Category: Technology

Release – Perfect Announces Appointment of Financial Advisor and Legal Counsel to the Special Committee

Posted on by [email protected]
Perfect Corp

Research News and Market Data on PERF

April 20, 2026

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Perfect Corp. (NYSE: PERF) (“Perfect” or the “Company”), a leading artificial intelligence (“AI”) company offering AI and augmented reality (“AR”) powered solutions to beauty, fashion, photo and video creative industries, today announced that the independent special committee (the “Special Committee”) of the Company’s board of directors (the “Board”), formed to evaluate and consider the previously announced preliminary non-binding proposal letter dated March 18, 2026 (the “Proposal”), has selected Kroll LLC. as its financial advisor and DLA Piper as its international legal counsel.

The Special Committee is continuing its review and evaluation of the Proposal. The Board cautions its shareholders and others considering trading in its securities that neither the Board nor the Special Committee has made any decision with respect to the Proposal. There can be no assurance that any definitive offer will be received, that any definitive agreement will be executed relating to the transaction contemplated by the Proposal, or that the transaction contemplated by the Proposal or any other similar transaction will be approved or consummated. The Company does not undertake any obligation to provide any updates with respect to any transaction, except as required under applicable law.

About Perfect Corp.

Founded in 2015, Perfect Corp. is a leading AI company offering self-developed AI- and AR- powered solutions dedicated to transforming the world with digital tech innovations that make your virtual world beautiful. On Perfect’s direct consumer business side, Perfect operates a family of YouCam consumer apps and web-editing services for photo, video and camera users, centered on unleashing creativity with AI-driven features for creation, beautification and enhancement. On Perfect’s enterprise business side, Perfect empowers major beauty, skincare, fashion, jewelry, and watch brands and retailers by supplying them with omnichannel shopping experiences through AR product try-ons and AI-powered skin diagnostics. With cutting-edge technologies such as Generative AI, real-time facial and hand 3D AR rendering and cloud solutions, Perfect enables personalized, enjoyable, and engaging shopping journey and helps brands elevate customer engagement, increase conversion rates, and propel sales growth. Throughout this journey, Perfect maintains its unwavering commitment to environmental sustainability and fulfilling social responsibilities. For more information, visit https://ir.perfectcorp.com/.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, that are based on beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to Perfect. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” “target,” “seek” or the negative or plural of these words, or other similar expressions that are predictions or indicate future events or prospects, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including strategies or plans, are also forward-looking statements. These statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on Perfect’s reasonable expectations and beliefs concerning future events and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. These factors are difficult to predict accurately and may be beyond Perfect’s control. Forward-looking statements in this communication or elsewhere speak only as of the date made. New uncertainties and risks arise from time to time, and it is impossible for Perfect to predict these events or how they may affect Perfect. In addition, risks and uncertainties are described in Perfect’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings may identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Perfect cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this communication will prove to be accurate. There may be additional risks that Perfect presently does not know or that Perfect currently does not believe are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward looking statements. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by Perfect, its directors, officers or employees or any other person that Perfect will achieve its objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. Except as required by applicable law, Perfect does not have any duty to, and does not intend to, update or revise the forward-looking statements in this communication or elsewhere after the date of this communication. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing the views of Perfect as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication.

Investor Relations Contact
Investor Relations, Perfect Corp.
Email: [email protected]

Source: Perfect Corp.

Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 4.7

Posted on by [email protected]

Anthropic is expanding its AI model lineup with the release of Claude Opus 4.7, a new offering the company positions as its most capable generally available model to date — while deliberately keeping its most powerful, and potentially most dangerous, technology off the open market.

The San Francisco-based AI firm says Opus 4.7 delivers meaningful improvements over its predecessor, Claude Opus 4.6, across a range of performance benchmarks including agentic coding, multidisciplinary reasoning, scaled tool use and computer use. For enterprise users and developers, the model is designed to handle complex, real-world workflows more effectively — a direct response to the growing demand for AI that can operate with greater autonomy across business processes.

But what makes this launch notable is not just what Claude Opus 4.7 can do — it’s what it deliberately cannot.

Anthropic has engineered the new model to have reduced cyber capabilities compared to Claude Mythos Preview, the company’s most advanced model, which was rolled out earlier this month to a limited group of companies as part of a new cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing. Mythos is not generally available and Anthropic has no near-term plans to change that. The company says it is using Project Glasswing as a controlled environment to study how powerful models behave in real-world cybersecurity contexts before considering any broader release.

With Opus 4.7, Anthropic has embedded safeguards that automatically detect and block requests flagged as prohibited or high-risk cybersecurity uses. The company said it also experimented with training techniques aimed at selectively reducing those capabilities at the model level — not just through filtering after the fact. Security professionals with legitimate use cases can apply through a formal verification program to access those capabilities.

