chips. The world's largest memory chipmaker estimated April-June operating profit at 89.4 trillion won ($58.4 billion) -- up 1,810 percent on-year, a company statement said. Frenzied global demand for advanced memory chips used in data centres for artificial intelligence has already helped South Korean semiconductor giants post record profits this year.
Airbus has set an internal goal of 900 deliveries this year after handing over 89 jets in June, while keeping its official full-year guidance of 870 deliveries unchanged, industry sources said. June's total reflects an ongoing surge in deliveries as Airbus catches up on delayed deliveries to China and benefits from some easing of disruption to engine supplies, they said. Airbus did not respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg reported on Friday that Airbus delivered around 90 jets in June.
Samsung Electronics is likely to estimate that its operating profit jumped about 18-fold to another record high from a year earlier in the second quarter, as AI growth continues to strain memory supply and push chip prices higher. On Tuesday, the world's largest memory chipmaker by sales is likely to flag an operating profit of 86 trillion won ($56.35 billion) for the April to June quarter, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate based on forecasts from 30 analysts, weighted toward those with the best track records.
A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Wayne Cole. It's been one of the quietest starts to a week in ages, with no new wars, or tariffs and much of the world watching the football. There has been no reported progress in U.S.-Iran peace talks, but at least the Strait of Hormuz is partly open. The UKMTO counted 160 vessels transiting from Monday to Saturday last week, with 98 of those tankers. It's still far short of the 138 daily average transits before the war, but every barrel helps.
Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, reported a 39.8% year-on-year rise in second-quarter revenue that beat market forecasts on strong demand for AI products, though it cautioned about "volatile" global politics. Revenue for Nvidia's biggest server maker and Apple's top iPhone assembler jumped to T$2.513 trillion ($78.71 billion) in the April-June quarter, Foxconn said in a statement on Sunday. That was above a T$2.372 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate, which gives greater weight to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.
Chinese artificial intelligence startup Z.ai is emerging as a fresh challenger to OpenAl and Anthropic after its latest flagship model, GLM-5.2, gained traction among developers for delivering advanced coding and Al agent capabilities at a significantly lower cost. The Beijing-based company's latest model has climbed developer rankings and drawn praise from prominent Al figures, with some industry observers calling it a "mini DeepSeek moment". Analysts say GLM-5.2 comes close to leading US models in software engineering and long-horizon Al tasks while operating at a fraction of their cost, reigniting debate over China's growing competitiveness in frontier Al.
For decades, consumer technology followed a predictable and reassuring script: when a new model arrived, older devices became cheaper. That safety net is disappearing. Prices of smartphones, laptops and other electronics are now rising in the middle of product cycles, long before their successors reach the market, as sharply higher component costs ripple through the technology supply chain.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said that the United States must accept that realities have changed following the Israeli-US conflict with Iran, during his meeting with Uzbekistan's speaker of parliament, as reported by Al Jazeera. "Conditions have improved compared to the past, and post-war developments have caused Americans to accept existing realities," Ghalibaf said, as cited by Al Jazeera. "In such an environment, trade relations can be expanded further, and we hope that the groundwork for lifting sanctions will also be prepared."
There is still no lasting peace deal in the Persian Gulf, but energy-hungry Asia is already drawing energy lessons from four months of war: it needs bigger buffers, a greater diversity of fossil-fuel suppliers, and a better mix of power sources overall. Flows of oil and natural gas have been returning to normal and prices have tumbled since an interim US-Iran accord was signed last month that pried open the Strait of Hormuz, relieving the immediate sense of crisis.
US oil companies are set to report their strongest quarterly profits in years, courting a possible clash with President Donald Trump, who has been pressing his longtime ally Big Oil to bring down gasoline prices before midterm elections in November. After months of Americans complaining about pain at the pump, Exxon Mobil and Chevron are expected to report second-quarter earnings in the coming weeks that are more than triple first-quarter levels. Oil prices spiked after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in late February and global fuel supplies tightened.
German software major SAP is tightening hiring, travel and third-party spending as it steps up investments in artificial intelligence, according to an internal email sent to employees, according to a Shilpa Phadnis’ TOI report. In the email, SAP said the rapid pace of AI adoption is driving significant investments in AI products, strategic acquisitions and the infrastructure needed to support AI workloads. The company also pointed to rising token consumption and related costs as more AI-powered applications are deployed internally and for customers.
Trade in goods between the European Union and the U.S. reached a record €875 billion ($1.00 trillion) last year despite tariffs, but the figures mask significant economic damage, notably to Germany's auto sector, a study published on Friday found. The research by the German Economic Institute, or IW, found a 7.7% rise in EU exports to the U.S. to €580 billion, while U.S. imports into the EU climbed 2.2% to €295 billion, pushing the EU's trade surplus to nearly €285 billion. The report attributed some of the increase to front-loading of exports ahead of tariffs that took effect in April and said European manufacturing had suffered.
Nvidia Corp. is looking to expand access to its leading artificial intelligence hardware by supporting Al cloud computing providers in exchange for a share of their future revenue. The company at the heart of the Al boom will help connect Al data center operators and cloud service providers with Al developers, simplifying the process for each side and establishing a new recurring usage-linked earnings stream" for itself, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. The aim of its new revenue-sharing model is to build business among researchers and nascent Companies without the capital to access large-scale Al resources.
Europe’s highest court on Thursday upheld a €4.1 billion ($4.67 billion) antitrust fine against Google, bringing an end to one of the European Union’s biggest competition cases against a technology company. The ruling confirms that Google abused the dominant position of its Android mobile operating system to strengthen its own apps and services. The decision is a major victory for the European Commission and comes as the EU continues its broader crackdown on Big Tech through tougher competition and digital market rules.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged shortcomings in the company's sweeping restructuring at an internal town hall on Thursday, saying the systems known as AI agents had not progressed as quickly as he had expected, according to a recording heard by Reuters. Zuckerberg added that a company reorganization that included major job cuts was not as "clean" as it could have been and that executives had miscalculated on the timing of the changes.
A Moscow car dealership is struggling to keep up with demand for new electric vehicles from China as drivers look to sidestep a fuel crisis that has led to long queues and soaring prices across much of Russia. Escalating Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure have squeezed gasoline and diesel supplies in recent weeks, prompting restrictions in most regions.
Ford on Thursday reported a 10.3% drop in U.S. sales in the second quarter, as the automaker reeled from lower inventory of its F-150 pickup trucks. It notched quarterly sales of 549,200 units, lower than the 612,095 units it sold a year earlier.
Tesla on Thursday posted record-setting second-quarter delivery numbers that smashed past Wall Street estimates, led by a rebound in Europe, feeding hopes that in 2026 the electric vehicle maker can end its two-year streak of annual declines. Strong results from Tesla's mainstay auto business offer a crucial cushion as CEO Elon Musk focuses on expensive ambitions in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, the main drivers of the company's roughly $1.6 trillion valuation.
Microsoft said on Thursday it is creating a new company that will help customers select AI technologies that work for their businesses and generate returns on their investment. Microsoft Frontier Company, as the new operating entity is called, will kick off with $2.5 billion in funding from the tech giant to work with clients such as Unilever and Novo Nordisk.
Tesla's China-made electric vehicle sales rose for an eighth month in June, supported by an extended recovery in the U.S. automaker's European sales. Deliveries of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles made in its Shanghai plant, which is also an export hub for Europe, grew 24.4% from a year earlier to 89,091 units, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Thursday. The increase followed a 39.4% gain in May.
The race for the next generation of computing is moving beyond traditional processors. Nvidia’s push into AI-focused chips for personal computing and AMD’s expansion of its Ryzen AI portfolio have intensified a new battle – one where artificial intelligence is becoming the defining workload for the next era of devices. For Intel, the shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity: to transform its identity from a dominant CPU maker into a broader AI computing platform company.
The European Union rolled out two measures to protect its steel industry and limit e-commerce small parcels on Wednesday as the 27-nation bloc grapples with its staggering trade imbalance with China. "Today's change is about restoring fairness for European businesses and better protecting our consumers," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an online post praising a new 3 euro (USD 3.42) customs duty on small packages. "The surge in low-value online imports has put our retailers at an unfair disadvantage. Too many of these products also fail to meet EU safety standards, putting consumers at risk."
Samsung Group detailed plans on Thursday to invest 140 trillion won ($90 billion) for production of display panels, batteries, chips and chip materials in the central province of Chungcheong. • Samsung Display to spend 67 trillion won in Asan and Cheonan, while Samsung Electronics to invest 56 trillion to build packaging facilities for high-bandwidth memory chips in Onyang and Cheonan. • The plan fits into bigger investment plans the group rolled out on Monday. Details were provided by Samsung Display CEO Yi Chung at an event hosted by President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday.
The U.S. government is in advanced talks with AI companies to create voluntary standards for the release of new models, with an announcement possible as soon as next week, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources. • Washington has tightened oversight of new model releases to flag risks amid concerns advanced AI could be misused by military intelligence in China, Russia or other countries of concern. • The standards would set benchmarks for advanced models and timelines, while clarifying who can access them in the United States and abroad, according to the FT report.
General Motors on Wednesday reported a 4.2% drop in U.S. auto sales during the second quarter, as inflationary pressures kept some new vehicle buyers at bay. The automaker notched quarterly sales of 714,896 units compared with 746,588 units a year earlier.
OpenAl has reportedly considered giving the Trump administration a 5 per cent stake in the company as Al firms face growing scrutiny in Washington over the potential misuse of advanced models and whether Americans should share in the sector's profits.
China has introduced sweeping new regulations to tighten scrutiny of overseas investments, with the framework coming into effect on Wednesday amid growing technological competition with the United States. The new rules, announced by China's State Council on June 1, provide Beijing with a broader legal framework to review and influence the movement of capital, technology and personnel across its borders, particularly in strategically important sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and green technology, according to news agency AFP.
