How Wall Street is bankrolling Anthropic

How Wall Street is bankrolling Anthropic 

Alphabet [GOOGL] has put together a $200bn financing programme to supply artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Anthropic, according to a special report from the Financial Times. Highlighting the increasingly complex structures behind AI, what the report calls “one of the largest infrastructure financings ever assembled” brings together partners including Broadcom [AVGO], Apollo Global Management [APO], Blackstone [BX] and Morgan Stanley [MS]. The structure combines Google’s TPU chips with private credit and data centre financing, with Google guaranteeing the facilities, Broadcom supporting chip procurement, and Apollo and Blackstone funding hardware. 

OpenAI previews new model

OpenAI is preparing a new family of AI models, codenamed Astra, designed to handle complex, long-running tasks by coordinating multiple AI agents over extended periods, according to The Information. CEO Sam Altman recently demonstrated Astra to US policymakers, with the models expected to be among the first reviewed under the Trump administration’s planned AI oversight framework. OpenAI has not confirmed a release date or whether Astra will be branded as GPT-6 or a later GPT-5 series model. 

Will investors stymie AZN takeover?

AstraZeneca [AZN] shares fell 9% after reports that the UK drugmaker is in talks to acquire Bristol Myers Squibb [BMY], in a deal that would create the world’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical company with a combined value approaching $400bn. Investors questioned the strategic rationale, citing Bristol Myers’ looming patent expiries, while AstraZeneca has previously argued it can meet its long-term growth targets through its existing pipeline without relying on major acquisitions. 

US DoD cancels lithium order

According to a notice posted on its website on Monday, the US Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency has cancelled a tender for about 16,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate, worth an estimated $300m. The agency is responsible for securing metals for US military needs and last year cancelled a similar tender for cobalt. Prices of lithium – used in electric vehicles and energy storage technology – remain volatile, having surged 20% in China so far this year. 

Can Rocket Lab escape from SpaceX’s slipstream?

The SpaceX [SPCX] IPO has turned the entire sector into a momentum trade. Deservedly or not, companies across the industry have found themselves trading in SpaceX’s slipstream, their valuations rising and falling with the market’s appetite for the newly public giant. Nowhere is this effect clearer than in the trajectory of Rocket Lab [RKLB] over the last few months. Ahead of the firm’s Q2 earnings on 10 August, Aureon asks when – or if – Rocket Lab will be able to chart its own course.

Strategy sells bitcoin…  again

The market’s most famous bitcoin proxy [MSTR] sold 1,638 bitcoin [BTC] for $104.73m between 27 July and 2 August, at an average of $63,957 per coin – 15% below the average cost of the coins it still holds. The proceeds of the sale were used to fund preferred stock dividends and buybacks of its STRC shares. Such sales are part of the company’s Bitcoin Monetisation Programme, announced at the end of June, which intends to generate $1.25bn for the company’s USD Reserve.

Three stocks offering exposure to the DeFi revolution

The next stage of DeFi may look very different from its early years. Rather than retail investors chasing speculative yields, the opportunity could come from the integration of blockchain technology into mainstream finance. Aureon examines three stocks positioned across different parts of the DeFi landscape: Galaxy Digital [GLXY], an institutional gateway to digital assets; Robinhood Markets [HOOD], a route to mainstream consumer adoption; and DeFi Technologies [DEFT] a more direct play on the growth of decentralised financial markets.