Highlights for this morning: SpaceX bets on retail at IPO, Apple has problems with foldable iPhone

Apple has difficulty testing the first foldable iPhone. Anthropic surged to $30 billion in revenue and is strengthening partnerships with Broadcom and Google to expand computing capacity amid strong demand. Anthropic has also agreed with OpenAI and Google to fight "hostile distillation" by Chinese companies including DeepSeek. About these and other topics - in our review of key events by the morning of April 7.

Startup Anthropic said its annual revenue pace topped $30 billion versus $9 billion at the end of 2025 amid a surge in demand for Claude's services, Bloomberg reports. More than 1,000 enterprise customers now spend more than $1 million a year, a number that has more than doubled since February. The company also confirmed partnerships with Broadcom and Google to scale computing power. Meanwhile, the conflict with the U.S. government, which recognized Anthropic as a "supply chain risk," hasn't stopped growth, though it could cost the company billions and has raised doubts among some customers.

The company's partnership with Broadcom and Google involves the use of Google's Broadcom-developed TPU-based chips as an alternative to Nvidia's solutions. The parties have entered into a long-term supply agreement through 2031 and plan to provide Anthropic with access to about 3.5 GW of computing power starting in 2027. Broadcom expects AI chip revenue to exceed $100 billion next year, intensifying competition with Nvidia.

SpaceX said in an online meeting with bank representatives that it plans to allocate a significant amount of shares to retail investors in its upcoming IPO and invite about 1,500 of them to a special event in June after the roadshow launch, Reuters reported. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen, according to agency sources, said at the meeting that retail investors will be a key part of the offering - more than in any IPO in history - as the company wants to thank them for their long-term support.

The IPO could be the largest in history, with SpaceX expecting to raise about $75 billion at a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion. The meeting with banks was the syndicate's first full gathering, and the company itself, according to Reuters, is effectively rewriting the rules of offerings by emphasizing mass participation from private investors.

Apple is experiencing difficulties in the engineering testing phase of its first foldable iPhone, which could lead to delays in mass production and deliveries, Nikkei Asia reported, citing sources. According to them, in the worst case, the first deliveries could be pushed back by several months due to more technical problems than expected and the need for additional time for refinements.

The company has not yet commented on the information. Nikkei previously reported that Apple plans to release a foldable iPhone along with two updated models with improved cameras and larger screens in the second half of 2026.

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have begun sharing data to counter attempts by Chinese companies to extract the results of advanced AI models and create cheaper counterparts, Bloomberg writes. The interaction is through Frontier Model Forum, an organization created by these companies along with Microsoft in 2023. At issue is so-called "adversarial distillation," a practice in which third-party players use model responses to train their own systems, which costs the industry billions of dollars annually, according to U.S. estimates.

Particular attention is paid to China's DeepSeek, which OpenAI accused of trying to "use for free" the developments of American companies. Distillation itself is not prohibited, but becomes a problem when used without authorization and can lead to the creation of models without protective restrictions, the agency notes.

- Japan's broad Topix index was up 0.14% on April 7, while the Nikkei 225 was unchanged.

- Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges are closed due to holidays.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was up 0.3%, while the Kosdaq was down 1.5%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 1.5 percent.

- Futures on S&P 500 were falling by 0.4%, futures on Nasdaq Composite - by 0.5%. Exchange contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.2%.

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