US-Iran War Week 7 Escalates, China Launches 29-Nation AI Bloc WAICO

The European Commission issued two binding compliance orders to Google on July 16. Competing AI assistants must receive equal access to core Android OS functions, and anonymized data must be shared with third-party search engines on fair terms. Google has until July 27 to comply.

Governor Pritzker signed the AI Safety Measures Act on July 6. AI developers with annual revenue above $500 million and significant compute usage must complete annual independent third-party audits, report safety incidents, and maintain public compliance procedures; violations carry fines up to $3 million.

The European Data Protection Board adopted guidelines on web scraping for generative AI on July 8. GDPR applies in full to scraping that involves personal data; the guidelines set out three criteria for assessing whether data qualifies as anonymous. Public comment is open through October 30, 2026.

PwC's 2026 AI Jobs Barometer found that workers with AI skills earn 56% more than peers in the same role without them. In fast-adopting sectors like finance and information, an average of 28,000 jobs per month are being eliminated.

54% of Fortune 100 companies now require full five-day in-office attendance, up sharply from 11% a year ago. 77% of new job postings list full in-person attendance as a condition.

The State University of New York adopted an AI policy covering all 64 campuses. Students entering in fall 2026 must complete a general education course on responsible AI use; faculty AI training is also mandatory.

SHRM data shows the US averaged 92,000 new jobs per month in the first half of 2026. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2%, though 68% of HR professionals reported difficulty filling full-time positions.

The IMF's July World Economic Outlook maintained the 2026 global growth forecast at 3.0%. The outlook is shaped by cross-currents: Middle East war pressures energy-importing nations while accelerating AI demand supports countries integrated into tech supply chains.

As the US resumed military strikes on Iran and revoked Iranian oil sanction waivers, Brent crude surpassed $80 per barrel. Disruptions to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz are compounding energy supply chain concerns.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) has entered a 20% drawdown from its peak, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell more than 10% for the week. Surging oil prices and inflation concerns have weakened sentiment in tech equities.

Coravel, an AI data center platform co-founded by BlackRock and ACS Group, launched with a 140 MW hyperscale contract already in place in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Three facilities are scheduled for sequential completion by 2028.

SoftBank Group announced plans to build a 5 GW AI data center in northern France at a cost of up to EUR 75 billion. This represents the largest single AI infrastructure investment in European history.

TSMC is installing equipment in its third Arizona fab as part of a $165 billion campus investment. Samsung's Texas fab is also scheduled to open within 2026, and both rank among the largest industrial construction projects of the year.

Data center REITs have returned 36% year-to-date, roughly triple the 13% return of the broader real estate sector. AI demand has pushed vacancy rates to all-time lows and rents to all-time highs.

Enterprise AI platform Fireworks AI completed a $1.5 billion Series D led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV, reaching a $17.5 billion valuation. The company provides custom AI model training and serving infrastructure for enterprise clients including Uber and Shopify.

General-purpose robotics company Walden Robotics emerged from stealth after raising $300 million led by Toyota and Deviation Capital. Valued at $1.1 billion, the company is developing general-purpose robots for manufacturing and logistics environments.

AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $400 million Series C led by Index Ventures, with participation from Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins. The company is valued at $3.8 billion.

LA-based aerial defense technology startup Singularity emerged from stealth with an $80 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures and Felicis. Valued at $400 million, the company is developing autonomous aerial defense systems.

At a DC Council hearing, Uber argued robotaxis should be integrated into ridehailing platforms, while Waymo maintained support for the current bill, surfacing a conflict over the direction of federal AV regulation.

During Fourth of July fireworks, multiple Waymo robotaxis were towed after their batteries died, causing traffic gridlock in San Francisco. The mayor formally called for stronger accountability standards for AV operators.

Drone delivery company Zipline hired three executives from Tesla, Uber, and Waymo and announced expansion into Austin and Cleveland. The company now completes one delivery every 30 seconds and has reached a cumulative 2.5 million deliveries.

E-commerce sales grew 2.0% month-over-month in June, marking six consecutive months of growth above 1%. E-commerce now accounts for 29% of total retail sales, excluding auto and fuel.

An NRF survey found that 67% of shoppers had begun back-to-school purchases by early July, up from 55% the prior year. 51% of respondents cited concerns about tariff-driven price increases as a reason for buying early.

Amazon announced it will apply category-specific character limits to all product titles starting July 27, automatically correcting or truncating promotional phrases, repeated words, and special characters.

Anthropic ended unlimited access to Fable 5 as of midnight PT on July 19. Max and Team Premium users are now capped at 50% of usage limits; Pro and Team Standard users can only access it via prepaid credits (input at $10 per million tokens).

On July 16 at WAIC in Shanghai, 29 countries signed the WAICO founding agreement. Led by China with participation from Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and others, the body aims to create an international AI governance framework independent of the US-led order.

China's Moonshot AI launched Kimi K3, an open-weight multimodal reasoning model with 2.8 trillion parameters, on July 16. It features a 1-million token context window and ranked first on the Arena.ai frontend coding benchmark.

On July 17, Apple's market cap hit $4.88 trillion, overtaking Nvidia ($4.86 trillion) to reclaim the world's most valuable company title. Nvidia shares fell 3.5% on the day, wiping out approximately $173 billion in market value.

