Taking it slow

MARKETS

▲	TSX	35,697.49	+0.54%
▲	S&P 500	7,656.98	+0.86%
▲	DOW JONES	52,573.29	+0.98%
▲	NASDAQ	26,333.04	+0.96%
▲	GOLD	4,408.9	+0.04%
▼	OIL	100.05	-2.37%
▼	CAD/USD	0.7212	-0.27%
▲	BTC/USD	77,329.84	+0.23%

Earnings to watch: Dollarama will kick off a quiet earnings week on Wednesday with its second-quarter results, while cruise ship giant Carnival will follow with its earnings on Thursday.

TECH

The Biggest AI Companies Want to Take Things Slower

Source: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Like a situationship that “just isn’t into labels,” the largest AI companies are now saying they’d prefer to take things a bit slower.

What happened: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an open letter over the weekend calling for a global slowdown in the pace of AI development — and committed Anthropic to doing so unilaterally.

Amodei warned that this summer saw AI “advancing drastically faster, driven primarily by AI’s growing ability to build the next generation of AI,” and that this created a risk of AI outrunning “our ability to understand and control these systems.”
He also committed to giving third-party evaluators “permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.”

Zoom out: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, Google DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceXAI, all chimed in to second Amodei’s call for slower AI development. Altman said OpenAI would also provide independent evaluators with similar access to their systems.

Altman also said he would push back OpenAI’s planned IPO to at least 2027, calling it “an ill-advised moment” to go public.

Why it matters: It’s the first public commitment by the largest AI companies to coordinate a slower pace of AI development in order to address the dangers posed by their own systems.

Even though many in the industry had expressed concerns about how advanced AI systems were becoming, the competitive dynamics between the companies building the technology was seen as a major obstacle to any meaningful slowdown.

Yes, but: Some have suggested the push is less motivated by safety concerns than, as White House AI chief David Sacks put it, a “bid for regulatory capture.”

Our take: For better or worse, the U.S. government seems uninterested in regulating AI. Barring that changing, or research hitting an unexpected technological wall, this is probably the only short-term path to hitting the brakes on the deployment of more powerful AI systems.—TS

BIG PICTURE

Source: The White House.

Trump hints that a Canada-U.S. trade deal could be coming soon. The U.S. president told reporters over the weekend that “You’ll probably see a deal with Canada fairly soon,” downplaying the possibility of the U.S. leaving CUSMA. Prime Minister Mark Carney echoed that optimism late last week, saying that he doesn’t expect any further tariff retaliation from either country. (Bloomberg News)

Exit polls show Sweden’s centre-left bloc winning parliamentary election. Bucking a rightward political swing across Europe, the social-democrat-led bloc will form government, securing a combined 51% of the vote. It was an unexpectedly poor result for the right-wing Sweden Democrat party, which had become the country’s second-biggest political party after the previous election. (Reuters)

Saudi Arabian pipeline attacks could derail another 4% of the world's oil supply. After drone attacks forced the closure of Saudi Arabia’s major east-west oil pipeline to the Red Sea, oil traders say up to 4% of global supply could be lost. With the Strait of Hormuz already out of commission — and ~20% of the world's oil caught in the crosshairs — the disruptions in the Red Sea are expected to send crude prices even higher. (Reuters)

📡 What else is on our radar:

A train carrying former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson may have been targeted by a Russian drone strike near the Polish-Ukrainian border.
Texas has halted all approvals of new data centres in the state, as backlash against the power-hungry facilities grows.
George Chuvalo, the Canadian boxer who went the distance with Muhammad Ali, died at the age of 89.

A New Era of Innovation

People with disabilities face significant barriers navigating the world. AccessNow’s community-driven platform uses Google AI to map accessible places, identify potential obstacles, and help cities and organizations design more inclusive spaces.

Find out more about how Google is helping Canadians innovate in ways both big and small at g.co/canadianinnovation

LOOKOUT

What’s happening this week

Source: Unsplash.

