Daily Update — August 12, 2025
Cleantech Infrastructure; Private Equity Entries Slow; and AI’s Impact on Markets
Today is Tuesday, August 12, 2025, and here’s your curated selection of Essential Intelligence on global markets from S&P Global. Subscribe to be notified of each new Daily Update.
Energy Transition & Sustainability
Listen: Change Makers: John Plack, Ameresco SVP
Ameresco’s senior vice president of engineering, John Plack, joined “EnergyCents” podcast hosts Hill Vaden and Sam Humphreys to discuss why the cleantech integrator is turning its attention to geothermal and how it works with universities, hospitals and large-scale military housing to establish and expand the emerging technology.
Ameresco designs, builds, owns, operates and maintains energy infrastructure to help its customers reduce costs, enhance resilience and decarbonize operations.
Private Markets
Private equity entry activity slowed in July
Global private equity entries declined in July as US tariffs and an uncertain macroeconomic outlook impeded deal activity.
Private equity and venture capital entries totaled $52.59 billion globally in July, down nearly 7% month over month from $56.44 billion and more than 29% year over year from $74.47 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The number of deals recorded globally in July totaled 911, down from the prior-month total of 1,103 and prior-year total of 1,232.
Artificial Intelligence
AI, Energy and Everything in Between: Thematics in July 2025
The July edition of the S&P Thematics Dashboard analyzed the monthly performance of a broad set of themes to uncover key market dynamics. Designed as a thematic market lens, the dashboard — developed in collaboration with Theia Insights — offers rich perspectives on market performance by leveraging nearly 200 themes shaping the global economy. It highlights top- and bottom-performing themes, integrates macro and sentiment indicators, and delivers multifaceted insights across regions, sectors, megatrends and factors.
This month’s thematic performance was shaped by AI-driven infrastructure demand, renewed investor enthusiasm for precision health technologies and sustained momentum in the energy transition.
In case you missed it
- Australia is considering a floor price and national offtake agreements for rare earths and other raw materials as part of its planned strategic reserve of critical minerals to alleviate strained supply chains.
- Turkey began harvesting its new corn crop in August. The corn is expected to reach the market by September, marking the start of a new marketing year for the country's corn production.
- G7-linked oil tankers have withdrawn from Russia since July, with the EU and UK's lower price cap for Russian crude set to limit their employment opportunities.
Upcoming events
- Breakfast Briefing: Unlocking the Future of Sustainability in Mexico | August 14 (Mexico City)
- Banking Infrastructure Modernization: Building for Instant Payments | August 20 (Webinar)
- Unlocking Trusted Data in Gen AI: Building Agentic Workflows with Kensho |August 27 (Webinar)