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Daily Update — March 9, 2026

CERAWeek Sneak Peek; GenAI Funding Records; and Bitcoin Volatility Trends

Today is Monday, March 9, 2026, 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.

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Energy Transition & Sustainability

Listen: CERAWeek sneak peek: What’s ahead for energy and sustainability

 

How do you balance near-term energy priorities with the long-term reality of climate change and nature loss? That’s the big sustainability question we’re asking in 2026. In this episode of the “All Things Sustainable” podcast, Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global, chair of CERAWeek and Pulitzer Prize winner, joined hosts Lindsey Hall and Esther Whieldon to explore the answer.

 

Yergin provided his expectations for CERAWeek 2026, which has the theme of Convergence and Competition: Energy, Technology and Geopolitics, and explained how geopolitical fracture and economic competition are affecting areas such as AI, electrification, climate and critical minerals.

 

As energy, technology, and geopolitics increasingly converge, these questions will be central to the dialogue at CERAWeek 2026. Join us March 23–27 in Houston.

Artificial Intelligence

Listen: GenAI Foundation Model Funding Records and Data Center Power Debates

 

Funding for the generative AI sector in the first two months of 2026 has already surpassed that of full year 2025. OpenAI's $120 billion funding round, Anthropic's $30 billion and X.AI's $20 billion, signal exceptional confidence. But the story extends beyond foundation models. As traditional venture capital firms find themselves priced out of megarounds, capital is flowing into the application and infrastructure layers, particularly code generation — currently AI's most proven use case. Meanwhile, the software-as-a-service sector is undergoing a fundamental reassessment as investors question whether AI-native businesses can deliver superior value at lower marginal costs.

 

The infrastructure race is intensifying as hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google compete for AI supremacy, driving record data center valuations. Yet, power constraints loom — 2026 may mark the first year a data center project fails due to energy shortages. With gas turbine manufacturers booked through 2030, the question isn't just about capital availability, but physical infrastructure capacity. In this episode of the “MediaTalk” podcast, S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Iuri Struta joined host Mike Reynolds to examine the intersection of intense AI funding with fundamental resource and energy constraints. 

Digital Assets

Bitcoin Volatility Trends: A Deep Dive into Market Dynamics and Risk

 

Bitcoin has grown from a niche asset to having meaningful links to traditional financial markets, reshaping the bitcoin risk-reward analysis for institutional and retail investors. As of Feb. 20, bitcoin accounted for more than half of the cryptocurrency market's nearly $2.33 trillion capitalization. About 95% of bitcoin's total supply, which was expected to be 21 million coins by 2140, was already in circulation. Institutional adoption is one of the most direct ways bitcoin enters mainstream markets. Since the launch of bitcoin futures in 2017, spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and corporate treasury allocations have further tied bitcoin to traditional capital markets, influencing bitcoin volatility and its impact on the broader market.

 

This paper provides a bitcoin risk-reward analysis of exposure to bitcoin via spot and tokenized bitcoin, bitcoin futures, bitcoin exchange-traded funds and digital asset treasury companies. As events such as the Oct. 10, 2025, flash crash in bitcoin prices demonstrate, bitcoin's market dynamics can contribute to moments of high volatility, but longer-term analysis against equities and other assets demonstrates a trend of less volatility overall.

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