Symbolic imageJuly's selloff in AI stocks left US hedge funds nursing losses, and JPMorgan reckons retail investors now carry more of the tech trade. Doubts over US policy have revived the 'Sell America' argument even as the build-out keeps scaling.
The largest US technology companies have been committing heavily to building out artificial intelligence capacity, chiefly through data centres and the computing hardware inside them. That spending shows up in quarterly earnings as capital expenditure, which is where investors judge whether the outlays are proportionate to the returns. The build-out also has a physical dimension, because data centres draw large and sustained amounts of electricity from regional power grids. Bloomberg reports that those US grids are ageing and that summer heat is compounding the load. This topic tracks how the market reaction to AI spending and the pressure on the grid develop together.
US hedge funds took a heavy hit in July from the selloff in artificial intelligence stocks, and JPMorgan says retail investors may now carry more weight in the tech trade, Bloomberg reported. Doubts about US policy have revived the 'Sell America' argument, while The Economist warns governments are making a dangerous bet on the AI boom.
SpaceX reported revenue up more than 90% year on year in its first earnings since its stock market listing, with a loss smaller than analysts had expected. The Financial Times reported that its AI spending plans unnerved investors, while Bloomberg said the company signalled ambitions to take on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Anthropic has agreed a computing deal worth $10 billion with a new cloud startup. Further terms were not available beyond that report.
Citadel Securities expects a $500bn debt binge to finance semiconductor expansion, and NTT Data is reported to be considering a $9bn outlay for data centres in Japan, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg also reported that South Korean AI chip designer DeepX reached a valuation of $2.2bn in a funding round, while the Financial Times reported that James Dacombe, 25, tripled his AI chip start-up's valuation to $3.3bn.
Nikkei Asia reported on Sunday that the AI investment spree is showing signs of strain. It named higher borrowing costs and a sell-off in SpaceX shares as the indicators.
A Shanghai listing by Chinese memory maker CXMT and reports of a Chinese lithography breakthrough sent chip stocks sliding worldwide last week. Markets rebounded on Friday.
Technology stocks fell on worries about spending, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The report was available only as a headline summary, without figures on the size of the move.
Taiwan's gross domestic product expanded by almost 13 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, driven by artificial intelligence demand and trade ties with the United States, Nikkei Asia reported on Friday. Bloomberg notes the growth topped forecasts even as concerns about the AI buildout mount.
The hedge fund Situational Awareness, led by 24-year-old Leopold Aschenbrenner, fell 67 percent in July and cleared its stock portfolio at a steep discount within a few days, according to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which put the fund at $45 billion. The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese tech investors read the near-collapse of the highly leveraged AI bets as a warning about crowded technology trades.
Quarterly results from the largest US technology groups, reported through Friday, divided the market over their AI investments. FAZ counts Microsoft and Amazon among the winners of the reporting season, Apple, Meta and Alphabet among the losers.
Amazon has completed a $50 billion investment in OpenAI, the Financial Times reported on Friday. It is one of the largest single commitments so far in the AI build-out.
Microsoft added roughly $450 billion in market value in a single session on Thursday after its earnings report, the largest one-day gain by a US company on record, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported. The rally lifted the Nasdaq and the broader US indexes.
South Korean shares jumped a record 15% on Friday on renewed optimism about the AI trade, Bloomberg reported, following a record selloff a day earlier that had failed to tempt global investors back into the market. Bloomberg also reported that Seoul plans to direct $14 billion of its sovereign wealth fund into AI investments after the rout.
Samsung Electronics said its semiconductor division reported a more than 250-fold jump in second-quarter profit, driven by shortages of memory used for artificial intelligence, according to Bloomberg reporting on Thursday. SK Hynix also posted strong results and announced new deals, which Bloomberg described as an answer to investors who doubt the durability of AI chip demand.
Amazon reported capital expenditure up 69 percent, and Meta disclosed $279 billion in future data-centre lease obligations tied to its artificial-intelligence build-out. Microsoft's figures showed the same build-out holding up, with profit rising on cloud and data-centre leasing. The reporting agrees that spending keeps growing; it splits on whether investors will keep paying for it.
NextEra Energy and Brookfield agreed to develop a data centre campus in Kentucky worth $100 billion, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report. The scale of the project shows how demand for AI computing is reshaping power supply and land use in the United States.
Samsung Electronics posted an all-time high net profit on device and memory sales, with profit at its semiconductor business soaring more than 250-fold, according to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg attributes the jump to shortages of memory chips driven by AI demand.
South Korean shares dropped about 16% over two days in a burst of retail selling that erased the gains of the recent AI rally, with chip stocks hit hardest because investors doubt the companies' heavy capital spending. Bloomberg separately reported growing concern at ASML over China export restrictions and demand risk.
Meta's stock fell almost 8% after results missed forecasts and net profit declined, while Mark Zuckerberg said he will keep investing "aggressively" in AI infrastructure and announced entries into new business fields. Microsoft reported a 31% rise in profit with Azure cloud sales above 100 billion dollars and disclosed more than 130 billion dollars in new data-centre leases, as the Nasdaq 100 flirted with correction territory and investors questioned the scale of AI spending.
Apple passed a market capitalisation of five trillion dollars for the first time, becoming only the second company ever to do so. The Guardian attributes the share price rally to strong product demand and to the company's decision to sit out the AI spending race, against a wider technology sell-off.
OpenAI is close to finalising a data-centre project worth roughly $500 billion, with Nvidia in talks to provide about $250 billion in financial guarantees, according to the New York Times. Neither company has confirmed the terms. The reports land as the cost of financing such projects rises and as Nvidia also stands behind a separate $50 billion data-centre lease in Texas.
A report that China is bringing a domestically built machine for semiconductor production to market sent chip shares tumbling around the world on Tuesday, 28 July 2026. Samsung and SK Hynix each lost more than 10 percent and Korea's market hit a three-month low, while ASML, Nvidia and the Nasdaq chip complex also fell. Investors are weighing Chinese competition alongside doubts about how US tech groups are financing their artificial-intelligence spending.
Apple has moved back ahead of the chipmaker Nvidia to become the world's most valuable public company, the New York Times reported. The shift comes amid growing investor concern about the costs associated with the artificial-intelligence boom.
AI companies are spending record sums on lobbying in Washington, according to the Financial Times. A New York Times examination describes how Meta used private talks with local officials and an ever-expanding building plan to start a Louisiana data centre project large enough to cover nearly six square miles.
Bloomberg reported that Big Tech earnings arrived in a market in revolt over the scale of capital spending on artificial intelligence. It also reported that ageing US power grids are reaching a tipping point as 100°F weather combines with demand from the data-centre boom.