The approach reflects the tightrope Anthropic has walked since its founding in 2021 — building competitive, high-performance AI while maintaining what has become the company’s core differentiator: a reputation for safety-first development. That reputation is now being tested at an entirely new scale.

The launch of Project Glasswing has triggered a wave of high-profile conversations across Washington and Wall Street, with members of the Trump administration, tech executives and bank CEOs meeting to assess what Mythos-class AI capabilities could mean for national security and financial infrastructure. The underlying question — how powerful should a publicly available AI model be — is no longer theoretical.

For investors and enterprises, the practical implications of Opus 4.7 are more immediate. The model is priced identically to Opus 4.6, meaning businesses get a material upgrade at no additional cost. It is available across all Anthropic Claude products, its API and through cloud distribution partners Microsoft, Google and Amazon — giving it broad accessibility across the enterprise ecosystem.

The release also signals something important about where the AI industry is heading. Capability tiers are becoming a deliberate strategic tool. The most powerful models are being gated, studied and selectively deployed — not because they aren’t ready, but because the institutions using them need to be.

For small and mid-cap technology companies building on top of AI infrastructure, the implications are significant. As foundation model providers like Anthropic establish formal verification programs and tiered access structures, third-party developers and SaaS companies will need to navigate an increasingly credentialed ecosystem — one where access to the most powerful tools requires demonstrating not just technical fit, but responsible use.

Release – ISG Launches First-of-its-Kind Index to Measure AI’s Impact on Technology Services Sector

Posted on by [email protected]

Research News and Market Data on III

4/16/2026

Composite ISG AI Index™ up 77% since December 2022 inception

Infrastructure leading the way, up 160%, followed by software, up 53%, and services, up 0.3%

STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm, today launched the ISG AI Index™, a first-of-its-kind benchmark that measures how AI is impacting the global technology and business services sector.

The ISG AI Index is a companion to the ISG Index™, the firm’s longstanding and authoritative source for marketplace intelligence on the global technology and business services industry. Detailed findings of the inaugural ISG AI Index will be presented during ISG’s first-quarter ISG Index presentation today at 9 a.m., U.S. Eastern Time.

“For 94 consecutive quarters, ISG has measured the performance of the global technology services industry through our ISG Index,” said Michael P. Connors, chairman and CEO of ISG. “Our highly respected and trusted barometer has evolved over the years to reflect the seismic changes in our industry, including the advent of cloud-based services. Now, the industry is at a new inflection point. It needs a new way to measure the impact of AI on the broader technology services market. The ISG AI Index is that benchmark.”

The ISG AI Index is pegged to a December 2022 starting point. “We selected this month since it coincides with the November 30, 2022 release date of ChatGPT 3.0 and the start of the current AI era,” said Connors. “From there, we are tracking the impact of AI on technology infrastructure, software and services on an ongoing basis, with initial results through the end of 2025.”

Inaugural Results

The inaugural results of the ISG AI Index show that infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) has seen the greatest impact from AI, up 160 percent. Software as-a-service (SaaS) has risen 53 percent while managed services is up only slightly, at 0.3 percent. On a market-weighted basis, the composite ISG AI Index was up 77 percent since inception.

“What we are seeing from the ISG AI Index is that AI is already reshaping the technology services sector, but not evenly,” said Steve Hall, the firm’s chief AI officer who leads both the ISG Index and the new ISG AI Index. “Infrastructure is capturing the first wave of growth, as hyperscalers add data center capacity to meet rising demand. Software is monetizing next, while managed services is still in the build-out phase, and that likely means the bigger services impact is still ahead of us.”

The ISG AI Index measures each of the three market segments through a combination of key performance indicators: revenue, profitability and stock price performance, along with one forward-looking AI indicator unique to each segment.

“For each segment, we picked one indicator that best shows how AI is impacting that part of the market,” Hall said. “In infrastructure, we use capital expenditure, because it tells us how much capacity hyperscalers are building ahead of demand. In software, we use current remaining performance obligations, or cRPO, which is essentially backlog—revenue that’s been sold but not yet recognized, making it one of the best forward-looking indicators of demand. And in services, we use revenue per employee, because it gives us a simple view of productivity—how much output providers are generating from their workforce as AI starts to change how work is done.”

Segment Performance

The clearest signal of AI’s impact on infrastructure services is capital expenditure, which is up 265 percent since the inception of the ISG AI Index. Revenue is up 100 percent, profitability is up 60 percent, and stock performance is up 113 percent.

In software, revenue is up 61 percent, profitability is up 18 percent and stock performance is up 39 percent, with cRPO up 71 percent. “This shows the market is still buying and backlog is still building. The market is simply trying to work out how AI changes pricing, monetization and long-term economics,” Hall said.

