Category: Semafor

Bankers for OpenAI and Anthropic — both of which are barreling towards IPOs — are reportedly pressing for the AI giants to quickly win investment-grade credit ratings, underlining the huge and growing role of debt in the tech infrastructure buildout. The AI labs’ bankers are keen to get access to ...

Australia has reportedly agreed to a new treaty to deepen its relationship with the Solomon Islands, the latest in a series of deals Canberra is racing to finalize in order to guard against a rising China. The new agreement, which includes $700 million from Australia to the Pacific nation according ...

The latest US employment figures have failed to show an AI-driven surge in job losses, multiple analysts noted, suggesting theories of a “jobpocalypse” are premature, or misunderstood the effects of AI to begin with. “It’s a good bet that AI will eventually make some occupations obsolete,” but so far it’s ...

The News The nonprofit arm of ’s audio empire is hoping to lure younger voters back to the Democratic Party by boosting ideologically aligned social video creators ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Crooked Ideas, the issue-focused partner organization of Crooked Media, is launching new programming and brands aimed at ...

US gas prices hit record highs and Iran doubled the price of fuel consumed over quota, as energy disruptions hit at the pump in both countries. Tehran announced a new “exclusion zone” in the Strait of Hormuz amid reports that its grip on the key waterway, and its negotiating leverage, ...

Malaysia is considering using Huawei chips to power its sovereign AI efforts, Bloomberg reported, in what would be the first known instance of a foreign government choosing Chinese accelerators over American ones. Though Washington has warned that using Chinese chips could violate export restrictions, Huawei’s steep discounts offer cheaper compute ...

AI is hurting China’s already weak graduate job market. An estimated 12.7 million graduates will join the workforce this year, the largest cohort yet. But “the supply of… graduate jobs has not kept pace” with ballooning college attendance rates, The New York Times reported. AI’s impact, already being felt in ...

Kenya’s government sought to reassure foreign traders that they have legal protection to operate in the country after President William Ruto raised doubts over their status in East Africa’s biggest economy. Ruto reportedly ordered authorities to begin shutting down foreign-owned businesses from Sept. 7 as part of a move to ...

S&P Global Ratings downgraded Senegal’s long-term foreign currency rating, citing a high chance that the country will default on its debt following an agreement reached with the IMF for a $2.2 billion loan. The rating decision drops the West African nation deeper into junk territory and underscores its vulnerability since ...

The Dangote Refinery has secured the approval of Nigeria’s securities regulator to launch an initial public offering on the stock exchange in Lagos. The company, whose 700,000 barrels-a-day oil plant is Africa’s largest, is set to raise about $1.6 billion. The latest step bookends a year-long anticipation for an offer ...