The U.S. economy will likely show the strongest overall growth in a year when third-quarter data is released Thursday, powered by consumer spending and AI investment.
Driving the news: The Commerce Department's initial release of Gross Domestic Product data is scheduled for Thursday at 8:30am ET.
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate that it will show a 3.2% annual rate of growth in the July-through-September quarter; the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow tracker pegs it at 3.3%. Either result would be the most rapid GDP growth since the third quarter of 2025.
Electric vehicle charging is getting tantalizingly close to effortless, as I discovered on a recent road trip through the Pacific Northwest.
But every time I thought we'd finally arrived at charging nirvana, some little annoyance reminded me that we're not quite there yet.
Why it matters: Public charging has long been one of the biggest obstacles to EV adoption. Now, automakers are finally eliminating some of the hassles that keep many drivers tethered to gasoline.
America is in the midst of its strongest productivity surge in decades. The evidence is more ambiguous about how much AI is the reason.
Why it matters: Companies are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI, a massive bet that the technology will deliver sweeping productivity gains across the economy.
But so far, the productivity gains may have more to do with less sexy developments, including the more intensive use of capital equipment and a post-pandemic surge in entrepreneurship now paying dividends.
Data: Generative Pulse/Muck Rack; Chart: Simon Hernandez-Arthur/Axios
Before trying to get AI to cite your company, findings from a new study shared exclusively with Axios suggest figuring out what your audience is asking about in the first place.
Why it matters: As communications teams invest in generative engine optimization, they risk spending time and resources on media coverage or content that doesn't show up in the AI answers their audiences are looking for.
OpenAI has launched a cheaper GPT-6.1 Terra model, costing up to half as much per token as the previous version.
Why it matters: Prices for tokens — a basic unit for AI usage — have been falling sharply, raising questions about both the strength of the demand for AI and how much revenue the data center boom will ultimately create and shower on investors.
The cybersecurity world braced for catastrophe after AI uncovered critical flaws in the web's foundational code, but the anticipated wave of automated attacks has surprisingly struggled to get off the ground.
Why it matters:Millions of hacking attempts have yielded few successful attacks, an apparent lucky break due to the degree of difficulty of building attacks on the bugs. The defense work at many companies to address the issue also appears to have helped.
The last week has unfolded in ways that remind some researchers of the Y2K phenomenon, a software problem in 1999 where warnings of Armageddon helped rally companies to engineer a solution in time.
Rival satellite companies are jockeying to loosen Elon Musk's grip on battlefield communications after his company's restrictions on Ukraine's Starlink service shook officials in Europe and the U.S.
Why it matters: The episode, which temporarily disrupted Ukraine's drone usage, shows how vulnerable a military can be to the whims of a single company or market dominator.
Five more thoughts about the Anthropic S-1, after a day of digging in:
1. Cash crunch fallacy? Conventional wisdom has been that Anthropic is going public, in part, because it needs the money. Kind of like why OpenAI is seeking around $30 billion after pushing its own IPO into 2027.
Disruptive, a Dallas-based growth equity firm, has raised $10 billion for its first flagship fund.
Why it matters: This reflects startup ecosystem pushback against special purpose vehicles (SPVs), which is how Disruptive had invested since being founded in 2012.
U.S. businesses kept investing heavily in equipment in September, extending a stretch of strong demand for manufactured goods largely fueled by the AI infrastructure boom.
Zoom in: Demand for equipment associated with the AI boom has surged at a pace not seen in recent decades.
Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warshpresents himself as a rock-ribbed central banker prepared to do what it takes to wrestle inflation to the ground.
If the Fed delivers on expectations Wednesday, at the conclusion of 2026's penultimate policy meeting, Warsh will face a tricky task in reconciling that with non-action in the face of broad price pressures.
The big picture: Since the Fed raised interest rates six weeks ago, incoming inflation data has been hot and energy price pressures have risen. Yet communication from the central bank's leadership has pointed to leaving rates unchanged at this meeting while penciling in another rate hike in December.
Formula 1 intends to see its Apple distribution deal through its 2030 expiration date and "hopefully beyond," Derek Chang, president and CEO of F1 owner Liberty Media, told Axios x The Race at an event in Austin last week.
Why it matters: The deal is a major test for sports franchises looking to understand the value in potentially trading broader reach on traditional broadcast for a more strategic distribution opportunity on streaming.
Murdock, a portable pilot assistantmade by Beacon AI, has flown on three U.S. Air Force refueler-and-transporter aircraft — advising flight crews and racking up hours and hours of real-world experience.
Why it matters: The California startup is building "R2-D2 for pilots," according to co-founder Matt Cox, a former Navy fighter pilot, and this is a significant step in that direction.
"These planes are very instrumented. There are thousands and thousands of parameters. We consume it," he told Axios.
Nvidia will invest $3 billion in Meta as part of an expanded partnership that includes closer collaboration on the Muse agent platform, the companies said Tuesday.
Why it matters: A multibillion-dollar Nvidia investment is becoming all but table stakes for serious AI players — a ready source of capital for their breakneck expansion and a guarantee for Nvidia of future revenue streams.
Anthropic filed yesterday for what could be the biggest IPO ever, capping a massive day of AI dealmaking that nearly equals 1% of U.S. GDP.
Why it matters: Few industries have ever become so central to the American economy so quickly — and we're watching Wall Street finance the buildout in real time.
Cowboy Space Corporation has unveiled the design for its new medium-lift "Big Iron" rocket that will double as its orbital data center satellite.
Why it matters: U.S. demand for rockets is sky high.
The private firm's C-Suite bets that building their own launch vehicle and reusing its components will lower costs.
The offering also expands much-needed access for possible military and commercial payloads.
Joseph Yaffe, Cowboy Space's chief operating officer, told Axios on Monday that the company aims to build the first rocket by the end of 2027.
"Big Iron" — a reference to the famous country western tune by Marty Robbins — is targeting its first flight in 2028.
The rocket will bolster the company's ambitions for its 20,000-satellite "Stampede" constellation.
What they're saying: "We set out to build data centers in space and found there weren't enough rockets to get them there, so we're building our own," Baiju Bhatt, Cowboy Space's CEO and founder, said in a press release.
"Opening it to the rest of the industry makes every flight safer and more efficient, and gives the country another path to orbit," he said.
Zoom in: "Big Iron's" upper stage has deployable radiators and is designed to remain in orbit as a "megawatt-class data center" instead of a separate satellite, the company said.
The rocket's reusable booster will be powered by nine liquid oxygen and methane "Clydesdale" engines capable of 30,000 pounds of thrust, the company said, and the data center aims to carry five compute racks of NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs.
The rocket will be around 282 feet high, standing slightly taller than SpaceX's Falcon 9 workhorse and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V.
The upper stage data center payload can be switched out for one that can provide customers with a megawatt of power and another that can dispense satellites, Yaffe said.
Big picture: SpaceX reportedly plans to retire its Falcon 9 rocket, leaving a gap in the market for medium-lift launch vehicles and causing headaches for national security missions.
Yaffe said that the company wants to pursue the military's National Security Space Launch business, too.
"We've commenced discussions with the right folks to walk down that path," Yaffe told Axios. "That need is very clear, very obvious."