Anthropic will restore global access to its most advanced artificial intelligence models on Wednesday following a change in US policy. Claude Fable and Mythos had gone offline for all users last month after the Donald Trump government announced export control curbs to prevent usage by foreign nationals. The crackdown came mere days after the company expanded Project Glasswing to give Indian companies and developers early access to the advanced chatbot.
The lines are growing at Russian gas stations -- and so is the frustration and uncertainty as several months of Ukrainian attacks have set oil refineries ablaze and choked supplies for motorists across the vast country. Fuel rationing has been introduced in many regions, with hourslong queues of cars snaking beside roads. Social media videos show drivers aghast at the lines or swearing at empty gas pumps and rising prices. The mayor of the Siberian city of Irkutsk even ordered portable toilets brought in to accommodate those in line.
Tesla is expected to report a 5% rise in vehicle deliveries on Thursday for the second quarter. The gain is likely to stem from higher demand in Europe, where a sharp jump in fuel prices has pushed consumers to choose battery-powered cars. While demand in China is expected to be stable, U.S. sales are still pressured by the expiry of the $7,500 Biden-era federal EV tax credit in September.
Bloom Energy and Brookfield said on Tuesday they had expanded their partnership to finance power projects for AI infrastructure, boosting their funding framework fivefold to $25 billion to accelerate the global deployment of Bloom's fuel cells. Shares of Bloom Energy surged 12% in extended trading. Brookfield in October had agreed to invest up to $5 billion in Bloom's fuel cell technology to power data centers, as companies seek cleaner energy to meet the needs of the AI boom.
British American Tobacco is reducing its 47,000-strong global workforce by about one-fifth as part of its sweeping plan to bring down costs and simplify operations. By the end of this year, the maker of Dunhill cigarettes will have slashed 5,500 jobs and outsourced a further 3,500, according to an internal notice that lays bare the scale of change taking place at the tobacco giant. The numbers do not include BAT’s US business, which is operated through its subsidiary Reynolds American. Most other countries BAT operates in are affected by its ongoing restructuring program and the company detailed the extent of job cuts on Monday. It has pledged to make £600 million ($793 million) of annual cost savings by the end of 2028.
South Korea on Monday announced one of its biggest industrial investment plans, placing semi-conductors and artificial intelligence at the centre of its economic strategy. President Lee Jae Myung unveiled a package worth over 886 trillion won (about $576 billion) to expand chip production, develop AI infrastructure and spread economic growth beyond the Seoul metropolitan area, reported Reuters. The strategy relies heavily on Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest memory chip makers. The government hopes the investments will help South Korea stay ahead in the global semi-conductor race while also creating new industrial hubs in regions outside the capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that his country is facing a “certain shortage” of fuel in the wake of repeated Ukrainian strikes on significant energy infrastructure, as the conflict between both sides has no end in sight. For the first time, the international leader detailed the extent to which Ukraine’s attacks have impacted Russia’s fuel production. “Right now we’re observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical,” he said during a state TV interview on Sunday. Given the current situation, Putin vowed to increase Russian anti-aircraft defence capacity and ensure fuel supplies, especially to Crimea, which Russia seized by force in 2014. Ahead of the weekend, authorities in Russia-annexed Crimea declared an “emergency situation” due to fuel shortages and power cuts set in motion by Ukrainian strikes and attacks on oil facilities.
The Strait of Hormuz is showing signs of coming back to life after a tense spell due to Iran's recent attacks on ships passing through the strategic corridor. Once heavily choked following US-Israel joint strikes on Iran on February 28, the waterway is now slowly regaining its rhythm, with more operators edging crude carriers back into the Persian Gulf. Kpler data cited by Bloomberg showed around 24 commodity vessels, including oil -tankers, liquefied natural gas carriers and bulk ships, passed through the strait in both directions on Monday. This comes after traffic fell sharply after another container vessel faced strikes last Thursday.
China added 20 Japanese entities to its export control list for dual-use items on Monday, preventing Chinese firms from selling to them without prior approval, citing Tokyo's ambitions for "remilitarisation." The action, Beijing's latest in a series of export curbs targeted at Tokyo, was aimed at limiting Japan's "new type of militarism" as well as its nuclear ambitions, the Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement. Japan's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has flagged financial vulnerabilities associated with AI-related financing, warning that the race to capture market share may have led to overinvestment, sowing the seeds of a sector-wide bust if returns disappoint. "This is one of the pressure points we see facing the global economy," Tao Zhang, chief representative of BIS for Asia and the Pacific, said, adding that there are financial vulnerabilities associated with AI-related financing. "Risk premia are compressed, asset valuations are stretched, and the financing of AI is increasingly leveraged and features complex interactions within the AI supply chain, " he said. The BIS has therefore highlighted the need for macroprudential policies to lean against persistently strong risk appetite and stressed the importance of greater transparency in private credit markets, particularly in sectors such as AI, Zhang said.
South Korea on Monday laid out a sweeping industrial strategy centred on semiconductors and artificial intelligence, as President Lee Jae Myung unveiled over $576 billion in chip investment to secure global dominance and rebalance growth. The plan, anchored by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, marks Lee's boldest push yet to align South Korea's AI and chip ambitions with his pledge to narrow regional disparities and revive economies beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. Flanked by the chiefs of the world's two biggest memory chipmakers, Lee cast the initiative as a "great leap forward," centred on the "triple axis" of semiconductors, physical AI and data centres. "We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country," the president said in a televised address.
People in the Philippines are flocking to install solar power on rooftops and escape the burden of soaring electricity prices, making it the world's biggest spender on solar panels since the war in Iran started. Top power distributor Meralco has raised prices by 10% since the Middle East conflict began in late February. Now, a median household spends around 12% of monthly income on electricity, assuming it consumes 200 kilowatt-hours — approximately the monthly average for three people. The Philippines is one of the few countries in Southeast Asia with barely any power subsidies, and its residential power prices are the highest in the region. Only Singapore comes close, but its citizens' average purchasing power is nearly 13 times higher.
Sovereign wealth funds and central banks managing $29 trillion in assets are turning to energy assets, and raising concerns about the dollar, in a portfolio reassessment driven by unprecedented geopolitical shifts, according to an Invesco survey published on Monday. The survey of 90 sovereign wealth funds and 54 central banks showed an increasing focus on diversification, and investment portfolios that can "take a hit and still hold it together" amid trade tariffs, closed shipping channels and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
SpaceX and internet provider Charter Communications have held executive-level talks about partnering on a consumer mobile phone offering in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing sources. • Charter Communications declined to comment to Reuters. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours. • SpaceX already offers direct-to-cell connectivity with T-Mobile in the U.S., providing supplemental coverage from space to extend internet access to remote areas. • Charter could run some of SpaceX's phone traffic through its ground-based internet infrastructure, the report said.
Toyota Motor said on Monday that global vehicle sales slipped for a fourth consecutive month in May, as decreases in China and the Middle East weighed on overall results. • Global sales dropped 7.2% year-on-year to 834,279 vehicles, Toyota said in a release. Overseas sales fell 9.6%, while those in Japan rose 11.1%, helped by strong demand for models such as RAV4 and bZ4X. • By region, sales in China plunged 31.7% amid tough market conditions, partly due to rising petrol prices, while those in the Middle East slumped 38.6%. In the U.S., Toyota's top market, they edged down 0.6%. • Global production declined 5.5% from a year earlier, as a 3.8% drop in the U.S. and a 13.3% decrease in Asia offset a rise in Japan.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has staged its strongest recovery since the West Asia conflict, with 341 vessels crossing the strategic waterway in the week following the June 17 US-Iran agreement and daily transits surging to a record 78 on June 24 from just 25 on June 17. The latest tally represents 57% of pre-war traffic, signalling a rapid revival in crude oil, LNG, LPG and commodity shipments through the world’s most critical energy chokepoint, according to S&P Global. The recovery has gathered momentum over the past week, with daily vessel movements climbing from 25 on June 17 to 41 on June 18, 35 on June 19, 49 on June 20, 29 on June 21, 36 on June 22, 48 on June 23 and a record 78 on June 24. The sharp increase follows the reopening of the Strait under the US-Iran memorandum and reflects improving confidence among shipowners after Oman and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) established a dedicated safe transit corridor along the Omani coast.
China Eastern Airlines said on Friday it plans to buy 25 A330neo jets from Airbus for a catalogue price of about $9.35 billion, as the Chinese carrier expands its widebody fleet to serve more international routes. The aircraft are scheduled to be delivered in batches from 2029 to 2033, China Eastern said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, adding that the two companies signed the purchase agreement in Shanghai earlier in the day. China Eastern said in the filing that the catalogue price of $9.35 billion is based on Airbus's January 2025 list prices and the actual transaction price would be lower, with the airline securing a discount more favourable than in previous purchases from the European planemaker.
Escalating his trade offensive against digital taxes targeting American companies, US President Donald Trump on Friday warned that any country imposing a Digital Services Tax (DST) would face 100% tariffs on exports to the United States warning that such duties would override existing trade agreements. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said several European countries were discussing or moving towards implementing digital taxes targeting US firms.
Middle Eastern fuel oil exports are set to rebound to a four-month high in June as Iraq and Saudi Arabia rerouted supplies through alternative ports while shipments through the Strait of Hormuz gradually resume following the US-Iran interim peace agreement, Reuters reported citing trade sources and shipping data. Exports from the region are expected to reach about Exports from the region are expected to reach about 2.4 million metric tonnes (508,000 barrels per day) this month, more than 20% higher than in May, according to Kpler and LSEG data cited by Reuters. However, shipments remain well below the pre-conflict monthly average of 5.5-6 million tonnes.