While the managed services composite is roughly flat, Hall said the underlying signals show revenue up 8 percent, profitability up 4 percent, stock performance down 36 percent and revenue per employee up nearly 8.5 percent. “What this tells us is that AI has started to improve productivity in services, but that has not yet translated into broad-based monetization or market confidence,” Hall said. “AI is having an impact, but that impact is still in the early stages.”

The next edition of the ISG AI Index, to be published after the second quarter, will include additional market measures: AI sentiment, tracking enterprise signals on demand, pricing, margins and investment priorities, and AI maturity, measuring enterprise readiness, constraints and adoption levels.

Further details about the ISG AI Index and its methodology can be found here.

About ISG

ISG (Nasdaq: III) is a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm. A trusted partner to more than 900 clients, including 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is a long-time leader in technology and business services that is now at the forefront of leveraging AI to help organizations achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm, founded in 2006, is known for its proprietary market data and research, in-depth knowledge and governance of provider ecosystems, and the expertise of its 1,500 professionals worldwide working together to help clients maximize the value of their technology investments.

Source: Information Services Group, Inc.

Madison Air’s $2.2B IPO Is the Largest US Industrial Listing in 27 Years

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The industrial sector just had its biggest IPO moment since 1999, and artificial intelligence deserves much of the credit.

Madison Air Solutions Corp. (NYSE: MAIR) debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, raising $2.23 billion after pricing 82.7 million shares at $27 each — the top of its marketed range. By early afternoon, shares were trading around $31.26, a 16% pop that gave the Chicago-based ventilation and filtration systems provider a market capitalization of approximately $13.2 billion.

The last time a US industrial company pulled off an IPO of this magnitude was when UPS raised $5.5 billion in 1999 — a listing that rode the wave of early e-commerce enthusiasm. Madison Air is riding a different wave: the data center buildout fueling the AI boom.

While the company operates across more than 30 brand names — including Nortek Data Center Cooling, Airxchange and Zephyr — and generates revenue from sectors spanning semiconductor manufacturing and life sciences, it is the data center angle that captured investor attention. Data centers account for roughly 20% of Madison Air’s commercial business, and that segment drove about two-thirds of total revenue in 2025. The company’s liquid, hybrid and air cooling products are increasingly critical infrastructure as hyperscalers race to build out AI compute capacity.

The pitch landed. Madison Air is entering the public markets at a moment when HVAC and thermal management companies tied to the data center buildout have become some of the most sought-after names in industrials. Comfort Systems USA surged more than 360% in the 12 months through Wednesday, while Modine Manufacturing roughly tripled over the same period. Madison Air’s IPO is the latest — and largest — in a string of high-profile industrial debuts, following Legence Corp., which surged 148% from its September IPO through Wednesday, and Forgent Power Solutions, which is up 20% since its February debut.

The company posted revenue of $3.34 billion and net income of $124 million for 2025, compared with $2.62 billion in revenue and $236 million in net income the year prior. The margin compression is worth noting — net income fell despite revenue growth — as tariffs added $51.3 million to the company’s cost of goods sold last year. CEO Jill Wyant said Madison Air is offsetting those pressures through pricing adjustments and is still evaluating the impact of more recent tariff changes on metals.

Founder Larry Gies retains control of the company through super-voting shares following the IPO. Madison Industries, which Gies controls, also participated in a concurrent $100 million private placement at the IPO price. The deal was led by Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Jefferies and Wells Fargo, with anchor interest from Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Durable Capital Partners and HRTG GPE — institutions that collectively expressed interest in up to $525 million of shares ahead of the offering.

Madison Air is not a small-cap story — at $13.2 billion, it clears the threshold by a wide margin. But its market debut matters to small and microcap investors for a clear reason: it validates the investability of the broader AI infrastructure supply chain at scale. The companies supplying cooling systems, filtration and thermal management to data centers — many of them smaller, less-covered names — are operating in what Madison Air estimates is a $40 billion market for specialized air systems. When an IPO of this size trades up 16% on day one, it sends a signal about where institutional capital is flowing. The picks-and-shovels trade around AI infrastructure is far from over.

Allbirds Stock Surges 700% After Stunning Pivot From Shoes to AI Infrastructure

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Struggling footwear brand Allbirds shocked investors Wednesday with a dramatic pivot away from its core business, announcing plans to transition into artificial intelligence infrastructure—a move that sent its stock soaring more than 700% in a single session.

Shares of Allbirds, which had been trading below $3, surged to over $17 following the announcement, as investors rushed into what is now being rebranded as NewBird AI. Just a day earlier, the company’s market capitalization stood at roughly $21 million, a far cry from its peak valuation of over $4 billion.

From Sustainable Sneakers to AI Compute

The pivot comes after Allbirds effectively exited the footwear business. The company recently sold its intellectual property and key assets for $39 million to American Exchange Group, which will continue to operate the Allbirds brand independently.

Now, management is betting on a completely different future: AI compute infrastructure.

