Fed Dot Plot Split 7:7, Powell Says Inflation Progress Below Expectations, Refuses to Step Down Before Investigation Concludes. No Rate Hike, But Hawkish Signal on Tightening.
1｜Fed Dot Plot Fractures, Powell's Last Two Press Conferences Turn Into Political Survival Battle
The Fed kept rates unchanged at 3.5%-3.75% on Wednesday, as expected. Surprisingly, the dot plot showed that out of the 19 members, 7 believe there should be no rate cuts in 2026, up by 1 from December, while another 7 expect only one cut. Inflation forecasts were revised up from 2.5% to 2.7%. Powell's language was colder than the market wanted to hear, stating, "We expect progress on inflation, but not as much as we would like." The U.S. stock market fell to an intraday low during the day.
In the same press conference, Powell announced he would not step down before the end of his term. U.S. Prosecutor Jeanine Pirro is investigating the Fed headquarters renovation project, and Trump's nominee for successor, Kevin Warsh, was stalled by Senator Tillis in the banking committee. Powell's term ends on May 15, but he said he has "no intention of leaving before the investigation is completed." What appeared to be a rate decision on the surface was actually the Fed Chair's stay or leave being hijacked by a renovation investigation and a senator's veto power.
(Source: CNBC / Bloomberg / American Banker)
2｜NVIDIA GTC Completes Empire Blueprint in Four Days, Groq Acquisition Turned Into an Inference Weapon
On the fourth day of GTC, NVIDIA turned its $20 billion December 2025 acquisition of Groq into a product. The Groq 3 LPX platform, consisting of 128 LPUs, jointly deployed with Vera Rubin NVL72, claims a 35x increase in throughput per megawatt. The Vera CPU released on the same day is the first processor designed specifically for Agentic AI, offering twice the efficiency of a traditional rack-level CPU.
Monday talked about the seven-chip platform, Tuesday discussed the Inference Grid, Wednesday discussed the Open Alliance (Nemotron Coalition), and Thursday covered Groq Inference and Space Data Centers (Space-1). After four days, what Huang Renxun built is not a product line but a computing empire blueprint from ground to orbit, from training to inference. The next-generation Feynman architecture has also been unveiled, including the Rosa CPU, LP40 LPU, BlueField-5, and Kyber Network.
(Source: NVIDIA Newsroom / Yahoo Finance / NVIDIA Blog)
3 | 150 Retired Judges Endorse Anthropic, Pentagon Counters with "Hostility"
Last night's report covered the DOJ's 40-page document and Anthropic's corporate market share surpassing OpenAI. Today's incremental update comes from the legal realm. Nearly 150 retired federal and state judges have submitted an amicus brief to the court, questioning the legality of the Pentagon labeling Anthropic as a "supply chain risk." In addition to the previously stated support from four major tech industry associations, Microsoft, and employees of rival companies, the support for Anthropic has expanded from the industry to the judiciary.
The government's counterattack is also escalating. Deputy Secretary of Defense Emil Michael referred to Anthropic as "hostile" in negotiations in the document, stating that their position is "not fact-based but rather for managing public perception." Anthropic's CFO stated in the legal document that the revenue loss by 2026 could be in the "billions." The hearing on March 24 is defining a new legal boundary to determine if AI companies can impose conditions on government clients' usage.
(Source: CNN / Axios)
4 | On the 20th Day of the Iran War, Oil Prices Breathe But $200 Warning Lingers
WTI fell to $95.50 on Monday, a 5.3% drop, triggered by Trump's discussion of a Strait of Hormuz escort plan. However, analysts' warnings have not been retracted. According to CNBC, traders believe $200 is not out of the question. Capital Economics warns that if the war continues for three months, the average Brent price could reach $150.
The physical boundaries of the conflict continue to expand. Azerbaijan has deployed troops to the Iranian border citing potential internal security collapse in Iran. Qatar suspended LNG production on March 2 due to drone attacks (supplying 20% of global LNG). The 11 countries currently involved in major conflicts control 51% of global oil production capacity and 56% of natural gas production capacity. The brief oil price drop seems more like a pause than a turning point.
(Source: CNBC / EIA / Capital Economics / Al Jazeera)
5 | Cloud Giants' GPU Arms Race Adds Another Zero
AWS Announces Global Deployment of Over 1 Million NVIDIA GPUs at GTC. On the same day, Microsoft Azure showcased a liquid-cooled deployment solution for the Grace Blackwell GPU, the Nemotron model accessed Foundry, and Oracle accessed GPU-accelerated vector search through the cuVS library.
The three cloud giants made intensive moves in the same week, with the competition focus shifting from "whose model is better" to "who controls more inference power." NVIDIA is a common supplier, but each one's deployment architecture, cooling solution, and model access paths are diverging. The scale battle of computing infrastructure is no longer a long-term expectation, with 1 million GPUs being a number that is being realized.
(Source: NVIDIA Blog / AWS / Microsoft Azure)
Also worth noting ↓
PPI rose 0.7% month-over-month in February, more than twice what economists had expected. Production-side inflation is simultaneously transmitted from both energy and tariffs, providing an underscore to Powell's "inflation is less than expected" statement. (Source: Yahoo Finance)
The Clarity Act is expected to go to committee in April, with Senator Lummis stating that the differences have narrowed down to details. The most comprehensive U.S. cryptocurrency regulation bill is still in line, with unresolved disagreements over stablecoin yield provisions. The DC Blockchain Summit and the New York Digital Asset Summit are lobbying concurrently this week. (Source: CoinDesk)
NVIDIA unveils the next-generation Feynman architecture, including the Rosa CPU, LP40 LPU, and BlueField-5. While Vera Rubin is not fully rolled out yet, the next-generation roadmap is already visible. From Blackwell to Vera Rubin to Feynman, NVIDIA's product cadence is accelerating rather than slowing down. (Source: NVIDIA Blog)
The Linux Foundation receives a $12.5 million grant to specifically strengthen open-source software supply chain security. With frequent supply chain attacks, open-source security has transformed from a volunteer project into an industry infrastructure investment. (Source: Tech Startups)
Global cryptocurrency card annual consumption reaches $18 billion, and the S&P Index authorizes Hyperliquid perpetual contracts. Perpetual contracts are moving from the crypto-native market to penetrate traditional financial infrastructure, with S&P's entry being a signal. (Source: The Block / CoinDesk)
