Two Oil Routes Simultaneously Attacked, Market Begins to Reassess True Cost of AI. Energy, Computing Power, Regulation, and Equity Liquidity are all becoming more expensive.
1｜Two Oil Routes Simultaneously Threatened, Seven Tech Giants Lose Nearly $900 Billion in One Day
The Houthi armed group claimed on Thursday to have attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, causing Brent crude oil to rise above $100. The Iran war has already blocked the passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and the Red Sea was supposed to be Saudi Arabia's alternative route for oil exports. This alternative route was also targeted, leading the market to price in a supply disruption at "both ends."
On the same day, the market capitalization of seven tech giants evaporated nearly $900 billion, marking one of the largest single-day declines since the tariff shock in April 2025. Tesla fell by 14%, Alphabet by 6%, with the latter raising its annual capital expenditure budget to a record $205 billion. The AI narrative used to focus on computing power supply, but now energy prices and financing costs have entered the arena simultaneously. Tech companies are still expanding their capital spending, but the market is beginning to question who will foot the bill for the simultaneous increases in electricity, chip, and bond yields.
(Source: AP / WSJ / Axios)
2｜Intel Q2 Revenue Reaches $16.1 Billion, AI-Driven Fastest Growth in 15 Years
Intel announced its Q2 earnings after the market closed on Wednesday, with revenue reaching $16.1 billion, a 25% year-over-year growth, marking the fastest quarterly growth since 2011. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.42, double the Wall Street expectations. The Data Center Group and AI segment revenue totaled $6.3 billion, a 59% year-over-year growth, with AI-related businesses accounting for approximately 70% of total revenue. The stock price surged over 13% in after-hours trading.
On a GAAP basis, the net loss was $11 billion, mainly due to a $12.5 billion loss based on the government agreement under the "Chip Act" for the stake held in escrow. The company has raised its Q3 revenue guidance to a median of $16.3 billion.
While the seven tech giants collectively lost $797 billion on the same day, Intel defied the trend with a 13% increase. The market is now differentiating between companies that "spend to build AI" and those that "earn money relying on AI." The fastest growth in 15 years occurred on a day of tech stock plummet, which is a clear signal.
(Source: Intel Earnings Report / CNBC / BigGo Finance)
3｜OpenAI Security Incident Prompts "AI Emergency Shutdown Act," Allowing DHS to Order Model Shutdown
Representative Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran introduced the AI Kill Switch Act on Thursday, requiring systems with training costs exceeding $100 million or AI annual revenue exceeding $500 million to have the capability for slowdown, pause, and shutdown. The bill gives emergency shutdown authority to the Department of Homeland Security and requires coordination with the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence. Noncompliance fines are capped at $20 million per day.
The trigger was the Hugging Face security incident during OpenAI's network capability evaluation. Previously, model risks were mainly managed through self-testing and pre-release commitments by companies. Now, Congress is incorporating it into critical infrastructure legislation. AI companies sell the ability for autonomous action, while regulators want the power to shut it down at any time.
(Source: OpenAI / WSJ / The Verge)
4 | Machine Traffic Surpasses Human, Shifting the Default Reader of the Open Web
Cloudflare referred to this year's internet landscape as the agentic Internet. Its Radar data shows that in June, bots accounted for 57.5% of HTML requests, while humans accounted for 42.5%. In another report, AI training crawlers represented 52% of identified crawler requests, up from 22% in the spring of 2025.
This is not just an increase in traditional crawlers but a shift in access purposes. Search, price comparison, research, and summarization are now being carried out by agents, and human clicks are no longer the default entry point to the open web. Publishers that previously sold ads, SEO, and traffic now have to confront an economy of machine consumption without human engagement. The so-called "death of the internet" is not just about content authenticity but also about human attention no longer driving distribution.
(Source: Cloudflare / Forbes / Tom's Hardware)
5 | Anthropic Discusses Plan for All-Employee Prescheduled Stock Sales Post-IPO, Restricting AI Equity Liquidity
According to The Information, Anthropic is discussing a post-IPO requirement for all employees to sell stock through 10b5-1 prescheduled trading plans, rather than freely selling shares in the post-listing trading window. Such arrangements typically only cover executives and financially sensitive personnel with access to insider information. The company is also evaluating the first-day sellable proportion and lock-up period, with the discussions still ongoing.
This illustrates that frontier AI companies going public are not just facing valuation issues but also information asymmetry. Model capabilities, enterprise customers, computational costs, and security incidents can rapidly alter a company's true value. If ordinary employees are also subjected to executive-style trading constraints, liquidity for AI unicorns will become more like regulated assets.
（Source: The Information / Reuters）
6｜Trump Adds Israel Ties Requirement to Saudi Nuclear Deal, Changes Rule Within 24 Hours of Signing
Trump on Thursday stated on social media that the US-Saudi civil nuclear agreement is "entirely dependent on" Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. This condition was not included in the public narrative the day before. Previously, AP reported that the agreement may provide Saudi Arabia with a domestic path to uranium enrichment and lacks the additional IAEA Additional Protocol-style enhanced nuclear safeguards. Trump later stated that the agreement does not allow enrichment.
Within 24 hours, nuclear cooperation shifted from an industry and non-proliferation issue to a bargaining chip for Middle East diplomatic ties. Saudi Arabia has long linked its relationship with Israel to the Palestinian issue, and the US is now linking the nuclear agreement to Israel's normalization. The agreement still requires congressional review, but the rules were first rewritten on social media. This approach will make each signatory reassess the stability of US commitments. (Continued from yesterday's report)
（Source: AP / Washington Post / NPR）
Also Worth Knowing ↓
Google DeepMind morale low as Gemini 3.5 Pro release continues to face pressure. Axios reported that current and former employees cited burnout, defense contract disputes, and talent drain as reasons. For Alphabet, model delays are adding to $2.05 trillion capital expenditure anxiety. (Source: Axios / Investors.com)
AI chip company Etched raises $3 billion at a valuation of $103 billion. The company stated that Sequoia led the funding round, with the funds being used for inference clusters. WSJ reported that the company is also in talks for a new funding round at a valuation of $20 billion, as capital continues to seek inference hardware chips beyond Nvidia. (Source: Etched / WSJ)
Microsoft starts shifting some Copilot requests in Excel and Outlook to its in-house MAI model. Bloomberg reported that tens of thousands of prompts are now being handled by MAI weekly. While Microsoft's ties with OpenAI have not disappeared, cost pressures are turning partners into alternatives. (Source: Bloomberg)
Trump imposes 10%-12.5% tariffs on 60 economies. USTR stated that under Section 301 of the Trade Act, the reason is that the relevant economies have not effectively prohibited the import of forced labor products. After the old tariffs expired, the US trade policy switched legal basis, but the tax rates continue to remain in the system. (Source: USTR / AP)
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