China Declares Chip Independence

China Declares Chip Independence 

China’s internet regulator has prohibited the country’s largest tech firms from purchasing Nvidia’s [NVDA] artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Beijing has instructed companies, including ByteDance and Alibaba [BABA] to halt testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, Nvidia’s custom-made product for China, the Financial Timesreported. Meanwhile, Huawei yesterday unveiled its new SuperPod technology, which combines AI chips with over 15,000 graphics cards in a direct challenge to Nvidia’s supremacy.

UK Declares AI Interdependence

“This is the week that I declare the UK will be an AI superpower,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told BBC News, with major US tech firms pledging tens of billions of pounds in UK investment. Microsoft [MSFT] leads with a $30bn package — its largest ever outside the US — part of a £31bn “Tech Prosperity Deal”. The plan targets AI infrastructure, including Nvidia-backed data centers built out with UK hyperscaler Nscale.

Through A Glass Smartly

Earlier this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Meta’s [META] first smart glasses with a built-in display, calling them essential to his push for “superintelligence.” The $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display, launching at the end of the month, overlays texts, video calls and AI responses on a lens and is controlled via a wristband detecting hand gestures, in what Zuckerberg dubs “the world’s first mainstream neural interface.” 

Beyond Bitcoin: Some Innovative Blockchain Strategies

As well as serving as a speculative play on bitcoin or ether, blockchain can be a toolkit for generating capital, diversifying treasuries and unlocking new revenue streams. Companies embracing tokenization and DeFi are actively turning assets into productive, revenue-generating instruments. OPTO unpacks how early engagement with these technologies could offer a pathway to both growth and strategic differentiation.

Wegovy Pill Closes In On Injections

Novo Nordisk [NVO] may be close to beating its rival Eli Lilly [LLY] to market with a tablet version of its blockbuster anti-obesity injection Wegovy. Results of a new trial show that patients taking the pill lost 16.6% of their body weight over 64-weeks, compared to the average 17% lost by patients taking the injection. The US Food and Drug Administration could approve the drug as soon as Q4 2025.

Cathy Wood’s Bullish Bet Pays Off

On Wednesday, Ark Invest bought more than 160,000 shares of crypto exchange Bullish [BLSH] ahead of its Q2 earnings, boosting its BLSH holdings to a value of nearly $130m. In its first report since going public in August, Bullish beat analyst expectations, logging revenue of $57m and EPS of $0.93, well above the -$0.05 consensus. Stronger-than expected guidance of $69m–76m for Q3 helped the stock surge 4.2% in after-hours trading.

Ahead of S&P 500 Inclusion, EMCOR is “Perfectly on Theme”

“Of the three newest members of the S&P 500, AppLovin [APP] and Robinhood [HOOD] are both red-hot stocks that’ve gotten even hotter,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer recently said. “But EMCOR [EME], this one’s got a lot less hype, and I got to tell you, it’s got a very attractive story, which makes it a buy right now.” Today OPTO details how EMCOR has been caught up in the AI boom, making it “perfectly on theme for the current moment,” in Cramer’s words.