German automaker Volkswagen faces one of its biggest restructuring drives in decades as it considers closing several factories in Germany and reducing its global workforce by tens of thousands. The proposal includes the possible shutdown of four production sites in Germany, a move that could impact over 100,000 positions over time, reported Germany-based Manager Magazin. What changes does Volkswagen plan for its German operations? Quoting people familiar with the discussions, Manager Magazin reported that Volkswagen has reviewed the possibility of shutting plants in Hanover, Zwickau, Emden, and Audi’s Neckarsulm facility. These locations together employ more than 45,000 workers.
In 2024, the company’s leadership issued a public apology. They admitted to “falling short of the market’s expectations” and failing to maintain “technological competitiveness.” For a company that once defined what it meant to be a global tech giant, that was a remarkable thing to say out loud. The stock reflected every bit of that humiliation. For much of early 2025, Samsung was trading at tangible book value. Which, in plain English, means the market was valuing Samsung at exactly what its assets were worth on paper. No premium. No excitement. No future priced in. Just: here are the buildings, the machines, and the inventory. Take it or leave it.
Samsung Group will unveil a sweeping decade-long investment plan on Monday, pledging 1,000 trillion won ($648 billion) to anchor South Korea's next growth cycle, including a possible 300 trillion won push to build chip factories in the country's southwest, a media report said. The investment, which would include AI data centers, batteries and displays, will be announced at a meeting with President Lee Jae Myung at the presidential office, the Maeil Business Newspaper said on Friday, without citing sources. Top executives from heavyweights including Samsung Electronics and its rival SK Hynix will attend the meeting and lay out investment plans targeting regions beyond Seoul and its surrounding hubs, the report said. The report did not say when the investment would be made. At its core, the initiative appears designed to decentralise South Korea's Al boom into a nationwide engine of growth, easing infrastructure bottlenecks while jumpstarting jobs, innovation hubs and next-generation manufacturing across underserved regions.
SpaceX has told investors it plans to launch a Starlink mobile service for U.S. consumers, the Financial Times reported on Friday, in a move that could allow the Elon Musk-led company to compete directly with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Here are some details: • SpaceX already offers direct-to-cell connectivity with T-Mobile in the U.S., providing supplemental coverage from space to extend internet access to remote areas. • SpaceX is now considering launching a Starlink retail product and could build its own terrestrial U.S. mobile network, President Gwynne Shotwell told investors during a recent IPO roadshow, the FT report said, citing sources.
Tesla said on Thursday that production at its Berlin plant will rise by 20% to 7,500 vehicles per week from October this year. Tesla said the planned increase in production means it will recruit a further 1,000 employees. The company already announced a capacity increase at the plant company in April to meet higher demand for the Model Y. In May, it said it would increase its investment in battery cell production at the plant. The three announcements mean that a total of 3,500 additional jobs will be created in the short and medium term for vehicle and battery manufacturing at the plant, the company said.
Meta Platforms and Microsoft each committed tens of billions of dollars in additional data center leases in their most recent quarters, adding to the massive sums the industry is spending on artificial intelligence. Those pledges helped push overall commitments to future data center leases to more than $850 billion among the largest cloud computing companies. These obligations have continued to climb over the last year as tech giants work to expand their fleet of server farms, according to a Bloomberg analysis of regulatory filings. The future costs, which come on top of active leases, won’t appear on companies’ balance sheets until they begin making payments on them. They’re generally tied to data centers, but can also include facilities such as offices or warehouses.
The Pentagon on Wednesday awarded Lockheed Martin a seven year undefinitized contract worth up to $35 billion to quadruple production of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad interceptors, part of a push to replenish missile defence stockpiles and boost output. The award stems from a framework agreement the defence manufacturer reached with the Pentagon in January to significantly increase production over a multi-year period. The Donald Trump administration pushing to expand weapons production after military operations in Iran and other conflicts drew down US stockpiles.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continued to improve compared to pre-US and Iran agreement levels on Tuesday, with some ships crossing through a new IMO evacuation route, tracking data showed. As of 1500 GMT on Wednesday, maritime tracking firm Kpler recorded 25 transits by commodity ships on Tuesday, and 17 so far on Wednesday. Total figures are likely to rise further, as crossings are identified retrospectively, notably through satellite imagery. Tuesday's crossings fall short of the 38 commodities transits detected on Monday, the highest amount since the Strait of Hormuz was closed down by Iran on March 1 at the start of the Middle East war.
Volkswagen has agreed to sell its diesel engine unit Everllence to Bain Capital in a deal generating proceeds of about €7.4 billion ($8.4 billion), beating out other private equity firms including one that had joined forces with Volkswagen's top shareholders. The leveraged buyout deal is expected to be one of European industry's biggest carve-outs this year. Volkswagen has been seeking to free up cash at a time of deep cuts across the group's automotive operations. A leveraged buyout is a deal in which a company is acquired largely with borrowed money. "Leaner structures and processes will give Everllence the opportunity to achieve further growth in attractive markets such as data centers, the energy sector and shipping. At the same time, it will allow us to focus even more strongly on our core business," said Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume.
The lithium industry is growing more optimistic about a market recovery as booming demand for battery storage systems helps offset a slowdown in some electric vehicle markets, leading producers told an industry conference this week. While electric vehicles have been the main driver of lithium demand for years, regulatory changes in the United States and elsewhere have cooled sales in some key markets. That slowdown coincided with industry overproduction, pushing lithium prices sharply lower. But growing demand for stationary battery storage systems, driven by the expansion of artificial intelligence and efforts to strengthen power grids, is helping reshape the market outlook. "The period of market overcorrection is over," said Raju Daswani, CEO of consultancy Fastmarkets. "Energy storage has become a primary driver of growth in this market."
Chinese technology company ByteDance, the developer of TikTok, is in preliminary talks with banks for its largest offshore loan of about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The company has approached banks for a loan that may carry a three-year tenor, with an option to extend it to as long as five years, the report said. ByteDance did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The company is emerging as a major spender on AI infrastructure, ramping up spending and partnerships to secure chips and chip design services.
Taiwan's ASE Technology Holding, the world's largest chip packaging and testing provider, is expanding capacity to meet AI demand, Chief Operating Officer Tien Wu said on Wednesday. Here are some details: • Wu said the holding company is adding 15 new sites this year, including six greenfield sites for ASE, seven greenfield sites for its unit Siliconware Precision Industries, and sites acquired from Taiwan's Innolux Corporation earlier this year. • Wu reiterated that this year's capital expenditure is budgeted at $8.5 billion and may exceed that amount. • Wu said that the factory expansion is not just for the next two years, but for 2029 and beyond to meet strong AI demand. • The company said it has been investing in the U.S., with two testing factories in California and two more factories planned.
South Korea's government is in talks with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix over plans for the next phase of large-scale investments in semiconductor production facilities, an official said on Wednesday, adding an announcement on a new chip cluster would be made soon. "Exponential and explosive" growth in demand for chips driven by the AI industry could require the two companies to speed up ongoing construction of new chip facilities by more than 10 years to 2034-2035, presidential policy adviser Kim Yong-beom told a discussion panel. "The question is how we will support the AI revolution. Looking ahead to the next stage after seven or eight years, we are faced with the challenge of finding a massive new site for a second cluster," Kim said.
Rio Tinto. expects its lithium business to grow faster than its copper, iron ore and other divisions as it works to triple production by 2028 for the electric vehicle and battery storage markets, an executive said on Tuesday. The world's second-largest mining company jumped into the lithium sector last year when it bought U.S.-based Arcadium, a deal that brought access to mines, processing facilities and deposits across four continents, as well as a customer base that includes Tesla. Rio has been integrating those assets amid a lithium price crash caused in part by Chinese oversupply, a market malaise that forced a wave of industry layoffs and has only begun to abate in recent months.
The Trump administration is pressing Meta to submit its AI models for voluntary review, which would allow the government to evaluate their abilities and vulnerabilities, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing four people familiar with the confidential request. The request was made in emails with the social media giant, the report said, as the administration steps up oversight of the AI industry. The Facebook parent, which launched the Muse Spark AI model in April, is the only major U.S. developer of AI technology that has not reached an agreement to voluntarily share its models with the federal government for review, according to the report. "We share the administration's goal of advancing U.S. leadership on robust and secure frontier AI. While we are working through the details, we hope to sign the agreement soon," Meta told Reuters in an emailed response. The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Earlier this month, the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its most advanced AI models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said Thursday an auction of wireless mid-band spectrum raised more than $3.5 billion, which will largely be used to fund the replacement of Chinese telecom equipment. The FCC said up to $3.3 billion of the auction’s proceeds will be used to cover funds borrowed to support the FCC’s "Rip and Replace” program to purge Huawei, ZTE or other Chinese gear from their wireless networks and other programs. The agency previously estimated removing the Chinese equipment would cost $4.98 billion, but Congress only approved $1.9 billion before deciding to hold the auction. The FCC said last week that 42% of federal funding recipients have completed replacement and disposal of all Chinese equipment, citing delays due to permitting, supply chain issues, labor shortages and severe weather.
Blackstone is planning to invest $30 billion in Japan's AI data centers over the next three to five years, its president and chief operating officer Jonathan Gray told Nikkei in a recent interview, the business daily reported on Tuesday. The world's largest alternative asset manager is in discussions to develop facilities exceeding 1 gigawatt in the country, the report said, citing Gray. Blackstone did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. It also plans to accelerate its private equity investments in Japan, the company said. Earlier this month, Blackstone had raised $13.1 billion for its Asia private equity fund, exceeding its initial target and marking its largest such fundraise in the region.
Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani has said the Gulf nation expects to restore normal liquefied natural gas (LNG) production within weeks, as signs of progress emerge in US-Iran peace negotiations aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz. QatarEnergy, which operates the world's largest LNG export facility at Ras Laffan, has seen production largely disrupted since Iranian attacks in early March damaged two LNG production trains and contributed to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The damaged units account for around one-fifth of the facility's total production capacity. "Within a few weeks, production will come back to normal, except the damaged facility," says Al-Thani, cites Bloomberg. "Our teams have been mobilised already for a few weeks. QatarEnergy is preparing for operations to come back to normal as soon as the situation in the strait normalizes." The company is now preparing to restart operations from the undamaged sections of the plant as diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran continue. Global gas markets remain under pressure The return of Qatari LNG is expected to help ease supply concerns that have kept gas prices in Europe and Asia above pre-war levels.
Oracle reduced its workforce by about 13%, or nearly 21,000 employees, during fiscal 2026 as the company continued a major restructuring of its business, a move that comes as artificial intelligence plays a bigger role across its operations. According to Oracle’s annual report released on Monday, the company had 141,000 employees as of May 31, 2026. A year earlier, it employed around 162,000 people. According to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts in the tech sector, 196 technology companies have laid off more than 119,800 employees so far this year.
Micron Technology said on Monday it has signed an agreement with Anthropic that includes supply of memory and storage products, and a strategic investment in the IPO-bound AI company's latest funding round. AI developers are racing to secure critical components for increasingly expensive data-center buildouts, while memory makers look to tap into the soaring demand for high-bandwidth memory and storage used in training and running advanced AI models. "Our compute strategy depends on getting every layer of the stack right, and memory and storage are central to how efficiently we can train and serve Claude," said Tom Brown, Anthropic's co-founder and chief compute officer.
Elon Musk's SpaceX turned to the bond market for the first time, capitalizing on a post-IPO momentum that has vaulted its cash reserves past $100 billion as the rockets-to-AI group ramps up spending. Monday's notes offering comes mere days after SpaceX's IPO, signaling the company's push to reshape its balance sheet by replacing short-term bridge financing with longer-dated debt, which can help it fund an ambitious and costly expansion into AI and next-generation rockets. Its shares slid 9% in morning trading, falling for the third consecutive trading session. SpaceX listed on the Nasdaq on June 12 after raising $85.7 billion from its initial public offering, making it one of the world's most valuable companies. Musk holds 82% of SpaceX's voting power after the IPO. "With Musk maintaining supermajority voting control through a dual-class structure, issuing bonds keeps economic ownership intact for existing shareholders without new share issuance," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments.
The number of ships that passed through the Strait of Hormuz fell sharply on Sunday after Iran announced it had again closed the waterway, citing Israeli and U.S. violations of the interim peace deal, shipping data showed. Five vessels passed the strait on Sunday, from 26 ships spotted a day earlier, data from analytics firm Kpler showed. These included three Very Large Crude Carriers carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude and fuel oil each, one of which was heading to Japan. The data may exclude vessels that switch off their transponders while travelling in the Gulf.
China added MP Materials and USA Rare Earth as well as eight other U.S. entities it said are linked to the U.S. military to its export control list in retaliation for Washington placing several Chinese companies under restrictions this month. Aveox, a motor manufacturer for mission-critical applications, was also among those placed on the list, which halts Chinese dual-use exports to the companies. Pentagon-backed MP Materials, which operates the only active rare earth mine in the U.S., and USA Rare Earth are both involved in the mine-to-magnet supply chain. The three U.S. companies were not available for comment outside of business hours. The measures are a response to the "U.S. government's malicious practice" and were taken to safeguard national security and interests, as well as to fulfil international obligations such as non-proliferation, China's Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Kuwait has asked its energy customers to pick up refined petroleum directly from its ports as the US and Iran aim for a final agreement within 60 days, adding to signs that cement the opening of the Hormuz Strait. The country is situated deep inside the Persian Gulf and is among the worst-hit economies due to the conflict. According to Bloomberg, the National Oil Company, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, issued a tender to sell naphtha, a specific kind of refined petroleum to make gasoline and plastics, asking buyers to pass through the Strait with their own vessels. During the conflict, Kuwait Petroleum previously shipped liquefied petroleum gas through the Strait of Hormuz with its own ships.
China is stepping up scrutiny over exports of indium, leading some buyers to fear the niche metal, sought after for next-generation data centers, may be added to the export control regime that has become one of Beijing's most potent trade weapons. China produces nearly 70% of the world's indium, a byproduct of zinc refining mostly used in displays and solder but also the raw material for making indium phosphide, used to make high-speed optical chips for AI data centers.
Say it quietly, but Gulf airlines are back in business. The Middle East is home to some of the world's biggest carriers, whose networks have been upended by the Iran conflict, with Iranian missile and drone attacks at times shutting airports in recent months and redrawing traffic routes across the Gulf. Flightradar24.com data shows that the overall number of flights by major Gulf airlines has now returned to some 82% of the level on February 27, the day before the war started. Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways have topped 100% of that level in recent days. Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad - the biggest three - are above or near 90% of their pre-war level. Etihad and Qatar Airways were as low as 40-50% just a month ago. Emirates, which has spent big to keep flights going, has been higher for longer.
Meta Platforms has secured new agreements to get AI computing power from data center developer Crusoe, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, as it strengthens infrastructure required to support its AI expansion. Meta and Crusoe did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the report, which cited people familiar with the situation. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Here are some details: • Meta is under contract to buy computing capacity from Crusoe at two data centers, which are located in Childress, Texas, and Warrenton, Missouri, according to the report.
Surging Chinese trade with Africa and lifting of tariffs for most countries on the continent look set to boost yuan use, aiding Beijing's bid to build alternatives to Western finance. China-Africa trade rose by nearly 18% last year, customs data show, with tariff cuts on imports from 53 countries in May expected to increase flows and yuan-denominated settlements. International Monetary Fund research has found that yuan usage rises with trade exposure to China, which announced new measures on Wednesday to promote the global use of its currency. From Nigerian cattle bone pellets to Kenyan avocado oil and South African apples, Chinese ports are receiving more African cargo after the tariff elimination, boosting demand for settlement from yuan into local African currencies.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and manufacture its chips in the United States. A partnership with Intel helps Apple diversify its manufacturing base as it seeks additional chip capacity. The iPhone maker relies heavily on TSMC, whose advanced production lines are in high demand from AI chipmakers such as Nvidia and AMD. Intel reached a preliminary deal to make some chips for Apple after more than a year of discussions, the Wall Street Journal reported in May. Apple and Intel did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comments outside regular business hours. An Apple contract gives Intel a steady demand from one of the world's largest consumer electronics companies, boosting both its reputation and a manufacturing business that has lagged TSMC in recent years.
Rising fuel prices driven by the Iran war are boosting demand for new and used electric vehicles across Europe, industry data shared with Reuters shows, though some executives warn interest could fade if petrol costs fall. Industry experts say improvements in charging infrastructure and a wave of more affordable models - including from Chinese automakers - are helping make EVs more mainstream, supporting demand. The U.S. and Iran have agreed to an extended ceasefire, but shipping disruptions mean oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz may take weeks to normalise, with fuel prices likely to remain elevated for months. Data provided to Reuters by research group New Automotive and industry group E-Mobility Europe show new EV registrations rose 34% year-on-year in May across 17 markets covering more than 90% of European Union and European Free Trade Association car sales. Fully electric models accounted for almost one in four new registrations in those markets.
Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset increasing memory and storage chip costs, CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. A surge in AI-driven demand for data centers has forced consumer electronics companies into a fierce competition for dwindling supplies of the key components, driving prices sharply higher. Groups representing automakers, retailers, electronic firms and others had warned earlier this month that the increasing demand for memory chips could lead to dramatic price hikes in U.S. consumer goods and disrupt supply chains. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," Cook told WSJ. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable."
Saudi Aramco is considering the sale of a stake in its sulphur business, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, extending a strategy of tapping its infrastructure assets to raise tens of billions of dollars. Aramco, the crown jewel of the world's largest crude exporter, has been seeking outside capital to fund the kingdom's ambitious diversification agenda amid mounting fiscal pressure. The oil giant has been actively seeking to sell assets, improve efficiency and cut costs, Reuters reported exclusively last year. The total value of assets from its vast infrastructure empire that it may tap for fundraising could reach around $50 billion, according to one of the sources and Reuters calculations. Aramco invited banks to pitch last month for the sulphur deal, known internally as Project Yellowstone, the sources said, and could raise up to $7 billion, one of them added. Aramco, the world's biggest energy firm, declined to comment.
Around 130-150 million barrels of liquid cargo, ships carrying more than 2 million tonnes of fertilisers, and nearly 500 commercial vessels remain caught in the fallout of the Strait of Hormuz disruption, implying that while tanker traffic could resume within days of a reopening, global supply chains may take up to six months to fully normalise, experts warn. According to Kpler, approximately 130-150 million barrels of liquid supplies are currently loaded on tankers inside the Middle East Gulf (MEG) region. In addition, around 35-45 vessels carrying more than 2 million tonnes of fertilisers remain stranded in the region, with no meaningful export offset through alternative ports. “We are currently tracking approximately 130-150 million barrels of liquids loaded in the Middle East Gulf. Based on current loading levels, it could take roughly 7-10 days for these volumes to exit the region, although the timeline will ultimately depend on vessel traffic conditions and the pace at which tanker movements normalise,” said Nikhil Dubey, senior refining analyst, at Kpler.
Just days after its blockbuster Nasdaq debut catapulted its valuation beyond $2 trillion, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX is making another audacious bet, this time in artificial intelligence. The aerospace and technology giant said Tuesday it will acquire Anysphere, the company behind the fast-growing AI coding assistant Cursor, in a deal valued at $60 billion. The transaction, expected to close in the third quarter of 2026,is one of the largest acquisitions in the rapidly evolving AI software sector. It also shows SpaceX’s ambitions to expand beyond rockets and satellite communications, deepening its footprint in enterprise artificial intelligence at a time when demand for AI-powered software tools is surging.
