The Tech Industry This Week (Ending August 1, 2025): Tariffs, Titans, and Takeovers

The week ending August 1, 2025, marked a critical juncture for the global technology industry, a period defined by the collision of geopolitical friction and profound internal transformation. As markets braced for the tangible impact of a new, aggressive U.S. trade policy targeting India, the industry’s financial nerve centre sent sharply contrasting signals. The historic, soaring public debut of design software firm Figma stood in stark relief to the stumbling stock of AI cloud darling CoreWeave, revealing a newfound sophistication among investors. This discerning sentiment unfolded against a backdrop of strategic realignment, headlined by Palo Alto Networks’ landmark acquisition of CyberArk—a multi-billion dollar bet on the future of identity-centric security. Simultaneously, the U.S. government unveiled a sweeping AI Action Plan, aiming to codify its strategy in the global technology race, while threat actors launched increasingly brazen attacks, forcing the cybersecurity industry to consolidate in response. This week was not just a collection of news events; it was a snapshot of an industry navigating external shocks while being fundamentally reshaped from within by the powerful, and often conflicting, forces of artificial intelligence, strategic consolidation, and a fragile new world order.

The Tariff Tightrope: U.S.-India Trade Tensions Rattle Tech

The long-simmering trade tensions between the United States and its global partners solidified into a stark new reality this week, with India finding itself directly in the path of a more aggressive American tariff regime. The move sent immediate tremors through financial markets and cast a long shadow over the future of the global technology supply chain, threatening to upend years of strategic diversification by some of the world’s largest companies.

The U.S. Stance Becomes Concrete

Any lingering hopes for a last-minute de-escalation were dashed as the Trump administration confirmed that its August 1 deadline for imposing new “reciprocal” tariffs would not be extended.¹ Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick delivered a firm and final message, stating, “So no extensions, no more grace periods. August 1, the tariffs are set”.¹ This declaration removed all ambiguity, cementing the date as the formal start of a new trade era and forcing trading partners, including India, to confront the reality of imminent duties.

The administration also raised the stakes, increasing the proposed baseline tariff rate from the 10% figure floated in April to a new floor of 15%. President Trump indicated a potential ceiling as high as 50% for certain countries, remarking, “We have 50 because we haven’t been getting along with those countries too well”.² While smaller nations in regions like Latin America and Africa may face a slightly lower baseline of 10%, the overall tariff floor has been decisively lifted, signaling a significant departure from previous trade norms.²

India in the Crosshairs

A proposed 25% tariff specifically targeting Indian imports has become a focal point of the new policy, a move explicitly linked by the administration to India’s continued strategic and economic relationship with Russia, including purchases of military equipment and oil.³ The announcement triggered immediate anxiety among investors, who fear severe repercussions for bilateral trade and the broader economic outlook. Indian equity markets reacted sharply, with the BSE Sensex tumbling over 585 points and the NSE Nifty 50 falling more than 203 points as the deadline approached, reflecting deep concerns across export-driven sectors.⁴

In a crucial, albeit temporary, development, a key provision of the tariffs—Section 232, which covers electronics and technology products—was granted a two-week reprieve pending further bilateral discussions.³ This delay provides a brief window of relief for the electronics sector but simultaneously intensifies the uncertainty. An Indian government official noted that this section was also exempted from a previous 10% duty for the same reason, but acknowledged the profound uncertainty, stating, “We don’t know what will (happen) after two weeks”.³

Apple’s “Make in India” Strategy Under Threat

The proposed tariffs pose a direct and severe threat to Apple’s multi-year strategy of diversifying its manufacturing base away from China and establishing India as a major global production hub. This move, intended to de-risk its supply chain from U.S.-China geopolitical friction, now appears to have inadvertently exposed the company to a new front in global trade disputes.

