Morning Scan

The dominant story this Wednesday is the sheer scale of capital moving through AI infrastructure, and what it's obscuring. Off-balance-sheet debt is piling up at the hyperscalers while a $12B financing round for a single data center shows how hard the numbers are getting to parse. The legal architecture around AI training costs is crystallizing slowly, one settlement at a time.

~$1.65T — Off-balance-sheet debt at Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle has grown an estimated 8x since 2022, now eclipsing their $1.35T in on-balance-sheet debt. (Nikkei Asia)

Connected World

BlackRock Leads a $12B+ Debt Sale for Meta's New El Paso Data Center (paywall)

One data center, twelve billion dollars in financing — the capital intensity of AI buildout is now a line item. (Wall Street Journal)

Five US Tech Giants' "Hidden Debts" Soar to $1.65T on Opaque AI Funding

Off-balance-sheet obligations have grown 8x since 2022, meaning the true cost of the AI arms race isn't fully visible in standard financials. (Nikkei Asia)

The Space Force Is Now Seeking to Buy Up to $30 Billion in Rocket Launches

An upgrade from the $5.6B contract announced Friday — the military's appetite for launch capacity is scaling faster than the industry expected. (Ars Technica)

South Korea's Chip Exports Rose 180% YoY for the First 20 Days of July (paywall)

$22.1B in chips in 20 days, with computer-related shipments up 232% — AI hardware demand is showing up clearly in trade data. (Bloomberg)

Machines & Minds

Anthropic's Landmark $1.5B Copyright Settlement Is Approved

The first major US AI copyright case to settle closes one chapter, but training data rights remain wide open. (TechCrunch)

Here Are the 30,000 Songs Sony Is Suing Udio's AI Music Generator Over

Sony's latest filing makes explicit what the industry has been avoiding: the catalog scope of these cases is enormous. (The Verge)

Taiwan Indicts a Former TSMC Executive for Allegedly Stealing Trade Secrets to Sell to China

Authorities say it's the first National Security Act case involving China — a notable escalation in how Taiwan is treating semiconductor IP theft. (Nikkei Asia)

Connected World

Samsung Creates a CEO-Led Robotics Division to Chase Humanoid Robots

Samsung's decision to pull scattered robotics work into a single unit reporting directly to the CEO signals that the company is treating robotics as a platform bet rather than a conventional product line. (The Next Web)

Judge Pauses Paramount's Attempt to Buy Warner Bros. Discovery

A dozen state AGs secured a temporary restraining order on the $110B merger — the deal now has a harder road ahead. (The Verge)

Snap Reaches a Deal to Settle Social Media Harm Case, Leaving Meta as the Only Remaining Defendant (paywall)

With TikTok, YouTube, and now Snap settling, Meta is increasingly isolated — and increasingly the trial that will actually set precedent. (Bloomberg)

Google Must Share Anonymized Search Data With Rivals Under New EU Rules

Binding EU obligations to open search data to competitors and AI chatbots could shift competitive dynamics in European search. (Search Engine Journal)

Connected World

Kimi K3 Halts New Subscriptions as Demand Swamps Capacity

Moonshot AI's new model grew so popular so fast that the company had to pause signups — a reminder that capacity constraints persist even with cloud compute at scale. (Slashdot)