Morning Highlights: 10-Year Treasury Yield Hits New High, OpenAI Acquires a Startup

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds hit a high not seen since 2007 amid rising oil prices. OpenAI acquired Glass Imaging, a startup founded by former Apple engineers that uses AI to improve smartphone cameras. Samsung participated in a €200 million investment round for Euclyd, a Dutch AI chip developer that is creating an alternative GPU architecture for inference. Read about these and other topics in our roundup of key events as of the morning of September 15.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds hit a new high for 2007 on Tuesday amid an intensifying sell-off in U.S. government debt ahead of the Fed’s interest rate decision, according to CNBC. The yield rose by more than 6 basis points to 5.025%.

The day before, the yield on 10-year Treasuries briefly exceeded 5%, after which it retreated slightly.

Oil prices continued to rise on Tuesday amid reports of new Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and Iran—specifically, attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, according to CNBC. November Brent futures rose 1.3% to $107.03 per barrel, while October WTI futures rose 1.5% to $102.91.

Saudi Arabia shut down the East-West oil pipeline—which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz—after it was damaged by drones launched from Iraq. Houthi attacks and new incidents involving Iran in the Strait of Hormuz put additional pressure on the market, heightening concerns about oil supplies.

OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a U.S. startup that develops smartphone cameras, for more than $300 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. The company was founded in 2019 by former Apple engineers Ziv Attar and Tom Bishop, who had previously worked on the iPhone's Portrait Mode.

Glass Imaging uses neural networks to improve image quality right as the photo is being taken, tailoring its algorithms to specific smartphone cameras. The deal comes as OpenAI plans to develop its own devices: the company is already working on hardware products in collaboration with former Apple chief designer Jony Ive.

Samsung has backed the Dutch AI startup Euclyd in a €200 million ($231 million) Series A funding round, according to CNBC. The company is developing a chip system for AI inference with an architecture different from Nvidia’s GPUs and promises to reduce energy consumption and the cost of data center infrastructure.

Euclyd plans to generate revenue by selling server systems to corporate clients and licensing its technology to chip manufacturers. The company expects to bring its first systems to market in 2028 and to serve thousands of corporate clients by 2030.

Cornelis, a company developing networking technologies for AI chips, has raised $205 million in a funding round led by IAG Capital Partners, according to TechCrunch. At the same time, it unveiled Active Compute Fabric—a technology designed to reduce GPU downtime while waiting for data.

Cornelis spun off from Intel in 2020 and is focusing on an open architecture compatible with various GPUs and accelerators. The company has already begun shipping the product and is preparing to release a new generation of it later this year, according to the publication.

— Japan’s broad-based Topix index fell 0.7%, while the Nikkei 225 fell 0.1%.

— Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.5%, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index fell 0.2%.

— In South Korea, the Kospi fell 0.9%, while the Kosdaq rose 0.7%.

— Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 1%.

— Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures were down 0.4%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.5%.

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