Apple has invested heavily in ramping up its Indian operations, with plans to scale iPhone output to 60 million units this year, a significant increase from the 35–40 million units produced in the 2024–25 period.³ The strategic importance of this shift was underscored by CEO Tim Cook, who recently confirmed that during the June quarter, all iPhones destined for the U.S. market were assembled in India, primarily at Foxconn’s facility in Tamil Nadu.³

Industry analysts have warned that a 25% tariff will cripple these expansion plans. Navkendar Singh of IDC India noted that the move will “certainly hit Apple’s plan of making India as a large export hub”.³ Higher costs on India-assembled iPhones exported to the U.S. would likely dampen consumer demand and force Apple to fundamentally recalibrate its global supply chain.³ This challenge is compounded by newly announced 40% tariffs on “transshipments”—products routed through third countries to evade duties—closing a potential loophole and further tightening the economic pressure on manufacturers.⁶ The situation reveals a critical paradox in modern supply chain management: the very act of de-risking from one geopolitical adversary (China) can unexpectedly increase exposure to friction with another (in this case, a traditionally allied U.S.). This demonstrates that diversification is no longer a simple hedge but a complex, multi-variable equation where political winds can shift with destabilising speed. It forces a re-evaluation of global manufacturing strategy, where the calculus must now weigh political stability and predictability alongside traditional factors like labour costs and logistics.

The two-week reprieve for electronics, while offering a moment to breathe, may be more destabilising than a firm, immediate decision. This period of intense uncertainty acts as a “shadow tax,” paralysing long-term investment decisions for companies like Apple and its manufacturing partners. No company can commit billions of dollars to a new production line when its fundamental profitability could be erased by a political decision just weeks away. This “wait-and-see” mode is likely to chill capital expenditure in India’s electronics sector, regardless of the final tariff outcome, as the damage from the uncertainty itself is already being done.³

The Broader Economic Fallout

The macroeconomic consequences of the new tariff regime are projected to be severe. A comprehensive analysis by The Budget Lab at Yale University forecasts a significant negative impact on the U.S. economy. The study estimates that the current effective tariff rate has reached 18.3%, the highest level seen since 1934.⁸

This translates into a direct hit on American consumers and the economy at large. The overall price level is expected to rise by 1.8% in the short run, equivalent to an average income loss of $2,400 per U.S. household in 2025.⁸ The impact on U.S. real GDP is projected to be a reduction of 0.5 percentage points in both 2025 and 2026, leading to a long-run decrease in the size of the U.S. economy by an estimated $120 billion annually.⁸ The labour market is also expected to suffer, with the unemployment rate rising and payroll employment projected to be 497,000 jobs lower by the end of 2025.⁸ While some sectors like manufacturing may see a modest expansion, these gains are expected to be more than offset by contractions in other areas, such as construction and agriculture.⁸

A Tale of Two Debuts: Figma Soars as CoreWeave Stumbles

The public markets delivered a nuanced and powerful verdict on the state of the technology industry this week, showcasing a sophisticated investor sentiment that looks beyond simplistic hype. The divergent fortunes of two high-profile companies—design software powerhouse Figma and AI cloud provider CoreWeave—debunked the narrative of an indiscriminate “AI bubble.” Instead, the market demonstrated a clear flight to quality, rewarding profitable, platform-based business models while punishing speculative, high-debt plays facing existential threats.

Figma’s Historic IPO

In what became the largest U.S. venture-backed technology IPO since 2021, collaborative design software firm Figma made a stunning debut on the New York Stock Exchange on July 31.⁹ The company raised $1.22 billion, pricing its shares at $33—above the already increased range of $30–$32—reflecting intense investor demand and giving it an initial valuation of approximately $19.3 billion.⁹

The market’s reception was nothing short of explosive. On its first day of trading under the ticker symbol “FIG,” the stock surged an astonishing 250%, closing at $115.50.¹¹ This pushed Figma’s market capitalization to a staggering $67.7 billion, more than three times the $20 billion that Adobe had offered in its failed acquisition attempt, which was blocked by regulators in late 2023 on antitrust grounds.¹¹

Figma’s success is built on a foundation of strong and accelerating financial performance. In the first quarter of 2025, the company reported that revenue grew by 46% year-over-year to $228.2 million, while its net income tripled to $44.9 million.¹¹ This combination of rapid growth and clear profitability proved irresistible to a market hungry for high-quality assets. The IPO’s success is seen as a major positive indicator for the tech sector, potentially encouraging other well-regarded private companies like Canva, Databricks, and Stripe to pursue public listings.⁹

The outcome of Figma’s IPO serves as a powerful, market-based vindication of the regulatory decision to block the Adobe acquisition. The fact that the public market valued Figma as an independent entity at more than triple Adobe’s offer suggests that regulators correctly identified the company as a potent competitor whose growth and innovation potential would have been stifled under a larger rival. This result will likely embolden antitrust authorities in the U.S. and Europe to scrutinise future Big Tech acquisitions even more closely, potentially chilling the M&A market for large-scale deals perceived as anti-competitive.

