Highlights of the week: Trump in China, Cerebras IPO, UK crisis

US President Donald Trump paid an official visit to China and held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Cerebras went public in its IPO, the biggest of the year. In the UK, a new political crisis led to the collapse of the pound and rising yields on government bonds. The main events from 11 to 15 Ma - in our review.

U.S. President Donald Trump visited China on May 14-15 - for the first time since November 2017 - and held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Following the visit, Trump said that China had agreed to resume purchases of American oil. He did not rule out that Chinese companies would also buy LNG from the States. In addition, China will buy 200 Boeing airplanes. Trump also said that he discussed with Xi Jinping granting Visa greater access to the Chinese market. The American company has not yet received a license to work in this country.

The lack of significant political breakthroughs from the talks was one of the reasons for the decline in major indices on Friday, CNBC wrote. The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones closed down 1.24%, 1.54% and 1.07%, respectively, on Ma. 15. Yields of 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds rose to 4.6%, 30-year bonds - above 5.1%. There is no end in sight to the conflict with Iran, and the market is laying down the likelihood of a further increase in inflation. This means that the Fed may have to raise interest rates.

The U.S. Senate approved Kevin Warsh as head of the Federal Reserve System - 54 votes in favor, 45 people voted against. He will succeed Jerome Powell at a difficult time for the US central bank. The Fed is facing accelerating inflation due to the war with Iran and pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut rates.

Price growth in the United States in April amounted to 3.8% in annual terms, the highest level since Ma 2023. The indicator excluding food and energy prices grew by 2.8% in annual terms, the Fed's target level is 2%. Within the regulator itself, disagreements over monetary policy have intensified.

Investors and economists believe that the main problem for Warsh will be not only the fight against inflation, but also relations with the White House. The situation is complicated by Powell's decision to remain on the Fed's Board of Governors until 2028: analysts warn of the risk of a "two-daddy" scenario, in which part of the central bank's leadership may be oriented toward the former Fed chief rather than the new chairman.

What else is there to read about it?

Journalist Ekaterina Komarova summarized the work of the outgoing head of the Fed - in the article "Eight years under pressure: three tests of Jerome Powell".

The pound sterling fell to a one-month low against the dollar on Friday. British 30-year bond yields jumped 20 basis points to their highest level in 28 years. This is investors' reaction to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer being on the verge of resignation after the failure of the Labor Party in local elections. Market concerns about high energy prices and inflation also contributed to the jump in bond yields.

Starmer has said he has no intention of leaving. But investors are worried about a possible change of government. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's announcement that he intends to run for parliament has added fuel to the fire. Traders fear that he may become prime minister and increase government spending and the volume of government debt issuance. Several executives of major British companies in a conversation with the FT recalled that Burnham last year proposed to raise taxes on the rich, to conduct a large-scale nationalization and significantly increase government borrowing.

Cerebras had its biggest IPO since the beginning of the year: the AI chip developer raised $5.55 billion by offering 30 million shares at $185 a share - well above its initial range of $150-160.

The company's valuation reached $56.4 billion, and the order book was oversubscribed more than 20 times amid a frenzy of demand for AI infrastructure. The IPO made Cerebras co-founders Andrew Feldman and Sean Lee billionaires. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also had a stake of nearly 90,000 shares in the company. On Friday at the close of the market he was worth about $25 million.

The company specializes in chips to process user requests to AI, and it already collaborates with OpenAI and Amazon Web Services. Its revenue in 2025 rose to $510 million, up from $290 million a year earlier.

What else is there to read about it?

What Freedom analysts think about the company's shares - in the material "IPO Cerebras: shares of Nvidia's competitor in the development of chips for AI became available".

Arkady Volozh's Nebius Group reported first quarter revenue growth of 684% year-on-year to $399 mln, beating analysts' expectations. The company reported a significant increase in capital expenditures to $2.5 billion from $544 million a year earlier, and its adjusted net loss widened to $100.3 million from $83.6 million. It also raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $20-25 billion from $16-20 billion.

Volozh wrote in a letter to investors about "unprecedented demand" for the company's services. Nebius also announced a new 1.2 GW data center in Pennsylvania and raised its forecast for contracted capacity to 4 GW by the end of 2026.

What else is there to read about it?

What the founder of the company told at the conference-call on the results of reporting - in the material""Everything we create is for sale": Volozh about the growth of capex, demand and Nebius deals".

British company Burberry on May 14 reported a return to operating profit - for the first time in two years. For the 52-week period ended March 28, the figure was 115 million pounds, compared with a loss of 3 million pounds a year earlier. Adjusted operating profit rose more than sixfold to 160 million pounds. Revenue remained at 2.4 billion pounds.

Judging by the company's statements, its main problem now is the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region: it is the only one where comparable sales did not show growth at year-end, and in the fourth quarter they declined by 2%. The company attributed the decline to the war in Iran and a drop in tourist traffic. On the day of reporting, the company's shares fell nearly 7% in London as Burberry's management provided a cautious outlook for the current fiscal year and warned that geopolitical and economic uncertainty could hurt consumer confidence, Bloomberg wrote.

Google has unveiled a new family of premium Googlebook laptops powered by Android OS with integrated Gemini AI. This is its new attempt to return to this market after the release of the Pixelbook Go in 2019.

Google is betting on turning Gemini from a chatbot into a full-fledged tool for laptops, smartphones and other devices and expects to occupy the intermediate segment between budget Chromebooks and expensive premium PCs. Competition in this segment is intensifying: Apple has already released the MacBook Neo for $599 and is preparing an Apple Intelligence update with Gemini support.

Read more in "'We see an opportunity to rethink laptops': Google unveils new AI gadget".

Google is also in discussions with Elon Musk's SpaceX to collaborate on an orbital data center project and wants to send prototype satellites into orbit by next year.

SpaceX could be a key partner for such launches. Google is also exploring agreements with other companies providing launch services - as part of its own Suncatcher project. Earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that in ten years, space data centers could become a common way of creating computing infrastructure.

Google is an investor in SpaceX, with a 6.1% stake. SpaceX, according to CNBC, may start a road show - an IPO presentation for investors - on June 8.

AI developer Anthropic, according to the FT, has agreed terms for a new $30bn investment round at a valuation of around $900bn, and is expected to close the deal this month.

Thus, Anthropic may surpass OpenAI: the ChatGPT developer was valued at $852 billion by investors during the last investor round.

Anthropic had a $30bn round three months ago, but its valuation then was $350bn, the FT recalls. The source cited by the newspaper claims that the AI developer's annual revenue, based on current weekly figures, could soon exceed $45bn. By comparison, the figure was $9bn at the end of last year.

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