The U.S. has held off adding China’s AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker CXMT and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to a trade blacklist, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration tries to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing. DeepSeek, CXMT and other companies were approved by an interagency committee last year for addition to the Commerce Department's Entity List, which is being reported for the first time. Reuters is also exclusively reporting the large number of companies awaiting publication on the list. DeepSeek, whose low-cost AI model sent shockwaves through the technology world in January 2025, has supported China's military and intelligence operations, a senior U.S. State Department official told Reuters last year, adding that the startup tried to use Southeast Asian shell companies to illegally access advanced U.S. chips.
OpenAI burned through $3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, more than half its $5.7 billion in revenue, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing documents the company shared with shareholders. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Earlier this month, OpenAI said it had confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO that a source said could come as early as September and value the company at up to $1 trillion.
BMW slashed its outlook for 2026 on Tuesday, blaming an accelerated downturn in the key Chinese market as well as the impact of the Iran war, which the German premium carmaker said had hit consumer sentiment and raised energy costs. The comments showed how exposed Europe's auto sector — already pummelled by fierce Asian competition and weak demand at home — is to developments abroad. BMW said it now expects an operating margin in its core automotive segment of between 1% to 3%, down from 4% to 6% previously, as well as a slight decrease in core deliveries in 2026, having previously expected them to be on par.
When President Donald Trump announced the US deal with Iran on Sunday and declared the "opening" of the Strait of Hormuz, his Truth Social post ended with the words "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!" BBC Verify analysis of MarineTraffic ship-tracking data, however, shows that just seven vessels appear to have passed through the critical waterway since the deal was announced and as many as 580 ships appear to be waiting in the Gulf. Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies are usually transported, following US and Israeli strikes on 28 February.
Schneider Electric and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) have entered into a strategic partnership to develop and scale next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) data centres, as surging AI adoption drives demand for faster, more energy-efficient digital infrastructure globally. The collaboration brings together Foxconn’s expertise in AI servers, advanced compute platforms, rack integration and large-scale manufacturing with Schneider Electric’s capabilities in power systems, cooling technologies and energy management, aiming to deliver integrated AI data centre solutions that can be deployed rapidly across markets. Production under the partnership is scheduled to begin later this year. The announcement comes amid an unprecedented build-out of AI infrastructure worldwide, with hyperscalers and technology companies racing to add computing capacity to support generative AI applications, cloud services and large language models.
Saudi Arabia is known as the “swing exporter” in the oil market because it can either pump out more or less of the black stuff in response to shocks. Historically the kingdom hasn’t had a match on the demand side. Barring a major economic crisis, consuming nations have always kept their purchases steady. Not anymore. After the Iran war, China has emerged as the world’s first oil “swing importer.” The ramifications of China becoming a stabilizing force for commodity prices go way beyond the latest Middle East conflict. This potentially reshapes the energy market — and Asian geopolitics. If the 1973 supply shock minted the term “Arab oil weapon,” the 2026 US-Israeli war on Iran now gives us the “Chinese oil weapon.” Or maybe “shield” is a better word, seeing how it might be wielded by Beijing in future stand-offs with the US.
OpenAI spent $34 billion last year to dominate the booming AI market ahead of its planned IPO, the Financial Times reported on Monday. Audited financial figures show the ChatGPT maker spent about $19 billion on research and development in 2025 and nearly $6 billion on sales and marketing, as well as other costs, the report said.
Global demand for electric vehicles rose for a third straight month in May, as subsidies and high petrol prices continued to drive the transition away from combustion-engine cars, data from consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence showed on Wednesday. Registrations of new battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles rose 3% from a year earlier to around 1.8 million in May, a proxy for sales, pushing the total 0.9% higher than last year for the first five months of the year, BMI said.
Elon Musk said on Sunday that his rocket company, SpaceX, could bring in $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, making the statement two days after the company went public, valuing it at over $2 trillion. "And I would be surprised if revenue is not greater than $1T in 2031," he wrote on his social media platform X, replying to journalist and financial commentator Jon Erlichman. SpaceX on Friday became the sixth-largest U.S. firm, cementing Musk's status as the world's first trillionaire. However, the company still makes far less money than similarly valued tech giants like Broadcom and Amazon.com. In 2025, SpaceX's revenue jumped to $18.67 billion from $14.02 billion a year earlier, but the company swung to a net loss of $4.94 billion from a profit of $791 million. Some Wall Street analysts are cautious about the company's growth. Goldman had estimated that SpaceX's revenue would exceed $470 billion in 2030, while Morgan Stanley projected it would reach nearly $330 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this month.
Chinese technology company ByteDance is in talks with Shanghai-based Iluvatar CoreX to purchase AI chips for inference work and is also considering a similar deal with Baidu, according to two sources familiar with the matter. If a deal is agreed, Iluvatar CoreX would become ByteDance's third major domestic supplier of graphics processing units (GPUs) after Huawei and Cambricon, the sources added. TikTok parent ByteDance is also considering using Baidu's Kunlunxin chips, they said, declining to be named as the talks are not public. Tencent is already a Kunlunxin chip customer, according to one of the sources. ByteDance, Iluvatar CoreX, Baidu and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment. The potential deals demonstrate that efforts by Chinese chipmakers to offer alternatives to foreign AI chips are gaining traction as Beijing promotes the use of locally developed chips to improve self-reliance amid U.S. export controls on advanced chips. Chinese GPU and AI chipmakers captured nearly 41% of China's AI accelerator server market last year, eroding Nvidia's once-dominant position in one of its most important overseas markets, Reuters reported in April.
US investment groups are racing to capitalise on the reopening of Venezuela's oil sector, targeting underinvested oilfields and launching new investment vehicles after US President Donald Trump's January call for companies to invest $100 billion to help rebuild the country's energy industry, the Financial Times reported. Among the early movers is Miami-based Lionheart Capital, which has signed a letter of intent aimed at merging its publicly listed affiliate, Lionheart Holdings, with Keo Energy, a group with oil assets in Venezuela's Maracaibo Basin, according to London-based business daily the FT.
Anthropic said on Friday it will "abruptly disable" its most advanced AI models for all users after the U.S. government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of its national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement. It is Anthropic's understanding that the government believes there is a method of bypassing, or "jailbreaking," a safeguard that would prevent Fable 5 from being used in identifying software vulnerabilities, the company said. The order comes just as a previous dispute between Trump administration officials and IPO-bound Anthropic showed signs of easing across parts of the U.S. government.
The US, country that once refused to export its fuel, has now climbed to the top spot in the global oil export rankings, overtaking crude heavyweights such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. As the world continues to feel the ripples of the ongoing Middle East crisis, US exports of crude and fuel reached around 10.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, driven by strong domestic production and releases from strategic reserves. The performance marked the third straight month that the United States held the position of the world's largest oil exporter. By comparison, Russian exports stood at 7 million bpd in May, according to Reuters calculations, while Saudi Arabia exported 5.9 million bpd, Vortexa data showed. The latest rankings highlight how dramatically the global energy order has shifted. Just a year earlier, Saudi Arabia had exported around 8.1 million bpd, ahead of the United States at 6.6 million bpd, while Russia's exports were estimated at roughly 5.8 million bpd. The shift came after supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, a key Middle Eastern oil passage, were disrupted for more than 100 days. The conflict began on February 28, when the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran.
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday extended its block on a lower court ruling against the Trump administration's 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act, keeping the tariffs in place for three importers that had won a reprieve from the duties last week. The decision from the Federal Circuit appeals court allows the U.S. to continue collecting tariffs from three importers while the government's appeal plays out. The U.S. trade court ruled against the new tariffs on May 7, but did not widely block their collection. The three importers impacted by the ruling are two small businesses and the state of Washington, which paid tariffs on purchases by the University of Washington.
The United States and the European Union have yet to decide whether to continue suspending or to reimpose tariffs on $11.5 billion of goods in a decades-long dispute over aircraft subsidies with just days to go before their truce expires. The two sides in 2004 lodged parallel cases at the World Trade Organization over subsidies for U.S. plane maker Boeing and European rival Airbus, accusing each other of unfair competition. The WTO in 2019 authorised the United States to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU goods, such as cheese, in the case against Airbus. A year later, it gave the EU the right to respond with countermeasures on $4 billion of U.S. imports, including tobacco and spirits. On June 15, 2021, both sides agreed to suspend these tariffs for five years. A European Commission spokesperson said on Thursday that discussions were ongoing to extend the suspension.
Alphabet's Google is in talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture part of its next-generation artificial intelligence processor, The Information reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. Google plans for TSMC to make the main computing part of the tensor processing unit, codenamed "Icefish", while Samsung may produce a component that helps connect it to memory using its 2-nanometer production technology, the report said. The tech giant is working with chip firm MediaTek on the design, and “Icefish” is still in development, with mass production possible as early as 2028, the report said.
Barely a week after Nvidia-backed chipmaker Coherent warned of a shortage of indium phosphide in an earnings call in early May, its CEO Jim Anderson was on a plane with a U.S. business delegation accompanying President Donald Trump on his trip to China. Anderson's visit was partly to raise the issue of delays in China's export licenses involving the highly strategic material, essential in manufacturing high-speed optical chips for AI data centres, said three sources familiar with the matter. The issue was also discussed during talks in Seoul between top trade negotiators of the two countries ahead of Trump's May 14-15 summit with China's President Xi Jinping, according to two U.S. government officials and a person briefed on the talks.