CoreWeave’s Stock Plummets

In stark contrast to Figma’s triumph, AI cloud infrastructure specialist CoreWeave saw its stock plummet. The company’s shares fell 12.8% over the course of the week, including a drop of over 5% in pre-market trading on August 1 alone.¹⁴ The sharp decline occurred despite a generally bullish environment for AI-related stocks and the company’s recent closing of a $2.6 billion secured debt financing facility, highlighting deep-seated investor concerns.¹⁴

The negative sentiment was driven by a confluence of factors:

1. Analyst Skepticism: Investment firms H.C. Wainwright and Needham both initiated coverage with cautious ratings, citing significant concerns about the company’s high valuation.¹⁵
2. Competitive Threat from a Key Partner: Reports that Nvidia—a crucial hardware supplier and financial backer of CoreWeave—is aggressively ramping up its own cloud-computing business spooked investors. The prospect of competing directly with the dominant force in AI hardware created fears of an existential threat to CoreWeave’s business model.¹⁵
3. Acquisition Jitters: News that CoreWeave is in negotiations to acquire Core Scientific in a multi-billion dollar, all-stock deal was met with alarm. Investors raised fears of massive shareholder dilution and the risk of overpayment, especially given that CoreWeave had attempted to acquire the same company for a much lower price just last year.¹⁵
4. Underlying Business Model Risk: Beyond the immediate headlines, investors are increasingly scrutinising CoreWeave’s fundamental business model. The company carries a substantial debt load and is almost entirely dependent on the capital expenditure cycle of the AI boom. This makes it highly vulnerable to any potential slowdown or “pop” in the AI hardware market.¹⁸

Market Signal: A Flight to Quality

The simultaneous and opposing trajectories of Figma and CoreWeave reveal a market that is far more discerning than manic. Investors are not indiscriminately buying anything associated with AI. Instead, they are conducting sophisticated risk analysis. The market is rewarding companies like Figma, which demonstrate a clear product-market fit, a defensible platform, strong revenue growth, and—most importantly—profitability. At the same time, it is punishing highly-leveraged, single-threaded companies like CoreWeave that face significant competitive threats and are pursuing potentially dilutive acquisitions. This signals a maturation of the AI investment cycle. The initial “gold rush” phase, where any prospector could find funding, appears to be ending. The market is now focused on identifying which companies can build sustainable, profitable, and defensible operations for the long term.

The New Arms Race: AI Policy, Products, and Platforms

The global race for artificial intelligence supremacy intensified this week on multiple fronts, spanning government policy, corporate platform strategy, and a torrent of venture capital. The U.S. government laid out a formal doctrine for AI leadership, cloud giants released foundational tools to build the next generation of AI systems, and investors poured billions into the infrastructure and applications that will define the AI-powered economy.

U.S. Government Unveils AI Action Plan

The Trump administration released its long-anticipated AI Action Plan, a comprehensive strategy comprising over 90 federal actions designed to cement American leadership in the field.²⁰ The plan is built on three core pillars:

1. Accelerating Innovation: This focuses on fast-tracking the federal government’s adoption of AI, streamlining the procurement of AI tools, and rolling back regulations perceived as barriers to growth.²⁰
2. Building American AI Infrastructure: This pillar aims to simplify and accelerate the permitting process for major AI infrastructure projects like large-scale data centres and power generation facilities.²⁰ To that end, the Department of Energy has already selected four federal sites for expanded AI-related infrastructure.²⁰
3. Leading in International Diplomacy and Security: This involves promoting the export of U.S.-built AI systems to allies and advancing American-led governance standards on the world stage.²⁰

The plan was accompanied by a series of executive orders, including one that controversially bans government agencies from procuring AI tools perceived as “ideologically biased”.²⁰ The administration’s approach was broadly praised by industry leaders. IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna applauded it as a “critical step towards harnessing AI for sustained economic growth,” while xAI called it a “positive step toward removing regulatory barriers”.²⁰ However, the plan drew swift and strong condemnation from civil society organisations and Democratic lawmakers. The ACLU warned that the plan prioritises industry speed over democratic safeguards and civil rights, while other critics argued it actively undermines state-level efforts to mitigate AI harms.²⁰

