WS #12623

The US-Iran conflict continues to escalate with new threats and military actions. President Trump has vowed to strike Iranian bridges or power plants for each ship attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, as reported by Axios and Virgin Media. Houthis have deployed missiles and drones near Bab el-Mandeb, threatening Saudi oil exports via the Red Sea. Oil prices are surging, with Brent above $94 and WTI above $87. The US 30-year bond yield is trading above 5% for the longest stretch since 2007, raising alarm. Markets opened mixed with the Nasdaq down over 100 points (-0.52%) ahead of key earnings from Tesla and Alphabet after the bell. 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 also launched a $5B AI research initiative for chronic disease and drug discovery. 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.