☕️ Waymo's robotaxis will be Chinese-made

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🚗 Waymo buys Chinese cars for US robotaxis

🇺🇸 US bars DeepSeek from civilian agency systems

🇨🇳 DeepSeek is now designing Huawei's AI chips

🤖 Anthropic in talks for 2nd $45B Nscale deal

Plus: 🌍 10 macro stories, 🏢 9 corporate stories, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• Waymo has ordered thousands of Chinese-built electric vans from Geely's Zeekr brand to expand its US robotaxi fleet, a move drawing national-security and fair-competition scrutiny from US lawmakers.
• The Alphabet unit is on pace to import about 5,100 of the rebranded "Ojai" vehicles by year-end, more than doubling its current fleet, at roughly half the cost of its Jaguar robotaxis once its own sensors are added.
• A bipartisan bill would ban importing China-made vehicles even when US firms add their own software, closing the loophole Waymo uses; it offers a three-year grace period requiring compliance by 2030, as Commerce rules already bar Chinese connected vehicles from model year 2027.

• The US Department of Homeland Security has ordered federal civilian agencies to strip DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company, from their IT systems, with the ban taking effect immediately on publication today.
• The order reaches beyond DeepSeek's own products to cover its affiliates and any third-party tools built using its technology, barring agencies from both continued use and new purchases, with no transition period before the rules applied.
• DHS justified the move by warning that government use could expose sensitive data on US citizens and federal programs to China, citing security flaws in DeepSeek's iPhone and iPad app, extending earlier bans already in place at defense and intelligence agencies.

• DeepSeek has moved from buying Huawei chips to co-designing its next-generation silicon, with Huawei engineers stationed in DeepSeek's offices and the AI lab set to receive most of the supply of Huawei's Ascend 960DT training chip when it launches next year.
• The partnership extends to software, with both firms adopting the open-source language TileLang instead of Nvidia's CUDA; DeepSeek's September plan to deploy over 160,000 Huawei chips, and Huawei pulling the Ascend 960DT launch forward to early 2027, underline a bid to replicate Nvidia's hardware-software moat.
• The deepening alliance arrived the same day Washington ordered civilian agencies to strip out DeepSeek products, and the article frames it as decoupling from both sides: as the US cuts DeepSeek from government systems and Beijing cuts it off from Nvidia, two separate AI stacks are forming around CUDA/Nvidia versus TileLang/Ascend.

• Anthropic is in talks to strike a second $45 billion compute deal with AI infrastructure provider Nscale, barely a month after the two announced their first agreement of the same size, Bloomberg reports, though the terms could still change.
• The deal would add to a run of giant compute agreements Anthropic has signed over the past year, a spending spree that has unnerved some investors who worry AI firms are paying far too much for too little profit.
• Both companies are heading for stock-market listings, Anthropic is still expected to go public this year, while Nscale faces investor pushback over its proposed $30 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported today.

🌍 Macro News

• Canada's inflation rose to 3.1% in September as energy prices remained elevated. LINK
• BOJ may raise its inflation forecast but keep rates unchanged this month. LINK
• US deficit hit $2 trillion, widest since 2021, with debt costs rising. LINK
• UK unemployment eased, but vacancies fell to a five-year low. LINK
• US homebuilder confidence hit a 14-year low amid high mortgage rates and costs. LINK
• Putin floated a summit with Trump and Xi, excluding Ukraine's Zelenskyy, report says. LINK
• Crypto group urged Treasury to narrow proposed stablecoin rules. LINK
• CFTC cited CME data to defend its approval of perpetual futures. LINK
• French lawmakers narrowly backed taxing crypto swaps into dollar- and euro-pegged stablecoins. LINK
• Yen gained as a Japanese bond sale drew record demand. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Mastercard launched a tool to screen stablecoin payments for fraud and crime. LINK
• Tenstorrent raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation. LINK
• Elice plunged 32% after its record-sized Korean IPO debut. LINK
• Amazon will fund an Indiana nuclear plant, becoming its first power buyer. LINK
• Albertsons seeks $8 billion from Kroger over their failed merger. LINK
• Uber defeated £340 million in claims after a London court ruled they were untimely. LINK
• Ramp seeks a bank charter to custody crypto and manage investments. LINK
• Amazon unveiled an open-source tool to run PyTorch code on Trainium chips. LINK
• Mesh and Visa enable crypto spending at 175 million merchant locations. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 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
• Tokenized gold could unlock $700 billion in demand, industry research says. LINK
• S&P warned tech giants may understate AI-related debt amid infrastructure spending. LINK
• JPMorgan expects Bitcoin to beat stocks and gold, despite portfolio-limiting volatility. LINK
• Fed warned tokenized deposits could accelerate unpredictable bank funding outflows. LINK
• Jefferies logged its most technology-stock selling in five years amid a selloff. LINK
• Goldman warned against crowded stock bets but kept its 8,000 year-end target. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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