According to the company, NewBird AI plans to acquire high-performance, low-latency computing hardware and lease capacity to customers underserved by existing providers. The firm also announced it is seeking to raise up to $50 million in funding to support the transition.

The move places Allbirds among a growing list of companies attempting to capitalize on surging demand for AI infrastructure—a market fueled by rapid adoption of generative AI and dominated by players like Nvidia.

A Familiar Playbook for Troubled Companies

While the market reaction has been dramatic, the strategy itself is not entirely new. Historically, struggling companies have attempted to revive investor interest by pivoting toward high-growth sectors.

During the cryptocurrency boom, numerous firms rebranded or shifted their business models to blockchain-related ventures, often triggering short-term spikes in share prices. Many of those moves, however, failed to deliver long-term value.

Allbirds’ pivot raises similar questions: Is this a credible transformation, or a speculative attempt to ride the AI wave?

Execution Risk Remains High

Entering the AI infrastructure space presents significant challenges. The business is capital-intensive, highly competitive, and technologically complex. Established players—including hyperscalers and semiconductor leaders—already dominate the market.

For a company that recently shuttered its retail footprint and saw revenues decline sharply—from $298 million in 2022 to $152 million in 2025—the transition represents a steep uphill climb.

Moreover, success in AI infrastructure depends not only on hardware acquisition but also on customer relationships, scale, and operational expertise, areas where Allbirds has limited experience.

Market Reaction vs. Fundamental Reality

The surge in Allbirds’ stock highlights the continued enthusiasm surrounding AI-related investments. Even small-cap companies with limited exposure to the sector are seeing outsized moves when they announce AI strategies.

However, investors should be cautious. The gap between announcement-driven momentum and long-term execution can be substantial.

Allbirds’ transformation into NewBird AI marks one of the more unusual pivots in recent market history. While the stock’s explosive move reflects strong demand for AI exposure, the company’s ability to successfully transition from footwear to high-performance computing remains highly uncertain.

For investors, the story underscores a broader theme: in today’s market, AI narratives can drive rapid gains—but fundamentals ultimately determine staying power.

SKYX Platforms (SKYX) – Lands An Important European Hospitality Partnership

Posted on by [email protected]


Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Michael Kupinski, Director of Research, Equity Research Analyst, Digital, Media & Technology , Noble Capital Markets, Inc.

Joe Gomes, CFA, Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst, Generalist , Noble Capital Markets, Inc.

Refer to the full report for the price target, fundamental analysis, and rating.

SKYX Secures Strategic European Partnership with Group OTT. SKYX announced a strategic agreement with European developer Jean-François Ott, founder of Group OTT, to deploy its technologies across hotels and buildings. The partnership designates SKYX’s smart ceiling platform as a brand standard across both new and existing assets. This marks a significant step in positioning SKYX as a core infrastructure provider rather than a product vendor.

Agreement Targets Deployment Across 250+ Projects in the Pipeline, Marking a Key Step Toward International Expansion and Platform Standardization. Group OTT brings a track record of over 250 completed projects valued at more than $4 billion across Europe. The agreement enables potential integration of SKYX technologies across a broad pipeline of hospitality, residential, and commercial developments. This provides SKYX with a scalable entry point into the European market and strengthens its standardization thesis.


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Release – SKYX Signs Strategic Partnership Agreement with Prominent European Hotel & Real Estate Developer, Jean-François Ott, Founder of Group OTT, to Deploy Its Advanced and Smart Electrical Technologies as a Brand Standard Throughout Its Hotels and Buildings

Posted on by [email protected]

Research News and Market Data on SKYX

April 14, 2026 08:45 ET  | Source: SKYX Platforms Corp.

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Over the Past 35 Years, Jean-François Ott and Group OTT Have Developed Over 250 Hospitality, Residential, and Commercial Buildings Valued at Over $4 Billion Throughout Europe

SKYX’s Technologies are Expected to Reduce Up to 90% of Time and Cost During Group OTT’s Hotel and Building Renovations and New Builds Across Europe

The Agreement Involves the Integration of SKYX’s Technologies Across Existing and Future Assets of Group OTT

SKYX is Currently in Discussions with Additional Hotel Groups and Owners Regarding Utilization of Its Smart Advanced Time and Cost Saving Game-Changing Technologies for Hotels and Buildings

MIAMI, April 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — SKYX Platforms Corp. (NASDAQ: SKYX) (d/b/a SKYX Technologies) (the “Company” or “SKYX”), an award winning highly disruptive advanced and smart home platform technology company with over 100 U.S. and global pending and issued patents and a portfolio of 60 lighting and home décor websites, with a mission to make homes and buildings become advanced-safe-smart instantly as the new standard, today announced its collaboration with prominent European real estate and hotel developer, Jean-François Ott, founder of Group OTT, to deploy SKYX technologies as a brand standard throughout its new and existing buildings and hotels in Europe.