🇪🇺 Carney to deliver speech to EU Parliament. Prime Minister Mark Carney will be in France this week, where he’ll address the European Union’s Parliament on Thursday on plans to deepen ties between the bloc and Canada. According to press reports yesterday, Carney has asked advisors to present options for everything but full membership in the Union, and has floated the idea of Canada assuming “Associate Member” status that would allow Canadians to live and work in Europe without a visa.

🏦 U.S. Federal Reserve rate decision. The Fed is expected to hike its target rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday, the first increase in three years. Last week’s report showing inflation higher than expected probably sealed the deal, though Trump administration officials (including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent) have argued against a hike. It’s rare that the Fed raises rates only once and stops, so if it does hike this week, it’s likely that more are in the works. That will weigh on the stock market and could start to drag on growth.

📊 New inflation data. The Consumer Price Index for August arrives this morning. Forecasters are expecting the headline annualized number to land around 3%, same as the previous month. There will be one more inflation print before the Bank of Canada’s next interest rate decision in October, and a report showing persistent inflation will increase the odds — which have been growing — that it will raise rates.

BUSINESS

Carney’s Global Investment Summit Takes Centre Stage

Source: @MarkJCarney / X.

This week, Toronto will be simultaneously playing host to Hollywood A-listers and C-suite execs. Good luck getting a dinner reservation.

What happened: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s long-anticipated Canada Investment Summit kicks off today in Toronto, drawing over 300 deep-pocketed investors, CEOs, and executives from around the world. The two-day summit, which aims to attract $1 trillion in capital commitments, will pitch more than 160 investable projects from across Canada.

The event will mostly showcase energy and infrastructure projects, including a new high-speed rail line between Edmonton and Calgary, the US$28.5 billion Ksi Lisims LNG export terminal in northern B.C., and a $57 billion expansion of the Port of Churchill.

Catch-up: Canada’s biggest institutional investors have already committed to billions of dollars in new domestic investments ahead of the summit. BMO announced Friday that it will spend $70 billion over the next decade in sectors critical to Canada’s economy.

Meanwhile, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Public Sector Pension Investment Board have pledged to increase their Canadian investments by $10 billion and ~$28 billion, respectively, over the next few years.
Delegates from the UAE will be some of the most important attendees, with an agreement already in place for the country to deploy $50 billion in Canada. Those Gulf investors will now be on the hunt for projects to put that capital towards.

Why it matters: The Toronto summit is the biggest test yet of Carney’s plan to convince global investors that Canada is an attractive and reliable destination to invest in — and not just because of its proximity to the world’s largest economy.

A recent TD report suggested that if Canada can execute on major projects over the next few years, it will spark an “investment supercycle” that could see up to $1.7 trillion injected into the Canadian economy over the next decade.

Bottom line: Investor interest is already there: Canada brought in almost $100 billion in foreign direct investment last year, the highest total in nearly a decade. Ottawa now has to prove that it can cut enough of the red tape to quickly get major projects off the ground and put investor dollars to work.—LA

A MESSAGE FROM THE PEAK

You could be reading Peak Premium for free.

Did you sign up for The Peak with your work email?

That's basically permission to expense your subscription to Peak Premium. We even wrote the request to your manager for you. Just fill in two blanks and hit send.

Get the template

ONE BIG NUMBER

🏎️ US$2,500. Price of Toyota’s newly unveiled Go-Kart, part of the automaker’s push to get more kids in Japan interested in motor racing. Toyota Chairman and racing enthusiast Akio Toyoda has been pushing to make karting a more accessible sporting option for Japanese youth, akin to baseball or soccer.

PEAK PICKS

Why Burning Man is going through a midlife crisis.
Loblaw’s President’s Choice put up a billboard ad with drones in Toronto.
Inside OpenAI’s escalating beef with mathematicians.
Canada’s Céline Dion ended a six-year concert hiatus with an emotional Paris show.
The real reason dogs’ legs shake when you pet them.
Watch: Why your favourite sports team doesn’t care if you buy tickets.

It’s that time of the morning! We’ve got today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who.