AWS Builds the Tools for an “Agentic AI” Future

Moving beyond its role as a provider of raw computing power, Amazon Web Services (AWS) took significant steps to define the frameworks for the next era of software development. The company introduced the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC), a new, openly accessible methodology designed to place artificial intelligence at the very centre of the software creation process. This framework leverages AWS tools like the integrated development environment (IDE) Kiro and the AI coding assistant Amazon Q Developer to help organisations build complex systems at scale.²¹

At its summit in New York, AWS doubled down on this vision, announcing a full suite of tools for “agentic AI”—systems where multiple autonomous AI agents collaborate to solve complex problems. Key releases included:

• AgentCore Runtime: A secure and dynamic runtime environment to operate AI agents, supporting complex workloads for up to eight hours.²²
• Amazon S3 Vectors: A new capability for cloud object storage that adds native support for vectors, which are crucial for AI workloads like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). This can reduce the cost of storing and querying vectors by up to 90%.²²
• Strands 1.0: An updated open-source SDK that dramatically simplifies the creation of multi-agent systems, reducing what previously took months of work into a process of hours.²²

The heavy investment from AWS, alongside venture capitalists, signals that the industry sees the next great frontier not as simply building better chatbots, but as creating an autonomous digital workforce. This is a paradigm shift from AI as a tool that assists humans to AI as a system that executes complex, multi-step business processes independently. This evolution will have profound implications for the future of work and enterprise software, requiring entirely new models for management, workflow automation, and cybersecurity.

The Venture Capital Floodgates Open

The month of July 2025 saw a historic surge in AI investment, with total commitments reaching a staggering $79.88 billion across venture capital, acquisitions, and government initiatives.²³ This week’s major funding rounds highlight where that capital is flowing:

• Vast Data: This AI infrastructure provider is reportedly in talks to raise several billion dollars in a funding round led by Alphabet’s CapitalG and Nvidia. The deal could value the startup as high as $30 billion, making it one of the most valuable private AI companies in the world.²⁴
• Ramp: The fintech firm raised $500 million in a Series E round at a $22.5 billion valuation. The company explicitly stated the funding is to scale its vision for using agentic AI to automate complex corporate finance tasks.²⁵
• Observe: An AI-enabled observability platform that helps businesses monitor their complex IT systems, raised $156 million in a Series C round led by Sutter Hill Ventures.²⁵
• Anaconda: The company behind the popular open-source Python distribution, which is foundational to much of AI development, raised over $150 million to expand its enterprise AI offerings.²⁶

These developments reveal a clear stratification of the AI stack. The industry is rapidly organising into distinct, interdependent layers: a policy layer set by governments, an infrastructure layer providing specialised hardware (Vast Data), a platform layer from cloud giants offering foundational models and tools (AWS), and an application layer where companies solve specific business problems (Ramp). This structure creates a new and complex ecosystem where strategic advantage is determined by one’s position in the stack. While application-layer startups can be nimble, they are critically dependent on the platform-layer providers, granting immense power to giants like AWS, Microsoft, and Google to shape the future of AI.

Breakthroughs in Scientific and Applied AI

Beyond the boardrooms and policy chambers, AI continued to drive scientific discovery. Research highlights from the week included an AI model that can design recipes for self-healing, carbon-capturing concrete ²⁷, and efforts by scientists to use AI to dramatically speed up the analysis of nuclear materials.²⁸ Elsewhere, researchers are exploring the use of AI-powered “digital twins” to simulate and optimize clean energy systems like wind and solar, potentially reinventing the transition to sustainable energy.²⁹

Cybersecurity’s New Landscape: Platform Plays and Pervasive Threats

The cybersecurity industry underwent a seismic shift this week, marked by a landmark acquisition that signals a new strategic era of consolidation. This move toward massive, integrated security platforms is occurring in direct response to an evolving threat landscape, where sophisticated, socially-engineered attacks and opportunistic ransomware campaigns are becoming increasingly pervasive and damaging.

