🚀 Google roaring back in AI race

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Market Overview
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Year To Date Performances:

1. Google has staged a definitive AI comeback following its initial fumble against rivals, with the simultaneous release of its newest large language model, Gemini 3, and its cutting-edge, seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), codenamed Ironwood, finally allowing CEO Sundar Pichai to integrate the company's full vertical "stack." This combination of powerful, proprietary hardware and a highly effective model—which one CEO called an "insane" leap forward—has caused Alphabet's stock to surge, even surpassing Microsoft's market cap, and has fueled Wall Street's enthusiasm by demonstrating Google's ability to serve both enterprise and consumer customers with its optimized AI services, though experts caution the hyper-competitive market remains neck and neck, with rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI continuing to push new models and the collective cost of the AI infrastructure race soaring to over $380 billion this year.

2. The U.S. cosmetics industry is locked in a high-stakes retail turf war, with major chains like Ulta, Sephora, Walmart, and Costco aggressively expanding their Korean beauty (K-beauty) assortments. This comes as they aim to capitalize on a TikTok-fueled "second wave" expected to drive U.S. K-beauty sales past $2 billion in 2025, a 37% surge from the previous year, far outstripping the broader beauty market's growth. This boom, which is led by younger and more diverse shoppers and driven by South Korea's record $5.5 billion in cosmetic exports, is forcing U.S. retailers to rapidly introduce new product categories and inclusive shade ranges, even as the influx of new Asian beauty chains like Olive Young and Sukoshi intensifies the competition for market share and exposure to viral products.

3. Russian President Vladimir Putin has broken his silence on the U.S.-backed draft peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, stating that Moscow is ready for "serious" discussions. Put said the agreement, which has been revised to 19 points following diplomatic pushback from Kyiv and European allies, could become the basis for a future agreement. However, despite U.S. President Trump's optimistic assessment that a deal is "very close," Putin immediately tempered expectations by reasserting that fighting would only cease if Ukrainian troops withdraw from key areas, or else Russia would achieve its goals by force, clearly indicating that Moscow is unwilling to concede its key military objectives, even as U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff prepares to travel to Moscow next week for follow-up talks on the fragile framework.

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