The European Central Bank is all but certain to raise interest rates on Thursday in the hope of nipping higher inflation in the bud before a surge in energy costs triggered by the Iran war spreads more broadly across the euro zone economy. The well-telegraphed move would come as inflation in the 21-country currency bloc is already above 3%, well in excess of the ECB's 2% target, and economic growth is very weak - a backdrop that has economists split over the case for tighter policy. ECB policymakers, some of whom had already pushed for action in April, are nonetheless expected to press ahead, seeking to keep a lid on inflation expectations and to safeguard their credibility after being slow to react to a post-pandemic inflation spike in 2022.
Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is looking to take over an existing factory in southern Europe for its second assembly plant on the continent, with Spain among the countries on its shortlist, a top executive said on Wednesday. "We would prefer to take over an existing plant," executive vice president Stella Li told reporters in Berlin during the European launch of the Dolphin G, a small electric car. She did not say which other European countries are on BYD's shortlist, or when a decision on a location was expected.
U.S. access to critical minerals from China remains difficult due to export controls and licensing delays, a U.S. business lobby said on Wednesday, with Beijing's restrictions driving three-quarters of impacted companies to search for new supplies. Introduced in April 2025 in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, Beijing's controls tightly restrict exports of certain rare earths crucial for advanced manufacturing. That's despite Trump's deal with China's Xi Jinping in October in which the White House said China committed to "effectively eliminate" all current and proposed critical mineral export controls.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed more than 80 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG from global markets — equivalent to nearly one-fifth of worldwide supply — creating conditions for a fresh wave of multi-billion-dollar LNG investments outside the Middle East even as energy buyers grapple with unprecedented uncertainty over future gas supplies, according to a new Wood Mackenzie analysis. The report suggests that while the immediate impact has been a sharp tightening of LNG availability and heightened price volatility, the bigger story may be the investment response. More than 150 mtpa of LNG export capacity is already under construction outside the Persian Gulf, predominantly in the United States, while another 30 mtpa is expected to reach final investment decision (FID) by the end of 2027. Under a prolonged disruption scenario, that pipeline could expand further as buyers seek alternatives to Gulf supplies and developers rush to fill the supply gap left by the world’s most important LNG transit corridor.
Beijing: China's domestic car demand has declined more sharply than expected at the start of the year and will likely remain under heavy pressure throughout 2026, an auto association executive said on Wednesday. "Stabilizing domestic demand this year should be regarded as a very important task for the automotive industry," said Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). China's total vehicle sales dropped 2.1% in May from a year earlier, while sales at home slid 20.4% year on year, CAAM data showed on Wednesday.
Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, on Tuesday said he expected the Chinese firm to become the world's largest automaker within five years, as he sought to reassure investors following a steep decline in the company's share price. BYD, which ranked sixth globally in 2025 with 4.6 million vehicles sold, has struggled to restore growth after its domestic sales were hit by intensified competition with local peers over the past year. Shares of the company have dropped more than 45% from their peak in Hong Kong over the past year, while its Shenzhen-listed stock has fallen 33%. Speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting at its Shenzhen headquarters, Wang addressed nearly 1,000 shareholders, emphasizing a focus on ramping up the output of its second-generation Blade Battery, which he identified as this year's key growth bottleneck, according to the state-owned Shanghai Securities News. The report was confirmed by an attendee at the meeting.
Apollo and Blackstone are financing a $35 billion expansion of AI computing capacity for Anthropic using Broadcom's custom chips and networking solutions as part of a tie-up between the asset managers and the chipmaker. The initial commitment will expand the Claude Code creator's AI computing capacity by one gigawatt, the companies said on Tuesday. One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 homes. The capacity is expected to be deployed at Fluidstack-operated sites beginning mid-2026, with the cloud computing company providing the physical data-center infrastructure that will run Anthropic's AI systems.
China is preparing to spend around 2 trillion yuan ($295.43 billion) over the next five years on building data centers across the country, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, as Beijing looks to challenge the U.S. in the intensifying AI race. National Development and Reform Commission is among key government agencies drafting a blueprint to build a network of inter-connected computing hubs across the country, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. China's new five-year policy blueprint laid out its ambitions to aggressively adopt AI throughout the world's second-biggest economy and dominate emerging technologies such as quantum computing and humanoid robots.
South Korea's cabinet approved on Tuesday a presidential decree as part of the process to allow $350 billion of strategic investments in the United States to proceed under a trade deal struck between the countries last year. The decree specified some terms and conditions in the investment plan, including the definition of "commercial reasonableness," which will serve as the basis for $200 billion in direct investments in strategic U.S. industries. South Korea also agreed to invest $150 billion in shipbuilding-related cooperation in return for more favourable tariff terms.
The world's largest chipmaker has told the BBC that inflation is pushing up the cost of doing business, and did not rule out price rises. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) makes the most advanced chips designed by companies such as Nvidia, AMD and Apple, so any increase in pricing could ripple through to the cost of AI infrastructure, and potentially over time, the prices customers pay for their electronic devices. However, the firm's chief financial officer, Wendell Huang, said it would not introduce sudden "fourfold, fivefold" price rises. "We reflect our value," he said, pointing to its "technology leadership" and "manufacturing excellence".
U.K. pharmaceutical group GSK has entered an agreement to acquire U.S.-based drugmaker Nuvalent for $10.6 billion to bolster its lung cancer pipeline, in what would be the British drugmaker’s largest acquisition in more than a decade. The all-cash deal values Nuvalent at about $124 per share, according to a GSK filing on Tuesday, representing a 40% premium to its last closing price. The Financial Times had reported the transaction earlier on Tuesday. Nuvalent did not respond to a request for comment.
Vietnam has ordered its major airlines to review the progress of multibillion-dollar agreements signed with Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab and Pratt & Whitney, and explore new import deals with American companies, as Hanoi seeks to strengthen its hand in trade talks with the United States. The directive, issued by the Ministry of Construction on June 5 and reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday, followed a request from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which is leading Vietnam's efforts to demonstrate to Washington that bilateral trade commitments are being acted upon. The move follows three separate Trump administration probes targeting Hanoi for allegedly distorting trade through excess capacity, intellectual property violations, and the use of goods produced using forced labour.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), opens new tab said on Monday it will acquire biotech Firefly Bio for $1 billion in cash, as it looks to expand its cancer drug pipeline. Firefly's Firelink platform uses antibodies to deliver a protein-degrading drug directly into cancer cells, an approach J&J says could help attack tumors while sparing more healthy tissue than existing treatments. The platform for tumors with a mutation in a gene known as KRAS "bolsters Johnson & Johnson's oncology pipeline and ambition to develop targeted medicines for the most prevalent and hard-to-treat solid tumors with high unmet need," said the drugmaker.
Nvidia (NVDA.O), on Monday announced a series of deals in South Korea with tech giants including SK Hynix (000660.KS), and Naver (035420.KS), as it looks to secure crucial memory chips to power its AI ambitions and entice new customers. The agreements come during a high-profile trip by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to South Korea that began on Friday and has seen him dine on grilled pork belly and local spirit soju with the country's top corporate bosses, throw a baseball pitch and meet with a well-known gamer.
Global container shipping rates have surged to their highest levels in about a year as the war between the United States and Iran continues to disrupt trade routes, raise fuel costs and strain shipping networks across Asia. Fresh data from freight analytics platform Xeneta shows the cost of moving goods by sea rose sharply over the past week, as per Bloomberg report. The spot rate for a 40-foot container from Asia to Northern Europe climbed to $3,649 as of Friday, up 27% from a week earlier. Shipping costs from Asia to the US West Coast jumped 20% to $3,933, reported Bloomberg citing data from Xeneta.
The widening conflict in the Middle East has emerged as the biggest threat to the global airline industry’s profitability this year. At the meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) sharply downgraded its 2026 financial outlook, citing the fallout from the US and Israeli strikes on Iran. The conflict triggered widespread airspace restrictions across the region, forcing airlines to avoid key flight corridors, lengthening journey times, increasing fuel burn and reducing aircraft utilisation. The disruption has been especially severe for Gulf carriers such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways, which sit at the heart of one of the world’s busiest long-haul transit networks. The near-complete shutdown of regional airspace during the initial phase of the conflict exposed the vulnerability of airlines that depend heavily on the Middle East as a global aviation crossroads.
China's export growth likely strengthened in May, underpinned by a backlog of overseas orders brought forward to pre-empt energy price pressures tied to the Gulf war, alongside sustained global demand for semiconductors and AI-related components. Exports from the world's second-largest economy are forecast to have risen 15% year-on-year in dollar terms, according to 32 economists in a Reuters poll, up from the 14.1% growth recorded in April. The Middle East conflict has yet to dent China's exports, policymakers' preferred growth driver, but economists say it's only a matter of time. As foreign buyers' stockpiling peaks, the benefits of front-loading orders fade and input costs rise, prompting buyers to run down inventories and wait out a ceasefire.
Nvidia on Monday announced a series of deals in South Korea with tech giants including SK Hynix and Naver, as it looks to secure crucial memory chips to power its AI ambitions and entice new customers. The agreements come during a high-profile trip by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to South Korea that began on Friday and has seen him dine on grilled pork belly and local spirit soju with the country's top corporate bosses, throw a baseball pitch and meet with a well-known gamer. Nvidia and its partners, which also included SK Telecom and conglomerate Doosan Group, did not disclose the value of the deals. SK Group, South Korea's second-largest family-owned conglomerate, said its SK Hynix and SK Telecom arms had agreed deals with Nvidia. Memory chip maker SK Hynix signed a multi-year technology partnership that will see it commit to developing advanced types of memory for global AI data centres, SK Group said. SK Hynix and Nvidia said the agreement, which comes as memory chip makers have been straining to keep up with demand, would enable supply to keep pace with Nvidia's plans, which have expanded to robotics, personal computers and AI supercomputers.
