Global Morning Briefing summarizes international news reported by The Seoul Economic Daily.
Apple's First Foldable Stumbles Before Launch as Huawei, Xiaomi Roll Out New Models
Huawei and Xiaomi unveiled new foldable phones side by side, two days before Apple's first foldable announcement. Chinese makers are joining the competition as the market widens with Apple entering a segment led by Samsung Electronics.
Huawei launched the Mate XT2, its second-generation trifold device that folds twice. It adopted a G-shaped structure instead of the first generation's Z-shape, and sold out immediately upon opening preorders. The device carries a new Kirin chip built on "Tau's law," a theory of semiconductor performance improvement that reduces signal transmission time by folding circuits vertically rather than shrinking transistors.
Xiaomi unveiled the Xiaomi 18 Fold, its first "wide foldable" flagship. It is the first device to carry the company's in-house application processor, the XRING O3, with a focus on improving on-device artificial intelligence performance and power efficiency.
Apple's first foldable, the iPhone Ultra, meanwhile is running into production problems, according to reports. Nikkei Asia reported that low yields on hinges and screen flatness limited output to only several hundred units a day as of the end of last month, far short of a target of 8 million to 10 million units a year, which would require tens of thousands of units daily.
Global foldable phone shipments will top 22 million units this year, up 22% from a year earlier, according to research firm Omdia. The market is expected to grow more than 20% annually through 2028 to reach 36 million units.
Treasury Buyback Expansion Meets 10-Year Auction as Yields Brace for Storm
U.S. Treasury yields have entered what analysts describe as the calm before a storm, as large-scale corporate and government bond issuance converges with an expanded Treasury buyback program after markets reopen on the 8th following the Labor Day holiday.
Bank of America projects U.S. investment-grade corporate bond issuance in September at $190 billion, or about 256 trillion won, the second-largest September total on record. A Bloomberg dealer survey put the figure higher, at $215 billion, which would surpass last year's all-time high of $207.5 billion. Some on Wall Street cite the possibility of $250 billion, on the view that hyperscalers will rush to issue bonds to fund AI investment.
Such a large bond supply could disperse demand for Treasuries and push yields higher, meaning lower prices. The 9th is expected to be the turning point, as the Treasury auctions $39 billion in 10-year notes while doubling its long-dated buyback size to $4 billion per operation from $2 billion. Another $22 billion in 30-year bonds will be issued on the 10th.
Some analysts trace the turmoil in the Treasury market to structural problems in the Trump administration's fiscal consolidation plan itself. The administration sought to maintain tax cuts while filling revenue with reciprocal tariffs and restructuring spending through the Department of Government Efficiency. But the Supreme Court ruled the reciprocal tariffs unlawful, and DOGE achieved only $110 billion in cuts, far below its target. The war with Iran proved especially damaging. It lifted international oil prices, stoking inflation and raising expectations of rate increases, which pushed up two-year Treasury yields, while concerns over long-term fiscal health led investors to demand higher premiums, sending 30-year yields sharply higher as well.
Anthropic Locks In Decade of Computing Ahead of IPO in Infrastructure Race With OpenAI
Anthropic has signed computing capacity contracts totaling $517 billion, or about 700 trillion won, over the past 11 months, The Information reported. In power terms, that amounts to 14.8 gigawatts, a scale requiring more than 10 of South Korea's newest nuclear reactors of the APR1400 class and equivalent to the electricity consumed by a city of 26 million people. Given that its secured capacity before last October was only 1 to 2 gigawatts, the increase came in an extremely short period.
The amounts have also surged. Server lease costs through 2029, which the company disclosed to investors last December, stood at $180 billion, but the latest figure has grown to $517 billion over 10 years. That is equivalent to 24% to 36% of the annual AI capital spending of big tech firms such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta. But big tech investment includes cloud, logistics and consumer hardware, while Anthropic's figure is concentrated purely on computing, meaning its effective weight is not far behind.
Anthropic is preparing to list between late October and early November, and investors are watching the scale of its computing commitments. Rival OpenAI is countering with plans to spend up to $750 billion on 30 gigawatts by 2030, and recently restarted the Stargate Georgia project by leading it directly.
Whether Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will benefit is also drawing attention. Samsung Electronics is indirectly linked through foundry work and manufacturing of Anthropic's in-house chips designed with Broadcom, while SK hynix is connected through supplying high-bandwidth memory, HBM4, for Nvidia.
Far-Right AfD Wins German State Election, Leaving Merz Cornered
Europe is watching the state assembly election in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany's sixth-smallest state by population, because of expectations that the far-right Alternative for Germany, a party at the center of controversy over remarks defending the Nazis, could take control of a state government for the first time since the Nazi defeat.
The AfD won a landslide with more than 43.8% of the vote in the election held the previous day, German public broadcaster ZDF reported on the 7th. It secured 39 of 83 total seats, short of a majority of 42, but is in a favorable position in the selection of state premier. Should the AfD take the premiership, it would mark the first far-right regional government in Germany in more than 80 years since the fall of the Nazis.
The AfD's stronghold is the former East Germany, which lags the west economically and has fewer immigrants. As discontent in the east grew over inclusive immigration policy and rising energy costs, the AfD has grown into the largest opposition party with 152 of 630 seats in the federal parliament.
Saxony-Anhalt's electoral system also works in the AfD's favor. If no candidate wins a majority in the first round, voting proceeds to a third round, in which abstentions are excluded from the denominator. Even if all other parties vote against, only six abstentions would give the AfD a 39-38 win.
The ball is now in the court of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the Christian Democratic Union. Merz formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party to maintain a firewall against the AfD, but has recorded the worst approval ratings on record after running into SPD opposition on key policies. Insisting on an anti-AfD coalition in Saxony-Anhalt could further narrow his standing within the party, while standing by as the AfD takes power would invite an SPD backlash, leaving him in a dilemma.
