Thursday, October 29, 2026 · 1:17 AM ET
AI · The Information
Amazon has expanded its Shop Direct initiative to list 250 million products from brands that don't sell on its site, aiming to keep shoppers from defecting to outside AI shopping agents like Meta's Muse. The move raises the stakes as AI assistants begin buying across competing retailers.
AI · WSJ
Oracle unveiled an AI Workspace that lets enterprises reach all of their Oracle applications and data through ChatGPT, its deepest enterprise tie-up with OpenAI yet. Oracle also said it will add Google's TPUs, Cerebras inference chips and OpenAI's Jalapeno chip to its cloud to give customers more compute choices amid tight AI supply.
Markets · NYT
Technology shares climbed as investors positioned ahead of after-the-bell results from AI hyperscalers Microsoft and Alphabet, with Amazon due Thursday. The reports are seen as a test of whether surging AI-infrastructure spending and debt will reassure or rattle markets.
Funding · The Information
Foundry, a startup founded less than a year ago, raised a $100 million Series A led by Marlinspike Partners, with earlier backer Khosla Ventures participating, to build factories organized around AI-powered robots rather than fixed production lines. Its flexible 'manufacturing-as-a-service' model already serves customers in defense, energy, autonomous vehicles and telecom.
Markets · Bloomberg
Early signs suggest the credit market is nearing the limit of how much AI-infrastructure debt it can absorb. Yields on bonds and loans funding data centers and chips are climbing into double digits and bankers are finding it harder to offload risk to insurers and other investors, with warnings that some 'neocloud' providers could fail as fresh financing dries up.
Markets · NYT
With Microsoft and Alphabet reporting after today's close and Amazon on Thursday, investors are focused less on revenue than on the returns Big Tech is getting from soaring AI capital spending. Nasdaq futures pointed to a third straight day of gains, even as Meta, SpaceX and Broadcom lined up roughly $200 billion in new AI financing and SK Hynix reported blowout memory-chip earnings and said it is effectively sold out through 2029.
Earnings · FT
Alphabet's Q3 missed revenue and profit estimates as search-ad growth slowed; shares fell about 9% — potentially its worst drop in years — as a roughly $51B AI capex outlay pushed free cash flow to negative $9.1B.
Earnings · WSJ
Microsoft's fiscal Q1 revenue rose 19% to $92.3B with cloud and Azure growth accelerating and profit soaring, easing investor jitters over returns from the AI build-out.
Earnings · Bloomberg
ServiceNow shares dropped after its forward sales outlook reignited concerns about AI's impact on software demand, overshadowing the quarter's results.
Earnings · WSJ
Data-center infrastructure maker Vertiv reported Q3 net sales up 61% with organic orders up over 100% and raised full-year guidance across key metrics; the stock jumped about 16%.
Earnings · FT
SK Hynix posted a better-than-expected quarterly operating profit on roaring AI memory-chip demand and said it will return about $75B to shareholders this year.
Markets · FT
Oracle rallied about 11% after projecting $30B in free cash flow by 2029 and saying it will limit additional data-center fundraising to $20B, reassuring investors on its AI strategy.
M&A · Bloomberg
Marvell is in advanced talks for a megadeal to buy optical-networking maker Lumentum, combining two players in the optics that stitch together AI data centers. Lumentum (~$82B market cap) jumped about 12% on the report while Marvell (~$220B) fell roughly 10%.
Earnings · FT
Samsung shares fell as Q3 profit came in just shy of estimates and the company gave no detail on an investor-return plan, overshadowing a bullish AI-memory outlook. The memory giant hiked capital spending and said its AI chips are effectively sold out through 2027.
Payments · The Information
Shopify is adopting agentic-commerce payment technology from Visa and Mastercard as the card networks push merchants onto their own rails for AI-agent-driven purchases. The move deepens the fight to control checkout as AI shopping agents proliferate.
Chips · WSJ
Flash-storage makers that Apple squeezed for years are regaining pricing power as AI data-center operators bid up and gobble up NAND supply. The shift hands memory suppliers leverage over Apple and underscores how the AI build-out is reshaping the chip supply chain.
AI · Bloomberg
The U.S. Justice Department has made inquiries about Nvidia's deal with AI model-sharing platform Hugging Face, according to Reuters, adding antitrust scrutiny to Nvidia's wave of AI investments. It is the latest regulatory look at the chipmaker's dealmaking.
Funding · Bloomberg
South Korean AI-chip startup FuriosaAI quadrupled its valuation to $2.9B in a new funding round as it races to challenge Nvidia in AI inference silicon. The raise reflects continued investor appetite for credible Nvidia alternatives.
AI · Bloomberg
Banks are delaying plans to offload part of a $15B loan funding an Anthropic-tied Texas data center after the state paused new projects to assess power-grid risks. The shelved bond sale leaves banks holding the debt longer and lands as Anthropic ramps computing spend ahead of its massive IPO.
IPO · Bloomberg
AI data-center startup Nscale, led by 32-year-old founder Josh Payne, is pressing ahead with plans to list publicly at a roughly $30B valuation despite a tumultuous moment for the AI industry. The three-year-old 'neocloud' has attracted nearly $10B in equity and debt as providers race to build out AI compute.
AI · Bloomberg
Equinix told analysts on its Q3 call that mounting barriers to bringing new data-center projects online will make existing capacity scarcer and more valuable, potentially strengthening its market grip and pricing. CEO Adaire Fox-Martin said canceled projects only make already-scarce capacity more of a scarce resource.
Markets · FT
US tech stocks were poised to drop, with Nasdaq 100 futures pointing about 1.3% lower, after Alphabet and Microsoft reported heavier-than-expected AI capital spending and softer-than-hoped guidance. The after-hours reversal reflects renewed investor anxiety over how quickly Big Tech's AI build-out will pay off.