Donald Trump instructed the Pentagon to “substantially cut” joint military exercises with South Korea, thereby demonstrating his dissatisfaction that the longtime U.S. ally did not provide more active support in the war with Iran, Bloomberg reported.
Israeli strikes on Lebanon further worsened the outlook for talks between the U.S. and Iran, while the ceasefire expires today. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes were a response to a Hezbollah attack that injured three soldiers on Saturday. The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran’s leadership had been developing plans for months to escalate the conflict.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump administration does not want Apple to purchase Chinese memory chips, The Wall Street Journal reported.
AMD disclosed a $4.75 billion bond offering. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AMD is issuing bonds in four tranches: $1.25 billion in senior notes due 2029, $1.5 billion due 2031, $1 billion due 2033, and $1 billion due 2036.
Alphabet plans to raise $3.6 billion in its first bond issue in Australia. The tech giant has hired banks for a deal structured across four maturities, including a 20-year tranche, to finance large-scale investments in AI infrastructure, Bloomberg reported. Indicative pricing is expected to be announced as soon as August 18, with final terms on August 19.
A joint venture between Meta Platforms and BlackRock, created to finance the construction and operation of a 1-gigawatt data center complex in El Paso, Texas, is facing insurance risks, the Financial Times reported. The $14 billion Sopaipilla data center secured insurance coverage of hundreds of millions of dollars on the recommendation of the world’s largest insurance broker, Marsh. However, the project remains not fully insured against physical losses and catastrophic natural disasters. The joint venture will receive insurance coverage of up to $218 million for rent reductions in the event of construction delays and $645 million for terrorist attacks.
HIVE Digital Technologies said its subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing signed a five-year GPU-based cloud services agreement with an investment-grade corporate client. The total contract value is about $350 million. According to the press release, the contract will add about $70 million to annual revenue, bringing BUZZ HPC’s total annual revenue to about $180 million.
Nvidia has reduced the amount of financial support it can provide for OpenAI’s (OPENAI) large-scale data center project in Ohio. Under the revised plan, the amount was cut to less than $120 billion from $250 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Nvidia is in talks to invest up to $3 billion in SB Energy, a SoftBank Group subsidiary developing a large-scale data center project in Ohio for OpenAI, The Information reported on August 15, citing sources.
Alibaba Group Holding is selling its gaming unit Lingxi Games in a deal valued at at least $1.5 billion, accelerating the Chinese e-commerce leader’s pivot toward artificial intelligence. According to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, the unit is set to be acquired by Asian private equity firm Trustar Capital.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) reported a 4.2% decline in total shareholder return in 2025, according to its annual report published on August 17. The fund’s annual total shareholder return since the launch of the Vision Realization Program totaled 5.8%. The Public Investment Fund also disclosed a stake in SpaceX, valued at about $26.38 billion as of the end of Q2 2026. This is one of the largest disclosed holdings of U.S. company shares in the sovereign fund’s portfolio.
L3Harris Technologies announced the immediate departure of CEO Christopher Kubasik following a review of his conduct, Bloomberg reported. The company’s board appointed Sam Mehta as president and CEO. Lewis Hay III, L3Harris’s lead independent director, was appointed independent board chair. Kubasik stepped down as board chair and CEO and also resigned from the board.