Palo Alto Networks Acquires CyberArk in a $25 Billion Megadeal

In one of the largest cybersecurity deals in history, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) announced a definitive agreement to acquire identity security leader CyberArk (CYBR) for approximately $25 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction.³⁰ This strategic combination marks Palo Alto Networks’ formal entry into the identity security market, a move designed to accelerate its “platformization” strategy and establish a new core pillar alongside its existing platforms for network, cloud, and security operations.³¹

The deal is a monumental bet on the principle that in the modern era of cloud computing and AI, identity—not the network—has become the new security perimeter. The stated goal is to provide deep, privileged security controls for every type of identity: human employees, machine identities (such as applications and services), and, critically, the emerging class of autonomous AI agents that will increasingly perform tasks within enterprise environments.³¹

This acquisition is a direct response to a market reality: Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are suffering from “vendor fatigue,” struggling to manage dozens of fragmented, best-of-breed security tools. Palo Alto Networks aims to become a one-stop shop that can deliver integrated, near-real-time security outcomes from a single platform.³³ The move dramatically reshapes the competitive landscape, putting immense pressure on standalone Identity and Access Management (IAM) vendors like Okta, Ping Identity, and SailPoint, which now face a formidable, integrated competitor.³³

The Evolving Threat Landscape: A Tale of Two Gangs

The strategic consolidation in the cybersecurity industry is not happening in a vacuum; it is being driven by the specific tactics of modern threat actors. The activities of two prominent cybercriminal groups this week highlight the challenges defenders face.

Threat Actor Profile: Scattered Spider vs. Interlock

The Palo Alto Networks acquisition of CyberArk can be seen as a direct strategic response to the modus operandi of groups like Scattered Spider. This highly sophisticated, English-speaking group specialises in bypassing technical controls by exploiting human trust.³⁹ Their entire attack chain is built on social engineering—tricking IT help desk staff, impersonating employees, and using “MFA fatigue” to gain access.³⁵ A traditional network security company cannot effectively stop an attacker who has already talked their way inside. By acquiring CyberArk, Palo Alto Networks is buying the leading capability in Privileged Access Management (PAM) and identity governance, which is designed to control and secure the very credentials and access pathways that Scattered Spider exploits. The threat is directly driving the consolidation.

The rise of these massive, expensive security platforms, however, may create a “security platform divide.” Large enterprises with deep pockets can afford these integrated solutions, significantly hardening their defences. This will likely push opportunistic ransomware groups like Interlock, which target victims based on ease of access rather than specific identity, to focus on the new soft underbelly of the digital economy: small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that are priced out of the new platform ecosystem. This creates a systemic risk, as the supply chains of large enterprises are often composed of these more vulnerable smaller companies.

Other Major Cybersecurity Incidents & Trends

The week also saw Microsoft release patches for two severe zero-day vulnerabilities in its SharePoint platform. The flaws were being actively exploited in the wild by threat actors using scripts dubbed “ToolShell” to gain administrative privileges, upload malicious web shells, and extract sensitive data from compromised organisations.⁴⁰ Meanwhile, a new report from IBM revealed that while the global average cost of a data breach fell for the first time in five years, the average cost for a breach in the United States rose to a new record of $10.22 million.³⁰

The Engine Room: Cloud, Corporate Deals, and Data Sovereignty

Underpinning the week’s dramatic headlines in AI and cybersecurity, the foundational engine of the tech industry—cloud computing and enterprise services—continued its powerful expansion. This growth is increasingly shaped by the dual forces of massive AI-driven demand and the rising tide of digital sovereignty, which is forcing a strategic realignment of global data infrastructure.

Cloud Market Continues Explosive Growth

The global cloud computing market is on a trajectory of unprecedented growth. A new report from BCC Research projects the market will expand from $738.2 billion in 2025 to $1.6 trillion by the end of 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.2%.⁴⁸ This surge is being fueled by several key factors, including the relentless proliferation of data centres, advances in cloud networking technologies like 5G and edge computing, and, most significantly, the voracious demand for cloud-based AI and machine learning workloads.⁴⁸ According to Gartner, by 2029, AI/ML workloads are expected to drive 50% of all cloud compute usage, a dramatic leap from less than 10% today, highlighting AI’s role as the primary engine of future cloud growth.⁴⁹

The hyperscale cloud providers reported earnings that reflect this dynamic environment:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported solid 17.5% year-over-year growth, but the figure underwhelmed analysts when compared to the performance of its chief rivals. In response, CEO Andy Jassy emphasised AWS’s meaningfully larger business scale and its established reputation for security and reliability as key competitive differentiators.⁶
• Microsoft Azure posted a massive 34% year-over-year revenue increase, demonstrating incredible momentum. This growth came despite ongoing data centre capacity crunches and a public rebuke from UK regulators over the company’s cloud licensing practices, which critics argue are anti-competitive.⁷

The Rise of Data Sovereignty

A pivotal trend reshaping the cloud landscape is the rise of “digital sovereignty,” where nations impose strict laws governing how and where their citizens’ data is stored and processed.⁴⁹ This is forcing a fundamental shift away from a centralised global cloud infrastructure model toward a distributed, localised one.

