Trump Imposes 20% Toll on Hormuz Strait, Oil Price Surges 9%. Waller Equates AI Infrastructure with Middle East War as Fed's New Inflation Driver.
1｜Trump Reinstates Iran Blockade and Levies 20% Hormuz Passage Fee, Oil Price Surges 9%
Trump announced the reimposition of a maritime blockade on Iran and, for the first time, requested vessels passing through the Hormuz Strait to pay a 20% passage fee. The U.S. Navy will begin enforcing the blockade in the early hours of July 15 GMT. In response, oil prices surged by around 9% to $83 per barrel, with the national average gasoline price approaching $4 per gallon.
Weeks ago, when Iran threatened a similar toll, Secretary of State Pompeo denounced it as a violation of international law. The International Maritime Organization of the United Nations also stated that no country has the right to unilaterally impose such fees. A temporary ceasefire agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran in mid-June explicitly prohibits charging fees on merchant ships, but the agreement has been repeatedly undermined. On the same day, with Trump's support, Saudi Arabia launched an attack on the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Sana'a airport was hit. The U.S. transitioned from "upholding freedom of navigation" to "operating a toll booth," and the Middle East situation has escalated from a U.S.-Iran standoff to a multi-party melee. (Continued from yesterday's report)
(Source: Axios / Fortune / NPR / CNBC / Al Jazeera)
2｜Meta's Data Center Budget Soars from $100 Billion to $500 Billion in Less Than Two Years, Dividing a Small Town
Meta announced that the Louisiana Hyperion supercomputing cluster has expanded to 5 gigawatts, with a total investment exceeding $500 billion. Less than two years ago, the budget was $100 billion at launch, increased to $270 billion last October, and has now nearly doubled. It is set to reach 2 gigawatts by 2030 and be fully operational by 2032.
Meta has pledged over $1 billion to improve local roads, water, and sewage systems, and donated $5 million to the Louisiana Delta Community College. However, the attitude in local Richland Parish is divided. On one side are the jobs and infrastructure upgrades brought by the data center, while on the other side are concerns about farmland being taken over, groundwater pressures, and the unease of "a single company reshaping the entire local economy." The capital expenditure of a single Meta facility exceeds the annual infrastructure budget of most countries, and the cost of the AI infrastructure arms race is now materializing on the land of American small towns.
(Source: CNBC / Fortune / Tom's Hardware)
3 | Waller Identifies AI Infrastructure as Inflation Catalyst, 45% Chance of Rate Hike in July
Federal Reserve Governor Waller warned that if this week's core inflation data comes in high again, the Fed "needs to consider tightening monetary policy soon." Pricing for a rate hike on July 28 has risen to between 39% and 45% in the interest rate futures market. Waller identified three forces driving inflation: trade tariffs, rising energy costs due to Middle East tensions, and excess demand from the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.
Over the past month, the "Big Seven" collectively retreated by about 12.7%, with investors questioning whether the massive AI capital expenditure can translate into corresponding revenue. Meanwhile, Wall Street giants released earnings reports this week, with expectations of record-breaking investment banking revenues driven by SpaceX IPO fees and trading volatility from the Iran conflict. As Meta's $500 billion valuation and Trump's Hormuz Tollbooth both made it onto the Fed governor's inflation hit list, the spillover effects of AI infrastructure have now entered the monetary policy discussion.
(Source: CNBC / Yahoo Finance / Fortune)
4 | Delaware Proposes AI Agent Legal Entity, 30-Month Sandbox Testing for "Non-Human Governance"
Delaware has proposed a new legal entity form, the "Artificial Intelligence Company" (AIC), allowing AI agents to manage the daily affairs of a company. AICs can sue and be sued in their own name, hold and dispose of property, and assume obligations. Each AIC must have a natural person or legal entity member responsible for adequate capital and maintain a complete activity log.
AICs can only operate within a regulatory sandbox. Admission is decided by a committee comprising the Secretary of State, Attorney General, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Chair of the AI Commission. Each AIC must disclose its AI identity to counterparties. The project includes a 30-month sunset provision to gather decision-making data for the legislature. When AI agents are already signing contracts, paying suppliers, and autonomously transacting, Delaware has not attempted to ban these activities but has created a limited legal container to observe how they will evolve.
(Source: Fortune / The Corporate Counsel / Spotlight Delaware)
5 | Open Source AI Breaks Into Unicorn Valuation Range, Nous Research Funding Valued at $1.5 Billion
The developer of the Hermes Series open-source models, Nous Research, is finalizing a new round of funding led by Robot Ventures, with participation from USV and other institutions, at a valuation of $1.5 billion, aiming to raise at least $75 million. Just over a year ago in April 2025, Nous had closed a $50 million Series A round led by Paradigm at a $1 billion valuation, marking a 50% increase in valuation in just a year and a half.
Founded in 2023 in New York, Nous Research focuses on open-access large models, decentralized training infrastructure, and inference frameworks. The flagship model Hermes has garnered around 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks on GitHub, making it one of the most widely adopted models in the open-source community.
In the past, open-source AI was seen as a side project to community and commercial models, sustained by donations and volunteers. Now, venture capital is pricing it at unicorn levels. While closed-source tech giants are pouring massive capital into compute power, capital is also betting on the "decentralized training" parallel path. Open source is no longer just a technological ideal; it has become a business model that investors carefully calculate returns on.
(Source: TechCrunch / Yahoo Finance)
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