CNN reported on July 17 that Meta is in negotiations to lease a portion of its AI infrastructure to Anthropic. The deal is part of Meta's broader strategy to launch a cloud division called 'Meta Compute.'

Amazon's autonomous vehicle subsidiary Zoox issued a software recall for 105 robotaxis on July 17. The recall stems from a June incident in Las Vegas where a vehicle failed to detect heavy smoke and drove into an active fire scene.

The UK government announced regulations to block access to platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and X for users under 16, set to take effect in spring 2027. AI romantic chatbot features are also included in the ban.

TikTok Shop banned the use of AI voices and pre-recorded audio in shopping livestreams, introducing a new penalty system that deducts from an Account Health Rating (AHR) for violations starting in July. Accounts reaching zero can be permanently deactivated.

YouTube removed the dislike button from the Shorts player and replaced the like button with a heart icon. Feed adjustments are now handled through Not interested and Do not recommend this channel buttons.

Instagram has fully deployed its Your Algo feature to all English-speaking users globally, allowing them to directly adjust Reels, feed, and Explore tab recommendations by topic.

Iran's IRGC launched drone attacks on US military bases in Kuwait and struck power and desalination facilities, halting Kuwait airport operations. US forces struck Iranian military logistics infrastructure in southern Iran for seven consecutive days.

At the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey on July 7-8, member states announced over $50 billion in new defense procurement and pledged EUR 70 billion in military support to Ukraine for 2026.

The UN Security Council warned that the war in Ukraine has entered its deadliest phase since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia insists on a full cession of Donetsk before any ceasefire; Ukraine refuses to negotiate without clear security guarantees.

Chaining CVE-2026-60137 and CVE-2026-63030 enables unauthenticated remote code execution, putting approximately 500 million sites at risk worldwide. Emergency patches WordPress 6.9.5 and 7.0.2 have been released.

CISA designated July 19 as the federal agency patch deadline for a CVSS 9.8 remote code execution vulnerability in SharePoint. The flaw has been confirmed as actively exploited in the wild.

A threat actor attempted to sell 35GB of stolen data including RSA and SSH keys and Azure personal access tokens for cryptocurrency. Accenture confirmed the breach and stated that containment measures have been completed.

Hackers infiltrated a cloud file platform used across 15 Ecopetrol Group companies and stole account data before demanding a ransom. Ecopetrol stated that encryption of core operational systems was successfully blocked.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui departed Pyongyang on July 18 for an official visit to Russia, confirmed by KCNA. The visit, at Foreign Minister Lavrov's invitation, has fueled speculation that it is a precursor to a third Kim Jong Un-Putin summit.

The Democratic Party of Korea moved to bring a bill extending the second omnibus special counsel investigation by 30 days and expanding staff by 150 to a full floor vote on July 20, while the People Power Party vowed to block it through filibuster.

Global asset managers have concluded that emerging market portfolios are overconcentrated in Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and TSMC amid the AI chip boom, and are exploring ways to reduce exposure and identify new investment targets, according to the Seoul Economic Daily.

Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket launched from Sriharikota on July 18 and reached a 450 km low Earth orbit in just 17 minutes. This makes India only the third country after the US and China where a private company has achieved orbital launch capability.

China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft closed to within 20 km of near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamooalewa and began analyzing its shape, material composition, and internal structure.

Two independent research teams simultaneously announced a third planet in the Beta Pictoris system. With a mass 2.4 times that of Jupiter and an orbital period of 91 years, it is now the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from the ground.

The FDA officially finalized a policy reducing the standard for new drug approval from two pivotal clinical trials to one trial plus supplementary evidence. The agency noted this will affect the pace of drug development in oncology and rare disease.

New guidelines published by the WHO on July 17 state that up to 45% of dementia cases worldwide could be delayed or prevented through interventions targeting modifiable risk factors.

Merck's enlicitide (Lipfendra) received FDA approval on July 16, becoming the world's first oral PCSK9 inhibitor. It is indicated for reducing LDL cholesterol in adults with hypercholesterolemia.

Research published on July 19 confirmed that creatine supplies energy to T cells and suppresses tumor growth. The findings suggest potential applications for creatine as an adjunct to immunotherapy cancer treatments.

A heatwave that set all-time records of 44.3C in France and 45.1C in Spain on June 23 caused more than 10,440 excess deaths across Europe as of July 9. The World Weather Attribution group classified the event as virtually impossible without climate change.

World's largest battery maker CATL announced it is supplying Naxtra sodium-ion cells at approximately $19 per kWh, roughly one-third the cost of conventional LFP batteries ($55-60/kWh).

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a 550-page draft rule for modernizing nuclear licensing on July 1, introducing performance-based approaches across the full lifecycle from design approval to decommissioning. Estimated savings reach up to $1.86 billion.

UK energy regulator Ofgem confirmed 16 long-duration energy storage (LDES) projects totaling 7.6 GW will receive support. The move will approximately triple the UK's dispatchable storage capacity.

The Esports World Cup 2026 opened on July 12 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, running more than 24 titles with a total prize pool of $75 million. On July 19, multiple events including Valorant and Call of Duty ran simultaneously.

Netflix animated film KPop Demon Hunters remained in the TOP5 for a third straight week in the latest viewing report, accumulating 130 million views from January through July 2026.

The dark fantasy historical drama The East Palace, starring Nam Joo-hyuk, Noh Yoon-seo, and Jo Seung-woo, premiered globally on Netflix on July 17.