After the Export Ban: How Google's Gemini Delay and Forrest's Tungsten Bet Reveal a Fracturing AI Supply Chain
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 · 32 items · 6 min read · Updated 6:02 PM
By the Numbers
$1.5B
class action settlement approved
Tech
$3.17M
combined Q2 2026 lobbying spend
Financial
23%
quarter-over-quarter increase
Financial
206M shares
short position volume
Financial
32%
percentage of public float
Financial
The Day's Thesis
▶
Signal of the Day: Andrew Forrest's Wonongarra Pty Ltd acquires a 16.8% stake in EQ Resources — the largest Western tungsten producer — for AU$189.7 million (US$132.5M), sending shares up 42% and valuing the company at AU$1.13 billion.
The 30-Second Read:
Andrew Forrest pays US$132.5M for EQ Resources, now the world's largest Western tungsten producer with 1,189 tons of tungsten trioxide output in FY2026
Nebius stock surges 17% after Nvidia discloses a significant stake in the neocloud, following a previously announced $2B investment commitment in March
Google ships Gemini 3.6 Flash with 65% token-cost reduction but fails to deliver Gemini 3.5 Pro, widening the capability gap with OpenAI and Anthropic
Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement receives court approval with only 350 authors opting out, clearing a material legal liability
Two stories from opposite ends of the technology supply chain converged today: Google's inability to ship a frontier model on schedule exposes the compounding pressure on Western AI labs, while Forrest's tungsten bet crystallizes how private capital is racing to lock up the refined materials — tungsten is critical to semiconductor fabrication tools and drill bits — that underpin every chip those labs depend on.
AI & Research Frontier
Google's three-model Flash release obscures a more consequential fact: its frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, remains undelivered with no firm ship date, while OpenAI, Anthropic, and Chinese labs compete at the capability ceiling.
Gemini 3.6 Flash does carry real enterprise weight — a 65% token reduction versus its predecessor directly compresses per-agent inference costs, which is the dominant variable expense in production AI deployments.
But token efficiency at the Flash tier is an optimization play, not a competitive repositioning; the frontier defines the platform, and Google has publicly confirmed Gemini 4 is already in training while 3.5 Pro remains absent. That sequencing — skipping a generation to announce the next — is operationally unusual and will invite scrutiny from enterprise procurement teams evaluating multi-year contracts.
Anthropic's Claude Cowork desktop app now lets users record their screen while completing a task, add voice commentary, and have Claude turn the whole thing into a reusable skill.
The article Claude Cowork learns new skills through screen recordings and voice-over explanations appeared first on The Decoder.
Meanwhile, Anthropic's Claude Cowork desktop app added a skill-capture feature: users record their screen, narrate a workflow, and the model converts it into a reusable agent skill. The capability narrows the gap between white-collar task automation and traditional robotic process automation (software bots that mimic user actions), and arrives precisely as Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement removes a litigation cloud that had shadowed enterprise sales conversations.
Technology & Infrastructure
Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement was approved with only 350 authors opting out — a near-total acceptance rate that eliminates one of the sector's largest unresolved legal liabilities and sets a de facto pricing template for training-data disputes.
The settlement's opt-out figure is significant: with hundreds of thousands of potentially affected authors, 350 objections represent a rounding error, suggesting the compensation structure was calibrated at or above most claimants' reservation price. Every AI lab with unresolved training-data exposure now has a concrete benchmark for liability sizing.
On the hardware side, Nvidia's DLSS 5 — Deep Learning Super Sampling, an AI-based image upscaling technology — introduces real-time switching between three upscaling models at the object level within a single rendered frame. The developer-facing implementation extends Nvidia's software moat in gaming GPU differentiation, compounding the hardware premium already embedded in its data center franchise.
Apple's reported "Upgrade" program, backed by Klarna and slated to launch July 28, converts iPhone and Mac purchases into lease-to-own contracts — a direct response to component and RAM shortages pushing device prices beyond one-time purchase thresholds for a material share of its installed base.
Markets & Capital Flows
Nebius stock surged 17% after Nvidia disclosed a significant ownership stake in the neocloud — a cloud provider built specifically to serve AI model training and inference workloads — validating the neocloud category as Nvidia's preferred distribution channel for next-generation GPU capacity.
The Nebius move extends the logic of Nvidia's $2B investment commitment announced in March: by holding equity in neocloud operators, Nvidia creates demand-pull for its own silicon while capturing upside on the infrastructure buildout it enables. This is a second-order effect of hyperscaler capex constraints — when Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are capacity-constrained by export controls and supply chains, purpose-built neoclouds absorb overflow demand at premium pricing.
Treasury Secretary Bessent's statement that the U.S. could sanction China over AI model "theft" introduces a discrete policy risk variable for any institution with Chinese open-weight model exposure. No specific sanction instrument was named, but the statement follows months of documented capability convergence between Chinese open-weight models and U.S. frontier offerings.
GM's Q2 beat and raised guidance — driven by North American operations — is peripheral to the AI/tech/minerals complex today but confirms the consumer pricing environment remains firm enough to support continued enterprise hardware spend.
Critical Minerals & Supply Chain
Andrew Forrest's AU$189.7M acquisition of Oaktree Capital's entire 16.8% stake in EQ Resources makes Wonongarra the largest shareholder in the only scaled Western tungsten — a dense, high-melting-point metal essential to semiconductor fabrication equipment and cutting tools — producer with operating mines on two continents.