India serves as a prime case study for this trend. This week, U.S.-based voice AI firm ElevenLabs and cybersecurity firm Proofpoint both announced the launch of new, local data centres within India.²¹ This move is explicitly designed to help their enterprise customers comply with India’s stringent data protection laws, ensuring that sensitive data remains within the country’s borders. Underscoring its commitment to the region, Proofpoint also announced the establishment of a new Centre of Excellence in India that will employ over 200 people in roles spanning product development and customer support.²¹ These are not isolated business decisions; they are emblematic of a global “splintering” of the internet along national and regional lines, a trend that creates immense complexity for global companies but provides a massive tailwind for data centre construction and regional cloud providers.

Significant Corporate Moves and Partnerships

The enterprise IT services sector also saw significant activity, particularly in India, where the industry appears to be undergoing a structural bifurcation. On one hand, Infosys announced plans to hire 20,000 fresh graduates in 2025, signalling a push to build a workforce with new-age skills.⁵ On the other hand, its rival

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced a 2% global workforce reduction, equating to approximately 12,000 jobs, likely targeting employees with legacy skills.⁵ This contrast suggests a deliberate, strategic realignment of the workforce, with companies shedding expensive, experienced employees with outdated skills in favour of cheaper, more adaptable graduates who can be trained on the new AI and cloud technology stack. This shift will likely create significant disruption within India’s massive IT workforce, leading to a “skills gap” where millions of mid-career professionals will need to rapidly re-skill.

Other notable corporate developments included:

• L&T Technology Services (LTTS) secured a major $60 million multi-year agreement with a U.S.-based telecommunications provider to deliver network software automation services.²¹
• Infosys also deepened its decade-long partnership with German energy giant RWE to modernise the company’s digital workplace infrastructure.²¹
• Hexaware Technologies appointed a new President to spearhead its global Healthcare, Life Sciences & Insurance vertical, signalling strategic focus on this key sector.²¹
• The Indian state of Karnataka announced a ₹1,000 crore (approximately $120 million) Quantum Mission, an ambitious initiative to build a $20 billion quantum economy by 2035. The plan includes the creation of a dedicated Quantum Hardware Park, innovation zones, and India’s first “Q-City”.²¹

Conclusion

The technology industry concluded the week at a clear inflection point, caught between the powerful external pressures of geopolitics and the disruptive internal forces of its own innovation. The confirmation of U.S. tariffs against India has moved trade friction from a theoretical risk to a tangible operational challenge, revealing the profound fragility of even the most carefully diversified global supply chains. The days of treating manufacturing location as a simple cost-benefit analysis are over; it is now a complex exercise in geopolitical risk management.

Internally, the market demonstrated a striking maturity. The wild success of Figma’s IPO, contrasted with the struggles of CoreWeave, shows that investors are no longer swayed by hype alone. Profitability, defensible moats, and prudent capital allocation are being rewarded, signalling a new phase of the AI investment cycle where fundamental business health matters. This discerning sentiment is mirrored in the cybersecurity sector, where the landmark Palo Alto Networks-CyberArk merger is not merely a consolidation play but a direct strategic response to the identity-based tactics of modern threat actors. The industry is re-arming for a new kind of war, one fought over credentials and access, not just network firewalls.

Finally, the week underscored the unstoppable momentum of AI as the industry’s primary engine. From government action plans and the release of foundational “agentic AI” development tools to the torrent of venture capital, every corner of the ecosystem is being reoriented around artificial intelligence. This transformation, however, is occurring on an increasingly fragmented global stage, where the rise of data sovereignty is forcing a costly and complex localisation of digital infrastructure. The industry is simultaneously building a revolutionary future while navigating a world that is pulling apart, a tension that will define its trajectory for years to come.

Disclaimer

This report has been prepared for informational purposes only and is based on publicly available information and news reports from the week ending August 1, 2025. The information contained herein does not constitute financial, legal, investment, or any other form of professional advice. The securities and companies mentioned are for illustrative purposes only and are not recommendations to buy, sell, or hold. Market conditions are subject to rapid change, and the analysis presented reflects the situation as of the date of publication. Readers should conduct their own independent research and consult with qualified professional advisors before making any investment or business decisions. Investments in the securities market are subject to market risks; all related documents should be read carefully before investing.

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