Swiss companies invested $27 billion in the United States between January and April, as Switzerland moves to fulfil a pledge to sharply increase investment following a tariff agreement with Washington, NZZ am Sonntag reported. The figure was contained in an internal email from the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce to its members seen by the newspaper, it said. • Switzerland and the U.S. said on November 14 that Swiss companies would invest $200 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. The pledge formed part of a preliminary agreement under which U.S. President Donald Trump reduced punitive tariffs on Swiss goods to 15% from 39%, after imposing the higher rate at the beginning of August.
aiwan's Foxconn said on Friday that its second-quarter performance is likely to be well above its previously anticipated forecast of "significant" growth. Foxconn, which is Nvidia's biggest server maker and Apple's top iPhone assembler, does not provide numeric guidance for its outlook.
Apollo Global Management Inc. and Blackstone Inc. have finalized a $35 billion financing package for Anthropic PBC to expand its Al infrastructure, marking the latest mega-deal in the artificial intelligence race. The debt deal priced across three tranches, according to people familiar with the matter. The capital will fund Google's custom chips for Anthropic to lease, Bloomberg previously reported.
The artificial intelligence boom has created a new group of ultra-rich tech founders. AI startup Anthropic announced on Thursday that it had raised $65 billion in fresh funding. With this, the company’s valuation has skyrocketed to a staggering $965 billion. Anthropic has now overtaken its biggest rival, OpenAI, which is currently valued at $852 billion, making it the world’s most valuable AI startup. The funding round has also dramatically increased the wealth of Anthropic’s seven cofounders. According to Forbes estimates, each founder is now worth about $16.6 billion, more than double what they were worth before the latest investment. How Anthropic’s founders compare with OpenAI’s leaders Anthropic’s billionaire founders include siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, along with Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish, Chris Olah, Tom Brown and Jared Kaplan. Forbes estimates that each owns slightly more than 1.7% of the company.
The growth of artificial intelligence is putting huge pressure on the global semiconductor industry, and the strain may not ease anytime soon. According to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, demand for advanced chips continues to exceed what the company can produce. As AI adoption expands across industries, the gap between supply and demand is expected to remain a major challenge for years. Speaking at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taiwan, Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei said the company is still struggling to keep up with customer needs. “It will be a long time before we can meet customer demand,” Wei said. AI adoption is increasing demand for advanced chips The surge in demand is mainly due to the growing use of AI technologies in consumer products, businesses and government services. AI applications require powerful processors and advanced semiconductors, creating strong demand across multiple industries.
Airbus delivered 81 aircraft in May, up 59% from the same month last year and bringing its total deliveries to 262 so far this year, the planemaker said on Friday in its monthly report. May's tally rose sharply from 67 in April and 51 in May 2025, confirming a Reuters report from Thursday, as deliveries to China resumed after what the company described as an administrative delay that has since been resolved. Airbus, which has booked 815 gross orders since January or a net total of 762 after cancellations, aims to deliver 870 jets in 2026.
Senior U.S. officials held preliminary discussions with major AI companies about the potential for the government to buy some shares in their firms, digital news outlet NOTUS reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter. While the planning is ongoing and details are in flux, discussions have centered on having the firms voluntarily cede the shares to the government, the report said. The returns on the investment could then be directed to public purposes, such as distributing a dividend payment to all American households, the report said.
China's major solar panel manufacturers are ramping up higher-margin battery exports to boost revenue as growth in photovoltaic (PV) sales slows, betting on rising global demand for renewable energy storage to cut reliance on fossil fuels. The sector has been hit by weaker domestic installations, slowing exports and record-low prices, with executives expecting global demand to decline in 2026. That has pushed players including JinkoSolar, JA Solar, LONGi Green Energy and Trina Solar to accelerate expansion into battery storage, company executives told Reuters.
Goldman Sachs expects revenue from SpaceX's AI division to surge to $322 billion by 2030, up from $3.2 billion in 2025, according to the Wall Street bank's forecasts shared with a potential investor, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. The investment bank has estimated SpaceX's total revenue to reach $474 billion in 2030 from $18.7 billion last year, the report added. Goldman has forecast revenue at SpaceX's AI segment to soar 388% from a year earlier to $15.6 billion in 2026, and reach $34.5 billion in 2027, according to the report, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, is confident in its growth over the next few years, thanks to robust demand for computing power and advanced semiconductors as it rides a relentless AI boom, its CEO said on Thursday. C.C. Wei, speaking at TSMC's annual shareholders' meeting in the Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, said customers are still positive on the outlook for artificial intelligence, although the company continues to monitor the impact of rising component costs. "We continue to see increasing adoption of AI models across consumer, enterprise and sovereign AI applications," Wei said, adding that while the company is working very hard, demand is high and it can only produce so much. "This trend is driving demand for greater computing power, which in turn supports strong demand for advanced semiconductor chips."
EU steel exports to the U.S. have fallen by 34% since Washington hiked tariffs to 50%, with higher duties on derivative products such as washing machines and motorbikes also hitting European demand, steel industry association Eurofer said on Thursday. Steel exports to the U.S. fell to 1.94 million metric tons in the three quarters since the Trump administration doubled import tariffs on steel and aluminium from 25% a year ago. European Union producers exported 3.4 million tons to the United States in 2025, compared with 4.1 million tons in 2024 and 4.7 million tons in 2017, Eurofer said. Eurofer said it was important the EU and the U.S. carried out their trade deal struck last July in full. That agreement, struck at President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland, sets out that the EU should remove its duties on most U.S. goods imports in return for a broad 15% U.S. tariff on EU exports. It also said the two sides should discuss possible tariff-free steel and aluminium quotas and cooperation to address global overcapacity. Axel Eggert, Eurofer director general, said the U.S. needs to fulfil its commitment to work with the EU to find a solution.
Cuba will suspend Visa and Mastercard transactions starting June 6, its central bank said on Wednesday, citing sanctions imposed by the United States that in recent days have led a swath of foreign businesses to sever ties with the Caribbean island. Cuba's central bank said a foreign partner that had previously processed credit card transactions for Cuba had decided to limit operations following a U.S. executive order on May 1 that vastly broadened sanctions on commerce with Cuba. "As a result of this decision, Cuba is unable to receive income from the sale of goods and services through internationally recognized cards such as VISA and MASTERCARD," the central bank said in a statement. The order is another blow to Cuba's economy and already decimated tourism industry, as the Trump administration ratchets up sanctions in a bid to upend the island's Communist-run government. Credit card transactions have historically been handled by a foreign bank and Fincimex, S.A., a financial arm of GAESA, a military-run conglomerate targeted with sanctions by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The United States accuses GAESA of secretly hoarding profits from the country's most valuable industries — including tourism, financial transactions, remittances and logistics — and using them for the benefit of the military and Cuban elite.
Both the European Union and the United States are committed to complying with their trade agreement, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday after broad new tariff threats over forced labour rankled Washington's trade partners. After the two sides struck a framework agreement at U.S. President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last July, the EU is still in the process of ratifying the deal, prompting Trump to say he would impose "much higher" tariffs if the bloc does not implement its commitments by July 4. "Both sides are committed to compliance with the trade agreement," Greer told France 24 in an interview. "We think there is a lot of room for compliance on both sides," he added. Greer's comments came after the Trump administration proposed new tariffs of up to 12.5% on imports from 60 economies, saying they had failed to curb trade in goods made with forced labor, an assertion rejected by its trading partners. The EU was hit with 10% tariffs over the issue. Greer said the announcement should not have come as a surprise as the investigation had been underway for months, but did not see it holding up the U.S.-EU deal in the European Parliament.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is set to raise about 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in its first funding round from investors including Tencent Holdings and CATL, people with knowledge of the matter said. The fundraising could value the company after the investment at between 350 billion yuan and 400 billion yuan, or between $52 billion and $59 billion, the people said, declining to be identified because the information is confidential. DeepSeek became China's national AI champion and garnered global fame early last year, when its V3 and R1 models drew widespread praise in Silicon Valley and challenged U.S. assumptions about China's AI capabilities.
Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a new quantum computing chip that it redesigned with the help of AI, saying it now believes it will have commercially useful quantum machines by 2029. The new target date puts Microsoft on track to have quantum computers the same year as rival IBM, which last month said it plans to spend $10 billion on quantum machines. It also spun out a company to make quantum chips for others, with backing from President Donald Trump's administration. Microsoft had not previously given a target year for the new chip, saying only that it would be a matter of years, not decades.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday highlighted his country's ties with China after the U.S. proposed a new punitive tariff of 25% on many imports from Latin America's largest economy. • Lula hailed China's decision earlier in the day to recognize Brazil as free of foot-and-mouth disease, calling it a counterpoint to the U.S. move. • "If you don't want to buy from me, I will sell to someone else," Lula said during an event in Goias state. • The leftist leader said he learned of the tariff proposal during trade talks, adding that U.S. and Brazilian trade negotiators had met three times recently but failed to reach a deal. • Lula blamed Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro for the U.S. proposal, accusing the right-wing presidential hopeful of lobbying Washington to impose tariffs.
Tesla's Chinese-made electric vehicle sales jumped 39.4% from a year earlier in May, marking a seventh consecutive month of growth as it held its ground against Chinese rivals. Deliveries of Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y vehicles from its Shanghai plant, including units exported to Europe and other markets, hit 85,982, up 8.2% from April, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Tuesday. The U.S. automaker saw new registrations rebound across several European markets in May, extending a recovery after earlier demand weakness in the continent.
Chinese automakers are expanding in Europe, betting on their competitive pricing and advanced technology to break into a market traditionally dominated by European and American brands, amid a global shift towards electric vehicles. This expansion has stoked trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing, including a row over EU tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, imposed to protect European producers. The following Chinese carmakers have expanded their footprint in Europe. BYD: BYD, the world's largest EV seller, accounted for 2.2% of total car registrations, a proxy for sales, in the European Union, Britain and the European Free Trade Association between January and April, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association showed.