Under this strategic agreement and partnership, the utilization of SKYX’s technologies in Group OTT’s European properties is expected to reduce up to 90% of time and cost during their hotel and building renovations and new builds, while providing the Group advanced and safer properties.

For more than 35 years, France-based Group OTT has developed more than 250 buildings throughout Europe, including hotels, residential, and commercial projects valued at over $4 billion.

Jean-François Ott, Founder of Group OTT, said; “I am very excited to partner with SKYX and bring their advanced and smart technologies into my companies’ existing and upcoming hotels and buildings across Europe. Throughout all these projects, our goal has always been to deploy leading and highly disruptive technologies. By integrating SKYX’s technologies into these properties, we will cut significant time and cost while advancing the lifestyle and safety standards of our hotels and buildings.”

Rani Kohen, Founder and Executive Chairman of SKYX Platforms, said; “We are very excited to be in this strategic partnership with an established and prominent European hotel and real estate developer such as Jean-François Ott and Group OTT. We look forward to collaborating with him and all his companies on their European and global existing and upcoming projects to enhance the value of their properties while creating advanced, smart, and safer hotels and buildings of the future.”

SKYX Offers Group OTT a Structural Innovation at the Core of its Hotels and Buildings

SKYX has developed a patented “smart ceiling” technology designed to transform traditional electrical installations into modular, safe, and intelligent systems. In practical terms, this innovation replaces fixed electrical wiring for ceiling lights, fans, smart tech, and other equipment with an integrated ceiling receptacle system, enabling:

  • simplified and safer installation, with no exposed wiring,
  • significant reductions in installation time and costs,
  • easier maintenance and enhanced modularity, and
  • native integration of connected features (smart, lighting, IoT, etc.).

This approach introduces a paradigm shift in building infrastructure, comparable to the historical emergence of standardized wall outlets.

For more information about Jean-François Ott and Group OTT click here: https://www.groupott.com/

For more information about SKYX click here: www.skyx.com

About SKYX Platforms Corp.

As electricity is a standard in every home and building, our mission is to make homes and buildings become safe-advanced and smart as the new standard. SKYX has a series of highly disruptive advanced-safe-smart platform technologies, with over 100 U.S. and global patents and patent pending applications. Additionally, the Company owns 60 lighting and home decor websites for both retail and commercial segments. Our technologies place an emphasis on high quality and ease of use, while significantly enhancing both safety and lifestyle in homes and buildings. We believe that our products are a necessity in every room in both homes and other buildings in the U.S. and globally. For more information, please visit our website at https://www.skyx.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this press release are not based on historical facts, but are forward-looking statements. These statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “could,” “continue,” “estimate,” “expect,” “evaluate,” “forecast,” “guidance,” “intend,” “likely,” “may,” “might,” “objective,” “ongoing,” “outlook,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “probable,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “target” “view,” “will,” or “would,” or the negative thereof or other variations thereon or comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These statements reflect the Company’s reasonable judgment with respect to future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which have outcomes difficult to predict and may be outside our control, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include statements relating to the Company’s ability to successfully launch, commercialize, develop additional features and achieve market acceptance of its products and technologies and integrate its products and technologies with third-party platforms or technologies; the Company’s ability to achieve positive cash flows; the Company’s efforts and ability to drive the adoption of its products and technologies as a standard feature, including their use in homes, hotels, offices and cruise ships; the Company’s ability to capture market share; the Company’s estimates of its potential addressable market and demand for its products and technologies; the Company’s ability to raise additional capital to support its operations as needed, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern; the Company’s ability to execute on any sales and licensing or other strategic opportunities; the possibility that any of the Company’s products will become National Electrical Code (NEC)-code or otherwise code mandatory in any jurisdiction, or that any of the Company’s current or future products or technologies will be adopted by any state, country, or municipality, within any specific timeframe or at all; risks arising from mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and other collaborations; the Company’s ability to attract and retain key executives and qualified personnel; guidance provided by management, which may differ from the Company’s actual operating results; the potential impact of unstable market and economic conditions on the Company’s business, financial condition, and stock price; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. There can be no assurance as to any of the foregoing matters. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by U.S. federal securities laws.

Investor Relations Contacts:

Jeff Ramson
PCG Advisory
[email protected]

Ronald A. Both
Encore Investor Relations
[email protected]

Amazon’s $11.6 Billion Globalstar Grab Is About More Than Satellites — It’s a Direct Challenge to Starlink’s Dominance

Posted on by [email protected]

Amazon’s acquisition of Globalstar for approximately $11.57 billion — or $90 per share — is one of the most strategically loaded deals of 2026, and it’s a reminder that small-cap companies can sit at the center of the biggest transactions in the market. Globalstar, once a modest satellite operator with a market cap well beneath the radar of most institutional investors, has become the cornerstone of Amazon’s bid to compete directly with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the rapidly expanding space connectivity market — while simultaneously locking in a critical partnership with Apple.

