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Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter: 🇨🇳 DeepSeek revenue doubles to $1B run rate ⚡ Bloomberg reveals Oracle invoked force majeure on data center ☁️ Akamai signs $11.6B Anthropic cloud deal 🪙 Fed proposes reserve rules for stablecoin issuers 🤝 Trump and Xi meet but AI rift persists Plus: 🌍 9 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.
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📊 Before The Bell
 | Change over the last 24 hours · as of Sep 25, 2026, 6:55 AM ET |
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🇨🇳 DeepSeek revenue doubles to $1B run rate
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- DeepSeek's annual revenue is now running at $1 billion, more than double the rate of a few months ago, CEO Liang Wenfeng told investors as the Chinese AI firm prepares to list in Shanghai.
- The doubling followed price increases of 2.3 to 4.5 times on DeepSeek's models last month, which Liang said left demand unaffected, with the company's rates still among the lowest of major AI providers.
- DeepSeek is finalizing a second funding round aiming to raise 50 billion yuan (about $7.5 billion) at a valuation of 500 billion yuan (about $75 billion), ahead of its planned Shanghai Stock Exchange debut.
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⚡ Bloomberg reveals Oracle invoked force majeure on data center
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- Oracle shares fell 5% yesterday after Bloomberg reported the company issued a "force majeure" notice on its New Mexico data center, a legal move to shield itself from higher costs and delay payments if the site misses its 2028 opening.
- The notice went to the developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital, whose shares also fell yesterday; both companies insist financial commitments are unchanged, with Oracle saying the campus, called Project Jupiter, stays on schedule.
- The project, part of the Stargate AI infrastructure buildout with President Trump, has faced local opposition and environmental hurdles, while Oracle's $18 billion in debt tied to the site is already trading at stressed levels, according to the Financial Times.
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☁️ Akamai signs $11.6B Anthropic cloud deal
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- Akamai has signed a cloud infrastructure deal with AI developer Anthropic worth up to $11.6 billion over seven years, with Anthropic able to add $9 billion more in spending to bring the total to $20 billion.
- The arrangement centers on distributed computing for AI inference, running trained models rather than training them, and includes a warrant letting Anthropic buy 7.7 million Akamai shares at $111.33 each, a stake worth up to 5% of the company.
- Akamai will commit $5.5 billion in capital spending to support the deal and add $1.7 billion to this year's capex to lock in supply-chain components like memory, though it left its 2026 revenue guidance of $4.44 billion to $4.53 billion unchanged.
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🪙 Fed proposes reserve rules for stablecoin issuers
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- The Federal Reserve on Thursday proposed rules requiring stablecoin issuers to fully back their tokens with short-term Treasury bills or similarly liquid assets, plus standardized capital requirements, advancing the federal stablecoin law Trump signed last year.
- The proposal also sets up an application process for Fed-supervised banks seeking to issue stablecoins, part of implementing the GENIUS Act, which mandates full dollar backing and annual audits and takes effect in January 2027.
- Fed Governor Michael Barr, a past critic of the law, backed the proposal but warned a "significant or systemic" threshold for anti-money-laundering enforcement could limit the board's ability to ensure institutions maintain compliant programs.
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🤝 Trump and Xi meet but AI rift persists
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- Presidents Trump and Xi met at the White House today, but prospects for US-China cooperation on artificial intelligence remained thin, with the two powers still competing for supremacy in the technology.
- The talks close with a state dinner attended by top AI executives, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk, underscoring how much the industry's leadership is tied to the outcome of Washington-Beijing relations.
- Xi told Trump that AI must stay "under human control" as industry figures warn the technology is advancing too quickly, while Trump dismissed calls for tighter rules, calling safety fears a "hoax".
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Most AI Tools Weren't Built for This
B2B customer issues move across teams and systems, not through a single chat window. A new Harvard Business Review Analytic Services briefing paper, sponsored by Front, breaks down where AI tools fall short in B2B service and what to ask before you invest.
🌍 Macro News
- US futures fell as Treasury yields hit 20-year highs, reviving rate-hike bets. LINK
- CFTC allows firms to invest customer funds in approved tokenized assets. LINK
- ESMA will make AI and tokenized products formal supervisory priorities from 2027. LINK
- FedNow will add cross-border payments, expanding beyond domestic transfers for the first time. LINK
- Trump raised concerns about the weak yen with Japan’s prime minister, lifting the currency. LINK
- US joins Musk’s lawsuit seeking to overturn the EU fine against X. LINK
- BoE official says a rate hike is increasingly likely if energy prices stay high. LINK
- Oil prices eased as traders weighed US-Iran truce hopes against Houthi attacks. LINK
- EBA seeks to bring crypto lending, including DeFi access, under MiCA. LINK
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🏢 Corporate News
- Gen Digital is in early talks to buy GoDaddy, expanding beyond cybersecurity. LINK
- Databricks bought Row Zero, adding spreadsheet tools to its Genie AI assistant. LINK
- Alphabet plans a satellite test of Google AI chips for orbital data centers. LINK
- Anthropic’s IPO could nearly double Alphabet’s paper stake value to $248 billion. LINK
- Qualcomm shares rose after extending its Apple patent licensing deal. LINK
- Bitget disclosed $352 million in unauthorized transfers and paused withdrawals after a breach. LINK
- BlackBerry raised its outlook after QNX posted record quarterly sales, lifting shares. LINK
- New York sues Polymarket, alleging sports contracts constitute illegal gambling. LINK
- Ondo launches BlackRock-strategy tokens offering non-US investors diversified market exposure. LINK
- Costco sales outpaced Walmart as affluent shoppers proved resilient to inflation. LINK
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📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners | | Nebius Group rose 7% after BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Nebius to Outperform. LINK | | Twist Bioscience rose 16% after Leerink Partners raised its price target to $160 and called Twist Bioscience the single most important beneficiary of Anthropic's expanding biology research. LINK | | 10x Genomics rose 11% after UBS raised its price target to $68 from $20. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers | | First Solar fell 10% after Baird cut its price target amid booking concerns and U.S. solar policy uncertainty. LINK | | Arm Holdings fell 8% after SoftBank's Vision Fund sold $1.4 billion stake. LINK | | Akamai Technologies fell 7% after Anthropic deal warrant could dilute shareholders 5%. LINK |
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📑 Research & Reports
- 15 AI prompts built for FP&A: cover forecasting, variance and board-prep work, rather than repurposed marketing prompts. From Aleph. Download the free playbook
- Musk hailed projected AI spending as a step toward star-harvesting civilization. LINK
- EU regulators warn quantum computers could break blockchain cryptography before commercial deployment. LINK
- Bitcoin above estimated mining costs could ease miners’ selling pressure. LINK
- Tokenized-stock wallets surged 43-fold to 4.3 million as blockchains compete. LINK
- FRED data puts August 2026 US recession odds at just 0.08%. LINK
- AI infrastructure spending is projected to top $769 billion in 2026. LINK
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📅 Market Calendar
 | Earnings · Economic events |
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