Apple Ups Their R&D Spend; Coinbase Eliminates Middle Management; Anthropic Is Paying XAI SpaceX For Compute; & Access Bank Loses Access To Foreign Holdings
- Dipo Owolabi
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Artificial intelligence is no longer just a product race; it is now showing up in spending ratios, layoffs, compute contracts, and bank balance sheets. Apple is putting more than 10% of revenue into R&D for the first time in at least 30 years, Coinbase is trimming 700 jobs to run leaner in the AI era, Anthropic has secured all of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 compute and is even thinking about space-based data centers, and Access Holdings is being forced to reduce its foreign stakes after a new CBN rule capped offshore investments. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat! |
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MAJOR HEADLINES
The Sleeping Giant Spurs Awake; Apple Increases
AIR&D Spend
Apple is spending more aggressively on research and development than it has in decades, with R&D reaching 10.3% of revenue in the March quarter. CNBC’s reporting, echoed by multiple summaries, says that is up from 7.6% in the previous quarter and 9% in the same quarter a year earlier, marking the first time in at least 30 years that Apple has spent more than 10 cents of every dollar it brings in on R&D. The move is being read as a clear signal that Apple is trying to catch up in AI and is feeling a renewed sense of urgency around new products.
The spending pace matters because it has accelerated much faster than revenue. Apple’s sales rose 17% in the quarter, the fastest growth rate since 2021, but R&D climbed by nearly 34% year over year, showing that management is prioritizing future product development over short-term cost restraint. That is a meaningful shift for a company historically known for tight spending discipline, and it suggests the AI race is now influencing core budget decisions at the world’s most valuable consumer tech brand.
The bigger strategic point is that Apple is still taking a different path from its hyperscaler peers. While Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon are pouring enormous sums into capex, Apple’s approach remains more selective, with R&D doing the heavy lifting instead of a huge infrastructure buildout. Reuters has also noted that Apple’s broader strengths in hardware, software, and services could become constraints in the AI era if the company cannot turn this spending surge into faster product releases and a clearer AI story. CNBC
Coinbase Eliminates Middle Management As A Costcutter But Hails AI
Coinbase is cutting about 700 employees, or roughly 14% of its global workforce, as CEO Brian Armstrong reshapes the crypto exchange for a leaner, AI-driven operating model. Reuters says the layoffs are intended to reduce costs, respond to current market conditions, and reposition the company for the artificial intelligence era. The move also comes after a slump in crypto trading activity, which has made profitability and expense control more important for the exchange.
The restructuring is not just about saving money; it is about changing how the company works. Coinbase said the goal is to optimize operations for the AI era, and Armstrong has been explicit that newer AI tools can support smaller, more efficient teams. Reuters reported that the layoffs will mostly be completed in the second quarter of 2026 and will cost Coinbase between $50 million and $60 million, mainly in severance and benefits.
That makes Coinbase part of a broader trend across tech and fintech: companies are using AI not only to build products, but to redesign the workforce itself. The message from Armstrong’s move is that middle layers and manual processes are becoming harder to justify when automation can take over more of the day-to-day workflow. For investors, the story is less about a one-time layoff and more about whether AI can become a durable operating advantage that helps Coinbase survive the next downturn in crypto markets. Yahoo Finance
Anthropic has struck a major infrastructure agreement that gives it access to the entire compute capacity of xAI’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee. CNBC reported that the deal, announced alongside SpaceX, includes more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity and access to over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, making it one of the largest AI compute arrangements disclosed publicly so far. While the exact dollar value of the agreement was not officially revealed, the scale of the infrastructure involved suggests a multibillion-dollar long-term partnership given the cost of GPU clusters, energy contracts, and AI cloud infrastructure at this level.
What makes the agreement even more significant is that it extends beyond standard cloud access. CNBC reported that Anthropic also expressed interest in collaborating with SpaceX on future space-based compute infrastructure, signaling that frontier AI labs are already thinking about how to scale data-center capacity beyond terrestrial limitations. That aligns closely with Elon Musk’s broader ambitions around both AI and space, and it shows how quickly AI infrastructure discussions are evolving from software conversations into energy, real estate, and even orbital-computing conversations.
The practical impact for Anthropic is immediate. Access to the full Colossus capacity dramatically expands the company’s ability to train and run Claude models, especially as demand for enterprise AI coding tools continues to surge. Anthropic has increasingly positioned itself not just as a chatbot company but as a serious enterprise AI platform, and this deal reinforces a new reality in artificial intelligence: access to compute power is now becoming just as important as the models themselves. CNBC |
Access Holdings To Cut Stakes In Foreign Subsidiaries After CBN Rule
Access Holdings is reducing its equity stakes in some foreign subsidiaries after the Central Bank of Nigeria capped banks’ investments in overseas operations at 10% of shareholders’ funds. BusinessDay and TheCable report that the rule was introduced in June 2025 and that lenders were given a 12-month window to comply. Access Holdings says it is working to align with the new requirement rather than fight it, which suggests a regulatory reset rather than a sudden retreat from foreign markets.
The rule matters because it directly affects how Nigerian banks allocate capital across borders. Access Bank’s chief executive, Roosevelt Ogbonna, said on an investor call that the company would reduce its exposure in line with the CBN directive, which is a signal that the regulator is serious about forcing a more conservative balance between local and foreign deployment. In effect, the bank’s overseas footprint now has to fit inside a tighter capital box.
For investors, this is a story about capital discipline and regulatory control. Access Holdings has also been trying to restore dividend payments after compliance issues interrupted payouts for the 2025 financial year, so the foreign stake reduction is part of a broader effort to clean up the balance sheet and satisfy the regulator. The bigger takeaway is that Nigeria’s banking sector is entering a period where growth abroad may have to be sacrificed, at least temporarily, in favor of stronger domestic capital discipline. Business Day
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