The theme of a possible slowing down artificial intelligence dominated the markets this morning, overshadowing even the prospect of indications on the rates from the Fed, BoJ and BoE this week and the new tensions in the Middle East which have kept the price of oil towards 108 dollars.
During weekend CEOs of US companies that develop the AI models more advanced have warned that the pace of development must slow down to prevent threats to humanity. This has caused a sharp drop in asian bags and a reaction annoyed by China.
The topic of a possible AI slowdown is becoming a political battle between the US and China.
Last Saturday the CEO of anthropic, Darius Amodei, in a lengthy essay published in X, urged AI companies to slow down the pace at which they develop models, in the face of growing fears of AI misuse. Both Elon Musk, at the head of XAI, that Sam altman, CEO of OpenAI, they agreed with Amodei.
This morning there China gave his own contradictory interpretation, reading Amodei's statements as a “Cold War Manual” which targets China, as reported by Global Times, a state-backed newspaper, in an editorial.
“This 'silent cold war on AI' is hypocritical and short-sighted,” reads the article reported by Reuters, which adds that excluding China from global AI innovation “would significantly increase the costs of trial and error and the risks of loss of control in global AI development.”
Amodei in fact he urged the United States to strengthen controls on chip exports from China and to crack down on the alleged manipulation of models by Chinese artificial intelligence laboratories. Yesterday he also raised the stakes by declaring CBS News that the “most difficult dilemma” regarding his proposal to slow AI progress would be if China and other adversarial nations chose not to do the same. Global Times On the other hand, he argued that the real goal of Amodei's essay was to “attempt to curb the development of artificial intelligence in China through technological barriers and regulatory monopolies, support Washington's monopolistic hegemony in cutting-edge technologies, and exclude China from the global AI governance system.”
I US legislators have been pushing for new rules to regulate artificial intelligence systems, but yesterday Trump He rejected calls to slow down artificial intelligence, saying that "very negative forces" were raising exaggerated concerns. "We're ahead of China in artificial intelligence. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins in AI wins," Trump said.
According to some sources, United States and China they plan to discuss at mid-September the security risks of frontier artificial intelligence, and the issue could be raised during the summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping the September 24.
OnepAI takes a step back from listing. Anthropic takes a step forward.
This morning, the AI sectors of the Asian stock markets were also shaken up by'announcement by OpenAI to postpone the listing until 2027, which had been suggested, with a fair amount of "maybes," for this fall. In June, OpenAI had confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but had shown no rush. But for one who backs out, another is moving forward on its path to listing: Anthropic, according to sources. Bloomberg, has chosen the Nasdaq as its stock market for its IPO, and Claude, the company that makes the chatbot, aims to raise a sum equal to or greater than that of SpaceX. Anthropic had already secured a $15 billion revolving credit line to service the IPO earlier this month.
anthropic Meanwhile, it has communicated to a select group of shareholders that it will record an adjusted operating profit in this quarter, net of exceptional or one-off costs, as reported yesterday by Financial Times, Marking its second consecutive period of profitability, the AI company's gross margins exceed 80% before accounting for revenue-sharing payments to partners like Amazon.com and the costs of training AI models. Anthropic recently stated that it is on track to generate annual revenue exceeding $65 billion based on its current performance, representing a more than sevenfold increase over last year's pace.
Piazza Affari is the black sheep among the European markets
Le European stock exchanges are moving downwards after the collapse of the asian bags and particularly AI-related stocks. South Korea's Kospi, a barometer of AI investment, fell 3,2%. Chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics lost 4,5% and 6,7%, respectively, in Seoul.
At Piazza Affari, the Ftse Eb is down (-1,2%) and stands at 51.883 points; along the same lines, the FTSE Italia All-Share is losing ground by 1,21%, the FTSE Italia Mid Cap by 1,60% and the FTSE Italia Star by 1,16%.
In Milan stmicroelectronics loses almost 6%, Prysmian is at -7,22% and Techno probe is down 7,23%. Sales on Avio, which recorded a decrease of 3,40% and on Saipem, down 2,7%. Instead, oil companies are gaining ground, led by Eni +0,39%. Also shop on Campari +4,85%, thanks to the positive opinion of UBS and Morgan Stanley, and Diasorin +0,68%. Resists Lottomatica with an increase of 0,72%. Recordati advances by 0,58%
OnItalian bond, The yield spread between the benchmark 10-year BTP and the German government bond of the same maturity widened to 87 basis points, up from 84 points at Friday's close. The yield on the benchmark 10-year BTP also rose to 4,39%, from 4,35% at the previous close, returning to its highest level since the end of 2023.
AI is also weighing heavily in the rest of Europe. French stock Soitec is dragging down the Stoxx 600.
Halfway through the session'pan-European Stoxx 600 index loses 1,90%. Cac Paris is down 0,8%, the Dax Frankfurt is at -0,6%.
AI industry everywhere. The France-based semiconductor company Soitec led the declines on the Stoxx with a 12,6% drop. In Germany, Infineon dropped 7,6%, while Dutch companies Asml and Asmi lost 5,2% and 8,7% respectively.
Of note, the actions of Euronext e Deutsche Boerse, listed in Paris and Frankfurt respectively, rose about 2% after Chief Executive Boujnah said in an interview with the Financial Times that he was open to a merger with his German rival, reigniting rumours of a long-discussed combination between Europe's two largest stock exchange operators.
Hugo Boss (-0,16%) announced that Chairman Stephan Sturm will resign, as major shareholder Frasers Group Plc intends to strengthen its board representation in conjunction with its takeover bid for the German fashion house.
