South Korea's President Lee said on Wednesday at the opening of a Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy policy briefing that AI-driven disruption is reshaping the global industrial landscape and Seoul needs "bold" and "swift" investment. He urged the government to identify trends, plan for the future and lay the foundation for innovation, while securing sustained industrial growth potential, strengthening energy security and accelerating export-market and supply-chain diversification.

UAE media office said Q1 real GDP rose 3% at constant prices to AED 485 billion.

CITIC Securities says in 2Q26 leading North American cloud vendors’ capital spending remains elevated. Combined 2026 capex guidance from four major North American cloud providers is about $720–745 billion, signaling continued AI infrastructure expansion. The firm views the AI compute supply chain as still healthy but notes recent market adjustments that may have produced an oversell. Key near-term monitor points: ARR of large models—particularly Coding-use-case ARR—since recent price cuts by major models in North America could, if ARR growth stalls, weigh on expectations for future compute demand; rollout and adoption of large models beyond Coding scenarios; the price path across the compute-cost/inflation chain; and financing conditions and market risk appetite across AI-industry segments. Given heavy Q2 industry exposures and recent market weakness, CITIC recommends watching low-valuation, high-dividend names.