Category: Semafor

Workers broke ground on Vietnam’s first high-speed rail line. The route will link the capital to industrial hubs in the east at over 200 mph. Southeast Asia has seen a proliferation of high-speed rail, mostly China-financed, but projects in Indonesia and Laos are expensive and behind schedule. The Vietnamese line ...

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that Washington would “blockade” the Strait of Hormuz after US and Iranian negotiators failed to reach a deal during marathon talks in Pakistan over the weekend. Trump’s announcement, suggesting the US would police ships that have paid Iran a toll to transit the waterway, ...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman linked an attack on his home to a moment of “great anxiety” around AI. Authorities on Friday arrested a 20-year-old man who allegedly threw a molotov cocktail at Altman’s San Francisco residence and threatened to burn down OpenAI’s headquarters. The suspect had recently written about fears ...

The collapse of talks between the US and Iran is poised to push energy prices back up and weigh on stocks globally. Markets have been rocked by volatility throughout the war, and US President Donald Trump’s plan to blockade the Strait of Hormuz is likely to stem last week’s relief ...

US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened China with “staggering” 50% tariffs if it provides military assistance to Iran, raising the specter of further friction between the world’s two largest economies. Beijing has cast itself as a peacemaker and reportedly helped broker the temporary US-Iran ceasefire, but has also been ...

Leadership in View The global economy is entering a period in which many of the most consequential decisions are being made inside companies rather than governments. From supply chains and energy systems to the future of mobility, global CEOs are navigating forces reshaping the world economy in real time. I ...

The biggest US public hospital system could soon replace some radiologists with AI. Radiology is ground zero for arguments over AI’s employment impacts: The “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton said in 2016 that radiologists would soon be replaced. In fact, the number ofradiologists in the US grew, as AI-human collaboration ...

US inflation surged in March as the war in Iran drove oil and gas prices up. Overall inflation rose to 3.3%, the highest level in almost two years; however, “core” inflation, which removes volatile food and energy prices, only increased modestly — suggesting that the long-term effects of the global ...

There’s been a debate in certain nerdier circles of the tech industry about comparing the revenues of Anthropic and OpenAI and I have at least part of the answer. But first, a word of warning. I’ve been covering the industry long enough that the pattern is clear: The numbers you ...

Back to school. Venture capitalists nearly doubled their spending on new US university spinoffs in 2025 to $690 million after three years of declines, PitchBook data show. They also increased their spending in later rounds of US companies spun out from academia, contributing $6.3 billion to those startups. One such ...