Martin Peers

Google Cloud's revenue surged 82% in Q2 2026, driven by AI service demand and chip sales, lifting Alphabet's overall top-line growth to 24%. However, the company burned cash in the quarter as capital expenditures of $45 billion exceeded operating cash flow of $39 billion, a rare occurrence for Google. The cash burn and mounting AI infrastructure costs triggered a 4% stock sell-off in after-hours trading.

The Trump administration is debating whether to ban Chinese open-source AI models, a move that could significantly raise AI costs for U.S. businesses. The discussion intensified following Moonshot's release of Kimi 3 last week and reports that the administration previously considered restricting open-source AI. The policy tension reflects a conflict between protectionist trade goals and the practical business benefits companies derive from using affordable Chinese AI alternatives.

Uber has agreed to acquire Germany's Delivery Hero for $14.8 billion, though the actual cash outlay will be lower since Uber already owns approximately 25% of the company, including a stake purchased in May. The deal significantly expands Uber's food-delivery footprint. The acquisition represents a major consolidation move in the competitive food-delivery sector.

Stripe and private equity firm Advent have jointly offered $53 billion to acquire PayPal, a move that puts the struggling payments company in play for potential competing bids. The offer price sits above PayPal's recent lows but below historical trading levels, suggesting a bottom-fishing approach rather than a premium valuation. The deal could attract other bidders, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, though PayPal's board is unlikely to accept the current terms.

SpaceXAI and its soon-to-be subsidiary Cursor jointly introduced Grok 4.5, a coding and agentic task model that Elon Musk claims is comparable to Anthropic's Opus 4.7 but faster. A week prior, SpaceX launched a Voice Agent Builder for small businesses to deploy AI phone agents for customer service. The releases signal SpaceXAI's continued push into consumer AI products despite arriving late to both markets.

SK Hynix, South Korea's memory chip giant, is listing on Nasdaq this Friday alongside its existing South Korean exchange listing. The move will make the stock more accessible to U.S. investors and serve as a barometer for IPO market strength. Hynix's revenue has grown 400% cumulatively since 2023, with shares up nearly 800% in the past year.

SoftBank announced a U.S. neocloud venture on Thursday, adding to hundreds of firms now competing in the AI server rental market. Together AI raised $800 million at an $8.3 billion valuation, while Nvidia said it will provide financial backing to younger cloud firms in exchange for a revenue share. The moves highlight intense competition in the sector, though Nvidia's backstop offer raises questions about the actual strength of demand for computing capacity.

Bending Spoons, an Italian conglomerate that acquires aging internet businesses, priced its IPO at $29 per share, above its preliminary range of $26 to $28, and opened up 11% on its public debut Wednesday. The strong opening suggests investor appetite for the company's rollup strategy in the digital assets space.

Google imposed capacity limits on Meta's use of its Gemini AI models a few months ago, citing inability to meet the social media company's full demand. The restriction was not limited to Meta, as Google also constrained access for other clients. Google has since moved to address capacity issues by signing a deal to rent cloud computing capacity from Elon Musk's infrastructure.

Security researchers have found that Z.ai's GLM-2 model matches Anthropic's Mythos in cybersecurity capabilities, particularly in bug-finding tasks, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. The finding signals that Chinese AI systems are closing the gap with leading U.S. models in a critical security domain. This development underscores intensifying competitive pressure from China's AI sector on American technology leadership.

The Trump administration has warned Anthropic that foreign employees and other foreigners cannot access its latest AI models without permission, creating uncertainty across the AI industry. OpenAI and other firms are concerned about the precedent this sets for their own international talent and operations. The move highlights how unpredictable government policy has become a material business risk for AI companies alongside technical and demand uncertainties.

A German court ruled that Google is legally responsible for the accuracy of content generated by its AI Overviews feature, which produces AI-generated answers within Google search results. The ruling treats AI-generated content as Google's own statements rather than neutral search results, establishing potential liability for factual errors. This decision could have broad implications for how AI-generated content is regulated across jurisdictions.

Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons has filed to go public in the U.S., seeking capital to fund further acquisitions of aging internet properties. The company has already acquired AOL, Eventbrite, Evernote, and Vimeo. The IPO filing marks a shift toward public markets for a company that has built its portfolio through acquiring legacy digital assets.

Broadcom reported 48% revenue growth for its second fiscal quarter ended May 3, with AI chip revenue surging 143% to $10.8 billion. Total revenue reached $22.187 billion, matching the company's March guidance. The results reflect strong demand for AI infrastructure chips as major technology companies expand their AI capabilities.

Salesforce, Snowflake, and Asana are reporting Q1 earnings this week, offering a test case for whether AI is disrupting traditional enterprise software vendors or strengthening them. Workday's recent earnings showed the company accelerating new contract signings by positioning itself as AI-powered, with CEO Aneel Bhusri claiming the company is 'essentially a startup again.' The earnings reports will reveal whether established software firms can monetize their own AI tools faster than AI startups can cannibalize their business.

Microsoft shares have fallen nearly 16% year-to-date, making it the worst performer among major tech names. British hedge fund TCI recently sold almost all of its Microsoft stake, citing concerns that AI could undermine the company's core Office productivity business. With SpaceX's upcoming IPO expected to draw capital away from existing tech holdings, investor pressure on Microsoft stock may intensify in the coming months.

CoreWeave reported Q1 2026 revenue of $2 billion, doubling year-over-year, but the AI cloud infrastructure startup is burning cash at an accelerating rate. Capital expenditures hit $7.7 billion in the quarter, up from $1.4 billion a year earlier, resulting in $4.7 billion in quarterly cash burn. The company projects $12 billion to $13 billion in 2026 revenue but plans to spend as much as $35 billion on capex, illustrating the massive infrastructure bet required to compete in AI compute.

SpaceX's xAI unit has signed deals to supply computing capacity to both Anthropic and AI coding startup Cursor, a move that signals a strategic pivot toward operating as a cloud infrastructure provider. The deals are notable because leading AI firms typically consume all available compute capacity for their own model development and rarely rent out surplus capacity to competitors. The most straightforward interpretation is that xAI's Grok model is not gaining sufficient traction to justify full utilization of its infrastructure, making cloud services a revenue-generating alternative.

Google Cloud and AWS posted strong quarterly results driven by surging demand for AI computing capacity, with both cloud providers seeing accelerated revenue growth. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged that AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI are spending heavily on compute, though he noted that broader business demand for AI capabilities is also emerging. Google and Meta saw additional tailwinds from AI technologies boosting their advertising businesses. The results suggest cloud infrastructure is benefiting from the AI boom, though a significant portion of current demand appears concentrated among the largest AI firms rather than widespread enterprise adoption.

Related Digital and Blackstone have closed financing for a $16 billion data center campus in Michigan built for Oracle. The project is part of a broader infrastructure buildout designed to provide Oracle with computing capacity to lease to OpenAI. This represents a significant capital commitment to support large-scale AI model training and inference workloads.

SpaceX revealed Tuesday it is in talks to acquire Cursor, a coding AI startup, for approximately $60 billion. The move signals that xAI, Musk's AI company that SpaceX acquired for $250 billion in stock in February, is struggling to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI in the coding space. Musk recently acknowledged xAI needs to be rebuilt from its foundations after triggering mass departures, raising questions about what SpaceX shareholders actually paid for in the earlier acquisition.

Allbirds, the sustainable footwear company, is divesting its shoemaking business to American Exchange Group for $39 million and repositioning itself as an AI chip-service firm. The company plans to lease and rent out AI computing capacity, marking a dramatic strategic pivot away from its core apparel business. This move reflects broader market dynamics where established companies are exploring AI infrastructure opportunities.