Category: Semafor

BlackRock’s $25 billion M&A spree is starting to click. The company is raising $12 billion of debt for a Texas data center to be occupied by Meta — its first deal that puts infrastructure investor GIP and private-credit firm HPS to work in a major way since BlackRock bought them ...

O1.ai, the Chinese AI startup founded by AI pioneer Kai-Fu Lee, is aiming to raise funds ahead of a potential 2027 IPO, joining other AI labs that have gone public or plan to. Unlike China’s other “AI Tigers,” including Zhipu, DeepSeek, and Moonshot, O1.ai has pivoted from building frontier models ...

China’s US-bound shipments of rare-earth magnets so far this year are 20% below average levels seen between 2022 and 2024, customs data showed, despite the countries’ trade truce. As part of last year’s agreement with Washington, Beijing committed to a one-year pause in implementing sweeping export restrictions over the critical ...

The UK’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, wants to make British business great again. But businesses want to be where their customers and investors are, and with the UK’s wan economic growth and thinner capital markets, that’s increasingly elsewhere. Many of Britain’s corporate crown jewels make more of their money ...

Liz’s view The narrative about private credit is familiar by now — it’s a garbage heap of bad loans, waiting to ignite. A tiny corrective comes from a strange place: the industry’s biggest competitors. Big banks have been busy refinancing loans made by private-credit firms. By putting their own balance ...

Tim’s view The two biggest themes in global geopolitics — the rollout of AI and the fallout from the Iran war — look set to benefit Democrats, and potentially reshape the US political landscape in a matter of months. Between the steady march of average US gasoline prices back above ...

Surging tensions across the Middle East strangled shipping traffic, driving energy prices higher and raising the specter of accelerating inflation worldwide. A 10th day of aerial attacks between the US and Iran meant just 53 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the week to July 20, a 66% drop ...

Bahrain is studying whether to build a small modular nuclear power plant, the Middle East Economic Digest reported, with the state-owned Bapco Energies leading the effort through its venture capital arm. If it goes ahead, it would be the first nuclear plant in the kingdom, which holds the Gulf’s smallest ...

AI is fast becoming a driver of geopolitical instability and competition, analysts, executives, and officials worldwide warned. The recent announcement of a relatively powerful, open-source Chinese AI model has crystallized US worries over Beijing’s growing capabilities: The bosses of Anthropic and OpenAI have asked Washington to better restrict the use ...

Wael’s view In 2025, Saudi courts received 1.6 million requests to collect on more than 165 billion riyals ($44 billion) in unpaid financial obligations. Justice Minister Walid Al-Samaani said the figure was evidence of a modern, responsive judicial process, but read differently, it is the mark of a society creaking ...