The Strategic Play

Amazon has been building its satellite internet business — rebranded from Project Kuiper to Leo — for years, but the company has faced significant headwinds. It currently has roughly 240 satellites in orbit compared to Starlink’s fleet of more than 10,000, and it recently had to ask the FCC for an extension on a requirement to deploy approximately 1,600 satellites by July 2026. Acquiring Globalstar addresses a key structural gap: direct-to-device capability.

Globalstar operates around 24 satellites and holds spectrum licenses with global authorizations — assets that are notoriously difficult and time-consuming to obtain independently. Rather than build this foundation from scratch, Amazon is buying it. The company plans to start deploying its own direct-to-device satellite system using these assets by 2028.

The Apple Dimension

Apple’s fingerprints are all over this deal. The iPhone maker took a 20% stake in Globalstar in 2024 through a $1.5 billion investment, primarily to power its Emergency SOS satellite feature. As part of the Amazon acquisition, a separate agreement was struck for Amazon to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhones and Apple Watch features — a significant commercial arrangement that effectively makes Amazon a behind-the-scenes infrastructure provider for Apple’s device ecosystem.

This isn’t a minor footnote. It signals that Amazon is positioning Leo not just as a consumer internet service competing with Starlink, but as a B2B infrastructure layer for some of the world’s most widely used consumer devices.

Regulatory Outlook

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr acknowledged the acquisition on Tuesday, describing the agency as open-minded to the deal and noting its potential to create a viable U.S. competitor to SpaceX in direct-to-cell services. The transaction is expected to close in 2027, leaving meaningful time for regulatory review.

Carr’s framing is notable — the FCC has been consistent in its messaging that it wants to encourage competition in the satellite broadband market, not constrain it. Amazon had ironically opposed a SpaceX application before the FCC last month, so the agency’s receptiveness to this deal will be worth monitoring.

What This Means for the Market

Globalstar shareholders will receive either $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon common stock per Globalstar share — a structure that reflects Amazon’s confidence in its own equity. For investors watching the satellite and space economy, this deal narrows the competitive field considerably. The race to own low-Earth orbit spectrum and direct-to-device infrastructure is intensifying, and scale is the only real moat.

Amazon just bought itself a meaningful head start. Whether it’s enough to close the gap with Starlink remains the central question for the next decade of space-based connectivity

Oracle’s 10% Surge Is a Signal, Not Just a Stock Move — Here’s What Investors Should Watch

Posted on by [email protected]

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) is one of the few names flashing green in a market defined by red this Monday. While the Dow shed hundreds of points on the news of a U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Oracle surged roughly 10% — moving from deeply oversold territory toward $153 a share on volume running well above its daily average. The catalyst is a combination of new AI product launches, a fresh cloud infrastructure expansion, and a broader rotation back into beaten-down enterprise software names. For small and microcap investors watching from the sidelines, the move carries a message worth decoding.

The immediate triggers are concrete. Oracle rolled out AI-powered upgrades to its Utilities Industry Suite and Aconex project management platform today, targeting utility operators looking to cut costs and improve grid reliability. The company also launched a new public cloud region in Casablanca, Morocco — the latest milestone in an aggressive global infrastructure buildout that has pushed its capital expenditure to levels unseen in the company’s history. Underlying all of it is a backlog that has grown 325% year over year, reaching $553 billion in committed future business as of Oracle’s most recent quarter. Revenue in Q3 fiscal 2026 rose 22% year over year, with cloud revenue up 44%.

What makes today’s rally notable is its context. Oracle is still down roughly 54% from its 52-week high of $345.72 set last September. The stock has been punished by investor skepticism around its aggressive AI infrastructure spending, rising debt levels, and a recent round of layoffs across its SaaS and NetSuite divisions. Today’s move suggests that at current valuations, the market is beginning to reassess whether the selloff overshot — particularly as renewed momentum around large-scale AI infrastructure deals involving OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic reinforces demand signals for the cloud and compute buildout Oracle is betting on.

That reassessment matters beyond Oracle itself. The AI infrastructure trade has been one of the most crowded and most brutalized in the market over the past several months. Large-cap names absorbed the most visible damage, but smaller cloud-adjacent and AI infrastructure companies have been hit just as hard, often harder, with far less coverage and liquidity to cushion the fall. When sentiment begins to shift at the top of the market cap spectrum, it historically filters down — and the small and microcap companies building the picks-and-shovels layer of the AI stack are typically the last to recover, and sometimes the most dramatically when they do.

The risk to that thesis is execution. Oracle’s rally today is a sentiment-driven repricing, not a fundamental re-rating. A company carrying Oracle’s level of capital expenditure and debt in a $100-plus oil environment faces real cost pressures that don’t disappear because a stock bounces 10% in a session. The AI infrastructure buildout remains a long-duration bet, and the geopolitical backdrop continues to add inflation risk that could delay the rate relief many levered tech companies are counting on.

