Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Microsoft on Friday unveiled several new features for its Copilot app, including a coding tool and an always-on AI assistant, as the software giant works to turn its AI helper into a one-stop platform for office workers. Microsoft also embedded its Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps directly into Copilot, letting users collaborate in those applications without leaving the AI tool.

TREE NEWS update: Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said artificial intelligence may act as a positive supply shock at a time of negative supply shocks. Bailey noted that energy price pass-through is currently fairly modest but still at an early stage, and that the longer high energy prices persist, the harder it becomes to maintain a hold on interest rates.

TREE NEWS reports: The International Monetary Fund said global private-sector AI investment could exceed $2 trillion in 2026, with AI-related investment expected to contribute about 0.5 percentage points to US GDP growth in 2025. In its annual report, the IMF said AI may become a major driver of global productivity and investment growth, while also intensifying labor-market pressure and posing financial risks.

TREE NEWS reports: The IMF’s latest annual report, citing external estimates, said private-sector-led global AI investment could exceed $2 trillion this year, one of the strongest drivers of economic growth in recent years. AI-related tech investment added an estimated 0.5 percentage points to US GDP growth in 2025. The IMF warned that as infrastructure and projects scale up, some high-cost investment increasingly relies on debt financing, risking sharp asset valuation adjustments, wealth losses and layoffs if returns disappoint.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Financial Services Agency is stepping up scrutiny of financing for artificial intelligence data centers. The tighter oversight targets lending and investment tied to AI data center projects, as the regulator examines the risks building up in the fast-growing sector. No specific institutions, deals or figures were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said governments must help shape how AI develops, after disclosing that an OpenAI agent accessed non-public files on an Australian Medicare data portal. Albanese pointed to the “furious pace” of the technology as the reason for public oversight.

TREE NEWS update: Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said at the Fifth Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou on September 24 that the biggest obstacle for embodied AI is the mismatch between AI model inputs and outputs and the physical world, causing robots to work with errors of a few millimetres. He predicted the sector will reach its own “ChatGPT moment” once robots can complete 80% of tasks in 80% of unfamiliar scenarios via voice-driven embodied capability.

TREE NEWS update: Block has joined the x402 Foundation, an open-standards body for AI-agent payments, and contributed Bitcoin Lightning payment capability to the project, aiming to build infrastructure for payments between individuals, businesses and AI agents. The foundation was established in April under the Linux Foundation, with supporters including Google, Microsoft, AWS, Coinbase and the Solana Foundation.

TREE NEWS update: Block has integrated Bitcoin Lightning payments into x402, an open payment standard for agentic AI commerce. The company joins Google, Microsoft, AWS and Coinbase in backing the protocol, which is designed to let AI agents transact autonomously. The move extends Lightning’s reach into machine-to-machine payments.

TREE NEWS update: Value Partners listed its optical communication active ETF on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 25, the firm announced. The fund is both Value Partners’ first AI-themed ETF and Asia’s first active ETF focused on the optical communication sector.

TREE NEWS reports: Citi said Tencent’s native AI assistant Xiaowei, embedded in WeChat, can leverage the platform’s large monthly active user base, proprietary social graph and mature mini-program commerce ecosystem. The bank expects Xiaowei to open significant long-term monetization through transaction commissions and advertising as agentic commerce grows in China. Citi maintained a Buy rating on Tencent with a HK$765 target price, implying 74% upside from Thursday’s close.

TREE NEWS reports: Goldman Sachs Asset Management is underweight the companies borrowing most heavily in the artificial intelligence sector, saying a wave of new debt issuance is hitting the market. The firm expects hyperscale cloud service providers to keep issuing debt in large volumes. The asset manager did not specify which issuers it is underweight.

TREE NEWS reports: DeepSeek’s annualized revenue has surpassed $1 billion, and the Chinese AI developer plans to complete a second funding round before the end of October. The revenue figure and financing timeline were reported without disclosed round size, valuation or investors.

TREE NEWS reports: Oracle has issued a force majeure notice on its “Project Jupiter” data center in New Mexico, a move bankers and investors say has chilled the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure financing market. Blue Owl said the notice does not change its commitments to the project. SB Energy, which is developing an Ohio data center campus for OpenAI, has decided to postpone its IPO this week.

TREE NEWS update: US President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson will meet with technology industry CEOs on September 29 to discuss artificial intelligence. The meeting brings the White House and congressional leadership together with tech leaders on AI policy.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI is preparing to preview GPT-6 Cyber, a new cybersecurity-focused model, within the next few days. The company will also release a new product that helps customers deploy GPT-6 Cyber in a safer and more automated way.

TREE NEWS reports: Anthropic is seeking voting control for its co-founders. The move would concentrate decision-making power in the hands of the company’s founding team. No further terms or figures were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Anthropic PBC said its Claude AI model identified an enzyme system similar to an earlier breakthrough gene-editing technology. Some experts in the field are treating the claim with caution, saying the company overstated the significance of the finding. The announcement, made by Anthropic, has not been independently confirmed.

TREE NEWS update: Chinese President Xi Jinping met US President Donald Trump at the White House on the morning of September 24 local time, the two leaders’ second in-person meeting in under six months. Xi said the two countries’ trade teams reached a new joint arrangement in their latest round of consultations, and proposed continued bilateral dialogue on artificial intelligence risks and benefits. Both sides confirmed mutual support for hosting the 2026 APEC and G20 summits.

TREE NEWS update: Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) struck a $12 billion AI compute agreement with Anthropic PBC, sending its US shares up more than 20% in after-hours trading. The deal, disclosed after the close, covers AI compute capacity supplied by Akamai to the AI developer.