Canada had a positive meeting with the U.S. on the review of their free trade deal, Canada's minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, said in Washington on Tuesday, but declined to provide many details. LeBlanc, who met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer along with Canada's chief trade negotiator, Janice Charette, did not comment on when formal negotiations between the two countries will start. "We presented a number of specific proposals to Ambassador Greer that we think are good in the broader context of the North American economy and respond to some longstanding issues that the United States has raised with us," he said, adding he will be in touch with Greer next week.
US President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation temporarily amending tariffs on copper, aluminum and iron imports. The announcement on Tuesday morning included new rates and an expansion of existing industrial equipment categories. It also sought to incentivise foreign companies by introducing a lower duty rate in certain cases. Details shared by the White House reveal that two new categories of steel and aluminium derivative import products have also been added to the tariff list. Steel racks and aluminium lithographic plates will both be subject to 25% duties. Rate changes and ‘encouragement’ for foreign companies According to the Proclamation issued by Trump, tariff rates for agricultural equipment such as combines and harvesters have been adjusted from from 25% to 15%. The White House said this would also apply to “certain other equipment” without elaboration.
Japan’s corporate pecking order has witnessed a major shake-up, with SoftBank Group overtaking Toyota Motor Corporation as the country’s most valuable company, Bloomberg reported. On Monday (June 1), shares of the Masayoshi Son-led conglomerate surged 14% in Tokyo trading, taking SoftBank’s market capitalisation beyond 48 trillion yen and pushing it ahead of Toyota’s roughly 46 trillion yen valuation. The development marks the first time in over two decades that SoftBank has surpassed the automaker in market value, apart from a brief moment during Japan’s dot-com bubble in 2000.
Nvidia unveiled Monday new powerful chips that would bring advanced artificial intelligence functions into laptops and desktop computers, with the new personal computer models from brands including Microsoft and Dell set to roll out later this year. While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia has already been massively successful in supplying high-end chips for data centers riding the worldwide AI demand boom, it is plotting different plans to expand its presence across AI systems and products. Jensen Huang, the Taiwanese-American founder and CEO of Nvidia, made the announcement in Taipei at the annual Nvidia GTC event. Microsoft and Nvidia "are going to reinvent the PC (personal computer)," he said in his keynote speech.
U.S. crude exports climbed to a record 5.6 million barrels per day in May as the Middle East crisis pushed up demand for the country's oil from Asian and European refiners, ship tracking estimates showed on Monday. The U.S. and Israel's war with Iran triggered the largest-ever disruption to the global energy market with refiners globally scrambling for alternatives to Middle Eastern supply. Around a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies passes through the Strait of Hormuz. a key waterway that effectively closed when the war started at the end of February. U.S. crude exports last month surged past the previous record set in April of 5.2 million bpd, according to data and analytics firm Kpler, as benchmark U.S. West Texas Intermediate prices traded at a steep discount to Brent, the global benchmark. Physical U.S. crude grades are typically priced as a differential to WTI, and a large discount to Brent makes it more economic for foreign buyers to purchase U.S. oil and ship it across the world.
Venezuela's oil exports rose slightly to 1.25 million barrels per day in May, its third consecutive month of increase, fueled by more cargoes to the U.S., India and Europe, shipping data showed on Monday. Under the U.S.-supported government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuelan crude production and exports have bounced this year as Washington eased sanctions and foreign companies expanded oil and gas projects in the OPEC nation. The oil ministry has forecast a crude output of 1.37 million bpd by year-end, which would imply a 22% increase from the 1.12 million bpd produced in late 2025 and a number not seen since U.S. energy sanctions were first imposed in 2019. The growth also has allowed Venezuela to resume exports to countries it had not been able to sell its oil to in years. The volume of crude and refined products shipped from the South American country in May was 0.7% higher than in April and stood 61% above exports in the same month last year, according to the data, based on tanker movements and records from state company PDVSA. A total of 67 cargoes were exported.
Government subsidies to industry have reached their highest level since the global financial crisis, driven largely by China, a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday. • The OECD's Manufacturing Groups and Industrial Corporations database, known by the acronym MAGIC, tracks what firms receive as opposed to what governments say they give • This provides an insight into opaque subsidy systems, particularly in China • Subsidies for 15 industries covered by the OECD's database reached $108 billion in 2024, only slightly below a peak in 2023 • As a percentage of firms' revenue, the amount in both years was the highest since western governments provided various forms of state support in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis • The sectors subsidised the most over 2005 to 2024 were solar panels, semiconductors, aluminium, steel and shipbuilding • The OECD said at a conservative estimate Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more government support than firms based in the OECD between 2005 and 2024
The global smartphone market is heading for its steepest annual contraction on record, with shipments projected to slump by 13.9% this year to 1.08 billion units, Counterpoint Research said on Monday, citing a worsening shortage of memory chips. The forecast is a downgrade from the 12.4% decline projected in February, with the squeeze in global chip supply exacerbated by the Iran war. IMPACT MOST ACUTE AT BUDGET END OF MARKET The impact is being felt most acutely in lower-end smartphones as chipmakers shift production capacity to AI-related chips, making entry-level devices less economical to produce. Global smartphone wholesale prices rose 14% in the first quarter while shipments fell 3.1% year on year. That trend is expected to continue as inventory built before the supply shock becomes depleted, with some models priced below $150 likely to disappear from the market. "Smartphone makers in the low and mid-tier are caught between cost increases they cannot absorb and consumers with limited spending power," said Wang Yang, a principal analyst at Counterpoint, an independent research company that publishes quarterly smartphone shipment data. "The question is no longer how to grow shipments or market share, but whether to remain in the market at all."
McDonald’s unveiled its latest global growth plan at its Worldwide Convention for franchisees. A new restaurant design, better-tasting food and drinks, consumer-led innovation and improved customer service are the four cornerstones of the new plan. The growth plan comes as the restaurants compete for a smaller pool of customers amid high gas prices and years of elevated inflation. McDonald’s on Monday unveiled its latest global growth strategy to help the fast-food giant become customers’ first choice as it faces new rivals and consumer spending stretched by high gas prices.
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude Al models, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering after one of the fastest revenue expansions in the technology industry's history. The company said on June 1, 2026 that it had submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO, with the number of shares and the price not yet set and the offering dependent on market conditions, according to TechCrunch. The company was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei and a group of former OpenAl researchers.
Alphabet's plan to raise $80 billion in equity to fund artificial intelligence has put a number on a contradiction that has defined corporate technology in 2026: the companies pouring record sums into Al are also cutting tens of thousands of jobs. Alphabet said on June 1 it would raise $80 billion through equity offerings, including a $10 billion private placement to Berkshire Hathaway, to fund its Al spending, in one of the largest equity deals of all time, according to Bloomberg.
As artificial intelligence grows bigger and more powerful, one problem is becoming impossible to ignore that is energy. Training and running advanced AI models requires massive amounts of data to move constantly between chips, servers and data centres. Today, most of that data travels through electrical signals and copper connections. But as AI systems scale up, experts say this approach could soon become a major bottleneck. That is why chip giant Nvidia is pouring billions of dollars into a technology many believe could redefine the future of AI infrastructure: photonics. Nvidia’s $6.5 billion push In just the past three months, Nvidia has committed at least $6.5 billion to companies developing photonics technology. The company announced investments worth $2 billion in optical technology firms including Lumentum, Coherent, Marvell to develop advanced optical connectivity solutions and participated in optics startup Ayar Labs $500 million Series E funding round. The investments show Nvidia’s belief that photonics could become a critical piece of the AI ecosystem in the coming years.
The United States announced Friday that it is "dismantling a sophisticated Iranian network" used to obtain sensitive military technology. The network "impersonated and defrauded" dozens of American technology companies out of millions of dollars to "acquire advanced equipment -- including spectrum analyzers and security detection devices -- for Iran's defense sector," State Department Tommy Pigott said in a statement.
Roughly one-quarter of the non-Iranian large oil tankers trapped inside the Persian Gulf at the outbreak of the Iran war have managed to slip out in a slow, stealthy trickle. Twenty-nine of the 109 bigger vessels, those capable of hauling 700,000 barrels or more, which were stranded when the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shuttered after the conflict erupted on Feb. 28 have now crossed the chokepoint, shipping data compiled by Bloomberg show. While that flow is a fraction of the crude and oil products still locked inside the Gulf, the cargoes have been snapped up by a global market in which inventory buffers are shrinking at a record pace. And with many ships switching off instruments that broadcast their positions, the real number may well be higher.
Yum Brands is in exclusive talks to sell its Pizza Hut chain to private-equity firm LongRange Capital, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday. The two parties are advancing in discussions about a potential deal that could come together in several weeks, the source said, adding there is no guarantee a deal will be reached. LongRange declined to comment on Reuters' request, while Yum Brands did not immediately respond.
The U.S. Space Force said on Friday it has awarded Elon Musk's IPO-bound SpaceX a $4.16 billion deal for a satellite program designed to track and target airborne threats. The Space-Based Advanced Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) is designed as an interconnected system-of-systems, combining space-based sensors, secure communications links and ground processing to drive closer cooperation across the government space industrial base. The Trump administration's flagship Golden Dome missile defense system has many layers, one of them being a sensing and tracking layer. The satellites would be expected to play a role in tracking missiles.
The EU's trade and investment relationship with China is "not sustainable", the European Commission said on Friday, vowing a stronger response as commissioners discussed how best to shield Europe's industries from surging Chinese imports. Commissioners were pitching ideas ahead of an EU leaders' summit on June 18 to 19, and possible proposals could include forcing EU firms to diversify supply chains or introducing new trade mechanisms to curb China's access to the EU market in chemicals, metals and clean energy technology. "As economic and security interests become ever more intertwined, both dimensions will require a more robust and coherent response," the Commission said.
