China A-share memory chip sector staged an intraday rebound; Huahong Hongli rose more than 10%, while Canxin, Zhongke Feice, Xinyuan Micro and Jingce Electronics also gained.

Research firm SemiAnalysis says the next bottleneck for AI is financing, not GPUs or data centers, and that credit markets will be the primary funding source for AI infrastructure. SemiAnalysis projects annual global AI capex will exceed $2.0 trillion by 2028 and cumulative AI capex from 2024–2029 will reach about $11.1 trillion. The firm says NVIDIA is providing minimum-revenue guarantees to AI compute operators such as Neocloud to make GPUs financeable as infrastructure. Based on this, SemiAnalysis forecasts outstanding AI-related debt could top $7.0 trillion by 2029, making it the second-largest asset-backed debt market after U.S. mortgage-backed securities (around $13.0 trillion). NVIDIA’s described back-up plan would use its AA/Aa2 investment-grade credit to underwrite minimum revenue for operators, lowering bank lending risk and unlocking multi-trillion dollars of AI infrastructure financing; SemiAnalysis likens NVIDIA to the “central bank” of AI.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said three attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday prompted it to raise the maritime threat level to 'severe', the second-highest. An unnamed LNG carrier suffered a fire after an unidentified object struck the port side of its engine room while transiting the strait. A very large crude carrier (VLCC) was hit by an unidentified object as it departed the strait; the vessel continued to its destination and no casualties were reported. A third tanker was attacked near Oman's Musandam peninsula, sustaining minor structural damage. UKMTO said the likelihood of deliberate hostile action has increased, navigational disruption persists and vessels should remain highly vigilant. It added that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' hailing and route-interference activity continues, notably targeting ships with their automatic identification system (AIS) active.