Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Rackspace is turning heads today after announcing a new partnership with AMD, sending shares sharply higher and putting this under-the-radar AI infrastructure play ahead of heavyweights like Micron and Arm on a year-to-date basis. It's a reminder that in this AI cycle, the picks-and-shovels names aren't always the obvious ones.
Shifting from markets to geopolitics, and the ripple effects matter here — President Trump is signaling he may send details of the Iran nuclear framework to Congress for review. The deal announced Sunday has drawn a lukewarm response even from Republican allies, raising real questions about whether this agreement holds political weight domestically, which in turn affects how energy markets and defense sectors read the risk picture.
And on the subject of sovereign risk, a story out of Fortune is drawing significant attention in tech and policy circles. When the U.S. government cut off foreign access to Anthropic's most powerful AI models, it sent governments scrambling globally. Europe in particular is treating this as a wake-up call about dependence on American AI infrastructure — and accelerating investment in homegrown alternatives. The geopolitical dimensions of artificial intelligence just became very concrete, very fast.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
