Highlights for the morning: Microsoft and OpenAI deal, crypto-IPO Gemini and rally in Asia

Microsoft and OpenAI announced a tentative agreement that will allow the AI startup to transform itself into a commercial company and attract billions in new investment. Oracle, on the other hand, has seen its shares come under pressure following reports that the growth of its cloud business relies heavily on a single customer, OpenAI. In the crypto sector, Winklevoss Brothers' Gemini IPO priced at $28 per share, generating a valuation of $3.3 billion despite continuing losses. On these and other topics - in our review of key events by the morning of September 12.

Microsoft and OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, have signed a preliminary agreement on new terms of cooperation, which will allow OpenAI to transform into a commercial company and subsequently go public, writes Reuters. Details of the deal were not disclosed, but the companies said they are working to agree on the final clauses of the agreement.

OpenAI, which already has billions of dollars in revenue, is seeking a more familiar corporate structure and new partnerships with cloud providers. The company previously signed $300 billion in contracts with Oracle and signed a cloud agreement with Google to provide access to computing power.

Microsoft has invested $11 billion in OpenAI since 2019 and retained exclusive rights to sell its technology through its Azure cloud. The corporation is now seeking to retain access to OpenAI's models even if they are deemed to have reached the level of human intelligence, which would automatically end the current agreement.

Shares of Oracle fell by 6% on Thursday after a record increase a day earlier, writes CNBC. The reason was an analytical comment that the key driver of the company's future growth may be one customer - OpenAI.

Earlier, CEO Safra Catz reported signing four multi-billion dollar contracts and growing RPO (benchmark for future contract commitments) to $455 billion - up 359% year-over-year. However, The Wall Street Journal specified that $300 billion of this amount will come from a five-year contract with OpenAI to build 4.5 GW data centers in the US.

While Oracle predicts a 14-fold growth in cloud revenue by 2030, analysts caution that focusing on a single customer carries serious risks for the company.

Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has placed shares at $28 apiece - above the originally announced range of $24-26. That puts the company's valuation at about $3.3 billion, Bloomberg reports. In the end, 15.2 million shares were sold for $425 million, reflecting strong demand, although 16.7 million were initially offered. Trading on Nasdaq starts under the ticker GEMI, with up to 30% of the securities reserved for retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi, Webull and other platforms.

Gemini manages more than $21 billion in assets but is showing growing losses: $159 million in 2024 and $283 million in the first half of 2025. This contrasts with the successful publicly traded Circle and Bullish. Nevertheless, the company has received institutional support: Nasdaq has invested $50 million and plans to collaborate on custodial services and trading systems.

In addition to exchange services, Gemini is also developing financial products. It already has a cryptocurrency card, and in August it launched a new card in partnership with Ripple, which brought in a record 30,000 registrations in a month - twice as many as in July.

SK Hynix shares jumped more than 7% in South Korea, to their highest since 2000, after the company announced it had completed development of HBM4, a new generation of memory critical to artificial intelligence, CNBC wrote. It marked the ninth straight day of gains for the company.

In Hong Kong, Alibaba and Baidu rose 6% and 10%, respectively, following reports that the companies have started using their own chips to train AI models, partially replacing Nvidia. The Hang Seng Index added 1.6%, while the CSI 300 added 0.2%.

World markets are supported by the expectation of rate cuts in the US and stimulus measures of central banks. On Wall Street, all three key indices closed at historic highs: Dow Jones added 1.36%, S&P 500 - 0.85%, Nasdaq - 0.72%.

- Japan's broad Topix index was up 0.6 percent.

- The benchmark Nikkei 225 was adding 0.9%.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was up 1.3%, while the Kosdaq small-company index was up 1.4%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.75 percent.

- Futures on the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were little changed.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor