Market Overview

Warren Buffett revealed on CNBC that he personally initiated Berkshire Hathaway's $31 billion stake in Alphabet — not incoming CEO Greg Abel — making it roughly Berkshire's fifth- or sixth-largest holding. His reasoning is classically Buffett: Alphabet and its hyperscaler rivals (companies running massive cloud and AI infrastructure) now spend like railroads and utilities, pouring hundreds of billions into data centers and chips, the kind of capital-intensive buildout he's understood for decades. The catch, and Buffett was pointed about this, is that these companies are 'playing a game they don't want to play' — forced into an AI spending war with no clean exit, much like IBM got trapped chasing the next technology wave and never escaped. Alphabet shares jumped nearly 4% on the news, pushing co-founder Larry Page's net worth above $300 billion, while Buffett's rare endorsement added roughly $8 billion to Page's fortune in a single session (Fortune).

TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and manufacturer behind Nvidia, Apple, and Broadcom's most advanced chips, reported Q2 net income of NT$706.56 billion — a 77.4% jump year-over-year and a fifth consecutive record quarter, smashing analyst estimates of NT$632.64 billion (CNBC). Revenue hit NT$1.27 trillion ($39.45 billion), up 36% from a year ago, with advanced chips (7-nanometer and below) accounting for 77% of wafer revenue and AI-driven high-performance computing making up 66% of total platform revenue. The company raised its full-year capex budget to $60–64 billion and announced an additional $100 billion Arizona investment — bringing its total U.S. commitment to $265 billion — to build 2-nanometer fabs and advanced packaging facilities. TSMC guided Q3 revenue of $44.6–$45.8 billion with operating margins of 56–58%, and its shares are up over 58% year-to-date, a sign the market sees AI chip demand as durable rather than cyclical.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba surged 5% and Baidu gained 4% Thursday after both companies confirmed partnerships with Apple to power its Apple Intelligence features in China. Alibaba's Qwen model will be integrated into iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS for Chinese users — meaning Apple gets regulatory cover and local AI muscle without building its own compliant stack. China's Cyberspace Administration approved Apple Intelligence alongside six other smartphone AI services, including Huawei, greasing the regulatory rails. The deals underscore a broader pattern: even as the U.S. restricts chip exports to China, American tech giants are quietly threading the needle by partnering with Chinese AI firms rather than competing head-on.