🚀 Alphabet acquires Intersect

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Market Overview
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Year To Date Performances:

1. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Intersect, a clean energy and data center infrastructure developer, for $4.75 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt. The acquisition, expected to close in the first half of 2026, is a strategic move to break the "energy bottleneck" currently limiting AI expansion by integrating Intersect’s expertise in building co-located campuses—industrial parks where massive data centers and renewable power plants share the same site. While Intersect will operate as an independent brand under CEO Sheldon Kimber, the deal specifically absorbs the company's gigawatt-scale project pipeline to support Google’s $40 billion Texas infrastructure investment, including the landmark Haskell County "AI factory" site. By securing dedicated power sources that can produce up to 10.8 gigawatts by 2028 (more than 20 times the output of the Hoover Dam), Alphabet aims to outpace rivals like OpenAI in infrastructure scaling while insulating local communities from the rising electricity costs often associated with massive data center loads.

2. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the influential chair of the Senate Banking Committee’s crypto subpanel known as "Capitol Hill’s Crypto Queen," has announced she will retire at the end of her term in 2026, citing the "exhausting" toll of recent legislative sessions. A cornerstone of the pro-digital asset movement, Lummis was a pivotal architect of the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and a primary force in legitimizing Bitcoin within the U.S. financial system, drawing heartfelt tributes from industry leaders at Coinbase and the White House who view her departure as the loss of the Senate's "first and finest Bitcoiner." Her decision triggers a high-stakes primary in Wyoming—a state Donald Trump carried by 45 points—with Representative Harriet Hageman emerging as a likely frontrunner to fill the seat and potentially carry forward Lummis’s unfinished work on landmark market structure legislation.

3. The Trump administration has delivered a catastrophic blow to the U.S. offshore wind industry by halting the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, the largest of its kind in the country. Simultaneously, the administration has halted four other major East Coast developments currently under construction. Citing national security risks identified by the Pentagon regarding radar interference from "highly reflective" turbine towers, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum suspended leases for projects including Vineyard Wind 1 and Empire Wind 1, sending Dominion Energy shares down 5% and Denmark’s Orsted tumbling 11%. While the administration claims the pause is necessary to mitigate radar "clutter" that obscures military targets, Dominion Energy and political critics argue the move threatens grid reliability for the world’s largest AI data center hub in Northern Virginia and defies a recent federal court ruling that labelled previous wind moratoriums "arbitrary and capricious."

   Headlines

   1. The NBA is exploring the possibility of starting a new league in Europe.

   2. Prediction markets are expected to hit $1T in trading volume by the end of the decade.