WS #12621

Markets opened lower on Wednesday ahead of key earnings from Tesla and Alphabet, with oil surging as the US-Iran conflict escalates. President Trump threatened to destroy Iranian bridges or power plants for each attack on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, pushing Brent crude above $95. The Pentagon reported nearly 100 US troops injured since July 7. In AI infrastructure, AMD announced a $5B investment in Anthropic and a deal to supply up to 2GW of GPUs, while OpenAI raised its projected cloud spending to ~$750B through 2030 and committed $20B to a Georgia data center. The US is reportedly set to allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its soil under a new nuclear agreement. Reddit shares fell 6% premarket on reports it may restrict Google's access to content for AI use. GE Vernova fell nearly 5% despite raising its revenue outlook. The US-Iran conflict is ESCALATING, with no ceasefire signals and new threats of collective punishment. The AI infrastructure buildout theme remains STABLE with continued large-scale commitments.