EQ Resources' two active mines — Mt Carbine in Queensland and Barruecopardo in Spain — produced 1,189 tons of tungsten trioxide in FY2026 against a backdrop where China controls approximately 85% of global supply.
The $27.33M Mt Carbine expansion, targeting commissioning in Q3 FY2027, will add incremental Western supply at a moment when CSIS analysts assess that Beijing's export restrictions have accelerated allied supply-chain diversification efforts rather than entrenching Chinese leverage. The 42% single-day share move confirms the market had been pricing in Oaktree's overhang as a structural discount; its removal at a premium valuation resets the stock's institutional register.
The UK nationalization of British Steel — currently being challenged legally by former owner Jingye — remains unresolved but reinforces the pattern of Western governments intervening to retain domestic industrial capacity in sectors with defense and critical supply chain overlap.
The Interconnect: Cross-Sector Causal Chains
→Google confirms Gemini 3.5 Pro remains in training with no ship date → enterprise procurement teams evaluating frontier AI contracts face extended uncertainty → Anthropic's cleared $1.5B copyright liability and Claude Cowork skill-capture feature position it to capture diverted enterprise budget in the near term reported
→Andrew Forrest acquires 16.8% of EQ Resources for US$132.5M, removing Oaktree's equity overhang → Western tungsten supply consolidates under a single strategic anchor shareholder with an existing Fortescue supply-chain network → semiconductor fabrication equipment manufacturers sourcing tungsten outside China face reduced spot-market price volatility as long-term offtake — contractual forward purchase agreements — negotiations with EQ Resources become more credible reported
→Nvidia discloses significant Nebius stake following $2B March commitment → neocloud category gains equity validation from the dominant GPU supplier → hyperscaler capex overflow demand, constrained by export controls on advanced chips, routes toward neocloud operators at premium inference pricing reported
Watchlist
▸Google — Gemini 3.5 Pro ship date and training-run completion signals · Catalyst: Any official release communication or I/O follow-up event · When: Next 30 days
▸Anthropic — Enterprise contract pipeline acceleration post-copyright settlement clearance and Claude Cowork skill-capture uptake · Catalyst: $1.5B settlement final approval and Google frontier delay · When: Q3 2026 enterprise reporting window
▸EQ Resources (ASX: EQR) — Mt Carbine expansion commissioning progress and new offtake agreements under Wonongarra ownership · Catalyst: US$27.33M construction package milestone updates · When: Q3 FY2027 commissioning target; near-term updates expected at next quarterly report
▸Nebius — GPU capacity deployment rate and Nvidia equity stake size disclosure · Catalyst: Next Nebius earnings or investor call following 17% stock surge · When: Q3 2026
▸Apple — "Upgrade" lease-to-own program launch execution and Klarna credit-check default rates · Catalyst: Reported July 28 program launch · When: July 28, 2026
▸U.S. Treasury / OFAC — Specific sanction instrument targeting Chinese open-weight model distribution, following Bessent's public statement · Catalyst: Any formal rulemaking or executive order notice · When: Indeterminate; monitor weekly
▸Copper 360 (JSE) — Rietberg mine development completion and production ramp post-halfway milestone · Catalyst: Cementation Africa mobilization metrics and second-half development rate · When: Q4 2026
DLSS 5 gets a second showing with Nvidia opening up the upscaler to object-level tweaking for developers with three different models.
Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest's private investment vehicle has agreed to buy a 16.8 percent stake in EQ Resources (ASX:EQR) from Oaktree Capital Management for AU$189.7 million (approximately US$132.5 million).
The transaction, executed through Forrest's wholly owned company Wonongarra Pty Ltd, transfers Oaktree's entire holding of 862.1 million ordinary shares and 35.6 million options in the tungsten producer.
“This investment backs an Australian producer, Australian jobs and Australian know-how at the moment the world has woken up to how fragile critical mineral supply chains have become,” Forrest, who is also founder and chairman of Fortescue, said in a statement.
“Tungsten is essential to the machines that build our homes, hospitals, cities and modern-day energy systems, as well as the semiconductors in every phone and computer.”
EQ Resources operates the Mt Carbine mine in North Queensland, Australia, and the Barruecopardo mine in Salamanca Province, Spain, making it the largest Western tungsten producer. The company produced 1,189 tons of tungsten trioxide in the 2026 financial year.
China currently controls approximately 85 percent of global tungsten supply. The metal is used extensively in semiconductors, industrial machinery, energy infrastructure, and defense applications.
Oaktree had been a cornerstone investor since 2023, funding the acquisition of the Barruecopardo mine and the expansion of Mt Carbine. EQ Resources is currently deploying a US$27.33 million construction package to expand Mt Carbine, with commissioning targeted for the third quarter of the 2027 financial year.
Federico Alvarez-Demalde, speaking on behalf of Oaktree, stated: “The Company has delivered on its strategy of building a leading Western tungsten supply base, and we are proud of what has been achieved at Mt Carbine and Barruecopardo.”
EQ Resources confirmed the ownership change will not impact its management, strategy, or day-to-day operations.
EQ Resources shares rose as much as 42 percent following the announcement, bringing the company's market capitalization to approximately AU$1.13 billion (US$791 million). The stock has gained more than 100 percent over the past 6 months.
The private block trade removes an equity overhang on the register and makes Wonongarra the company's largest shareholder.
Don't forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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