But the signal embedded in today’s move is worth taking seriously. When a company sitting on over half a trillion dollars in committed backlog starts getting bought aggressively on a down-market day, the market is telling you something about where conviction is quietly returning — and in AI infrastructure, that conviction tends to travel down the size spectrum faster than most expect.

CoreWeave’s 13% Surge Reveals Who’s Really Winning the AI Infrastructure Race

Posted on by [email protected]

The AI chip arms race just found its latest winner — and it’s not a semiconductor company.

CoreWeave (CRWV) shares surged more than 13% on Friday after the AI cloud infrastructure company announced a multiyear agreement with Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude family of models. The deal will have CoreWeave providing computing capacity to run Anthropic’s workloads at production scale, with an initial phased rollout and room to expand. Financial terms, including pricing and chip capacity, were not disclosed.

The market’s reaction is telling. In an environment where AI companies are racing to lock down computing resources, the companies sitting in between the chip makers and the model builders — the infrastructure layer — are emerging as some of the most strategically valuable players in the ecosystem.

The Infrastructure Bottleneck Is Becoming a Competitive Moat

The CoreWeave-Anthropic deal doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s one piece of a rapidly consolidating AI infrastructure picture. Earlier this week, Anthropic separately announced it is working with Broadcom (AVGO) and Google to access 3.5 gigawatts of Google’s Broadcom-built Tensor Processing Units. Reports have also surfaced that Anthropic is exploring designing its own custom semiconductors — a move that would put it in the same category as OpenAI, Meta, Amazon, and Google, all of which are building or already operating proprietary chip programs.

What this signals is that the dependency on Nvidia (NVDA), while still very real, is being hedged at every level of the AI stack. Companies are pursuing multiple supply channels simultaneously — third-party cloud infrastructure like CoreWeave, hyperscaler partnerships, and in-house silicon development — because a single point of failure in computing capacity is existential risk for an AI business.

CoreWeave Is Becoming the Go-To AI Cloud

What makes CoreWeave’s position particularly interesting is how quickly it has become the preferred infrastructure partner for frontier AI labs. Meta (META) signed a deal with CoreWeave that runs through December 2032, giving the social media giant a long-term runway for powering its AI services. Now Anthropic joins that roster.

CoreWeave also noted that its capacity for Anthropic’s workloads will be distributed across multiple data center locations and will include some of the first commercial deployments of Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin architecture — a detail that adds both technical credibility and scarcity value to the agreement.

Why This Matters Beyond the Stock Move

For investors and market watchers focused on the AI infrastructure theme, CoreWeave’s deal flow tells a clear story: the companies building and maintaining the physical layer of AI — the data centers, the networking, the GPU clusters — are becoming critical infrastructure in the truest sense of the term. The demand is not slowing, and the supply is constrained enough that long-term agreements are being inked across the board.

The winners in this cycle may not be the most visible AI brands. They may be the ones quietly building the backbone everyone else depends on.

CoreWeave is shaping up to be exactly that.

Release – ISG to Announce First-Quarter Financial Results

Posted on by [email protected]

Research News and Market Data on III

4/8/2026

STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm, said today it will release its first-quarter financial results on Thursday, May 7, 2026, at approximately 4:15 p.m., U.S. Eastern Time.

The firm will host a conference call with investors and industry analysts at 9 a.m., U.S. Eastern Time, the following day, Friday, May 8. Dial-in details are as follows:

  • The dial-in number for U.S. participants is +1 (800) 715-9871.
  • International participants should call +1 (646) 307-1963.
  • The security code to access the call is 6855650.

Participants are requested to dial in at least five minutes before the scheduled start time.

A recording of the conference call will be accessible on ISG’s investor relations page for approximately four weeks following the call.

About ISG

ISG (Nasdaq: III) is a global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm. A trusted partner to more than 900 clients, including 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is a long-time leader in technology and business services that is now at the forefront of leveraging AI to help organizations achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm, founded in 2006, is known for its proprietary market data and research, in-depth knowledge and governance of provider ecosystems, and the expertise of its 1,500 professionals worldwide working together to help clients maximize the value of their technology investments.

Source: Information Services Group, Inc.

The Market Is Speaking in Two Languages Today — and Both Matter

Posted on by [email protected]

Monday’s session delivered one of the cleanest market splits in recent weeks — energy surging, semiconductors cratering, and the major indexes going their separate ways as Wall Street entered a holiday-shortened trading week with no shortage of unresolved questions.

The Dow Jones added roughly 0.3% while the S&P 500 slipped 0.7% and the Nasdaq dropped nearly 1.1% by afternoon trading. Both the Dow and Nasdaq are now in correction territory following last week’s close. The divergence wasn’t noise — it reflected two very real and competing forces battling for the market’s direction.

