The Fed dot plot split 7:7, Powell said inflation progress fell short of expectations, while refusing to leave before the investigation concludes. Rates were unchanged, but hawkish signals are tightening.
1| Fed Dot Plot Splits, Powell's Last Two Press Conferences Turn into a Political Survival Battle
The Fed kept rates unchanged at 3.5%-3.75% on Wednesday, which was within expectations. What was beyond expectations was the dot plot: among 19 members, 7 believed there should be no rate cuts in 2026, one more than in December, while another 7 expected only one cut. The inflation forecast was revised up from 2.5% to 2.7%. Powell's rhetoric was colder than the market wanted to hear, "We forecast progress on inflation, but not as much as we had hoped." U.S. stocks fell to intraday lows.
At the same press conference, Powell announced he would not leave before his term expires. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is investigating the Fed headquarters renovation project, and Trump's nominated successor, Kevin Warsh, has been held up in the Senate Banking Committee by Senator Tillis. Powell's term ends on May 15, but he said he "has no intention of leaving before the investigation is thoroughly concluded." On the surface, it was a rate decision; underneath, the Fed Chair's tenure is being held hostage simultaneously by a renovation investigation and a senator's veto power.
(Source: CNBC / Bloomberg / American Banker)
2| Nvidia GTC Completes Empire Map in Four Days, Groq Acquisition Becomes Inference Weapon
On the fourth day of GTC, Nvidia turned Groq, acquired for $20 billion in December 2025, into a product. The Groq 3 LPX platform consists of 128 LPUs and, when combined with the Vera Rubin NVL72, claims a 35x throughput per megawatt improvement. The Vera CPU, also released that day, is the first processor designed specifically for Agentic AI, with twice the efficiency of traditional rack-scale CPUs.
Monday was about the seven-chip platform, Tuesday the inference grid (AI Grid), Wednesday the open-source alliance (Nemotron Coalition), and Thursday Groq inference and the space data center (Space-1). Over four days, Jensen Huang built not just a product line, but a blueprint for a computing empire from ground to orbit, from training to inference. The next-generation Feynman architecture was also been announced, including the Rosa CPU, LP40 LPU, BlueField-5, and Kyber network.
(Source: NVIDIA Newsroom / Yahoo Finance / NVIDIA Blog)
3| 150 Retired Judges Jointly Support Anthropic, Pentagon Retaliates with "Hostility"
Last night's report covered the DOJ's 40-page filing and data on Anthropic's enterprise market share overtaking OpenAI. Today's update is a collective statement from the legal community. Nearly 150 retired federal and state judges submitted an amicus brief to the court, questioning the legality of the Pentagon's use of a "supply chain risk" label for Anthropic. Combined with the previously stated support from four major tech industry associations, Microsoft, and employees of competitor companies, the camp supporting Anthropic has expanded from the industry to the judiciary.
The government's counterattack is also escalating. Deputy Defense Secretary Emil Michael stated in a filing that Anthropic was "hostile" in negotiations and its stance was "not fact-centric, but for public image management." Anthropic's CFO stated in legal documents that 2026 revenue losses could reach "hundreds of millions of dollars." The March 24th hearing is defining the legal boundaries of a new question: can AI companies set conditions on the use of their technology by government clients.
(Source: CNN / Axios)
4| Day 20 of Iran War, Oil Prices Breathe but $200 Warning Still Looms
WTI fell back to $95.50 on Monday, down 5.3%, triggered by Trump's proposal for a Hormuz Strait escort plan. But analysts' warnings have not been withdrawn. According to CNBC, traders believe $200 cannot be ruled out. Capital Economics warned that if the war lasts three months, Brent could average $150.
The physical boundaries of the conflict continue to expand. Azerbaijan deployed troops to the Iranian border citing potential internal security collapse in Iran. Qatar suspended LNG production on March 2nd due to drone attacks (supplying 20% of global LNG). The 11 countries currently involved in major conflicts control 51% of global crude oil capacity and 56% of natural gas capacity. The brief pullback in oil prices looks more like a breather than a turning point.
(Source: CNBC / EIA / Capital Economics / Al Jazeera)
5| Cloud Giants' GPU Arms Race Adds Another Zero
AWS announced at GTC the deployment of over 1 million Nvidia GPUs across global regions. On the same day, Microsoft Azure showcased its deployment plan for liquid-cooled Grace Blackwell GPUs, Nemotron model access via Foundry, and Oracle gained GPU-accelerated vector search access through the cuVS library.
Three cloud giants showing their hands intensively in the same week signals the competitive focus has moved from "whose model is better" to "who controls more inference compute." Nvidia is the common supplier, but each company's deployment architecture, cooling solutions, and model access paths are diverging. The scale war in compute infrastructure is no longer a distant expectation; 1 million GPUs is a number being realized.
(Source: NVIDIA Blog / AWS / Microsoft Azure)
Also Worth Knowing ↓
PPI rose 0.7% month-on-month in February, more than double economists' expectations. Producer-side inflation is transmitting from both energy and tariffs, providing a footnote to Powell's "inflation fell short of expectations." (Source: Yahoo Finance)
The Clarity Act is expected to leave committee in April, Senator Lummis says differences narrowed to details. The US's most comprehensive crypto regulatory bill is still queued, with disagreements over stablecoin yield provisions unresolved. The DC Blockchain Summit and New York Digital Asset Summit are lobbying simultaneously this week. (Source: CoinDesk)
Nvidia unveils next-generation Feynman architecture, including Rosa CPU, LP40 LPU, and BlueField-5. Vera Rubin isn't fully deployed yet, but the next-generation roadmap is already out. From Blackwell to Vera Rubin to Feynman, Nvidia's product rhythm is accelerating, not slowing down. (Source: NVIDIA Blog)
Linux Foundation receives $12.5 million grant specifically to harden open-source software supply chain security. Supply chain attacks are frequent, making open-source security an industry infrastructure investment rather than a volunteer project. (Source: Tech Startups)
Global crypto card annualized spending reaches $18 billion, S&P index授权 (authorizes) Hyperliquid perpetual contracts. Perpetual contracts are permeating from crypto-native markets into traditional financial infrastructure, S&P's entry is a signal. (Source: The Block / CoinDesk)
