The Internet · 26 Jun 2026

THE INTERNET | Jun 26, 2026

Highlights

REGULATORYThe EU said the cloud-computing units of Microsoft and Amazon should fall under the Digital Markets Act, extending gatekeeper rules to Big Tech infrastructure.
AIOpenAI is leaning toward waiting until 2027 to pursue an IPO, per The New York Times, as it weighs heavy AI spending.
REGULATORYPresident Trump plans to name Adam Candeub as the DOJ's antitrust chief as a top official signals a retreat from antitrust trials.
AIAmazon will invest an additional $13 billion in India for AI infrastructure through 2030.
AIDeepSeek plans to at least double headcount across all departments as Chinese AI labs scale to close the gap with the U.S.
PAYMENTSKlarna's antitrust verdict against Google, with $8.3 billion in damages at stake, is set for July 1.
BLOCKCHAINDaily U.S. Senate meetings are keeping the crypto market-structure CLARITY Act alive, industry insiders say.

CORPORATE

AIUSUPDATEOpenAI: OpenAI is leaning toward waiting until 2027 to pursue an initial public offering, Bloomberg reported, citing The New York Times. [Bloomberg]
AI Takeaway: A 2027 listing keeps OpenAI private through the heaviest phase of its AI capex commitments, deferring the public-market scrutiny that Anthropic and xAI also avoid by staying private. The delay lets the loss-making spend run without a quarterly earnings line, a luxury the listed hyperscalers funding rival models do not have.
REGULATORYEUMicrosoft: The cloud-computing services of Microsoft and Amazon should fall under the EU's Digital Markets Act, European regulators said, Reuters, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported. [Reuters]
AI Takeaway: Pulling Azure and AWS into the gatekeeper regime would for the first time apply interoperability and self-preferencing limits to the cloud layer, not just consumer apps. It bears on the same infrastructure both firms are racing to lease and build for AI, adding a European compliance cost to the buildout that lighter-regulated rivals in Asia do not carry.
REGULATORYUSThe DOJ signals a softer antitrust posture toward Big Tech. President Trump plans to name Adam Candeub as the Justice Department's antitrust chief, The New York Times reported, while a top DOJ official separately told staff he wants to avoid antitrust trials, The Wall Street Journal reported. [The New York Times] [The Wall Street Journal]
AI Takeaway: A trial-averse enforcement chief lowers the litigation risk hanging over the pending cases against Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, shifting the likely path toward settlements over structural remedies. It marks a divergence from Brussels, which is tightening the DMA on the same firms, leaving the cohort facing a looser home regulator and a stricter foreign one.
AIINAmazon: Amazon will invest an additional $13 billion in India for AI infrastructure through 2030, Reuters and Bloomberg reported. [Reuters]
AI Takeaway: A $13 billion India commitment routes hyperscaler AI capex toward a market with cheaper power and land than the saturated US grid, the same constraint Amazon's chief has called the binding limit on AI growth. It deepens the AWS regional footprint against Microsoft and Google in a country whose data-localization rules reward in-country capacity.
USApple: Apple raised prices on Macs and iPads by $200 or more on some models as a memory-chip crunch tied to the AI boom lifted component costs, and signaled further increases ahead, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and The New York Times reported. [The Wall Street Journal]
AIUSAnthropic: Anthropic accused Alibaba and its AI unit of running what it called the "largest known distillation attack" against the company, a campaign to extract the capabilities of its Claude model, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported. [The Wall Street Journal]
AIUSMicrosoft: The New York Times amended its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, sharpening a "contributory" infringement claim that Microsoft encouraged OpenAI to train on Times articles while dropping a separate claim against OpenAI. [The New York Times]
EUAnthropic: Anthropic hired Orange's AI chief as it pushes deeper into Europe, Reuters reported. [Reuters]
GLOBALMicrosoft: Microsoft will raise Xbox console prices worldwide from August, its third increase in 13 months, Reuters and Bloomberg reported. [Reuters]

AI

CNChinese AI labs scale aggressively to close the gap with U.S. rivals. DeepSeek said it plans to at least double headcount across all departments, according to a recruitment notice, Reuters reported, while Semafor described a broader push by Chinese AI firms to scale and compete with the U.S. [Reuters] [Semafor]
AI Takeaway: Aggressive headcount expansion at DeepSeek and its peers answers US export controls with talent rather than chips, the input the controls cannot restrict. It signals that the Chinese cohort is racing to convert open-weight, lower-cost models into a parallel stack, narrowing the lead the export regime was designed to protect.

