The global artificial intelligence race has reached a historic turning point, reshaping not just corporate hierarchies but the global economic landscape. In an extraordinary market rally, South Korea’s tech titan, Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930), saw its market capitalization surpass Meta Platforms for the first time.

Alphabet said Monday it will raise $80 billion in equity to expand AI infrastructure, including a $10 billion private placement from Berkshire Hathaway split between Class A and Class C shares. The company also outlined $30 billion in concurrent public offerings and a $40 billion at-the-market program expected to begin in Q3. After the announcement, Alphabet shares fell about 2% in after-hours trading and were down 1.02% at $372.58 at the time of writing.

Japan is set to become the first overseas partner in the U.S. federal Genesis Mission, joining a joint plan to invest $1 billion over five years in AI-driven technology development. A formal announcement is expected in early June when officials from Japan’s education and economy ministries meet the U.S. Department of Energy.

A purported AI-powered crypto trading operation linked to Nathan Fuller is facing SEC scrutiny over claims he raised $12.3 million from investors between 2022 and 2024. The SEC alleges only 3% of the funds went to real trading, while about $6.2 million was used for personal spending and $5.5 million was paid out to earlier investors.

IREN Limited said it finalized $3.65 billion of investment-grade debt on Monday to fund NVIDIA GPU hardware for its multiyear AI cloud contract with Microsoft. The facility combines a $2.10 billion private placement and a $1.55 billion delayed-draw term loan, resulting in a blended borrowing cost of 6.00%. The financing, alongside Microsoft prepayments, covers about 96% of IREN’s $5.81 billion GPU capital spend tied to the agreement.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the U.S. SEC on June 1, 2026, marking its first formal step toward an IPO. The company was valued at $965 billion in a $65 billion Series H round held days earlier, while the share count and offering price for the listing have not been determined.

The S&P 500 ended the last trading day of May at a record close, but only 20 constituents posted their own all-time highs, most tied to AI-related themes. Bank of America's Michael Hartnett compared the narrow leadership to March 2000, while May's surge was led by chipmakers such as AMD (+50%) and Micron (+85%).

New research from the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute (AIDE) evaluates how S&P 500 companies are adopting AI across four pillars and assigns scores up to 100. Nvidia, Amazon, Meta and SLB (formerly Schlumberger) earned top overall results, while Walmart, AES and NextEra Energy followed with scores in the mid-90s. The open-source index uses public signals such as earnings-call transcripts, job postings and patent filings to benchmark adoption rather than financial impact.