08/05/2026

BIZ & FINANCE FRIDAY | MAY 8, 2026

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SpaceX strikes data centre deal with Anthropic

Maersk maintains year forecast despite Hormuz uncertainty COPENHAGEN: Danish global shipping giant Maersk said yesterday it was maintaining its 2026 forecasts despite the Middle East war and the uncertainty the conflict has generated. “The conflict in the Middle East, which began on 28 February 2026, has introduced an additional layer of uncertainty,“ said Maersk in a statement as first quarter net profit dived. The firm noted that “traffic at the Strait of Hormuz remains at a near-standstill” and that “the conflict has already weighed on sentiment”, denting consumer confidence. Global demand for container shipping nonetheless rose between 3% and 5% year-on-year in the first quarter. Between January and March, Maersk’s net profit came in at US$100 million, 12 times lower than the same period last year when its return was boosted by demand for maritime transport. Revenue totalled US$12.97 billion, down 2.6% for a company widely considered a bellwether for global trade. In the first quarter, freight rates were lower, although that was partially offset by a 9.3% rise in volumes, Maersk noted in its quarterly report. “We’ve seen strong demand across most regions this quarter, supporting robust volume growth in our three business segments,“ said CEO Vincent Clerc. “In (maritime transport segment) Ocean in particular, market volatility remains high and industry oversupply continues to put pressure on rates.”– AFP Google DeepMind takes stake in ‘EVE Online’ studio PARIS: Google’s AI lab DeepMind has taken a stake in the studio behind the EVE Online video game to train its AI tools, the companies announced Wednesday. Launched in 2003,“ EVE Online is a space-based massively-multiplayer role playing game in which player interactions have a large role in determining the economic and political developments. DeepMind’s researchers will at first put their AI models to test in a separate, offline version of the game that is not accessible by players. “It is a one-of-a-kind simulation for testing general-purpose artificial intelligence in a safe sandbox environment,“ said Alexandre Moufarek, the director of DeepMind research. Playing the game should help DeepMind’s AI models to improve their long-term planning and continuous learning skills. The head of the lab, Demis Hassabis, said video games are “the perfect training ground for developing and testing AI algorithms” and had enabled many of DeepMind’s breakthroughs. Google’s minority stake comes as part of a return to independence for Iceland’s CCP Games, which has been held by South Korean game studio Pearl Abyss since 2018. Following the US$120 million transaction it rebranded itself as Fenris Creations, and said the deal affects ownership and governance only, with no planned layoffs in Iceland. It added it plans to keep its studios in London and Shanghai as well. It said the company was profitable on more than US$70 million in revenue last year, and plans two upcoming EVE -related titles. – AFP

protests from civil rights groups who said it worsened air pollution in the Memphis area. The SpaceX pact is the latest in a string of major compute agreements Anthropic has announced in recent months as the company looks to secure the computing power needed to meet its growing needs. These include megadeals with Amazon, Google and Broadcom, Microsoft and Nvidia, and an infrastructure investment with Fluidstack. The announcement comes as Anthropic and OpenAI – crosstown rivals in San Francisco – are locked in a direct battle to equip businesses with AI agents: semi-autonomous assistants capable of writing code, analysing large volumes of documents, or processing medical records, whose adoption is accelerating rapidly. On Tuesday, Anthropic unveiled 10 AI agents tailored specifically for banks, insurers, and asset managers – tools capable of drafting sales presentations, conducting regulatory checks, and analyzing financial statements. OpenAI, meanwhile, announced a partnership on Tuesday with global auditing giant PwC to support its financial operations. But the race to deploy AI agents is running headlong into a scramble for the chips and energy needed to power them. Data centre construction in the United States, despite moving at an accelerated pace, has struggled to keep up. And the energy-hungry projects, blamed for driving up household electricity bills, are drawing growing opposition from American citizens – an issue that could weigh on November’s midterm elections. – AFP

partnership between two companies whose leaders have been publicly at odds. Musk wrote in February that Anthropic “hates Western Civilization” and questioned whether there was a “more hypocritical company than Anthropic”. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has rankled Musk and other Silicon Valley insiders with his public warnings about the dangers of AI. Amodei has also clashed with Donald Trump’s administration after the Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply chain risk earlier this year, a move Anthropic said amounted to unconstitutional retaliation for the company’s advocacy on AI safety. But on Wednesday Musk changed his tone, writing on X that he had spent time with senior Anthropic staff over the past week and was “impressed”. “Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing,” he wrote. In a separate post, Musk said he was “dissolving” xAI as a standalone company. “It will just be SpaceXAI, the AI products from SpaceX,” he added, without elaborating. SpaceX merged with xAI earlier this year in a deal valuing the two companies at US$1.25 trillion. The company is widely expected to pursue an IPO this year that could be among the largest in corporate history. The Colossus facility in Memphis has been a source of controversy. xAI installed dozens of natural gas-burning turbines to power the site, claiming no federal permit was required because they were only for temporary use – a move that drew persistent

SAN FRANCISCO: AI startup Anthropic announced on Wednesday it has agreed to a major computing partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, securing access to a vast data centre as the Claude maker scrambles to keep pace with surging demand for its AI services. Under the deal, Anthropic will use all of the compute capacity at SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data centre in Memphis, Tennessee – a facility originally built to power Musk’s rival AI venture, xAI. The agreement gives Anthropic access to more than 300 megawatts of capacity, backed by over 220,000 Nvidia AI chips, within one month. The company said the additional capacity would directly benefit subscribers to its Claude Pro and Claude Max plans. Anthropic also announced it was immediately letting users do more with its technology. The company said it was doubling the amount of Claude Code – an AI-powered coding assistant that can write, edit, and debug software – that paying subscribers can use in a five-hour window and eliminating restrictions that had previously cut access during busy periods. The SpaceX deal marks a surprising o Claude maker scrambles to keep pace with surging demand for its AI services

Planes are parked at Terminal 3 of the Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates. – REUTERSPIC

Emirates airline posts record net profit despite war DUBAI: Emirates airline yesterday posted a record full-year net profit despite the impact of the Iran war, as the carrier cited strong travel demand throughout most of the period. airspaces in the Middle East closed temporarily and surging jet fuel prices lifted costs, leading to the air travel industry’s biggest crisis since the Covid-19 pandemic. US$41 billion, up 3% from a year earlier. “For the first 11 months of 2025-26, the picture across the group was very positive,“ CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said.

“Although we are still operating at a lower passenger capacity than pre-disruption, cargo operations have ramped up to support the movement of essential goods into and through the UAE,“ he added. The group will distribute total dividends of US$1 billion to its owner, sovereign wealth fund ICD. – Agencies

The major Gulf carriers including Emirates have been gradually restoring capacity, but are still operating below pre-war levels, while renewed attacks on the United Arab Emirates this week cast uncertainty on a fragile ceasefire that entered into effect last month. The Dubai-based airline said its parent Emirates Group posted a record revenue of

The Gulf carrier said in a statement its profit after tax rose to US$5.4 billion in the 12 months to the end of March, up from US$5.2 billion in the same period a year earlier, as higher passenger yield offset a slight decline in the number of passengers Emirates carried to 53.2 million. The US-Israeli war with Iran, which began on Feb 28, has led to severe disruptions as