PAYMENTS

REGULATORYEUKlarna's antitrust verdict against Google is set for July 1. Stockholm's Patent and Market Court rescheduled its judgment to July 1, Klarna said, in a case where PriceRunner seeks $8.3 billion in damages over Google's alleged demotion of rival comparison-shopping services, a claim rooted in a 2017 European Commission decision upheld by the CJEU in 2024. [PYMNTS.com]
AI Takeaway: A nine-figure damages award would put a price on the self-preferencing conduct the DMA now bans outright, turning historical Google Shopping liability into a live cost. The case shows private litigants, not just regulators, pursuing platform-favoritism claims, a second enforcement channel that the cohort's softer US antitrust outlook does not blunt.
USVisa partners with AI fintechs to expand its agentic-commerce services. Visa added technology partners Alchemy and Nuvion to build out agentic commerce and digital-asset capabilities, feeding the value-added services revenue that investors watch, American Banker reported, citing analysts at William Blair. [American Banker]
AI Takeaway: Opening the network to AI and stablecoin developers lets Visa monetize agentic commerce as services revenue rather than defend per-transaction card fees, the line under pressure from regulation and fintechs. It positions Visa to host agent-driven checkout alongside Mastercard, reframing the rails as platforms that agents build on rather than pipes agents bypass.
GLOBALAirwallex raises a Series H at an $11 billion valuation to fund agentic commerce. Airwallex said the round lifted its valuation to $11 billion, up from $8 billion in December, to develop autonomous finance and agentic commerce and extend its licensing and settlement infrastructure into new markets, PYMNTS reported, citing co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang. [PYMNTS.com]
AI Takeaway: A 38% valuation step-up in six months prices the decade of payment licenses and settlement rails Airwallex built as the scarce input for agentic commerce, the same infrastructure layer Visa is partnering to assemble. It frames cross-border fintech moats as the contested ground for agent-mediated money movement rather than the consumer wallet.
REGULATORYUKThe UK's buy-now-pay-later law takes effect July 15 under FCA supervision. FCA consumer-finance director Alison Walters said firms must give consumers the right information and conduct creditworthiness and affordability checks before offering BNPL loans, PYMNTS reported. [PYMNTS.com]
GLOBALCustomer experience emerges as the next driver of instant-payments adoption. Real-time payment uptake increasingly hinges on user experience rather than mere availability, PYMNTS reported. [PYMNTS.com]

BLOCKCHAIN

REGULATORYUSDaily Senate meetings keep the crypto market-structure CLARITY Act alive. Crypto-industry insiders said daily U.S. Senate meetings are sustaining momentum behind the CLARITY Act, PYMNTS reported. [PYMNTS.com]
AI Takeaway: Passage would set the federal rules of the road for token classification and stablecoins, the framework that determines whether banks and payment networks can hold digital assets on balance sheet. It runs parallel to the EU's MiCA regime and China's e-CNY push, sharpening the contest over which jurisdiction's rulebook hosts the next layer of settlement.

ECOMMERCE

REGULATORYHOSPITALITYCNUPDATETrip.com: Trip.com Group, China's largest online travel agency, forecast its slowest quarterly revenue growth in more than three years and warned of a "significant fine" from an antitrust probe by the State Administration for Market Regulation; first-quarter revenue rose 17% to 16.2 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) while profit fell almost 42% to 2.5 billion yuan, South China Morning Post reported. [South China Morning Post]

Still in play

REGULATORYEUEU–White House talks continue over access to Anthropic models following the Mythos cutoff, as the European Commission prepares an AI and cybersecurity action plan. [Bloomberg]
REGULATORYEUThe digital euro cleared a European Parliament hurdle, advancing the ECB's cross-border settlement project. [Finextra Research]

MARKETS

25 Jun 2026 close | Retrieved 25 Jun 22:00 UTC | Yahoo Finance

THE INTERNET | Jun 26, 2026

Highlights

CORPORATE

AI

PAYMENTS

BLOCKCHAIN

ECOMMERCE

Still in play

MARKETS

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