Iran Says the Strait is Closed but 55 Ships Are Still Passing Through | Rewire News Morning Brief

Iran Claims to Close the Strait of Hormuz Again, While US Military Reports 55 Ships Passing Through. Pricing in the Insurance Market Determines the Strait's Accessibility More Than Any Announcement.

1｜Strait of Hormuz "Closed but Not Closed Again," Iran Announces Closure But CENTCOM Reports 55 Ships Passing Through as Usual

The Iranian military announced on Saturday the re-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, only three days after its reopening, citing Israeli continued airstrikes in Lebanon in violation of this week's memorandum of understanding. However, the US Central Command refuted on the same day, stating that 55 commercial ships were passing through the strait normally, carrying over 17 million barrels of crude oil. "Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz, and passage continues."

The real battlefield of this game is in the insurance market. During the last blockade, war risk insurance premiums for oil tankers surged from 0.5% of the cargo value to over 4%, and the pricing by shipping companies and insurance firms can more decisively determine whether the strait is "truly open" than any announcement. EIA data shows that the Hormuz crisis has cumulatively led to a global production disruption of 11.3 million barrels per day, with the May average price of Brent crude oil at $107 per barrel.

Vance has already arrived at the Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland to prepare for the nuclear talks. The US proposed that Iran invite UN inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities, with one of the conditions being the release of $6 billion frozen in Qatar. On the same day, Trump threatened that if there is no final agreement within 60 days, the US will impose tolls on the strait as "compensation for the service as the guardian angel of the Middle East."

(Source: Fortune / Al Jazeera / Axios / [WebSearch] CENTCOM / NBC / NPR / EIA / PBS)

2｜AI Company CEOs Sit as "Quasi Heads of State" at G7, Amodei and Hassabis Jointly Propose US-Led AI Alliance

A scene that has never been seen before unfolded at the G7 Summit in Evian, France. Altman from OpenAI, Amodei from Anthropic, Hassabis from Google DeepMind, and over a dozen other AI company CEOs sat at the same table for lunch with the heads of state of the seven nations. They were not observers but participants. Axios used a term, describing them as "quasi heads of state."

Amodei and Hassabis jointly called for the establishment of a US-led AI alliance to set rules and standards. Altman proposed establishing an international forum to "create globally recognized testing standards and provide expert and impartial capabilities and risk analysis." The European response is more complex, as they seek mechanisms to balance US dominance in AI. On one side, US AI companies are actively inviting the government to "legitimize" their power, while on the other side, other countries are attempting to restrict this power through regulations. The seating arrangement at this table is an answer in itself.

(Source: Axios / [WebSearch] CNBC / ABC News / Fast Company)

3｜AI Computing Power Race Goes Extraterrestrial: China's $8.4 Billion Space Data Center Plan to Rival SpaceX's AI-1 Satellite

Beijing established a Space Computing Industry Innovation Center last week, mandating chip and satellite companies to form an alliance and pursue six research directions, including radiation-resistant space-native chips and super-interconnected space computing payloads. This is backed by $8.4 billion in credit support for the "Orbital Dawn" project, with the goal of building a gigawatt-level space data center by 2035.

This comes a week before Musk unveiled the AI-1 satellite design concept. The AI-1 single satellite has a peak power of about 150 kW, sustained computing power of around 120 kW, roughly equivalent to an NVIDIA GB300 rack (72 GPUs). SpaceX submitted an application to the FCC in February for a constellation of millions of orbiting data center satellites.

Two organizational models are on a collision course. China is driving cross-enterprise alliances by national will, while SpaceX and Blue Origin are each fighting solo battles. While the ground-based AI computing power arms race has not yet determined a winner, the space race is already underway.

(Source: Tom's Hardware / [WebSearch] Carbon Credits / Rest of World / DCD)

4｜AI Music Training Data Compiled into a Database, Copyright Battle Shifts from Court to Evidence

An Atlantic reporter uncovered four AI music training datasets and built a searchable database. The two largest datasets contain 12 million and 9 million songs respectively, with Google and Stability AI having used some of the material. Music copyright holders have historically struggled to prove what exactly models have been fed, but now the evidence has been organized into a searchable public list.

This has altered the focus of the AI copyright battle. The dispute is no longer just about "whether the model imitates the work", but about whether the training supply chain can be unraveled. Text, images, and music are all heading towards the same phase, where datasets, web scrapers, cleaners, and model companies will all be brought to light together. AI companies used to refer to training data as engineering details, but copyright holders are turning it into an accountable asset.

(Source: The Verge / The Atlantic)

5｜Who Needs Rate Cuts Anymore? U.S. IPO Market Expected to Raise $225 Billion This Year, Five Times Last Year's Surge

Fed Chair Warsh acknowledges companies are able to "easily raise funds" in the financial markets. SpaceX, in the largest IPO in history just over a week ago, has led Goldman Sachs to raise the total 2026 IPO market fundraising expectation from $1.6 trillion to $2.25 trillion, compared to only $440 billion for the entire previous year.

The development of AI infrastructure has caused tech investors to start paying close attention to the bond market. The financing needs of AI companies have overflowed from the equity market into the fixed income field. Both stock offerings and corporate bond issuances have similarly hit record highs. The market is no longer waiting for interest rate cuts but is directly pricing in "permanently ample capital."

The Federal Reserve's intention to maintain high interest rates was to tighten financial conditions. The reality is that companies no longer care. The decoupling of interest rate policy from the actual financing environment may be the most overlooked structural feature of this AI boom.

(Source: Fortune / CNBC / [WebSearch] CNBC SpaceX IPO)

Also worth noting ↓

Intel and AMD have collaborated to introduce the ACE instruction set extension, bringing AI-native matrix operations to the x86 architecture. The new design makes matrix multiplication more energy-efficient and higher in density. x86 has long been overshadowed by NVIDIA GPUs in AI training, and this is a systematic counterattack by the CPU camp. (Source: Tom's Hardware)

An Atlantic journalist uncovered four AI music training datasets and built a searchable database, with the two largest containing 12 million and 9 million tracks, respectively. Google and Stability AI have used these datasets. This adds another arsenal to AI copyright litigation. (Source: The Verge)

Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker publicly warned at the G7 Summit that "AI chatbots are not your friends; they are not conscious beings." This statement came right after AI company CEOs attended the G7 Summit as quasi-heads of state, like a belated reminder. (Source: TechCrunch)

Strategy's preferred stock STRC fell below face value, triggering a crypto leverage liquidation chain. CoinDesk reviewed the collapse timeline. Strategy's Bitcoin exposure has been transmitted to traditional fixed-income investors through preferred stock, indicating that crypto risk is seeping into conservative asset classes. (Source: CoinDesk)

Andre Cronje resigns from the Sonic Labs board, and the S token drops 97% from its all-time high. One of the most prominent serial entrepreneurs in the DeFi sector chooses to exit. (Source: The Block)

Cuba has announced privatization reforms, allowing private and foreign exchange of fuel, establishing private enterprise banks, and permitting foreign direct hiring of workers. A country still under US sanctions is opening up its market at a faster pace than China did in the 1980s. (Source: Marginal Revolution / Miami Herald)

Trump and Italian Prime Minister Meloni engage in a public spat over a G7 group photo controversy. Trump claims Meloni sought the photo op, while Meloni retorts, "The opposite is true." No holds barred with closest allies. (Source: Axios / Al Jazeera)

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