The Chip Selloff Has a New Villain

Micron led semiconductor stocks sharply lower on Monday, falling more than 10% in afternoon trading. Sandisk shed 8%, Intel dropped 4%, AMD fell close to 3%, and Nvidia gave back roughly 1%. The across-the-board weakness extended a sell-off that began last week and found fresh fuel over the weekend.

The catalyst is a Google algorithm called TurboQuant, announced last week, which allows AI models to run more efficiently by cutting the amount of memory required. The implications for memory chip demand — and pricing — are exactly what the market is now attempting to price in. If AI workloads require meaningfully less memory bandwidth to operate, the demand thesis underpinning names like Micron gets complicated fast.

The debate is far from settled. Experts argue that memory chip pricing could stay firm through 2027, pointing to continued strength in AI data center demand with no signs of a slowdown and supply conditions tight enough to drive price inflation in several chip categories. That’s a reasonable counter — but on a Monday in a correction, the market is choosing the bearish read first and asking questions later.

Oil Doesn’t Care About Algorithms

On the other side of the ledger, crude had another strong session. Brent held above $107 per barrel and WTI crossed $103 as the Iran conflict continued to dominate commodity markets. President Trump added fresh fuel Monday, telling the Financial Times that his preference is for the U.S. to control Iran’s oil industry indefinitely — language that signals the conflict’s resolution is not imminent and that supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz and now the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could persist for weeks or months.

Energy was the one sector that didn’t need to rationalize its rally today. The math is straightforward: supply is constrained, no deal is in sight, and $100+ oil is becoming the baseline assumption rather than the shock scenario.

Eyes on the Week Ahead

With Friday’s session closed for Good Friday, this is a compressed week with outsized data. JOLTS, ADP private payrolls, and the March jobs report all land before the long weekend — and after the January-February whipsaw in employment numbers, each print carries extra weight. Nike’s earnings will offer a read on consumer health that the macro data alone can’t provide.

The setup: a market digesting a genuine technology disruption narrative while simultaneously pricing in the worst energy crisis in a generation. That’s not a market that moves in one direction.

Google’s Memory Efficiency Breakthrough Sends Chip Stocks Tumbling — But Is the Market Overreacting?

Posted on by [email protected]

Memory chip stocks took a beating Thursday after Google went public with research on a new algorithm that could dramatically reduce the amount of memory needed to run large language models — rattling a sector that had been riding an AI-fueled supply crunch straight up.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the South Korean heavyweights that dominate the high-bandwidth memory market, both fell at least 6% in Seoul trading. In the U.S., Micron Technology (MU) slid more than 7%, while Western Digital and Sandisk each dropped at least 5%. Nvidia (NVDA) was not spared either, shedding nearly 4% as broader AI infrastructure sentiment soured.

What Google Actually Did

Google’s TurboQuant algorithm, which the company publicized on X this week — though the underlying research originally surfaced last year — claims to cut the memory required to run large language models by at least a factor of six. The efficiency gain targets what’s known as the key value cache, a critical bottleneck in AI inference, or the process of running AI models to generate outputs.

If widely adopted, TurboQuant could reduce the memory footprint of AI workloads significantly, theoretically easing the supply crunch that has sent chip prices and margins soaring across the sector.

The Bull Case Didn’t Disappear Overnight

Context matters here. Memory chip stocks had been on an extraordinary run. SK Hynix and Samsung shares had each surged more than 50% year-to-date through Wednesday, fueled by insatiable demand from hyperscalers building out AI infrastructure at historic scale. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won as recently as this week said the memory chip shortage would persist through 2030.

Morgan Stanley analyst Shawn Kim pushed back on the panic in a note, arguing the impact of Google’s research should ultimately be net positive for the industry. His logic: if AI models can run with materially lower memory requirements without sacrificing performance, the cost per query drops, making AI deployment more profitable and accelerating adoption — which in turn drives more demand for memory, not less.

Kim and analysts at JPMorgan and Citigroup all invoked the Jevons Paradox — a 19th century economic concept holding that greater efficiency in resource use tends to increase total consumption rather than reduce it. The same argument made the rounds when DeepSeek’s low-cost AI model rattled markets last year.

The Bigger Picture for Investors

The four largest hyperscalers — led by Amazon and Google — are collectively on track to spend roughly $650 billion this year on data center infrastructure. That spending appetite doesn’t evaporate because of one efficiency algorithm, and Ortus Advisors analyst Andrew Jackson noted the Google development may make little practical difference to near-term demand given how constrained supply remains.

For small and microcap investors with exposure to the memory supply chain — component manufacturers, equipment makers, or specialty materials companies — Thursday’s selloff may be more noise than signal. The structural demand drivers behind AI infrastructure spending remain firmly intact.

The more pressing question isn’t whether TurboQuant reduces memory demand. It’s whether the market had already priced in perfection for a sector where any efficiency headline is now treated as an existential threat.