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Bend regular performer Soulja Boy hints at Presidential run, Microsoft expands production of home grown chip design, Trump hints at renaming Pacific and Atlantic oceans, Albertson’s trades higher on demand for $8B from Kroger over failed merger, Oregon backs out of transgender healthcare mandate.

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PNW Market Look

As of market close 10.12.26

Headline Roundup

Oregon retreats from enforcing landmark trans health care coverage mandate (BB)
Albertsons Wants $8 Billion From Kroger After Failed Merger (WSJ)
Microsoft to rely more on homegrown AI chips, reducing dependence on Nvidia (CNBC)
If a Building Is Leased but Empty Due to Telecommuting, Do They Still Count It as Occupied? (WW)
Why Don't Oregon Student Outcomes Match Spending? (WW)
In pending $340M deal, Vulcan to sell Amazon-leased tower at West Main (DJC)
Trump administration suspending Microsoft from green card program, alleging fraud (KUOW)
Kirkland releases the Kraken with plans for new iceplex (KUOW)
Amazon in Talks to Buy AI Startup Decart for Around $7 Billion, WSJ Reports (Ground)
Kotek Gives Oregon a 'B' on Business; Scorecard Puts State at No. 42 (SBJ)
La Grande voters decide on fuel tax, updating city elections (LGO)
Lynden tax increase would stave off cuts to essential services, city says (CDN)
Belgrade road supplier tells Flint competition, affordability are hindering the business (BDC)
NW Pipeline investing $60M in Eastern WA ‘bank account for cold weather’ (TNT)
US senators from both parties blast Trump order to import Russian diesel as illegal (WSS)
Belgrade road supplier tells Flint competition, affordability are hindering the business (BDC)

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Community Highlight

Actions by Trump, Gianforte unlikely to mitigate diesel woes, experts say (MTFP)

“Tim Brunner, a rancher near Great Falls who serves as president of the Montana Cattlemen’s Association, said he doesn’t expect recent efforts by President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Gianforte to mitigate the high cost of diesel to result in much financial relief for his ranch.

Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras issued an executive order on Friday that allows commercial vehicles engaged “directly in agricultural or timber industry operations” to use red-dyed diesel on public roads until Nov. 23. The order comes about a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending a federal law that bans the use of red-dyed diesel in vehicles on public roads.

Red-dyed diesel is the same as diesel — a fuel commonly used in heavy machinery, semi trucks and many pickups — except for its color and substantially lower tax rate. The dyed fuel is reserved mostly for agricultural use in Montana. That’s why it’s exempt from taxes that pay for highways, and why it’s usually illegal to drive with red-dyed diesel on public roads.

On Friday, Trump announced on Truth Social a plan to import about 800,000 tons of diesel fuel — about a day and a half’s worth of U.S. demand — from Russia before the end of November. The post also indicated that another 4 million tons will arrive from Russia sometime later.

The price of diesel has spiked this year as a result of the U.S. conflict with Iran and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, prompting federal and state government efforts to mitigate the price spikes ahead of November’s midterm elections.”

Rip’s Spotlight

Microsoft plans huge deployment of its own AI chips, with an eye on saving costs (Reuters)

“Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab announced the next generation of its custom AI chip on Monday and said it plans to deploy potentially more than a million of them next year to back its internal AI services.

The Maia 300, as the chip is called, is the third generation of the company's custom chips designed to handle AI data crunching such as coding and carrying out complex business ⁠tasks on a user's behalf. Its predecessor is already running Microsoft's in-house AI models, as well as models from OpenAI delivered on Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service.

The new version comes amid a flurry of custom chips from both cloud computing rivals and AI firms such as OpenAI aimed at loosening the hold of Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab on the AI computing market.

To construct the chip, Microsoft took a different technical path from Nvidia whose AI accelerators use one massive computing chip surrounded by high-bandwidth memory chips.

The central computing processor in Microsoft's Maia 300 silicon is composed of "chiplets" — typically specialized chips bonded together — that use 2-nanometer technology from Taiwan Semiconductor ‌Manufacturing ⁠Co (2330.TW), opens new tab for key computing functions.

The Maia 300 processors will go into racks that contain 96 chips and use about 167 kilowatts of power, compared with the 142 kilowatts used by Nvidia's most recent GB300 ⁠AI server racks with 72 of its graphics processing units (GPUs).

"It's basically delivering more intelligence for every watt, every dollar, and every byte of memory by optimizing across the entire system," Rani Borkar, president of Azure hardware systems and infrastructure at Microsoft, ⁠told Reuters in an interview.
Microsoft said it plans to roll out "multi-gigawatt deployments" of the Maia 300 chip starting next year. Microsoft has said it expects to spend more than $175 billion in capital expenditures this calendar year.”